Issues on my Vermont lily pad are finally starting to take shape in spite of the seemingly diverse issues. Like anything else with the makings of a household, once the windows are clean and the snow plowed, a path and a view suddenly show you the way.
Of course the recent events of my mate and his withdrawal from the views of the Democratic Party had me croaking! How could they not? It isn't easy to see someone anguish over something that was once so much a part of his persona. It didn't get better either. His views on guns is what separated him, alienated him and hurt him from the loss of long time friends and associates. Then the new stream shows it's face.
The gun people is my way of clumping together this phenomena of political modge podge. I began hearing things like, "I can understand some of the views of conservatives". Time to take his temperature I thought to myself. From there came the focus on Libertarians and verbiage to the effect that they do make sense about many things. Is a bucket of cold water appropriate here? By all means let me not forget the NRA. The only thing left is him shaving his pubic hairs since it is in vogue with the premise that one is "clean".
One window washed and I am fearing the light that enters without distortion. Then without warning my daughter inadvertently begins sharing with me via our long distance calls regarding the history of our family. She draws a line of a parallel between myself and my family tree. She tells me of my grandmother who with her sister and parents immigrated to the United States from Russia in the early 1900's. One sister stayed behind only to write later of how the Jews were being asked to wear gold stars on their coats. From there privileges were being revoked followed closely behind being placed in separate living quarters from the rest of the Russian people. We all know what that meant. This was my great aunt who feared for her daughter and grandson. After that, well approximately 33,000 Jews were mass murdered. This was just the start and it happened long before the time of what we know as the Holocaust was brought into light. Another window has been washed. Another stream of light has entered my Vermont home, free from the distortion of fears not faced.
My mother was raised hearing her mother talk about what was happening. Even in the USA my mother was taught essentially to comb your hair, brush your teeth and don't tell anyone you are Jewish. Her mother married a non-Jew in hopes of escaping any tie to her heritage. My own mother changed her middle name, place of birth and year of birth per her mother's instructions. I too have done things without even understanding. I even kept my Irish Catholic surname long after the divorce. I never revealed to anyone that I was a Jew. I went years before I would light the Sabbath candles. Why in the USA?
So comes the discussion of how things won't happen again. That is what was said after the Spanish Inquisition. That was what was said after World War II, yet the Japanese were placed in camps, here in the U.S.. There were approximately 127,000 citizens of the U.S. imprisoned with the crime of being from Japanese ancestry.
We can take photos of all the injustices from the Indians to the Jews to the blacks, to the atrocities of Vietnam and most currently the people of Muslim faith. Who are we trying to fool here? Own up to it I said to myself. Yes, I am an American and yes I believe that our forefathers did a damn good job with constructing the Constitution of this country. So, what is left but the white elephant on the table? Even more descriptive is what is left but the AR-15 on the table?
This is not the first time rights set forth have been passed over for the safety of our nation. Who is safe? Who will be next to have privileges lost, treated like the dirt that was on my windows? Now there are those that want to take away the right to keep and bear arms? Yes, guns were used to kill the Jews, the blacks, the Indians and with the help of bombs added we mutilated Asians. It was the people doing it to people. It was the biased and narrow minded and fear mixed with jealously that were some of the causes.
Shame on Michael Bloomberg and Dianne Feinstein- shame on you. Maybe you were protected under the umbrella of ignorance. Give up our rights to protect us from us? No way. Try to sell me that "it won't happen again", no way I say again. Turn your back on your birthright to subject yourself to more abuse? I think not. There were Jews who once aligned themselves with the Bolsheviks in hopes of not losing privileges. It was a smoke screen and once they were in power what happened? Their anti-semitic colors revealed themselves to the tune of over two million Jews killed once it was all said and done.
My mate is my protector. My mate has taken up a cause that is protecting me. My mate has shoveled the snow to make a path that I can walk on without fear. I have a home on the lily pad that stays safe because the second amendment allows us to protect ourselves. I finally wear a star of David and it isn't a sewn patch on my coat rather a charm my father gave me before he died, telling me to not be ashamed of who I am. If he were alive I would let him know it was not shame that prevented me from being who I am, rather fear of my fellow-man.
So the windows are clean, the path was made and I find that there is much more to gun rights than guns. I support my mate not because he is my mate, rather because he took a stance that isn't popular because we have bastardized the issue. He made his sacrifice and now I glean the rewards of his ongoing courage and conviction.
To sum this all up is to say I will throw away the razors to prevent pubic hair loss however the guns remain to prevent me from having nightmares about "this won't happen again". Rib-it, rib-it - I have only just Be-GUN.