A couple of weeks ago I did a revolutionary act.
What did I do?
I planted veggies!
That's right. I planted five vegetable seeds--two lettuce, two bell pepper, and one tomato--in recycled toilet paper roll "pots", an idea I got from Pinterest. Aside from the tomato, this was my first time starting vegetables from seeds. So far, one of the lettuce seeds has germinated and two little precious green leaves are now poking through the potting soil. The other lettuce seed was trying to grow but I accidently uprooted it when I moved a hunk of potting soil that was laying on it. The tomato and bell pepper seeds turned out to be duds. I planted new lettuce, bell pepper, and tomato seeds this past Saturday. Hopefully, these will take; and when all five seedlings come of age, so to speak, I'll transplant them into containers. Yes, I'm a container vegetable gardener.
This is actually my third attempt at container veggie gardening. In 2009 and 2011 I grew bell peppers and cherry tomatoes--not from seeds--in flower pots on my front porch. They turned out pretty well. My mother enjoyed the tomatoes in her salads (I grew them for her; I can't stand tomatoes). The bell peppers were about half the size of the ones in stores and the flavor was a bit too mild for my taste, but it was downright awesome cooking with my own homegrown vegetables. Oh, the feeling of achievement and independence! Sweet!
Achievement. Independence.
That is what makes planting those seeds 15 days ago a revolutionary act. It was an act of self-reliance. It was, however small, a declaration of independence from and resistance to the increasingly entrenched and poisonous entitlement mentality that twice put Obama into power. And we need more of this bottom up resistance; much, much more!
Leftism, currently personified in Barack Obama, won't be defeated from the top down, as so many conservatives foolishly believe. Rather, it will be defeated from the bottom up by a lifestyle revolution in which people reject the statist behemoth, reclaim personal responsibility and liberty, and provide as much for themselves as they can. And it doesn't have to be done in one fell swoop. Individuals can start this revolution by taking one or two small steps, mastering them, and then moving on into greater and greater self-reliance.
My revolutionary act was planting five seeds. If I can do that, you can too.
Time to start the revolution.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
"This is the year of MY arm!"
No, this has nothing to do with politics or anything related. It's just one of the cutest commercials I've seen in a long time. So, as the label says, I had to take time out for cute. YOU GO KAITLYN JONES!!!!
Monday, August 19, 2013
Scary Stats
Earlier today while channel surfing I came across the Fox News show America Live with Megyn Kelly just as the show was highlighting some results from a survey on Americans' knowledge of and attitudes toward our 1st Amendment rights. The results were downright scary.
According to the survey, 46% of Americans named freedom of speech as the most important 1st Amendment right. However, a whopping 36% couldn't name even one freedom listed in the 1st Amendment and 34% of Americans thought the 1st Amendment went too far in guaranteeing our rights. Too far? What's wrong with those people?!
Those stats help explain why so many Americans continue to support Obama despite his disdain for the Constitution. They also help explain why so many Americans buy the Democrats' mantra that such things as health insurance and free birth control are rights. They believe such nonsense because it sounds good, it's something they want, and they have no other reference point by which to know what our rights and freedoms really are. Thank you, public education.
Instead of endlessly complaining about leftists' assault on our constitutional rights, we rightists should be aggressively educating Americans on why we have the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights and just how precious and vital they are. Then and only then can we begin to really defeat the left. Many 2nd Amendment supporters say that an armed citizenry is vital to a free republic. The scary stats quoted above show that an informed citizenry is, too.
According to the survey, 46% of Americans named freedom of speech as the most important 1st Amendment right. However, a whopping 36% couldn't name even one freedom listed in the 1st Amendment and 34% of Americans thought the 1st Amendment went too far in guaranteeing our rights. Too far? What's wrong with those people?!
Those stats help explain why so many Americans continue to support Obama despite his disdain for the Constitution. They also help explain why so many Americans buy the Democrats' mantra that such things as health insurance and free birth control are rights. They believe such nonsense because it sounds good, it's something they want, and they have no other reference point by which to know what our rights and freedoms really are. Thank you, public education.
Instead of endlessly complaining about leftists' assault on our constitutional rights, we rightists should be aggressively educating Americans on why we have the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights and just how precious and vital they are. Then and only then can we begin to really defeat the left. Many 2nd Amendment supporters say that an armed citizenry is vital to a free republic. The scary stats quoted above show that an informed citizenry is, too.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
What's In A Name?
Time can change things.
I recently changed the name of this blog from "Sinistra's Bane" to "Heart of the Wise". I made the change to reflect a shift in some of my ideological views. My basic outlook hasn't changed but certain things have. Consequently, I feel I need to change what I call myself, something more important than what to call a blog that hardly anyone reads. *ss*
For nearly 20 years I've proudly called myself a conservative but now that label doesn't suit me anymore. Why not? It seems too...limiting, too..."small". It doesn't encompass the whole of what I now believe.
I know that conservatives and conservatism have long been divided into 3 main "denominations": social conservatives, who favor traditional, Bible-base morality and values; foreign policy conservatives, who favor a strong defense and an America active on the world stage; and fiscal/tea party conservatives, who're committed to lower taxes, balanced budgets, and limited, constitutional government. I've always considered myself to be all of the above but it was social issues, especially abortion, that helped me to define myself as "conservative". While fiscal and foreign policy are very important to me, social issues top my list of concerns. And that's why I have a problem with continuing to call myself a conservative.
For that last decade or so, and especially since Obama was first elected in 2008, the conservative movement has, in my view, distanced itself from social issues and become focused on fiscal issues. This shift was especially apparent in the 2010 midterm and 2012 presidential elections, with seemingly all major strategists on the right calling for conservative/Republican candidates to ignore social issues and focus on the economy. That strategy failed in 2012 and many conservatives seemed to conclude that traditionalist positions on social issues, especially the hot button issue of gay marriage, is what did Mitt Romney in.
Now we have more and more conservatives supporting gay marriage and worse, expressing the same disdain for traditionalists that liberals do. It's like they can't get to a microphone or tv camera fast enough to reveal their new found "enlightenment" and "tolerance". Such caving to the left is disgusting to me. I always thought that the conservative movement would be a place where traditionalists would be accepted, respected, understood, and heard. I was wrong.
The left has convinced a huge swath of Americans, particularly the young, that opposition to gay marriage is diabolical bigotry and "extremism". Rather than resist this lie too many conservatives have taken the easy way out and have caved. But it's all to win elections, I've heard. Younger voters, so the argument goes, won't give conservative/Republican candidates a chance so long as they're seen as "intolerant". They must moderate or censor their social views so they can win and stop Obama from imposing his nanny state and bankrupting the country, the only cause that really matters. Yeah, right. That logic is just an excuse for cowardice in the face of leftism.
If liberals managed to convince enough Americans that advocating smaller government and lower taxes was "extremism" and hate, would conservatives change their stand on those issues, too? Would they suddenly discover a "conservative" case for big government and sky high taxes as they've found a "conservative" case for gay marriage? Methinks they would.
That's why I can no longer and will no longer call myself a conservative.
This is hard for me. I feel adrift. As I said at the beginning of this post, I've been calling myself a conservative for nearly 20 years. Now, I don't know what to call myself. There doesn't seem to be a single term that encompasses the whole of my socio-political belief system. Maybe I'll have to cobble together a new, multiple word term for my worldview. Or maybe I'll have to resurrect some long forgotten label from history. Or maybe you, my readers, have some good ideas. All I'm certain of right now is that "conservative" is out. I'm still on the right, though, the side of the wise. That, my friends, will never change. Of that you can be sure.
I recently changed the name of this blog from "Sinistra's Bane" to "Heart of the Wise". I made the change to reflect a shift in some of my ideological views. My basic outlook hasn't changed but certain things have. Consequently, I feel I need to change what I call myself, something more important than what to call a blog that hardly anyone reads. *ss*
For nearly 20 years I've proudly called myself a conservative but now that label doesn't suit me anymore. Why not? It seems too...limiting, too..."small". It doesn't encompass the whole of what I now believe.
I know that conservatives and conservatism have long been divided into 3 main "denominations": social conservatives, who favor traditional, Bible-base morality and values; foreign policy conservatives, who favor a strong defense and an America active on the world stage; and fiscal/tea party conservatives, who're committed to lower taxes, balanced budgets, and limited, constitutional government. I've always considered myself to be all of the above but it was social issues, especially abortion, that helped me to define myself as "conservative". While fiscal and foreign policy are very important to me, social issues top my list of concerns. And that's why I have a problem with continuing to call myself a conservative.
For that last decade or so, and especially since Obama was first elected in 2008, the conservative movement has, in my view, distanced itself from social issues and become focused on fiscal issues. This shift was especially apparent in the 2010 midterm and 2012 presidential elections, with seemingly all major strategists on the right calling for conservative/Republican candidates to ignore social issues and focus on the economy. That strategy failed in 2012 and many conservatives seemed to conclude that traditionalist positions on social issues, especially the hot button issue of gay marriage, is what did Mitt Romney in.
Now we have more and more conservatives supporting gay marriage and worse, expressing the same disdain for traditionalists that liberals do. It's like they can't get to a microphone or tv camera fast enough to reveal their new found "enlightenment" and "tolerance". Such caving to the left is disgusting to me. I always thought that the conservative movement would be a place where traditionalists would be accepted, respected, understood, and heard. I was wrong.
The left has convinced a huge swath of Americans, particularly the young, that opposition to gay marriage is diabolical bigotry and "extremism". Rather than resist this lie too many conservatives have taken the easy way out and have caved. But it's all to win elections, I've heard. Younger voters, so the argument goes, won't give conservative/Republican candidates a chance so long as they're seen as "intolerant". They must moderate or censor their social views so they can win and stop Obama from imposing his nanny state and bankrupting the country, the only cause that really matters. Yeah, right. That logic is just an excuse for cowardice in the face of leftism.
If liberals managed to convince enough Americans that advocating smaller government and lower taxes was "extremism" and hate, would conservatives change their stand on those issues, too? Would they suddenly discover a "conservative" case for big government and sky high taxes as they've found a "conservative" case for gay marriage? Methinks they would.
That's why I can no longer and will no longer call myself a conservative.
This is hard for me. I feel adrift. As I said at the beginning of this post, I've been calling myself a conservative for nearly 20 years. Now, I don't know what to call myself. There doesn't seem to be a single term that encompasses the whole of my socio-political belief system. Maybe I'll have to cobble together a new, multiple word term for my worldview. Or maybe I'll have to resurrect some long forgotten label from history. Or maybe you, my readers, have some good ideas. All I'm certain of right now is that "conservative" is out. I'm still on the right, though, the side of the wise. That, my friends, will never change. Of that you can be sure.
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