I’m a dad. Two boys, 6 and 2. They’re young, they’re insane most of the time (I mean, who jumps off a sofa onto a hardwood floor while giggling other than completely crazy people … seriously now …), and most of all they’re impressionable.

I can’t count how many times I’ve told my 2-year-old, “No hit Daddy!” when he’s whacked me on the skull for no reason. Then my 6-year-old will chime in, “Yeah! Hit Daddy!” and whack me on the skull, only to be shortly followed by a now maniacally giggling 2-year-old who whacks me on the skull again.

Hey, they’re young kids. I get it. When they turn 18 I’ll have my revenge with thousands of pictures of them doing all manner of embarrassing kid things that will be painstakingly examined by myself and any female friend they decide to bring over for dinner. Heh.

I digress …

I want to raise these boys right. I want Americans as kids. I want them to know about the Revolutionary War, understand what soldiers do, know the meaning behind the flag, the pledge, and the anthem. Respect for one’s country doesn’t come easy though, not for kids. They’re being assaulted on all sides by the un-American, the disrespectful, and the ungrateful among us. In addition to that, they have no frame of reference. I can tell him until I’m blue in the face that in some countries, girls aren’t allowed to go to schools (my 6-year-old barely believes that fact). Or a government can take away anything you own. Or you can be put in jail because some idiot mugger broke into your house and tried to take your money, and you tried to defend yourself. Having not lived in that scenario, it’s hard for a child to understand and feel reverence for the freedoms that are afforded him as a citizen of the United States. They don’t know that kind of hell because we’re in a great country and most of us our great parents that give anything to make their life comfortable - to allow them to live as a kid … jumping off the sofa, running around soaking wet through a sprinkler and laughing on a hot summer day without any care - no Iraq war - no Presidential primary … just being safe, secure, happy kids living in the exact moment their in.

So how do you go about raising a Patriot? Learning about historical figures ends up helping - factoids about Ben Franklin, the story about the Boston Tea Party. At six, my son has a basic understanding of “taxation without representation” and why it got lots of people pissed off. This is all a part of raising him to be respectful. He knows what “one if by land, two if by sea” means. At six, he should, if you ask me.

This is part of the reason as a gun-owner I show my 6-year-old my firearms whenever he asks. Answer his questions, engage him, teach him. He knows the rules, he knows safety, and they aren’t mystical items locked away in the basement. And by the way - this isn’t a concerted effort such as sitting down and learning about some specific event like a classroom. It’s subtle things. See a flag at half-mast? I’ll ask him why he thinks it’s not all the way up. Engage and talk about the answer.

Which brings me to this book:

How To Raise An American. My wife and I bought this because it’s something we’re interested in - Patriotic projects. Now, if you just look at the “discussion” about this book on Amazon, you’re treated to this kind of tripe under the discussion heading, “PROPAGANDA”:

I am afraid a book on how to be an American is, in itself, UNAMERICAN! I fear this book aims to program children with a noncritical, non intellectually curious point of view so desirable in the current manifestation of the right wing. Protect your children. LET THEM THINK, LET THEM INVESTIGATE, AND LET THEM MAKE UP THEIR MINDS. That is what Americans are supposed to do!

Of course, if they think, make up their minds, and decide that this is in fact a great country, they’re idiot knuckle-dragging neocons! This is what I mean by “assaulted on all sides”. There’s no shortage of un-American dumbasses out there who are more than willing to teach you that America is somehow born of illegitimacy because we stole it from peace-loving Indians Native Americans. We stomp all over other countries and thus we’re all evil. Our military kills people and thus they’re all evil too.

Think about what your child has the potential to learn on a daily basis … All of the EARTH’S ills - everything from raising the temperature of the sea to make the world’s population suffer and burn and die, to cave-dwelling religious nutcases wanting us to submit, convert, or have our heads sawed off on camera is ALL OUR FAULT. Starvation in Africa? America’s fault. Gas prices? America’s fault. Global warming cooling “climate change”? America’s fault. Anti-Americanism? America’s fault.

America the Big Bully. Full of Americans who are inconsiderate, brash, holier-than-thou, violence-loving bastards.

I’ll be damned if I let my child become diseased like your average America-hating liberal “intellectual”. This is what’s being taught in schools, peddled in articles, thrown on television, and instilled in children’s mind by lesser parents who grew up with their own parents who flashed their peace signs, protested against whatever they could, spit on veterans, and are so closed-minded and short-sighted as to not understand that an America that accepts every identity individually is an America with no identity of it’s own.

I’m not going to link to the book or anything - I’ll give it a healthy endorsement sans any prospect of an affiliate sale. Most of all, it just has those small ideas that make you think. The book had a question in it that I’ve been thinking about nearly every day since I heard it:

“At what moment do you feel the most patriotic? At what moment do you feel the least patriotic?”

My answer was simple … Most patriotic? At the range. The founding fathers wrote the 2nd, and I’m doing it more than 200 years later. That’s an amazing thing to me. Least patriotic? Paying taxes. :-)

When we asked my son, his answer really took me by surprise … before I get to that, just a quick backstory so you can understand his answer …

My wife walks with the kids a couple times a week. They go through the town, a few neighborhoods, and through a nice cemetery. As a six-year-old, a cemetery is just curiosity-central. “There’s DEAD PEOPLE under there!?” Fascinating stuff. He sees graves of people who have died more than a hundred years ago. He sees stones marked with dates such as “1983-1986″ and has begun to understand that yes, some people haven’t lived as long as he has at six years old.

So his answer to the question, of when do you feel the most patriotic?

“When we’re walking through the cemetery, and I see that American soldiers who died in wars are buried there and I can remember them.”

See that? It’s possible. Possible in the face of a swirling storm of anti-Americanism to raise a Patriot. A child who is proud to be a part of this country, who understands not everything - but at least a little about what it is to have an independent spirit and have gifts passed down from earlier generations. One who knows the concept of sacrifice, but can still giggle, laugh, jump off a sofa and land on his head, or run through a sprinkler without a care in the world.

I’m not issuing a call to action on all you parents out there. This is more of a, “hey, this really isn’t so bad” piece from my heart. It’s not hard to teach little things, ask questions, and put some positive thoughts in your kid’s head so their first exposure to Americanism isn’t one of shame, guilt and disdain. Teach them a little bit about history, teach them to be proud, and teach them to have an American identity that’s all their own.

Via DP at Wasted Electrons

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” — Thomas Jefferson (1764) — Quoting 18th Century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment

Further proof that they knew what they were doing all those years ago and people of the Brady’s ilk are nothing more than collectivist fraidy-cats who project a distrust of themselves upon everyone else.

I didn’t know him or of him, and this post-humous post just ripped my heart out.

“I am leaving this message for you because it appears I must leave sooner than I intended. I would have preferred to say this in person, but since I cannot, let me say it here.”
G’Kar, Babylon 5

If I had a coke I’d put on some 80s music and pour a glass for him.

For saying quite eloquently what I feel most American’s believe, even as you’re surrounded by psychopath Hollywood Leftists:

“I’m thinking about the guys who are going to take over when we leave and I want to pass them the country intact – I feel that our country is under attack from without and within,” he added. “We’ve got to be strong and appreciate our legacy, and be so grateful for the gift of being Americans and pass it on whole to the new generations so that they will have the great benefits that we’ve had.”

Uh-oh … “without and within” … seems like another BDS rant in the making …

“It’s very powerful stuff and to some degree, it relates to our times. We’re seeing people trying to denigrate the United States government and its leadership. It’s horrible. We need to recapture the dignity of America across the world.”

Hmmm …

“The conspiracy theories about 9/11 are not only coming from addle-minded people, they are coming from sick-minded people who are anti-American,” Voight said. “Who knows why? Most of the people who are party to that stuff are people who have been abused somewhere in their lives and are striking out at their parent figures – the government being the great parent, in a sense.”

Well said. It’s news when a Hollywood figure speaks up about something like this. So thank you. His thoughts on filming atop Mount Rushmore were quite refreshing:

“It’s so beautiful, really,” Voight reflected. “It stirred so much emotion in me because I love these people – Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson and Teddy Roosevelt – they are great portraits of human life. They remind us of the greatness we were given, and being there stirs the responsibility of passing it on properly. It was a great inspiration just to be there.”

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but down-right force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

Patrick Henry, Governor and Patriot Leader

That has got to rank as one of the all-time greatest quotations on liberty … well … ever.

Who the hell is Attorney Andrew Cohen anyway? I mean really, you can give any monkey on the planet a pen and a piece of paper and he can write an editorial for CBS. And primates would probably make good lawyers to boot.

Look at this tripe:

“If the justices do honest work in this area, they will inevitably come to two candid conclusions. The first is that our hallowed forefathers were no more willing or capable of making tough decisions about contentious issues (like gun rights) than are their modern-day counterparts.”

That is what we call ignorant wishful thinking from a lawyering liberal retard. Our Founding Fathers were individually flawed in their own ways - they were all human, after all - but they were passionate about this country and it’s founding because if they weren’t, they’d die. They were committed to getting it right, and they did until we started screwing it up with collectivist theory. They were brave individuals who simply KNEW that years later some dumbass is going to wonder what they were thinking. That’s why you see them saying things such as:

“The first and fundamental rule in the interpretation of all documents is to construe them according to the sense of the terms and the intention of the parties.”

Justice Joseph Story (appointed by President James Madison)

… or …

“On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

President Thomas Jefferson

That means quit farking whining about an extra comma, you horse’s ass.

Here’s another …

“The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statue is to discover the meaning of those who made it.”

Justice James Wilson

Our Founding Father’s were extremely clear in the Bill of Rights.

Here’s a basic primer:

1. Everything in the Bill of Rights refers to the individual. States do not have “individual rights”Look at the other Amendments, jackass.

2. The Bill of Rights was written a long time ago. Just because you disagree with it’s grammatical sense by today’s standards, doesn’t make the Founders wishy-washy.

The big argument you hear out of the anti-gun camp is always, “militia means the army”!

Wrong yet again.

“The militia shall always include, according to the past and general usage of the States, all men capable of bearing arms.”

and …

“A militia … are in fact the people themselves and are for the most part employed at home in their private concerns.”

Richard Henry Lee, Signer of the Declaration, Framer of the 2nd Amendment

He didn’t say, “Are only part of an army created by the State with weapons issued to them from the Government!”

And another …

“The militia … are … the people at large.”

Tench Coxe, Attorney General of Pennsylvania

AND another …

“Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.”

George Mason, “Father of the Bill of Rights”

It takes a real special kind of smug, brainless schmuck to think that our Founding Fathers were being unclear or were somehow afraid to tackle the subject of firearms. Congratulations, Andrew, you’re a shining example of your profession.

The great object is that every man be armed … Every one who is able may have a gun. But have we not learned by experience that, necessary as it is to have arms, it is still far from being the case?

Patrick Henry - Governor, Patriot Leader

It is a chimerical idea to suppose that a country like this could ever be enslaved. How is an army for that purpose to … subdue a nation of free-men who know how to prize liberty and who have arms in their hands?

Theodore Sedgwick - Revolutionary Soldier and Framer of the Second Amendment in the First Congress