And those of us who keep telling the truth keep hearing people who can't (or won't) accept it call us whiners.
Nope, not anymore. Was registered before we moved to a new county, but took the opportunity to not volunteer any more information to government than absolutely necessary when we came here a year+ ago.
Nope. Don't vote in any elections anymore. Why? Because it's a corrupt system that forces one to choose between two (or more) either already-corrupted, or easily-corruptible, candidates, and I refuse to feel obligated or shamed into participating in the criminal enterprise otherwise known as "government."
Not anymore, but I used to. I've been a biker for as long as I can remember. Researched Pete Wilson when CA's helmet law was being bandied about. He promised bikers every chance he got that he would veto any helmet law that passed right up to the weekend that more than 100,000 of us showed up at the Capitol Bldg. to hold him to that promise. He even came out, took to the podium, reasserted his promise that the helmet bill that just passed and would be on his desk the following Monday morning, would indeed be vetoed. More than 75% of us left Sacramento Saturday afternoon after he said that. Big mistake. All day Sunday Wilson was deluged with Dems and insurance lobbyists and every motorcycle-hating cretin that could make it to the Capitol, and Monday morning's promised veto ceremony morphed into a signing ceremony approximately 36 hours after promising 100,000 of his constituents for at least the 100th time that he would veto the bill.
Here in Alabama, my federal Representative knew me by name and usually turned the other way when he saw me comin'. I printed my own pamphlets and evaluations of bills he sponsored or supported and distributed them as hand-outs, through the mail, provided stacks for businesses that agreed to put them on their counters near their cash registers, whatever I could do. I picketed his office when he voted the wrong way on issues important to me. I even made a point of tracking him down when I went to D.C. to protest ObamaCare in 2010 and told him I would redouble my efforts against him if he fell on the wrong side of the fence he was sitting on re: his vote for the ACA. Whether his fence-sitting was a ploy to stave off pressure from his Democrat colleagues, or he just didn't want to see me out in front of his home office anymore is an unanswered question, but he did vote against the ACA. He got defeated the following cycle and replaced with a Tea-Party-supported Republican who immediately voted for Pelosi for Speaker, supported every round of quantitative easing, voted for HR 327, NDAA, renewing the UnPatriot Act and on and on and on. Basically joined the establishment after convincing the well-intentioned, but otherwise wholly ineffective Tea Party to support him.
I no longer do research or activism against (or for) candidates because it's a total waste of time, money and energy, all three of which I contributed
way more than my fair share of and have nothing at all to show for it. That's not a "whine," that's a stone-cold
fact.
By total coincidence, I found myself at a local (Palos Verdes) ACLU meeting in 1974 or '75 where the first (maybe second) draft of
Prop 15 was being scrutinized for a vote within the Chapter on whether or not to support it. They voted to support it against my lone vociferous objections, and we parted ways that day. As such, I may actually be the very first opponent to Prop 15 in CA. I was truly "ground floor" in both my knowledge of it and my active opposition to it. It was around five years later before I heard of it again as ACLU and other anti-gun orgs started publishing their support for getting it on the '82 ballot, which they managed to do. I joined the NRA as a broke musician in either '80 or '81 when I first started hearing rumblings about it again, and I'll give credit where credit is due, with their help, Prop 15 was defeated in Nov. of '82. If you look at that link however, the only credit given for its defeat is to the NRA. I was as deeply involved in Prop 15's defeat as any other individual or organization, and I never once saw or heard from an NRA rep. Oh, I got tons of membership renewal notices that said how hard they were fighting against Prop 15, but I never saw anyone from the NRA actually fighting. No reps at planning meetings. No reps giving speeches at rallies. Nothing. They are credited with spending $5 million against the prop, and that was indeed a lot of money back in those days. But the only thing I know for sure that they spent the money on was recruiting new members and renewing current members. I'm sure a legal brief here and there was generated from Fairfax, VA, but I know I averaged a couple mailings per month in the ~two years I was in the fight, all of them slick, glossy and expensive come-ons, so I'm betting that every piece of membership-drive mail that went out during that time period counted towards their "$5 million against CA Proposition 15" and was likely the bulk of their expenses in that fight.
Since that time, I have
become painfully
aware of
just how
anti-gun-
rights the
NRA actually is. There are smaller .orgs today that promote some version of Second Amendment advocacy that I could support in good conscience, but they're all just as ineffective as voting is, so why bother? (It's a rhetorical question.)
Not on your life! Because just like voting for Congress-critters and presidents who will continue to send my money down a rat-hole that ends at totalitarianism and tyranny is a total waste of my hard-earned resources, so too is the NRA for reasons previously explained (and linked, and proven beyond any shadow of a doubt to be true). The smaller .orgs may be well-intentioned enough, even high-principled enough, but they're nonetheless ineffective. If I'm going to waste my money on something, it'll be something I enjoy, like putting gas in the scooter, and following the front wheel wherever it may take me just for the pure pleasure and freedom of the experience. My only excuse for wasting the tens of thousands of dollars I've spent on political activism or Second Amendment advocacy is that I was young and dumb and didn't know any better. I no longer have that excuse, and nobody who reads the links in this post will have that excuse anymore either. I predict that very few will read or try to understand them though, so-deceived are the masses by politicians and the NRA that they are seemingly psychologically programmed to deny truth and accept lies. I will never understand it.
Left almost a quarter of a century ago. Don't own a recliner, but I do own a small piece of Heaven on Earth that I call "Dead Cell Holler" because we're so far out and deep down in a creek holler that our cell phones can't get a signal without special equipment installed in the house. You'll have a very difficult time of trying to make me feel shame for ordering our lives according to what (and where) makes us happy, but you go ahead and keep trying.
When there is no solution, then I guess everyone is part of the problem, including you. Unless you can articulate actual political solutions to the degradation/destruction of individual and states rights that have been incrementally taking over this country for over 150 years, then setting yourself apart from, or above, all the other parts of "the problem" is just blowin' self-absorbed smoke. You don't matter to The Powers That Be. Your vote doesn't matter to TPTB. Your hopes and your dreams don't matter to TPTB. I and my wife don't matter in those respects either. Nobody does. The Constitution is already dead and even the greatest (metaphorical) doctor on the planet can't resuscitate it.
With that in mind, a better way to put it is, "If you're not doing everything you can to dislodge yourself from government and spend what little time you have left on this Earth enjoying and finding fulfillment in your life, then you are
wholly "the problem" in your own life."
That is 100%, verifiably just not true. You maintain the same political problem that New Yorkers have - your population centers are liberal to the bone. They control the political power in CA by a wide majority that all the conservative votes in the rural counties cannot and will never overcome. Just like the population centers of America acquiesced to a commie-raised, muslim-centric, globalist progressive interloper for two terms as President, your population centers brought back one of the most liberal Governors in the history of history, Jerry Brown. There aren't enough conservatives in CA to oust the liberal bent of the masses. You haven't "allowed" San Fran, LA and Sac to have all the control, they hold control by virtue of having millions more voters than conservatives will ever have there. That's just the plain truth.
I hate to break it to you, but none of them will be shaking in their boots when you deliver that implied, though nonetheless empty, threat.
Blues
