Published: March 20, 2009 09:27 pm      

Keep one locked and loaded, just in case

It’s unlikely I will ever be politically correct — or “progressive,” as some folks call it (Maryland’s government is considered “progressive) for a variety of reasons, including some of my opinions:

• I believe in God, consider myself to be a Christian and go to church every Sunday I am not sick or out of town. I will respect whatever religion you choose to practice, or your right to practice none at all, so long as you don’t try to force it upon me.

• God is not an establishment of religion. Religion is an establishment of man. Faith is an establishment of God.

• Other things concern me more than whether two men or two women want to marry each other. If that’s what they want, good for them. There are too many heterosexual couples who should never have been married. As a happily-wed Catholic lawyer friend of mine says, “If they want to preserve the sanctity of marriage, they should start with lowering the divorce rate.”

• I refuse to debate the merits of Evolution vs. Creation vs. Intelligent Design. However, my 61 years of observing people (the last 40 of them on a professional basis) leads to me suspect that some people may well be descended from jackasses.

• If you are doing something I find repulsive — religious or otherwise — don’t expect me to approve of it in the name of “tolerance.”

• The Constitution and Bill of Rights have served us well for more than 220 years and are not “living documents” that should be changed every few years to keep someone’s feelings from being hurt or satisfy his craving for “fairness” (whatever that is).

• I am a Native American. My father was a Native American. My grandfather was a Native American. Great-grandfather Goldsworthy was a Native Englishman. Somewhere on the Heironimus side of my mother’s family was a Native German, who got a job and learned to speak English — just like my Native Italian friend Frank Calemine and his parents, brothers and sisters did when they came to America.

• My ancestors immigrated to this country in accordance with whatever law existed at the time. People who snuck in otherwise aren’t “undocumented Americans.” They’re “illegal aliens.” Whether they should be allowed to stay here legally depends on whether they are educating their families, working for a living and helping to improve America or joining gangs, smuggling drugs and committing other offenses against society.

• If I wanted to live in a country where the government takes care of everyone and everything, minimizing the rewards and consequences success or failure in the interest of “fairness” (whatever that is), I would go to live there. I am an American and want to live in America because it is America ... at least, for the time being. No American should have to feel guilty or apologize for being successful, so long as he has done it honestly.

• Disarming law-abiding citizens (or registering the ammunition they buy, as some Maryland lawmakers want to do) will do nothing to reduce crime. Eliminating the socioeconomic conditions that cause crime would help, but it would be considerably more complicated and expensive, not to mention far less “progressive.” Nearly 7.5 million Americans are now in prison or on parole or probation, and I suspect that most of them didn’t grow up in a middle-class home, get a good education and find a job that pays $15 or $20 an hour.

• “Developing nations” aren’t. “Veterans benefits” aren’t always. “Independence Cards” are anything but. “Public servants” are ... usually, depending upon where you live — which brings us back to “progressive government.” How “progressive” it is depends upon the extent to which your freedom is curtailed and whether your income is being redistributed to someone else, or his income is being redistributed to you.

• Although they can display many of the same traits, animals are not people. Even so, many animals are far more lovable than some people.

• One’s schooling or lack thereof should have no bearing on the way others treat him. As my father the high school principal used to say, some people are educated beyond their intelligence and others are intelligent beyond their education. The janitor who cleans a building might be smarter and more honest, honorable and respectable — and, in the long run, more important — than many of the people who work in its offices. If he toils in the headquarters of a big financial conglomerate, there’s a damn good chance of it.

• Few folks talk about what may be the biggest factor that influences global warming (or climate change, if you prefer): In 1950, there were about 2.5 billion people on this planet. Now, there are that many in China and India alone, and the total population of the Earth is closing in on 7 billion. It won’t matter how clean America’s technology is, because there are too many people on this planet, and all of them contribute to the mess in varying degrees.

• European is not superior to American, merely different. Europeans have a long history of self-inflicted carnage, and America spent much of the 20th century trying to keep them from exterminating themselves. That’s why it’s no wonder many modern Europeans have no stomach for helping America contain the world’s current brand of evil — even though it’s not that different from a previous evil that nearly destroyed them because they waited until it was too late before facing up to it.

• I believe in peace, love and brotherhood and find them preferable to any other condition, but too many other people don’t. That’s why I want the guy who has my back to have a full magazine and a round in the chamber — and I will do the same for him.