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[hughver]

Sorry for getting off track here...

At this point in time, I trust very few politicians. I firmly believe that public education, the msm, and social networking plays a huge role in this.
Before the WWW, we had to get our news from reading papers that actually did some research, and a handful of tv stations. Back in the day, folks mostly did some research for their own benefit. It actually took some effort, and we were better off for it.

Todays 'smart phone' is more powerful than the computers that put us on the moon.  The advent of the WWW has made it far to easy for folks to just believe what they read/see. Few bother to actively explore any other side of an argument. 'If my friend posted it on face book, it must be true because he/she is my friend'. If the topic is posted long enough, it becomes gospel.

What our nation is experiencing today would never have crossed our minds 50 years ago. We had 30+ kids on a classroom and there was no free lunch program. You brought yer lunch or paid for it (no discounts for whatever reason). We had a rifle club at school that met every Friday at the metal shop classroom. I could ride my bike down main street with my .22 rifle strapped on the handle bars. No one blinked an eye. Heck, they probably wished they were going with me. We got hacked for being disruptive in school, and the schools made the parents aware of the transgression and the penalty. When we got home, we usually faced the same 'awakening'.

Today, PC has run amok. We enact laws for the benefit of .001% of our population. It's ok to disenfranchise 99.99% of the population now. Where I'm at, we will soon have the option of placing an x on the birth certificate instead of m or f. I kid you not. When the child gets old enough to figure out what they relate to, they can change it.

What happened in such a short amount of time to create the conditions we live in today? I would venture that personal accountability is right at the top of the list, followed closely by not holding folks responsible for lacking the concept.

Todays world is all about feelings in the US. 'You hurt my feelings'. 'You hurt mine first'. 'My feelings are more important than yours'...

Politics.

Great diatribe but you probably just insulted 43% of the country’s population and have another 37% that agree with you. The other 20% are somewhere in between or are waiting to see what the majority does. Those who agree with you will applaud, those who disagree will curse and those in the middle will tell you how you’re both wrong. Which goes back to my earlier point, let’s talk about pellets.   

[Kristin Meredith]

Yeah and 50 years ago -- 1968 -- women could not be astronauts, nor could any person of color.  They also were kept out of law schools, med school, business schools, law enforcement and most "advanced" career choices were limited to teaching and nursing.   There were no women or folks of color in the Senate or House of Representatives and women in the military pretty much were limited to the nursing corp. African Americans were actively kept from voting or holding positions of responsibility and authority in a lot of states and Hispanics in the SW states were openly discriminated against.  Women could not go to any military academy -- even though those places were publicly funded -- and they accepted virtually no men of color.  Judges at every level were nearly 100% white males.  And I could go on. 

Folks thought young people had no respect because they were protesting the War in Vietnam.  Society was going down the toilet because they were smoking pot and did not have the appropriate respect for their parents and authority -- remember the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968?  What about the Weathermen and the Black Panthers?

And I don't have a problem giving hungry kids a free lunch and even a free breakfast.  We are wealthy enough as a country to help the youngest and most vulnerable in our society.

Sorry, but every society, every generations has problems and issues they face.  There is always good and bad -- and that dates back to the early Greeks and Romans too.  And there have always been lazy thinkers and folks who want to drink sand and believe it is champagne. That is why history is filled with charlatans and con men.

Is everything perfect now?  No, but it was far from perfect in 1968 if we take off our nostalgic glasses and look at things they way they were and not how we want to remember them.

[Bentley]

And this is life, and American AND YOU DONT HAVE TO BE IN THIS THREAD UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE!  So I never understand why folks want to impose THEIR system of what should be discussed on others... Its simple, stay out of this thread if it get under your skin.

I will roll the dice on this type of thread destroying this site...it is worth it to me!

Those who agree with you will applaud, those who disagree will curse and those in the middle will tell you how you’re both wrong. Which goes back to my earlier point, let’s talk about pellets.   

[Bobitis]

This is exactly what the WWW has done to any conversation at hand.

It's far too easy to misinterpret the written word on a screen. It's far too easy to make something that was never intended into a battle field. It's far too easy to insert another argument in a topic that has nothing to do with the discussion.

I will admit to the above.

[MysticRhythms]

This is exactly what the WWW has done to any conversation at hand.

It's far too easy to misinterpret the written word on a screen. It's far too easy to make something that was never intended into a battle field. It's far too easy to insert another argument in a topic that has nothing to do with the discussion.

I will admit to the above.

This is exactly the reason that i don't comment much on the internet. I am an educated, well read, open minded (mostly) person. For some reason a large percentage of what I have written on the web has been misinterpreted by a significant chunk of the people that have read it.

Quick story:
During my short, ill fated flirtation with offset stick burners I was a member of a forum. I had seen many comments and conversations about lump charcoal so I decided to try some.
After reading hundreds of posts I happened across some at a local store so I bought it. It was terrible. So I made a post asking whet is the big deal about lump? I honestly was just looking to see what I was missing.
The site exploded. I had bought what most of the people there considered to be the worst lump in the history of lump. I had no idea, I saw a brand I recognized and bought it. I didn't know at the time that the reason I recognized it was due to it's poor reputation.
Things got so heated that I asked the mods to close the thread so that new people didn't happen upon it and be put off by the fighting.

I know that most of the issue was the fact that "people suck". But at least some of was due to my inability to properly word my post in print. If the whole group had been gathered together in person it would have been an entirely different outcome.

But the good thing is that is what pushed me toward finding a solution that I didn't know existed at the time - pellets!

I also found some lump that is really good. Don't use it any more - it won't fit in my PG500.