Letters To The EditorFrom Issue #63 |
Constitution bookWould you please send me 10 copies of the Constitution book.
I would. We’ve sent out nearly 10,000 copies of our 58-page pocket Constitution so far. It’s the most successful item we’ve ever carried. — Dave Irreverent jokesI cannot thank you enough! I am thoroughly enjoying my first issue of Backwoods Home Magazine…though my husband thought eating the wild foods section was crazy. That is, right up until our neighbors took us out to pick wild asparagus. Talk about timely! Anyway, I also wanted to thank you so very, very much for the irreverent jokes forum. My dad (age 77 years young) was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. Needless to say, his spirits sank tremendously. Since I began sending him an irreverent joke a day and telling a few over the phone, his sense of humor has really returned! They were JUST what the doctor ordered…and I should know as one of his doctors is my brother and he LOVES those jokes too! Please don’t ever drop them. Irreverent they may be, but they are HILARIOUS too!!!
Y2KRelieved to see that we made it through the Y2K situation with only minor problems so far. I tried to prepare for the worst and hope and pray for the best. Guess the prayers worked. I do think it got our country off its butt and into getting things fixed a lot faster than I ever thought it would. I personally don’t regret a single thing we purchased for the possible situation. Nothing we bought can’t be used on down line in daily life. Hey, I shouldn’t have to purchase toilet paper till June.
Firearms articlesI have been enjoying your magazine for over a year now and hope to keep enjoying it for years to come. My lifestyle is still too close to urban in nature for me, but I hope to come a whole lot closer to an independent rural existence in the next few years as I prepare to retire from punching someone else’s clock. The independent political and ethical views expressed by you, John Silveira and others in BHM are like finding a clear brook to a man dying of thirst. Particularly refreshing are your articles on our right to own and bear firearms. We need to hear more people saying “I own and use firearms, and I don’t apologize for them.” We are fighting an uphill battle to defend this keystone right today, and an apologetic defensive posture is a sure way to lose it. We need always remember that the anti-gun sentiment is fueled by two distinctly different groups. Firstly, there is the steadily growing group of our urban neighbors who are ever farther removed from the ownership and use of firearms, making them more susceptible to the irrational anti-gun rhetoric of the “paranoid, gun-grabbing ignoramuses” you referred to in your editorial in issue 62. Secondly, there is that group, the Clintons and Schumers, far more insidious than the first. I am increasingly convinced that the political leaders, media pundits and police officers who scream for more and more gun control are not mistaken in their views. They are lying through their teeth. They know the overwhelming facts supporting free ownership and use of guns as a deterrent to crime, but they still scream for more gun control. Because they want you and me disarmed. Because they need you and me disarmed. Because they want to be the only kids on the block with guns. Such people are not afraid of the gang members, hoods and petty crooks who have guns. They need those people out there, because fear of them makes more and more of our honest neighbors beg to have their freedoms taken away for a perceived sense of security. The politicians, the Clintons and Schumers, know that the petty criminals can be easily mopped up any time they want to do it, after the honest citizens are disarmed. They are not afraid of petty crooks with guns but they are terrified of armed honest citizens because we can keep them from achieving the power they really crave, the power to control the lives of all of us. Thank you Dave Duffy, for saying “I don’t apologize for my guns.” Thank you, John Silveira, for reminding us that our constitutional guarantee of the freedom to own and bear arms does not reside in the second amendment, but in the body of the constitution itself, which very clearly proscribes the federal government from exercising any power not specifically granted to it. Thank you, Massad Ayoob, for simply saying that homeowners should arm themselves against violent intruders and for giving valuable instructions for how best to do that. Increasingly, we need to quietly stand and say, “I don’t apologize for having and using guns. I am an American and you may not rightly deprive me of them.” If we don’t, this will only be the first of our rights to be usurped by those who are not at all mistaken in their desire for more gun control.
I’m sure you’ll receive a deluge of self-protection stories after issue 62, but I figured I’d send mine, too, in hopes that others will feel a little more support in this age of rabid anti-gun sentiment. Two years ago, I received my concealed carry permit. I’m 33, and have been shooting since I was 12, the daughter of a police officer, so I have had many years experience with firearms. A year after receiving my permit, three young men entered my workplace and attempted to rob it. My employer was assaulted, but before the perpetrators got to the back office where I was working, I was able to pull my .357 Colt out of my purse. (It all happened so fast that there was no time to call the police, until it was all over.) I was able to see that they did not have guns in their hands; they had three foot long lengths of steel pipe. As they burst through the locked office door, I had my gun pointed directly at them. After some screaming back and forth in which there were several threats to “F—ing kill” me, and several pieces of office equipment were smashed by their steel pipes, I would stop them if necessary (all the while praying “God, let them leave!” over and over to myself). They left, thank God. I got their license plate number and they were later apprehended. Although all three were under 20, two of them already had long, violent criminal records. I do thank God that I didn’t have to pull the trigger, but I am also thankful that I had means to protect myself. My employer was knocked unconscious and had a fractured skull. I don’t believe that these three thugs would have treated me any better; probably to the contrary as I am a woman. I am also outraged and bewildered by the attitudes of anti-gun advocates. They believe removing all guns from U.S. citizens will solve crime. Guess what? IT DOESN’T! Disarming law abiding citizens, in essence making them sitting ducks for criminals, is absolutely unacceptable, and a clear violation of the constitutional right to pursue life and liberty, not to mention the Second Amendment. Am I supposed to give up my life to some piece of human scum who decides that he wants to be “bad” and kill me? Never. My life means too much to me and my family. It apparently does not hold much value with the anti-gun advocates. I have long since stopped apologizing for carrying a gun. Whenever a seemingly well-meaning individual (frequently female) starts harping on how unsafe guns are, I trot out my little story, and ask them, “How would you like to have been in my situation? Would you have let them do whatever they wanted to you? Rape you, beat you with steel pipes, maybe kill you?” I have yet to receive an answer. Thanks for taking time to read this. Keep up the good work, we need your kind of support.
I am a subscriber and a fan of yours. I am most grateful for your editorial in #62. You did not mention “Gun Control” once. The people of this nation have been “Brainwashed” into using this term by the anti-gun nuts. The last thing in their agenda is “Gun Control”. The goal is most obvious—People Control! They have used “Gun Control” so effectively as to have everyone believe that is the goal, tain’t so. People is what they really want to control.
ApplauseI’m writing with great praise. Most of my life, and all of my married life, I have worked hard to be as self-reliant as one can be. It is my opinion that one trades family for store bought things. I now have five children ages one to twelve, all homeschooled, all garden fed. If I chose not to work outside the home, I must work inside. About a year ago I came across your magazine in our library. I’ve enjoyed every one they still had and now must have a subscription of my own. I think that receiving your magazine while still new would be a greater pleasure. You should know even editions not yet printed have 4 or 5 people placing holds on it. That is 4 or 5 people before me.
Love your magazine!! Found out about it at our library & had to get a subscription. You have no idea how much we cherish good reading material—especially during the long dark nights of winter. We built our homestead ourselves—not finished yet (do you ever really finish?) We have no choice but to be very prepared in all areas due to our remoteness & severe winters. We semi-subsist: hunt, fish & dipnet, pick berries, grow vegies, raise poultry for meat & eggs.
I wish I could subscribe for three years. Unfortunately money is very tight this year and I’ve let go all my subscriptions as well as outside entertainment go. All except your magazine which is worth more than all the dinners, movies or other forms of entertainment out there. Keep up the good work. Your student and devoted reader.
Moving back…Just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your magazine. When it arrives, everything else goes on hold for me while I sit and devour the thing from cover-to-cover. I am stuck living in the big city for now but I dream of the day when I can simplify my life and move to a more rural environment. A close friend of mine grew up in the Smoky Mountains and became an engineer. He worked all over the world and made lots of money. When I met him, he lived on 160 acres outside of Elgin, Oregon with a telephone line as the only outside utility service coming into his place. We used to sit on the porch sipping some homemade brandy and watching the elk come out into the meadow and he’d joke about how he spent his entire working life saving to move back into the mountains which he had worked so hard to get out of in his youth. I sometimes think I am on the same path he walked.
I have never felt the need to write to a publication before now. I regret only that it has taken me this long to do so. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all of you for the great magazine you put out. I was introduced to BHM by happenstance in the summer of 1994 while perusing through the library. I immediately realized that it was something I wanted (needed?) regularly. I ordered a subscription for my fiance under the pretense of a birthday present. Today I am still the first one to read it when it comes. We recently purchased the six anthologies with my Christmas bonus from work. I commend you on how quickly we received it. I expected a wait of six to eight weeks and we received it in less than two. Way to go BHM! We moved to Alaska to follow a dream of being able to “homestead” as in the days gone by. We bought twenty-six acres this past summer and managed to get a driveway and barn site cut in before snowfall. Our property is road accessible since I still work in town for now, but at the end of a dead end road surrounded by many square miles of state and borough land. We hope to gradually phase out the in town work as we become more self sufficient. We spend many hours poring through our back issues (and now our anthologies) for ideas and answers to many questions. The irreverent joke page is a classic, and the first thing I go to. I apologize for being long winded, I just want you all to know how much we enjoy your magazine and look forward to it.
Drug legalizationI’m sure you’re going to get a lot of flak about your drug legalization opinion. Having been on both side of the coin let me put in my two cents worth. I used drugs for several years (mostly pot and speed) and while I managed to stay out of the criminal justice system it was mostly by dumb luck. There came a point where I realized that “the going up was not worth the coming down” and I just put it all down and left it alone. I now consider myself a conservative but I realize that drugs are more of a moral problem than a legal one. Prostitution and alcohol have never been erased and neither will drugs. Prohibition was an abject failure and resulted in some of the first gun laws being passed. Prior to the “gangster era” one could own just about any type of weapon without any paperwork. When the Thompson sub-machine gun became the weapon of choice among bootleggers (they often referred to it as “the Chicago typewriter”) the government started us down the steep (and slippery) slope of gun control. Then, as now, the media played a big part in the vilification of firearms. The gangster movies of that era were full of machine gun toting villains mowing down their rivals (and often innocent bystanders) in hails of gunfire. The fact that many of these weapons were stolen from police and National Guard armories did not get a lot of press. Law enforcement agencies at all levels were busy attempting to enforce an unpopular ban on a once legal substance. In the meantime elected officials continued to pass more and more restrictive laws that infringed on our rights. Al Capone, one of the most notorious gangsters of the era, was never convicted of any violent offenses, he went to prison for tax evasion. Today if an agency suspects you of being involved in the drug trade they go after your assets. Get caught with a large sum of cash on you and see how long it takes to get it back if it is seized. I drive a commercial vehicle and frequently see people pulled over along the highways with all their luggage piled up on the ground and a couple of car loads of police searching them. I’m sure many of these people fit some type of “drug profile” and the police were on a fishing expedition. If even a minute amount of drugs were found those people could lose their vehicle, any large sums of cash found and their freedom. There is money in the drug business. Ask any lawyer that specializes in drug cases. If you have a lot of money you can buy your way out of a drug case. Look at many small police departments today and the vehicles and equipment they have. This equipment is either seized and used by the department or bought with forfeited money or grant money from the federal government (our tax dollars). Legalization of drugs is not likely for several reasons. First, it would be an admission by the powers that be that the whole war on drugs has been a failure. When was the last time our government admitted it made a mistake? Second, it would slow the flow of money to the trial lawyers and grant recipients. There would be less money for the ever increasing budgets of police departments with their Ninja suited adrenalin junkies. Third, politicians would have one less program to exercise control over otherwise (for the most part) law abiding citizens. The drug war is about power and controlling people, not drugs. I am not advocating a nation of junkies. The big fear is that legalization will cause everybody and his brother to go out and immediately start smoking, snorting or shooting up their drug of choice. Alcohol and tobacco are legal now but there are millions of people who neither drink or smoke. If someone wants to use drugs they will do so regardless of existing laws. Life is full of choices. The answer that might make the most sense (don’t look for this to happen) is decriminalization. Spend the money that is being used to strip us of our rights to treat those who just can’t say no. Make it hard to be a drug user. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it has to be acceptable. All employers, federal, state, local and private sector are within their rights to deny employment to drug users by pre-employment screening and random testing. They also have the right to fire drug abusers who refuse to clean up. If you want to be a junkie in a low-end, low-wage job that doesn’t drug test, that’s your choice. No junkies on public assistance unless enrolled in a treatment program. If you get a check from the government they have the right to test you and kick you off for being a user. No disability payments for self-induced drug problems or injuries. You can be a junkie, just don’t expect taxpayers to foot the bill. No education assistance for abusers. Anyone getting student aid from private or public funds would be subject to loss of that aid for drug use. If you want to be an ignorant, uneducated stoner that’s your choice. No drivers license for repeat DUI offenders, booze or dope. You can be a junkie, just don’t expect intelligent humans to share the road with you. There would still be criminal activity connected to drugs but with less people in jail for possession and small time dealing there would be more room in prison for violent offenders. Stealing to support a drug habit is still stealing. Put the money now used to equip and train the “Ninja squads” toward prevention and treatment programs. Regulate the drug trade and tax it. Use the tax money for the prevention and treatment programs. Most of the anti-drug infrastructure could easily be adapted to do this. This would protect the jobs of the bureaucrats most likely to object to decriminalization. Again, the drug war is not about drugs, it’s about how much power we are willing to allow the government to have over our lives.
Planting small seedsPLANTING TIP: When planting small seeds (like tobacco) I use powder dribbler, (borrowed from the loading bench), it only drops a few seeds at a time. By using a piece of white paper as a back drop you can see the super small seeds dribble into the starter beds. It is fast and easy. I have used this method for years.
Dealing with ticksI write about your article on “Dealing with Ticks” March/April, 2000 issue. A little added info that is very simple, seems to work very well and very cost effective. I ran across this idea while taking a High Power Rifle Marksmanship course. In this course you were expected to lay on the ground in the prone position for 20 minutes or longer during one course of fire. This is done in prime tick country, semi west Texas (Mineral Wells, TX). To prevent ticks, our instructor told us to fill an old sock with sulphur and tie the top in a knot. While getting dressed, pat yourself with this sock, and pat your outer clothing once you are dressed. We spent many hours sitting, standing, and lying on the ground in areas heavy with ticks without a single tick showing up. Simple, very effective, and time tested.
George MasonHaving just finished reading “The Greatest American Who Was Never President,” I felt compelled to write to thank John Silveira, the author, O. E. MacDougal, his poker-playing friend (and astute historian) from southern California, and Backwoods Home Magazine for one of the finest articles about George Mason that I’ve ever encountered outside of a scholarly publication. And, as the Director of Gunston Hall Plantation, an institution whose mission is “to preserve, interpret, and promote this 18th-century historic site in order to educate the public about the international significance of its owner, George Mason, for his unique contribution to the universal cause of human rights,” I’ve had the opportunity to read most such articles. You and your readers may be interested in the fact we will be breaking ground this summer on a national memorial to George Mason in Washington, D.C., bringing broader recognition, at last, to an important American whose contributions to our system of government have for too long been overlooked. The memorial will be located between those honoring Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt, and appropriately enough it will be the first memorial in Area I (the monumental core) of Washington to be erected to an individual who did not serve as President of the U.S. The memorial to George Mason, like the man it honors, will be modest in scale. The central element will consist of a statue of Mason, approximately one-third larger than life, seated beneath a curving arbor and flanked by stone walls approximately four feet high and twelve feet long. On those walls will be carved some of Mason’s most enduring words. It was the words that Mason wrote and spoke, the ideas and ideals that they conveyed, and the changes they helped to spark that earned him the honor of being memorialized in such a prominent location.
Poison ivyI love your magazine. I don’t always agree with everything you say, but you have to tell it as you see it, not how you think all your readers will like hearing. One correction in issue 61, the Poison Ivy article; urushiol is broken down in the digestive tract of goats. Goats love to eat poison ivy and love to reach up in trees to browse. They will help to keep poison ivy under control, but also may harm the tree itself, so don’t let them eat it out of your orchard or ornamental trees. While the milk is safe, the person milking must be cautious if the goats have been browsing in poison ivy. Like dogs, the goats can carry the oil on their coats. I am not seriously affected by urushiol, so my preferred method of eradication is to pull it. I have to choose between dangerous chemicals or a rash. I mow it in the yard and it has disappeared. You have to mow about every week to keep the leaves off the plants. Once the grass fills in thickly, it will smother the ivy, so mow a few inches high to keep the grass in good condition.
Evolution ArticleI normally don’t write magazines, but out of respect, I’ve decided to write yours. I met BHM in a grocery store back during the “Great Gulf Shootout” ten years ago. I learned early on to respect the staff, both on the info they sent out, and also for their attitude toward our rapidly developing Empire. For personal reasons, I haven’t moved to a homestead of my own. My ideal would be a 6-10 acre plot outside of a town or small city. A town job for a modicum of “paperbux,” but an increasing reliance on the land and friends is my goal. Politically, I am “somewhere right of Genghis Khan” (ha-ha). Actually, I am either a conservative libertarian, or more probably, a libertarian conservative. Religiously, I am a confessional Lutheran. That puts me as being more conservative than the Moral Majority, but with a strong distrust of people using religious teaching to beat people into goodness. Religion works only when it changes your heart, not your actions. I must however chide John Silviera, but I promise to be gentle. In the Jan-Feb 2000 issue, he wrote a rather standard feature on “the origin of the earth”. For his effort, he was lambasted for heretical views, which is rather to be expected. He always gets in trouble in religious topics. Please don’t defend him with the old saw, “I’m only writing ‘scientistic’ facts”. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard Univ. is definitely not a religious nut, but even he admits the fossil record does not account for the beautiful pictures of “gradual evolution”. “Indeed most phyla appeared explosively.” The fossil record is, to be honest, ambiguous. No real hard evidence exists, only our puny attempts to play dot-to-dot games. So every origin-of-the-earth explanation is a religious treatise, based on faith in one source or another. One thing that saddens me is the reaction from readers. Though I disagree with John Silveira’s article, I would fight for his right to write it. Because in America, we should only fear enforced silence. I hope you can find a good writer like Erick von Fange or Dr. Whitcomb to provide balance. And for heavens sake, a Christian (me) always feels welcome in BHM. I learn like I once learned from John Shuttleworth, Jd Belanger and Robert Rodale. Please keep my friends coming; especially: John Silveira, Massad Ayoob, J. D. Hooker, Richard Blunt (I’m not sure in which order). I love your magazine. Don’t change anymore than you have to.
I would like to start by saying that I have enjoyed your magazine very much for several years, but John Silviera’s article in the Jan/Feb issue was way off base and obviously not based on modern scientific discoveries. Modern science has provided overwhelming evidence that the earth was “designed and created” and is in fact much younger than the myth of evolution would have us believe, so much evidence in fact that you would have to devote an entire issue to cover this subject. I realize that this is not practical so I would like to offer a few web sites and publications that offer the truth backed up by scientific fact. If you watch a video from Alpha Productions titled “The Young Age Of The Earth” you will see scientific evidence that the earth is very young. As an example a wooden dowel is turned to coal in a few weeks in the laboratory debunking the theory that coal takes millions of years to make. In a coal mine in Utah you can see pictures of a tree that has been turned into coal that runs through two of these layers that are supposedly millions of years apart. A website called “Jesus Dinosaurs and More” provides evidence that some species of dinosaurs still exist today, authenticated by eye witnesses, as well as scientific evidence that the earth was “created” not evolved. The Koininia House website “khouse.org” has numerous audio tapes that present modern scientific evidence from microbiology to astronomy that the earth was designed and created specifically for the human race in a much shorter time period than the evolutionists would have you believe. The parameters of these evidences of design in some cases are so precise that a variation of less than one percent would make life as we know it impossible. You have stated that you are not in the business of promoting religion or publishing religious articles, but I think that you should be in the business of printing the “truth” not theory that won’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.
Send in the Waco KillersDuring the late ’50s, when I was pursuing my college education, each book in the University Book Store contained a bookmark stating the price of the book, and the sage comment, ‘One idea in this book will repay you’, but in reverse order of my description. Truth to tell, I didn’t garner many ideas from those books. Learning, yes, sometimes useful and sometimes wasted effort. I get ideas from BHM!! The lady from Montgomery Center, VT, must have known someone from that town in order to have found that tiny enlightened spot in northern Vermont. I lived in the NE Kingdom for 16 years, skied Jay Peak a lot until I got into horses, spent many nights in Montgomery Ctr., and still have friends there. More to the point, “Send in the Waco Killers” defined happenings in our society that we’re aware of, put perhaps don’t see as clearly as we need to. The book fills in a lot of blanks. It’s a must read. Lastly, BHM as, in a sense, put me in contact with a group of people, a segment of our society, who are concerned, scared, angry, about the direction the U.S. Government is taking. It is out of control. I don’t like to think about it in this manner, but am afraid we may be approaching the time when it’s necessary “to keep yer powder dry”.
WebsiteHi, just thought I’d write and say how much I enjoy your website. Can’t manage a subscription right now but get a lot of good out of the website. That’s all I wanted so keep up good work.
Just wanted to let you know that you have an awesome web site…I never knew that warm fuzzy people also had a sense of humour!!! (I love the jokes section—as politically incorrect as they are!) As non-commercial as I am, your website has tempted me to find your magazine (after all, if your website is this good, your magazine must be outstanding!!)…
I am a long-time curmudgeon and brand new subscriber (just this past week). You might be amused to know that what really caught my attention on your website was the fact that you carry the columns of an old friend of mine (Walter Williams), a new e-mail acquaintance (Vin S) and many others I respect and enjoy. After reading a number of in-house editorials, I knew we were on the same wavelength. Combined with my desire to get out, my subscription was a natural. My own perspective is almost like that of Joe Sobran: the culture is inexorably broken at every level, and cannot be repaired in a secular sense. I see the cities as seething waiting only a torch to ignite them. After four generations of liberalism’s march to dominance, any place with a meaningful concentration of its (liberalism’s) product is a very dangerous place indeed. I feel surrounded by the ignorant, the ill-advised, and the entitled. Given the polity’s craven failure to challenge the corrosive welfare state (just the opposite in fact—they encourage it and welcome it with open arms), I have come reluctantly to conclude that things cannot be fixed in any meaningful way and a societal train wreck is inevitable. I only wish to be far from the accident scene. Hence my own strategy of leaving in a few years a post at the very pinnacle of a profession I love for the contemplative fulfillment (and safety) of life in the slow lane. Being near the top of the federal arts establishment food chain, virtually all of my colleagues view me, as a conservative/libertarian and contrarian, as an escapee for the X-Files. So be it. I wonder if they will think the same in ten years, when I am securely ensconced in East Armpit, VA and they watch the flames lick at the Logic-Free Zone (my own moniker for Washington DC that seems to be making the rounds of talk radio thanks to Walter’s stints on Rush and my buddy Brian Wilson, the libertarian talkmeister. Also, I think my friends Steve Moore and Doug Bandow from CATO use it). That all said, I look forward to gathering information from your publication in the coming years. Time to sign off, as I have real estate ads to plow through in preparation for our first serious exploration in the boonies.
CrybabiesI got issue #62 today, and as I always do, I dropped everything and sat down to do some serious I like the wind power story. I’ve been thinking about what it would take to set one up here. The wind never stops blowing on the NW Colorado plateau. I think it would work quite well. But the real reason I’m writing is about some of the letters people wrote to you. Have you ever seen more crybabies? I mean the homeschoolers bitch about John’s article on evolution. If God created our solar system 4.6 billion years ago, why did he wait 4.59997 billion years to inhabit it with humans? Maybe they should be teaching their children to think for themselves. The last thing this country needs is more sheep. Big brother would love that. I do stand up for their right to religious freedom, as long as they don’t preach to me. Hey—Bible thumpers it’s not just your magazine—get a life. And then there is the Hawaii haters. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure. Just because you guys had a bad time there, doesn’t mean it could be that way for everyone. You don’t hear me bitching about 6 months of winter where I live, or the fact that when winter rolls around, the town rolls up the sidewalks ’til May. When life throws me lemons, you’ll find me sitting in the shade, reading BHM, with as much lemonade as I can handle. I’ll just have to haul more water. Keep up the great work Dave, do it the way you want to. Don’t change a thing. P.S. If you print this…use my name unlike Joe Schmoe from Anywhere, OK who didn’t want to be identified because of what people might think, I could give a rats ass what people think about me. My opinion is the only one that counts. Self esteem problem? I think not!
Religious editorJust had to reply to Micheal Briggs letter (#61) concerning your need for a “religious editor”—Oh please!! I believe Dave Duffy has done his job—by starting this magazine and given us a forum in which to educate and learn from each other on Self-reliance and freedom. I can only guess at his struggle in the early years; in a garage with a new magazine to publish and a little daughter as his only help. How many deep nights he must have struggled, with his head resting in his hands—asking for help from a power greater than himself. I take serious offense at your (2) statement (religious bigotry at best) that others are not acquainted with the finer points of Christian religion. Go start a church. Point (1) if this magazine gets anymore balanced it’d be illegal. There are numerous Christian religious groups, compounds that might want your input. But—remember there was Ruby Ridge—David Koresh—they were minding their own business—religious and homeschooling. My Bible says that a man that fails to provide for his family is an infidel. BHM shows 1,000’s of ways to do that. Go pedal your hypocrisy somewhere else. The real spiritual talent of BHM is gone—it was in the form of Don Childers the art editor. He captured the spirit of our lives on paper. I’m a God-believing widow—Christians should lead by loving example, not force feeding beliefs—most Christian churches can’t even decide on doctrine or agree. BHM would fold up within 90 days—religious editor, Ha!! Thanks again for being what 97% of us need in this time, in this country of religious freedom, while some are left.
Time to honk backI have been watching the world for 4 decades now and I see a great deal of the mistakes we constantly make. 20 years ago we became worried about drunk driving. MADD went after the drunk drivers and raised awareness about the dangers of drinking. A mere 2 decades later we have the problem with youth violence. Instead of attacking the kids and their problems, government goes after gun dealers. Yes we need better awareness of gun safety and more than that we need humanity. But we did not outlaw cars or alcohol in the 70s so why are we so backwards and blind today? It is the minority who wish to disarm America, and we must remember a forgotten reason for having the right to have guns. We as a nation have been unscathed by war on our soil for almost a century (except Pearl Harbor). Why would anyone attack a country where each and every home might be a fortress unto itself? When we, the last great super power of the globe, are internally disarmed, we will become a target for all the world including our own government. Freedom will go the way common sense has over the last few decades. The press, politicians and special interest groups are such a small part of our nation, yet they make so much noise it is like a go-cart bullying a semi. I think it is time for us, the quiet and apathetic many, to honk back in their face. Yes, let them all know how you feel and what is really important, and let’s get back to doing what is right.
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