My well being depends upon you to engage 'it all'

[Ninurta]

Communist behaviour, to me, is seen in both of your political parties, just look up the corporations the Trump government has bought stakes in, hey, but that's for another back and forth in the shoutbox.

Being a part of RN, I would hope I can express my ideas and be challenged with logic and facts and not attacks. We will see how that goes once, or if, DI bites the dust and RN gets flooded with people who may hold resentment.

I just think nobody knows what anybody else is going through in life, so why get so riled up about something that none of us can control? Why not attack the source not the messenger?

West Virginians seem to have different ideas of what heaven is or can be?

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I try to stay away from the grosser political labels, like "communist" and "fascist" and "nazi" and "bolshevik" because to me those terms have very specific definitions that seem to no longer apply these days - they have become, largely, simply pejoratives void of the specific meanings they once carried. In that endeavor, I am a supreme failure, because it seems that people HAVE to have labels for what they do or don't like. It's more the definitions of those labels - or lack thereof - that I tend t take issue with. They are often applied to subjects that they don't bear any relationship to. When I do use them, which is way too often, I have those specific meanings in mind, whereas most other folks don't, so the message gets lost on them, lost in the general noise.

I am solidly against "public-private partnerships", because those are the very definition of fascism deployed by the likes of Mussolini in the early to mid-20th century. The antithesis, back then, was "communism", which I also abhor. In communism, the political structure tends to follow the economic structure, and that is one of top-down planning and assignments, often in conflict with what any particular individual WANTS - the State will tell them what they want, and they'd best get happy with it.

Either way, they are both just form of totalitarian collectivism, so, really, the same thing in different flavors. They are related brothers, and like most siblings, they have no problem fighting one another like cats and dogs.

What you mention is the heart and soul of RN - the exposition of ideas, with counters to those ideas devoid of personal attacks. As long as I live and breathe and have access to it, that is the way it's going to be. I have a hand hovering over The Big Red Button for people who cannot control themselves and debate the topic rather than the debater.

Yes, West Virginians have a different sense of what heaven can be. While not technically a West Virginian, I do have deep roots and strong ties there. Half of my ancestors came from WV, I still have living relative both progenitors and progeny living there, and I have a stake in WV that no one can take away. I also live pretty close to the border of WV. The people in the area of Virginia where I live have a common culture with West Virginians that is entirely at odds with the rest of the state if Virginia.

We are, generally speaking, a polite people. That's because instances of impoliteness are apt to gather one a serious pop in the yap, or worse. So, we do tend towards avoiding unpleasantness of that sort. Everyone has bad days,and on those bad days, there is always someone around who can and will turn it into a bad week or a bad month for you if you let your wagon get ahead of your horses. So, most of us try to maintain some degree of self-control and decorum. Being friendly is much better than being all bruised up.

We are a "backwards" people in the eyes of most modern outsiders, and really we wouldn't have it any other way. That's one of the things that sets up apart.

For generations we have left these hills in search of our fortunes, but invariably we almost always return, usually some time in our 50's. We have to get out there and knock around a bit in order to realize that we ain't lost nothing out in the world, and everything we really ever wanted - once we get past the drive for riches and whatnot - was actually here all the time. Both of my parents left Appalachia in "The Great Migration" northward following World War II. But, when the hills got to calling them too loudly, they came back home with us kids in tow, so this is where I actually grew up despite my Yankee birth.

Dad grew up in WV during the Great Depression, and learned how to get by on nearly nothing, lessons which he passed on to me. I grew up with hit-and-miss electricity, and no indoor plumbing. We had the proverbial "little shack out back", and the bathtub was a big tin affair that hung out on the side of the house, which had to be brought in and water heated on the stove for baths. We had wood stoves for heat, and a wood cooking stove in the kitchen, so if the electricity went out, it wasn't that big a deal.

I grew up hunting for what parts of my supper didn't come out of the garden, with Dear Old Dad counting my shells out every time I left the house, and telling me there better be a piece of game coming back in for every missing shell. That habit came from his upbringings during the Depression.

Mom grew up here in VA, just after the Great Depression. Her pa was a coal miner, who started working in the mines back in the days when mules were still used to haul coal carts out of those holes in the ground I have a Great Uncle who died in a mine explosion about 1000 yards from where I now sit. Half of my family for the past two hundred years is buried here, in a little cemetery on the ridge about 1100 yards from here. 

So, my roots run deep in this area. It's the culture I was raised in, and the ground my ancestors are planted in. How could I not return when I discovered the outside world had nothing real or tangible to offer? So I too came back in my late 50's.

I'm hillbilly to the very bone, and make no apologies for it... but I do try to be polite, even in disagreement, because I hate taking an ass-whoopin'!

Lest anyone thinks I jest or am telling "tall tales", here is a picture of my Dear Old Dad from back in the 1970's, plowing up some garden ground with a horse (really, in this case, she was a Shetland Pony), using a plow to do the job that we made ourselves out of iron pipe and sheet steel for the plow feet. In this image he's cutting the furrows to plant the corn, beans, and squash in. Nowadays, since I have no horses, I do the same job with the corner of a hoe and some patience:



For better or worse, that's how I grew up, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

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