Common Ground

[mr_dove]

I was sitting behind a volvo with some liberal bumper stickers today. I grew up with hippies and ultra-liberals as a child. I started thinking a bit my hippie friends and realized that many of us have some things in common with hippies.

Keep in mind that i grew up on a commune. The kinds of hippies living in this kind of community as not necesarily the kind that many of you have been exposed to.

The real true-blood hippies that I know are very much into into self-sufficiency. They typically believe that you should rely on yourself and on your community but not on the government. My own father is 100% self sufficient. He grows his own food, raises some lifestock to eat, built his home with his own hands, etc.

Most of them are for smaller government. They believe that the government is corrupt and doesn't provide the kind of utopia that they are looking for.

They believe in personal freedoms. There's a strong value placed on freedom and being able to live your life how you choose and without any interference from government (or society for that matter).

There are obvious differences as well because hippies are seeking a utopian society where there is no violence and everyone lives at peace with nature. While its a noble goal, most of us here don't believe that its possible.

What other common ground do we share with groups that are primarily anti?

 

[Andrew Rothman]

The Minneapolis woman posing as an anti-gun group calls herself "Minnesotans Against Being Shot."

I can get behind that.

 

[No_Brakes23]

As my sig suggests, I am very much into personal freedoms and the bill of rights. That gives me some common ground with a lot of groups that for whatever reason have their brain-housing groups firmly ensconced within their rectal cavity concerning 2a rights.

I would get behind the ACLU if they spent more time supporting 2a, and less time supporting things that are actually not freedoms.

I find that people from Oregon and Vermont tend to go against common perceptions about politics. Maybe its that woodsmen thing.

About your assertation that "real" hippies are different, I agree. Upper-middle-class brats who are hippies just to piss off mommie and daddie are not the real deal. Unfortunately that is what we see, and I too catch myself all the time uttering the phrase, "effin hippies."

A similar thing happened when I visited the kibbutzim in Israel (Specifically Nof Ginosar, on the Galilee.) Here we have communism in action, but somehow it is nothing like the USSR, PRoC, or PRoNK. Communes seem to work great at the civic level for farm communities. Now Israel did it more as an early warning system and buffer against attack, but it was a form of communism that was working.

Back on topic, I believe that 1st and 4th amendment issues are very important to both firearms enthusiasts, and those whose politics cause their hearts to bleed. Likewise, the SCotUS decision in favor of imminent domain will find devout Christians who only eat right wings off the chicken and leftist blissninny aetheists on the same side of the issue.

We are after all, all humans, and certain things like oxygen and water and happiness are universally accepted as good.

 

[garrett1955]

volvo worlds safest cars, worlds dumbest drivers!

 

[Standing Wolf]

There are obvious differences as well because hippies are seeking a utopian society where there is no violence and everyone lives at peace with nature.

I certainly wouldn't object to any of that. I doubt we could achieve such goals very soon, but they're worthy goals.

 

[Monkeyleg]

mr_dove, the real "hippies" I knew back in the late 1960's were very much focused on self-preservation, anti-big government, and the possession of firearms.

The latter was due to the idea that Nixon, Hoover, and even the local law enforcement officials might come down hard on them.

As the saying goes, "you ain't paranoid if someone is really out to get you."

My problem with these folks--and I've stayed in contact with them over the years--is that they've since embraced gun control.

When J. Edgar was trying to go after them, they armed themselves. Now that most of these folks work for local government agencies that do nothing more than rip off the taxpayers, they toe the big-city Democrat anti-gun line.

I remember one party at a "community house." There were Black Panthers, card-carrying Communists, folks who thought Communists were too moderate, big-time drug dealers, and every other contingent you'd expect.

There was more hardware present there than I've seen at most IPSC shoots.