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Observations

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Hi Folks, it’s ole Jim here; finally home. My bride and I just returned home from a seven week, 4,559 mile trip in the RV to visit children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The trip took us through sixteen States: FL, GA, TN, KY, MO, KS, IA, IL, IN, OH, WV, PA, MD, VA, NC, and SC. Such a trip through so many states has left me with several observations of  our country and its citizens, or let me just say our society at large, and I thought it may be interesting to some of my readers to share some of my observations.

First, our roadways suck. With only one exception the Interstates are in such horrible shape it is dangerous to drive on them. That exception is OH; theirs are literally wonderful to drive on; I did not have to dodge one pothole on the entire East/West length of I-80, while on some of the other state’s major roadways the potholes were so big and deep one could easily blow a tire or break an axle. What those states are doing with their fuel tax revenue and federal funding has to be secret.

Secondly, I have traveled a lot throughout the country for many years and I have never seen so much truck traffic. Goods are definitely on the move. There were times where I could look across to the other lane and see nothing but a sea of semis, one behind the other for miles; hundreds of them in both lanes. Perhaps that’s why the Interstates are in such bad shape, but then why not OH since I-80 was the first time I noticed the plethora of trucks.

Thirdly, I refuse to accept anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, bitching about the price of gas. Everybody is complaining that gas is too expensive. Well, if they think it is, why not slow down and try to get the best miles per gallon as you can? On Interstates, I drive 60 MPH in the right lane, even though the speed limit is 65/70. Why? Well I am driving a 26,000 LB vehicle while towing my 2,500 LB Mini Cooper behind me. My 6.7 L Cummins engine’s sweet spot seems to be 1600 RPMs (60 MPH), which gave me 11.4 MPG. Plus, I don’t have to look at both mirrors, except of course when passing a merge lane where those folks who got their license at Walmart’s do not know what that upside down red triangle “YIELD” sign means. I am only doing 60 and the speed limit is 70, yet they cannot step on the gas to get into the flow of traffic. Since I’m bigger I simply ignore them and their blaring horns and watch them run onto the shoulder. I know I will catch hell from some for saying this, but trust me folks, more often than not they are young women.

My travels were probably about 50/50 on Interstates and state/county roadways. I can honestly state that I did not pass a dozen vehicles during this entire trip. That includes non-Interstate roadways. I DO NOT SPEED! If the speed limit is 55, I drive 55 and I do not care if a line of idiots begin to form behind me. I refuse to pull over and stop 28,500 LBS so they can speed while bitching about the price of gas. Think about it. If you are on a 200 mile trip and you drive 60 MPH, you should get there in about two hours. If you drive 55 MPH, it will take you ten minutes longer, and will probably save a gallon or two of gas. I am in no hurry, if I were in an emergency situation such as taking my wife to the ER, I would have my “emergency” flashers on and I would push the speed limit as long as it was safe. Otherwise, I obey the speed limit. In my home state of FL, I am the only one who drives the speed limit and believe me I do catch hell for it from blaring horns and obscene gestures from the idiots. How dare I drive the speed limit! We have the worse drivers in America because they all came from up north.

I’m an observant driver and you want to hear something funny? I noticed so many people driving 20 miles over the speed limit with their windows down in 95 degree temperatures. I guess they think they are saving gas by not running their AC. LOL

Fourth, drivers of all makes, models, genders, ages, race, ethnicity, religion, etc. are horrible, ignorant, inconsiderate drivers who must get in front of the one in front of them no matter the costs. They drive as though they own the roadway and could care less about anyone else. I mean it is horrible out there folks. I literally had folks pass me, pull right in front of me, and hit the damn brakes to merge off an exit. The only ones who have any patience and are considerate are the truck drivers. The majority of them are still polite, and like me, are wary of all four wheelers. I would not take a long trip in a car. I feel safe driving our RV as I am sitting up at the height of the truck drivers so I see far out in front of me thus allowing me to anticipate what the idiots in front of me are about to do. And I don’t tailgate; I can’t since everyone is going faster than me. LOL I’ve never seen so many horrible accidents on the Interstates, which of course caused us numerous delays while they policed up the body parts. I often doubted if anyone made it out of the multiple car carnage alive.

Fifth. Construction is going on everywhere. Building, building, and building in every county, town, and city. Massive buildings, condos, homes, factories, shopping centers are going up everywhere. I have never see so much construction, and my home state of FL is one of the busiest!

Sixth. At every turn all we saw were “Help Wanted,” Hiring,” “Need Help” signs on store fronts, fast food places, factories, etc. Every proprietor and owner is looking for employees. Every semi-trailer has a “Drivers Wanted” sign on the back offering all sorts of benefits and wages. Many even offering to train free of charge to get their CDL license. I mean, damn, why is the unemployment rate so high when everyone is looking for employees? LOL, Of course we all know the answer to that question.

One more thing. We Floridians know which license plate adorns the cars with America’s worst drivers – NJ. Those folks could care less about anyone else! They all got their license’s at Walmart or maybe Wendy’s because they do not know how to drive. Oh, they might know, but could care less about you and me.

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts of having travelled through so many States. Personally, the one thing that bothered me more than anything is the state of our society—it sucks. People simply do not seem to care about anything or anyone except perhaps their own close family. Oh there are exceptions, and I consider myself one of them. Despite everyone else’s arrogance and ignorance, some of us continue to be considerate and polite toward other drivers Thank God we made it home safe and sound!

It’s great to be home! I will never do this again. If kin want to see my bride and me, let them come to FL.

 

Originally posted 2022-09-01 14:17:58.

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Independence Day – Really?

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Another thought-provoking message from Greg. We have so much to think about this 4th of July, but in today’s society I fear that many folks will think of nothing but hamburgers, hot dogs, pop, beer, and a day off from work, that is for those who are working and not  taking government handouts. Meanwhile the “silent majority” sleeps.

 

Freedom’s landscape

By: G. Maresca

As America plans to celebrate the nation’s birth by taking inventory of the hotdogs, hamburgers, soda and beer, the most treasured and esteemed American stock lies forsaken along freedom’s continuum.

In his seminal work, “Crisis and Leviathan,” economic historian Robert Higgs argued how in the 20th century the federal government grew as a result of three crises: World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. In the 21st century, you can add 9/11 and COVID-19 to the list. During those crises, the federal government went about raising taxes, instituted more spending programs, and added to their arsenal more regulatory power.

With the heady combination of 9/11 and COVID, the government continues to fester as America devolves into Gotham City. I was reminded of this during a recent trip to the airport. I was not flying, just dropping off, and still had to remove my shoes, empty my pockets, and go through a full body scan in order to escort my daughter to her departing gate.

What Benjamin Franklin, our first self-made American, said over two centuries ago certainly resonated: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

As we traversed the terminal there was a sketching of the top ten skyscrapers in the world. The U.S. has only one on the list at number six – the Freedom Tower in Lower Manhattan – that was supposed to fill the void left when the World Trade Center met its untimely fate on 9/11. A generation ago, America had all ten.

Besides the overwrought airport security courtesy of The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I couldn’t help but wonder what other things have been compromised all in the name of security in a time of heightened emotions “where something must be done.”

Never underestimate governmental mission creep.

Enter the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, TSA and an emboldened National Security Agency and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts that illegally spies on more than three million Americans, and this is according to that leftist fortress, The New York Times. Not to be dismissed was America taking on the costly role of being the unwanted landlords of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Government’s resulting muscle has grown too penetrating and too concentrated. Many throughout the federal bureaucracy are overly determined to inject this power into all aspects of American life. Proposals for more legislation, regulations, and interventions is akin to treating a poisoned patient with more poison.

Solving problems caused by too much government with more government is no answer.

Evidence of this can be found in the latest Gallup poll where only 19% said they trusted the government “most of the time.” Juxtapose that to the same 1958 poll where nearly 75% said they trusted the government to do the right thing “most of the time.”

Government has devolved into a centralized religion telling houses of worship to close, while giving abortion clinics the green light to remain open during a pandemic. Government bureaucrats sell voting and vaccines as salvation while indoctrinating America’s children through public education.

The government has banned God in the classroom, the locker room, the public square, public buildings, and ignores His teachings when writing its laws. Observing constitutional limits that does not provide for a “right” to abort an unborn child is depicted as violating “women’s rights” when the left cannot or will not define what a “woman” is.

The country is on a suicidal path culturally and taking our freedom along for the ride. The Founding Father that would not be surprised: Franklin.

On September 17, 1787, as the delegates departed the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Franklin was asked what kind of government the convention had created. Franklin famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Franklin also remarked how “freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.”

Freedoms ceded to government are rarely regained.

On the cusp of celebrating America’s independence, the nation is fighting a cold war with itself that has most Americans wishing for a sense of normalcy, but at what price?

Originally posted 2022-06-30 09:18:52.

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Looking for the Ideal Retirement Home?

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Found one just for you.

Come on down and bring your gun(s) with you.

Originally posted 2022-06-21 15:59:51.

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SICK SOCIETY

If you do not think we live in a sick society and getting sicker by the day watch this video and look at what this hit and “tried to run” driver got for a sentence. Lord I’m glad I live in FL You poor soles who live in CA, need to get the hell out or suffer!!!!!!!!

https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-da-gascon-sentence-teen-mom-infant-video

Watch the whole video and be sure to read about the other Dirtbag who claims to be a woman.

Originally posted 2022-06-03 19:18:27.

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Life Has No Meaning Any More

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If anyone doesn’t think or believe we have become a third world sh*thole they are living under a rock. How can we ask for God’s help to re-right our once beloved country when we have killed millions of His unborn children, and continue to do so daily?

As for the mass shootings, I don’t have the full answer, but a step in the right direction might be for the federal government to outlaw the production and sale of todays video games that are all about shooting humans. For those parents who allow their young children to play those games, do not be surprised if he/she grows up to be a disoriented, disconnected human being who has no feelings for the value of  human life. You are the sick ones . My children were born and raised before those awful games were available, but you can bet your sweet bippee had they been around they would not have been allowed in my house. SICK, absolutely SICK!

Have you listened to the music your children are playing their ears phones? I doubt it. We are a country of no morals, no conscience, and surely no empathy for one another or the sanctity of life.

The part of Greg’s article in red is mine not his.

 

Anesthetized America

By: G. Maresca

It was nearly halfway through the class I facilitate on violence prevention that the massacre in Uvalde, Texas finally came up. I was beginning to wonder if the subject would ever be broached as we simply had picked up where we had left off from the previous class.

It was quite telling.

America has been anesthetized over the past generation to the cancer of mass shootings. And as much as the media wants to turn it into a racial issue, they can’t overcome the facts that the latest shooter was Latino, the Brooklyn subway gunman, Black and the Buffalo triggerman, White.

The insight these incarcerated men had went far beyond any critical media talking points. The group consists of long-term guys who, despite their predicament, have a sober understanding of the issues. On “gun free zones” they collectively viewed it as just another soft target begging for trouble. In jest, it was suggested that those who favor such things need to post a sign saying so in front of their homes.

The class is well acquainted with the nonstop howling about gun control and how it provides a perfect excuse to cloak the failures in recognizing and dealing with society’s real and mounting social problems. Anyone who believes more gun legislation will end mass shootings refuses to see the big picture. Ban guns yet the evil remains, and so do the guns but in the hands of society’s villains.

We have a crisis of fatherless homes more than a crisis of too many guns. We have too many enraged and directionless young men, where the root of the problem lies in the breakdown of the nuclear family and a depravity of traditional morals and values.

Most of the men in my charge come from such homes.

More anti-gun laws will not end mass shootings, nor heal these deep-seated social problems. Advocating for “action, any kind of action,” as Barack Obama suggested will not solve the problems that penetrate the American soul.

Author James Howard Kunstler summarized: “This is exactly what you get in a culture where anything goes, and nothing matters.” Many young men are living in what Kunstler describes as an “abyss of missing social relations” with “no communities, no fathers, no mentors, no initiations into personal responsibility, no daily organizing principles, no instruction in useful trades, no productive activities, no opportunities for love and affection, and no way out.”

Then we pile on social media for peer-pressure, and conceit, while remaining reluctant to report any fringe behavior for fear of reprisals.

When I was questioned by the group, I suggested the root of the problem lies in a Supreme Court decision made nearly 50-years ago: Roe v. Wade. The group seemed incredulous, at first.

Our culture does not value the sacredness of human life in its most innocent form – in a mother’s womb and yet we wonder why things are imploding. When I questioned them on how many lives abortion has claimed in its “legalized right” of a 49-year run, the highest guess was one million – 64-million souls short.

Is this not mass murder?

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Chicago experienced its most violent holiday in five years with 10 killed, and 42 wounded despite increased policing. Other than the members of my class, few will mention this or the carnage going on daily throughout the Black community. The Left could care less about Blacks killing Blacks as long as it is kept in their neighborhood.

Leftists refuse to acknowledge most murders are committed by Black and Latino gangbangers, not by White dues-paying members of the NRA, the ones Obama dismissed as “clinging to their guns and their religion.”

Banishing God and prayer from the public square, abortion, broken families, a war on morality, ubiquitous pornography, violent video games, movies, and music has nothing to do with gun violence. To suggest otherwise, gets you not only cancelled but assigned your share of the blame.

Firearms are not the problem. In the hands of heroes, they are often the only solution.

The exceptionally violent are a small percentage, but those who believe that life from conception to natural death is equally sacred remains just as small.

And that is the true tragedy.

Way to go Chicago, another great weekend huh? Ain’t it great that you have the tightest gun laws of any city in the U.S. How’s that working out for you?

PS, How about the latest news about  NASCAR’s woke moves? Never was a NASCAR enthusiast, so I don’t have to worry about it. But I’ll bet there are lot of enthusiasts who giving the organization a second thought.

Originally posted 2022-06-03 12:57:35.