I admire Travis Haley not only for his combat experience or shooting prowess, but his principles. In this video he challenges people to educate themselves and shares some of his personal experiences to show why the 2nd Amendment is worth fighting for.
If you are contributing to the anti-gun hysteria, then you need to watch this video, please. It will show you that not only are guns not the problem, but rifles are most assuredly not the problem by looking at actual data. Facts. Not emotion.
I am not going to get involved with this debate because there are many people who are much more qualified than me with better stated, logical argumetns. If you are anti-gun (i.e. for increasing gun control), then please read this article. I know it is long, but stick with it and see if it helps you actually think about the topic instead of having an emotional reaction to it. Let me restate: if you are anti-gun, then I beg you to read the above linked article. If you’ve received benefit from 70sBig.com, then read that article to pay me thanks.
The above article spends some time talking about the real, and much more important, issue: the 2nd Amendment. In one sentence, the 2nd Amendment exists for Americans to defend themselves generally speaking, yet up to a tyrannical government. The Bill of Rights doesn’t exist to simply give Americans rights, but to protect them from their government. After reading and watching John Adams (by David McCullough, which I intend to write about here), I have a much better understanding and appreciation for what type of government our founding fathers — who are infinitely more intelligent than all Americans in government today — wanted to exist then and now. For more on the 2nd Amendment and what anti-gun legislature would mean, read this article.
I’m honestly shocked at the absurdity of anti-gun arguments. Whether we’re talking about the right to self defense, the clear statistical showing that removing guns doesn’t accomplish any good, that criminals inherently do not follow the law, or the neutering of the 2nd Amendment, none of it makes any logical sense.
If you actually want to do something to protect the 2nd Amendment and general gun rights, there are two things you can do. First, you can join the NRA. They are one of the strongest lobbying powers and tirelessly work to defend the 2nd Amendment — which is incredibly important to upholding the constitution now and in the future. Second, you can write your local congressman and state senators. Look them up on Google and note that you can write to both of the senators, but you’ll only write to the representative of your district. If this sounds like too much time, then I have given you an outline letter below (be sure to edit it to say Congressman or Senator, whether or not you are/were in the military, and whether or not you are a concealed carry weapon holder — I’ve put the items in question in brackets). If you write your own, it should be concise, have proper grammar, include your stance on the issue, and make clear in a respectable way that you will hold them accountable with your vote. I think you should also thank them for their service. Being a politician is probably a trying career, but if you hate politicians, then it’ll boost their ego to help you out.
To whom it may concern,
My name is [YOUR NAME] and [I am a concealed carry weapon permit holder in your district]. The recent publicized shootings throughout our country have created paramount hysteria leading many to believe that the absence of firearms will reduce violent crime. This unfounded claim absolutely infringes on the 2nd Amendment, an important right imparted to defend national sovereignty, quell insurrection, and protect against tyranny.
I realize, [Congressman/Senator], that I do not need to lecture you on the delicate importance of protecting the Constitution[; as a military service member I have also sworn to defend it]. I trust that you will do your part in maintaining the 2nd Amendment, and you may trust that I will hold you accountable for it come election time.
Thank you for taking my e-mail into consideration and for your dutiful service to the United States of America.
Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]
In the last two days I read “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl — an Aushchwitz survivor. It’s only about 160 pages long, but it’s the single most important book that everyone should read.
Frankl wrote this book a year after being released from Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp during World War II. The first half of the book recounts his experiences while in camp. Frankl doesn’t do this to display the atrocities of the camps, but to to support his method of psychotherapy called Logotherapy, a technique that essentially results in the patient/person taking control of their situation as opposed to being told how they feel (like in Freudian or Adlerian psychoanalysis). The second half is an essay explaining the utility of Logotherapy, but is actually “the life lesson” section.
I suggest reading the 2006 version as it includes an additional forward and afterword to go along with Frankl’s preface and postscript (which he wrote decades after the original book). On the second page of Harold S. Kushner’s forward is a summary of one of the most poignant concepts of the book:
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.”
–pg X
The other important concept is helping people discover the meaning of their life; Logotherapy essentially puts meaning to people’s suffering. While Frankl had developed Logotherapy in theory and practice before the war, Auschwitz helped him learn the final method of discovering the meaning of life.
“According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1) by creating work or doing a deed; 2) by experiencing something or encountering someone (love of experience or a person); 3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.”
–pg 111
The parenthesis are mine (he explains each point detail in the pages after). People who are void of these things are in an “existential vacuum”, a term essentially meaning they lack meaning in their present life.
One of the biggest lessons from Frankl is that the meaning of life is relative to the time and situation you’re in. It changes! That concept never occurred to me as Western, or maybe even American, society is always pushed towards having a singular purpose. In Auschwitz, Frankl survived at different times by thinking of his wife or feeling the need to re-write his Logotherapy manuscript after the war. Later in life he did not suffer and his continued work on Logotherapy became his meaning.
What a person is experiencing will dictate what they consider their “meaning”, but it’s up to them to restructure their thoughts to provide meaning to that situation. Logotherapy is like Gandalf: it just gives them a push in the direction of figuring it out on their own.
And so Frankl provides purpose to people. Many argue that man is just a function of their heredity, biology, and environment (Frankl even points this out about Freud, who Frankl interacted with and learned from before the war, and says something along the lines of, “Thank God Freud didn’t see the concentration camps from the inside!”). Logotherapy reminds me a bit of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in that it creates healing through re-structuring a person’s mindset. But while CBT is systematic with a possibly dogmatic approach, Logotherapy merely gives a man perspective…the kind that says, “This is up to you.”
“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”
–pg 131
In a society where personal responsibility seems to ebb away daily, Frankl states that man inherently has responsibility for his actions. The world may not be black and white, good and evil, yet man can make a decision on how black or white his next act will be. Man has the ability to provide meaning to his existential vacuum through work, love, or courage. And when a man lacks the gumption to define that for himself, Logotherapy is there to give him a nudge in the right direction.
Read this book. It may be the difference between plodding aimlessly through life as a neurotic or embracing purpose, a meaning.
I give this book a 10/10 rating.
I was searching for something on my computer when writing a consultation recap, and I came across this document that I wrote when I was 21. The author is a naive and presumptuous atheist who may have the standard slice of “young person pseudo-intellectualism”. At the same time, I keep learning the truth to these words every year. The foundations of 70sBig.com existed at least five years ago.
July 8, 2007
10:43 PM
I look at America, and I am certainly proud of where it’s come from. I am not, however, proud of where it appears to be going. There are glaring, large-scale problems that need to be addressed as a society and as a government. I’m not here to discuss such matters, but I believe there means that can lead to an improvement in dealing with such problems.
Americais lazy physically and mentally. Americans are spoiled to the point that when they are faced with a certain kind of problem or obstacle, it stresses their mind and their body. This lack of activity, in regards to physical and mental effort, is crippling our attempts at continuing to be a prosperous, glorious nation to live in. An interesting trait of America is that a person does not need to have a care in the world for their government and what goes on around them—they are simply able to live their lives. Yet I ask, just because a person can live their life without such cares, does that mean they should? I believe not.
But how can a nation of over three hundred million people start to suddenly care about their law, intelligence, government, and way of life? It’s extremely difficult to change the habitual behavior of an individual, so three hundred million people would seem nigh impossible.
This is where health steps in. Health isn’t defined by your weight, your body fat, or your heart beat. Health is being of sound mind, body, and spirit. There are plenty of overweight and obese people in our country, yet there are far more unhealthy individuals. Unhealthy, stressed individuals wreck their families, wreck their bodies, wreck their cars, and wreck their lives. Stress can contribute to anything from mental disorders to heart failure. The control of such stress should be high priority for many, yet is widely neglected. It’s neglected much like physical activity. The sedentary lifestyle is bloating Americans to vast proportions.
Have you been to a beach lately? Or any large tourist attraction? The overweight and obese individuals outnumber the average or skinny individual in gigantic proportions. Americans can spend less, earn more (in a fulfilling sense), and ultimately be rewarded with longer, fuller lives if they simply take care of their bodies.
So, what? People need to slim down and get control of their stress? It seems like negatives such as inactivity, increasing stress, and lack of care feed off one another. The solution of so many lazy people is to take the easy way out: medication. You’re stressed? Take this pill, you’ll feel relaxed. You’re overweight? Take this supplement and video, you’ll lose weight without effort. These types of things just reinforce the notion that a lack of effort is not only OK, yet it is encouraged.
I’m sure you have heard of a downward spiral, yet have you considered an upward spiral? It’s possible to turn these absurd mindsets to a more positive ideology. It’s possible to grasp the notion that with some effort and care, people can fix these problems—and problems they are. A combination of stress relieving, exercise, and spiritual acceptance can lead to a truly healthy individual.
When a person exercises, they can control their physical health, preventing countless types of disease and medical problems. They also begin to influence hormonal change in their bodies which in turn helps reduce stress. When a person practices further stress relieving, they can limit or rid the body of stress. When a person achieves these things, and finds acceptance with their existence (in whatever way seems faithful or logical), a healthy individual is produced. It’s certainly not an easy process, yet it should be everyone’s goal. And by everyone, I mean the three hundred million people that live in our country.
The question may fall back to, “What’s the point?” My point is that when we have a population that is in total health, or at least on their way to being in fuller health, then life can slow down for everyone. With slower life, there can be an open mind. With an open mind, there can be thought. And I beg your pardon, but I think thought would be a bold occurrence in this population.
Who knows what can happen with such thought. Maybe there would be a larger forum for opinions. More opinions would mean more caring. More caring could lead to a continuation or transformation of society. Maybe there would be acceptance of all individuals. Maybe there would be a realization that things—and I understand this term is vague—can be better. Maybe there will be (gasp) progress.
Progress certainly isn’t a quick solution. It isn’t a pill or a supplement that will work over night. It will take effort, it will take action, and it will require work. I have said that I don’t want to plateau in my life, and I don’t believe anybody should.
I firmly believe that the first step to prosperity is making an attempt at total health. Total health can improve individual quality of life. If you can improve individual quality of life, then you make a shot at improving the quality of a population. If you improve a population, then you can improve a nation. If you can improve a nation, then you can prosper. Imagine, just for a moment,Americatrudging forth firmly through the future with a strong body, ample mind, and renewed spirit.
Someone explain to me how the FUCK someone can not know their pregnant until it’s falling out?
I love crazy dreams. The only dreams that ever truly scare me are the ones where something bad happens to my dogs. I’ve had at least five very vivid zombie dreams and woke up thinking, “THAT WAS AWWWWWESOME!”
Last night’s dream got pretty intense.
It started randomly, as most dreams do, with me in a vehicle on a street. There was a large building across a concrete court yard to my left. 30 yards behind the vehicle or so was a back alley with a lot of stuff obstructing the sides (so there was a lot of room to hide). I get out of the vehicle and AC is stomping towards me, fuming mad. Apparently I was supposed to be watching his vehicle with his stuff in it.
I shrugged his anger off as an irrational reaction and started to return to my own vehicle when I heard shots fired in the alley behind me. I turned and ran towards the area. The walls of the alley were only about eight feet high, and the weather was overcast in the evening time right before dusk. I rounded a corner to find AC dead in a pool of blood. I immediately drew my pistol (in real life, it’s a little sub-compact 9mm, a Glock 26).
I turned to the right to see the back of a larger, taller guy. He turns around and I say something like, “Hold it.” I see that he has a gun in his hand and realize that he is AC’s killer. He just stared at me without saying anything, and then I saw his gun hand start to rise.
I fired a round and kept trying to pull the trigger again, yet the trigger stayed depressed. It’s the same thing that occurs if you fire an unloaded Glock — you have to rack the slide in order to reset the trigger on the striker fired gun. The trigger stayed depressed and I couldn’t fire it again. I don’t even know if I hit the guy, but it didn’t matter. He raised the gun and sprayed me with a machine pistol, which fanned rounds up my chest.
I turned and ran despite the wounds and was trying to work through the gun malfunction. Things get hazy at this point because I started to wake up, but I remember that there was another confrontation about to occur. The last thought was of AC’s lifeless, bleeding body.
I have various things to post here about, but here’s a link to a story about a guy in Texas who shot a crazy asshole who had killed two people and two dogs. I hate dog killers. The TL;DR is that a normal gun-owning citizen shot an insane murderer who was in a shoot out with a single police officer. The good guy citizen shot the bad guy asshole with a pistol from over 150 yards away.
As a gun owner, I’m on the side of supporting gun rights, especially since crazy assholes, criminals, or people planning to be criminals (like the Aurora shooter) are not going to follow the law by not getting a gun if there intention is to use a gun to harm other people. Disarming good citizens won’t stop the bad ones from being fuck heads. Have you ever seen anyone do drugs? I have. Hard and soft drugs. It’s illegal, but these people, who are good citizens outside of their “illegal drug use” are still obtaining the illegal materials. In other words, the presence of a law doesn’t mean that it actually accomplishes something. A bad citizen certainly won’t have any qualms about obtaining illegal materials to do bad things.
Once more into the fray
Into the last good fight I’ll ever know
Live and die on this day
Live and die on this day
The Grey is the type of film that gives me hope for Hollywood and the film industry. There is a constant barrage of crappy movies that are superficial and meaningless. Even movies that have potential end up failing due to horrible writing, vapid plots, and even worse acting. Liam Neeson and The Grey are set apart from this crowd.
Neeson plays another one of those “tall and somber” characters in the midst of an extraordinary set of circumstances. While travelling home to Anchorage from the northern oil fields, a plane goes down in the Alaskan wilderness. Neeson tries to lead the survivors while they are being hunted by what can only be described as dire wolves.
That’s all that I’ll share about the plot, because I hate spoilers just as much as smith machines. The story may seem very basic, but there’s an underlying theme of emotional struggle that peaks through. However, this movie thrives on thrilling suspense. There are moments of such ball-busting intensity that made my palms sweaty while I leaned forward in my seat. Expect blood and death.
The plot isn’t void of characters, and it thrives on the interpersonal relationships of the survivors. Catastrophic events change people, bringing out the worst and best in men. That’s what this movie is all about; man’s ultimate struggle for survival. Whenever I watch or read these stories, I always wonder how I would function or react in similar scenarios. It’s impossible to know whether we will be sniveling fools or fighters until the death.
Great stories will leave you with something. I love that lasting feeling or impression you get when the credits start to roll. Sometimes it isn’t what you want, but you can always glean a lesson or a theme from it. The best stories drop their themed bomb right at the ending, and The Grey does this powerfully. I highly recommend this thrilling survival movie for both it’s entertainment and teaching quality. It’s one of the few movies out today that isn’t a pile of shit.
There is never a more boring or pathetic group of people than those that get offended easily. Writing for a website that has daily postings means I need to entertain if I’m going to educated. I’ve tried to simply educate without the entertainment, and nobody gave a shit.
I’m not a perfect writer, but I know that good writing, in an editorial sense, requires the injection of opinion and personality to make it readable. Having a voice is important in all writing, and I obviously have a voice. I’ll eventually write topics or make quips that (lightly) harass a certain population, and I never seem to get over the fact that there is an overreaction.
You see, people overreacting is one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m ashamed when I rarely do it, and it bothers me when other people do it. The marathon post immediately had a response of people whining and bitching, which only proves the point of my post (especially when they repeatedly demand that I complete a marathon). People getting offended happens throughout life, but you’d think that this generation would be used to it since the internet is full of free ideas. Groups like religious people, homosexuals, women, and racial minorities are always quick to cry out when their feelings are hurt.
I have an older brother who is developmentally disabled AKA mentally handicapped AKA retarded. The last adjective right there is a derogatory term, but I don’t get my panties in a wad when someone says it. Or if someone makes a joke about actual retardation, I don’t get defensive and lash out. It’s because I’m not immature about it.
When people get offended, they don’t simply just voice their opinion (which hardly anyone gives a shit about), they also completely misinterpret the original point. I absolutely hate having to do this, but I feel like I have to put this tagline on anything I write: This doesn’t necessarily apply to every single person in this type of group, but it applies to a high enough percentage where I can say this and it be true more than the majority of the time. In other words, everything I say doesn’t always apply to the exact circumstances of every individual.
The fact that I have to break up my writing just to make that point is so god damn annoying. Months of that happening with the female posts led to this freak out (ironically an overreaction, but I think being subjected to illogical assumptions for months warrants this kind of behavior):
In light of the recent Ronnie Teasdale shit going on in CrossFit, I also want to point out that I’m not ever hurtful or bigoted towards these populations (because I’m not a hurtful or bigoted person). If I write a sentence about evolution, it doesn’t warrant panty wadding. If I make the point that women cry periodically in the gym, hearing the opinion of every woman who allegedly doesn’t cry isn’t necessary. But I’m not blatantly insulting these populations.
There’s a difference in being a dickhead and making a light joke or a common generalization about a population (like men, females, runners, yoga doers etc.). If I was actually being a dickhead, then I could understand the cries of outrage. But I’m not, and there are far worse things in the world than saying, “managing to run for 26 miles isn’t impressive”.