Before coming here to build a sustainable life, I was one of the many who simply assumed that all will always be provided for me as long as I can pay for it...and it is my right to have it doled out by the government if I can't afford it. As I have evolved into this lifestyle (sustainability is about covering your ass in
every situation) my perspective on society has drastically changed. After years in NYC, I was a die hard hoplophobe: a pejorative neologism originally coined to describe an "
irrational aversion to weapons, as opposed to justified apprehension about those who may wield them." It is sometimes used more generally to describe the "fear of weapons" or the "highly salient danger of these weapons " or the "fear of armed citizens".
Since moving to the desert and learning that it meant a very long response time from a 911 call...I bought my first gun in October 2008. When I brought it home I didn't even load it for a few days. I finally (and very carefully) "filled it up" and placed it on my counter. Off and on for days I would glance at it and with great trepidation, actually pick it up from time to time. About a week passed and I began to realize that although it had enormous destructive potential (just like the chainsaw I had back in upstate NY), it was harmless while just laying there loaded...and was equally harmless if I touched it or held it, I remembered as a child being warned about knives yet I have wielded knives my entire life without a second thought. A fired up chainsaw still to this day scares me more than a loaded gun.
This administration is doing its' best to instill fear in the population in order to gain further control of the masses. Oh no - it's not about how society has bred a generation of killers - it's all about the tools they use! FEAR is
False
Education
Appearing
Real
...Fear is simply unbelief parading in
disguise
.
51,69,29,0,B,0
Very well said Sir
ReplyDeleteI have made the transition from reflexively anti gun to thoughtfully anti gun (people) control. It has been a interesting transition. Also a bit expensive. Once you buy one the next one shows up and then you have to feed and clean them. Much like kids as I understand it.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it awesome to be able to practice your rights that hundreds of thousands have payed the ultimate sacrifice to protect? There are some people that think they know better than you do what is good for you. Hold on to that chainsaw, buddy. They might decide that it's harmful and try to ban it.
ReplyDeleteI am no fan or defender of the Obama administration, but the fact is that they are doing nothing against gun rights in general and precious little in terms of regulating guns (which is not the same as banning them). There are lots of hoplophobes out there, but don't let loud, irrational complaints allow you to take forget the fact that your gun rights are pretty much secure and will be for the long haul. Be mindful of your own FEAR.
ReplyDeleteNRA calls weekly asking for money. You can't buy bullets because the shelves are bare. The best reason to keep a gun? So you can off yourself when the dystopia drives you to it.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to stir the paranoia puddin' but I'd just say that the one that gets you is the one you never see. It can be a defensive equalizer, but the offensive position is a dead loser- you're already out flanked & gunned. The Higher Power is the only way to go against the superior firepower... or maybe Machete wasn't a documentary? Moderation in all things, including fear and its tag along sibling: anger. Make them tools, not shackles.
ReplyDeleteYou've stepped over the line into crazyville. So sad. Was enjoying keeping up with your experiment but no longer.
ReplyDeleteThe rifle on the wall; http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Rifle-on-the-Wall-A-L-by-Jim-Kavanagh-130131-374.html
ReplyDeleteFear is a powerful motivator.
ReplyDeleteExchanging one type of fear for another type of fear will never bring peace to one's spirit. Exchanging a fear of guns for a fear of men, and a fear of a long 911 call only perpetuates more fear. It is simply redirected at a different target.
When a man trusts in God, he has no fear. No fear of guns. No fear of men. No fear of governments. No fear of helplessness. No fear of any tragedy. No fear of any hardship.
Only the man who places his/her complete trust in God will overcome his fear and live a life of complete peace and happiness.
Do God's work. Give love. Help others. Love your neighbor and your enemy as yourself and fear will never be part of your life ever again.
Hebrews Chapter 13
1 Keep on loving each other as brothers. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. 4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
Put your trust in God, not in your gun. Only that will alleviate the deep fear in your soul. It is not men or a long response to a 911 call you fear, but the fear of losing your soul to Satan that is the root of all of your fear.
1st John Chapter 4
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
We are all brothers. He who prepares to shoot his brother, does not love him, and therefore cannot know God.
The path to your own eternal destruction is your lack of trust in God and your lack of love. The gun is simply a mechanism for you to display your inability to love and your lack of trust in God.
Another thing I love about that area out there is the ability to shoot off a gun on your own property without anyone complaining. We can't do that in the cities and gun range fees pile up quick. Hopefully you never have to use one on a real target but better to have than to not have.
ReplyDeleteUmmm. Some of your readers are missing the point. A gun is a tool just like a chain saw. Both have a place and both can be deadly if not treated with respect. Or have I missed the point?
ReplyDeleteJudy gets it. Thanks, John.
ReplyDeleteJohn, thats about as much bullchit as I hear from the other side of the aisle. When the voices inside your head start to sing in key, then it will be over. Your a little self absorbed. The pics that you have had on this site with you in a santa suit packing three of four weapons shows a basic childish element of some gun owner. Big gun, small mind, or perhaps some other body part.
ReplyDeleteI see a strong disconect between your monday thru saturday posts and your sunday posts. Jesus didnt pack anything except love and kindness. And neither did his followers. Tools have a place, and a gun is a tool, but its a tool best used when needed and not to be glorified. When you put your love into that which is not real, then it becomes a false god.
I see you get some of the same rhetoric I see on some of the news (when I watch,which is seldom anymore),people denying what is right in front of them but too blind to see. Or maybe just uneducated about the facts of life & I aint talking about the birds & the bees. Fact is, ANY gun control measures now are a stepping stone to a TOTAL gun ban in the future. Be safe, my man. Learn to use that tool as best you can. Shoot every day if you can.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing the right thing John. Very surprised that so many showed up here talking trash about your wanting to protect yourself, your home, and your flock. These same folks do not understand that there is real evil in the world, and that once the population has been disarmed, they are helpless to defend themselves against it.
ReplyDeleteRomans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
All the best, gonna try to make it out that way sometime this year to visit my grandmother and stop the TFL.
First it's religion on Monday's. Now it's NRA shill on Wednesday's. At least i know which days a week to avoid TFL.
ReplyDeleteNo, gun control advocates don't think that guns in and of themselves are evil and bad. No, gun control advocates don't want to outlaw guns. No, the fear is not ginned up by gun control advocates, but by the NRA and its ilk. You are the evidence of that, my friend.
ReplyDeleteLOL ... I find the misguided comments about your post quite interesting to say the least. A gun is a tool, just like a chainsaw, just like a hammer, just like a bible. Each can be destructive and each can be very empowering.
ReplyDeleteThe gun discussion is nothing more than a diversion by the left away from topics that they DO NOT wish to discuss. With this administration there are "many" to choose.
What is important is the preservation of Free Agency ... the right of each and everyone of us to choose how we want to live our lives. You have chosen well John ... I applaud you and I support your freedom of choice from the masses.
I'm having trouble following. Judy and Lee point out that a gun is a tool like a chainsaw, saying that other comments somehow miss this point. What in the other comments misses this point? What do they think the commenters are saying guns are such that they are not tools?
ReplyDeleteI miss BBC
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of posters that do not see the current push for registration (universal background check*) and restrictions of standard capacity magazines as attacks of law abiding firearms owners.
ReplyDelete*Since the serial number and owner collection/retention is the sticking point on this it seems that this is an attempt at a backdoor registration of law abiding owners of firearms.
My in-laws live in Ireland. Guns are against the law there. When they came to visit, I took them shooting. At first they were very apprehensive, they lived there entire lives with an irrational fear of guns. After we spent couple of hours with friends just shooting at targets, they changed their opinion of them. They began to understand the gun isn't what is dangerous. Like you said, It is a tool. In the wrong hands there are many items that can be used as a weapon. I remember listening to a new report of a man driving through a farmers market a couple of years ago killing 17 people. I didn't hear a call to ban cars. Or should I say specific types of cars.
ReplyDelete@Unknown: I'm laughing, because I think cars are far more destructive than guns, and I would be happy if liberals forgot gun control and spent their time banning private vehicles into oblivion.
ReplyDeleteBut seriously, you can tell me over and over again that using government control to restrict behavior is both pointless and an abuse of power, and I will agree with you every time.
I think the animus about gun control, though, masks a more important issue, which is that guns cannot make you free. If you need a gun to maintain your freedom, then what you are maintaining is not freedom. You are maintaining a false sense of power. If you want to be free and to help others to be free, keep your guns if you want to, but give that feeling up.
Without the gun you have no way of protecting the freedoms you "do" have. I like my odds against tyranny over yours.
ReplyDeleteFinally ... Ask yourself why is it that if I lie to the government it's a felony, so what do you call it when the government lies to the people?
Never be the sheep my friend ...
A people cannot be truly free by means of violence. Freedom results from the actions and decisions of the people who would protect it. If you need to kill other people to keep your beliefs alive, then you have already lost them; you don't have faith in them. You just want to feel powerful.
ReplyDeleteTrue courage comes from giving up that power; through vulnerability. If you are not armed and make no threat to others, they will not harm you.
Tyrannies are designed for dealing with armed rebellions. They have nothing against a people armed with true courage and faith - it's the opposite of what they are.
"He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword."
agree dude skip crap
ReplyDeleteFirst it's religion on Monday's. Now it's NRA shill on Wednesday's. At least i know which days a week to avoid TFL.
That kind of thinking really helped the Jewish people of the 1930's against the Nazi's right? Oh wait ... right after they confiscated all the guns.
ReplyDeleteYour logic is illogic ...
Best Wishes
You know, it's interesting: the commenters here that espouse that they just love your blog, but insist on telling you that they will no longer read on Sundays or 'gun' post days.
ReplyDeleteI guess you are a wonderful example, a free citizen with the right to pursue your life, your interests---just as long as every post & every choice you make agrees with them.
Good grief, you anti-God, anti-Bill of Rights people. If you truly like John's blog--read it; if not--don't.
And maybe, just maybe... you are the ones who should quit preaching.
John is free to pursue his life with a gun.
ReplyDeleteIt is a Constitutionally protected right.
A true Christian does not put a Nation's constitution above God's law.
God instructs us to love one another, good and bad.
John's desire to prepare himself to kill one of God's children is absolutely a protected right under the Constitution. MAN'S CONSTITUTION. It is John's choice to do that.
It just happens to be that choice sends John on the path to eternal destruction for not loving God and his children. Sadly many have chosen a similar path to destroyed themselves, and many continue to do so today.
The bible warned us that times such as these would test us.
2 Timothy Chapter 4
1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
The bible tells us that we are not to be the judge of God's children.
The man who prepares to kill another with a gun chooses to elevate him/herself above God to be their judge, jury, and executioner BEFORE GOD. I'm not talking about an earthly civilian court, but the far more powerful and important court of Jehovah God.
A true Christian that follows the teachings of Jesus Christ doesn't care what earthly governments do about Gun Control or any other issue. They follow a higher law and look forward to a day when God rules over everyone.
The man holds his gun to protect his earthly existence does not love his brother, does not love God, and wanders down the path of his own everlasting destruction. It's a choice anyone can make.
Each of us can also choose everlasting life.
No earthly Constitution or Law can prevent someone from making the second choice.
@red raider dude
ReplyDelete@Pablo
If you don't like John's blog, nobody is forcing you to read it..or even agree with it. If you don't like it, leave some constructive and thoughtful comments. Or just LEAVE the site. Why take the time to be insulting (and rude)? Wow.
John, keep the posts coming. I have been following for several years now. You are insightful and wise. Thank you.
Jay: your posts are just amazing. I'm not a Christian, but when I read your words I sort of wish I was. You seem to have a true, loving understanding of the tenets of your religion. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteJohn, You seem completely rational to me. But your readers are questionable!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading some of the tripe posted in comments, -- Mark Johnson is a good example, I kinda wish BBC was back.
ReplyDeleteA fella living in your part of the world without a sidearm would have to be a damn fool.
I visit you blog often,,,keep up the good work.
-Ken
John, a good quality, tactical pump shotgun loaded with buckshot would be a valuable addition to your property! Also, keep it handy when you are outside and take it to bed at night! A Great Pyrenees guard dog is a great dog to have around!
ReplyDelete@pamit
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, but the credit does not belong to me. The credit goes to Jehovah God and his son Jesus Christ. I'm simply passing along their messages and teachings. Thank the source of my words and ideas. Thank God.
I'm just a guy typing on the internet that happens to be quoting the most awesome source material ever written. In a small way, I'm doing my best (albeit imperfectly) to act responsibly as the instructions in Galatians 6 indicate.
Galatians Chapter 6
1 Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, 5 for each one should carry his own load. 6 Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor. 7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
I'm trying to be gentle in reminding John and others the importance of loving each other, and that the man that prepares his tools of destruction is really destroying himself. Everyone needs a gentle nudge and reminder to stay on the good path now and then.
I'm an inadequate messenger, but I do my best and hope that Jesus' magnificent teachings will make up for my limited abilities and touch a few hearts to motivate a few people to seek the real truth from God instead of the all too common false teachings masquerading as truth from selfish men, politicians, and their followers.
Perhaps I visit this blog for selfish enjoyment too. I think God did great work when he made Longhorns as well as sunshine and flowers that grow in the desert and vegetables that grow in greenhouses and gardens. :)
Amen Brother!!
ReplyDeleteI'll keep my guns, they are a protection to me and my family in more than one way. During WWII the mainland USA was never invaded. Japan wanted to but was advised against it by Isoroku Yamamoto Fleet Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, He said."We would find a rifle behind every blade of grass." Germany also held a similar view of us.
ReplyDeleteThe founders of this Country also new an armed citizenry was one of the best deterrents to eventual tyranny by the government.
Granted there is less of a chance of that now than 200 years ago, but I will keep my guns thank you.
It is sicking to read such. You people should run for government offices.
ReplyDelete@ Glen
During WW2 Japs held parts of the Alaska chain which is US.
If you feel God will save you then good, if not you have Right to Arms. Either way all get what we want. Besides is this not the TFL Blog? They have freedom of speech like you.
I was kind of done with this comment thread when it ventured into Godwin's Law territory, but comments keep trickling in and thoughts keep forming in my mind. A blog post is not the end all and be all of philosophical discussions, but I have an occasion to form an opinion, now, and I will share it.
ReplyDeleteI think we all need to take a break from talking about what our "rights" are and what we have a "right to." Very seldom, when anyone mentions their rights defensively, were that person's rights in question to begin with. When someone disagrees with you and challenges your opinion, they are not saying you don't have a "right" to your opinion. They are simply pointing out what they believe are consequences of your actions or thoughts and would like you to consider them. The point is not to win anything or to put you down, but to have a conversation, to have a sharing and listening.
There is a lot of noise out there, where people take extreme opinions and suggest things that are silly and drastic and disrespectful and, sadly, even abusive. If you really want to listen to the conversation, you have the ability and the responsibility to ignore the noise and focus on the heart of the matter. If all you're doing is responding to what you consider to be trash talk, guess what, you're not being constructive either.
John, people say rude things to you when you are simply sharing what you believe to be true. It's sad when people choose to reject someone because of their beliefs and way of life and perspective, which is valuable, no matter what. And you, in particular, lead an exceptionally rich life that should give all of us an occasion to listen a little more carefully.
What is jarring, I think, to many readers is when you make a post, such as this one, which seems to involve a lot of recycled opinions we have all heard before in the media, on the internet, in print, on tv and seems to have very little to do with the strength and peacefulness you are trying to cultivate at the Field Lab. You seem to be trying to find a truly individual life that relies on the most essential, thrives on the creative and cuts out the unnecessary. Yet you seem to engage yourself in trains of thought that are just as entrained in corporate America's scheme as the food and power industries you are trying to free yourself from.
It's really not your responsibility if people are offended by the opinions you express on your blog. But I think there is a tiny grain of an issue at the core of the noise and clamor and rude comments. I think that's what people are feeling deep down, even if they are acting rudely by calling you crazy and whatnot. I think a deeper conversation could be fruitful, if that's where it's going. If other commenters are wondering what your critics mean, I think that gets to the core of it.
I can't speak for everyone, but that's what bothers me: I find myself wanting you to cast aside what opinions you have about the Obama administration and the federal government, which can only be abstract, shadowy, and pre-digested, and I want to hear what you yourself have experienced in life, seen with your senses. What ideas have you crafted out of the forge of your own experience of living. That is valuable. And it goes beyond what opinions and values I or anyone else might have and becomes invincible to any criticism, detractors, cynicism. It would be real. TFL blog is, most of the time.
Or: we can just expect you to continue to live your life and carry any and all opinions you have, pre-digested or not, and others can observe and chat about it from a distance. There is nothing wrong with that, either. You are you, no matter what.
Thanks for what you do,
Peliens