OPINION— When Don Zaidle called me in 2002, I had no idea what to expect. Don was a large, gregarious fellow, with a huge beard and shoulder-length hair, although he was bald as an egg on top. He reminded me of Grizzly Adams. He was also the managing editor of Texas Fish & Game magazine, and he opened the conversation with, “Hemphill, you write that newspaper column that irritates everybody, don’t you?”
I allowed that my column had, on occasion, angered some readers, but since those were always people who were wrong, I figured I was doing exactly what I intended. He said, “Well, I want you to write the same kind of thing for me. You can say anything you want. I don’t care who gets mad. I’ll back you up.”
What Don wanted was controversy. He was looking for a hatchet man, someone willing to address sensitive issues and tell the truth, no matter whose toes got stomped. He wanted a guy who wasn’t afraid to stand up to stupidity, even if stupidity was rich and arrogant, which it often is. It sounded to me like he wanted a sacrificial lamb. He believed I cared little enough for political correctness and delicate feelings that I was willing to wield the axe. No one has ever offered me a greater compliment.
[[{"fid":"41179","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)"}},"attributes":{"alt":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)","title":"Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)","class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"1"}}]]
Above: Kendal Hemphill, Ted Nugent, Don Zaidle, Jim Zumbo. (Contributed/Kendal Hemphill)
Granted, I toned it back. I make an honest effort to tell the truth without hurting feelings with my TF&G column, and I’ve made a far greater effort to be congenial in my newspaper column over the years. I do that because once people stop reading, my voice is gone. No use preaching if the pews are all empty.
But the truth is that I despise political correctness far more than I worry about losing readers, and if I don’t make an effort to change things I’m wasting my time. Almost all the bad things that have happened in my country during the past three decades have been the result of political correctness. Truth is stifled, lives are ruined, businesses are destroyed, institutions are toppled, and hate thrives because people are afraid to stand up and be accused of political incorrectness.
One of the best examples of this plague devouring our nation is the Boy Scouts of America. A decade ago the BSA organization was a bastion of Americana. Generations of boys have learned to become honest, clean, reverent, God-fearing men and productive members of society through Scouting. It was a Christian organization that taught Christian values, and it helped to fill a niche left by broken homes and absentee fathers. And now it’s dying.
The BSA, as a whole, has been descending the slippery PC slope for a good while now, but the grade recently became steeper when they decided to allow girls to join. Now, girls are wonderful, essential, valuable people, but there’s one thing they aren’t – boys. Girls can do a lot of things, but they can’t be boys. They can’t become boys, regardless of how they feel or what alterations are made. That’s a fact, despite what the PC crowd may claim.
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Allowing girls to join the Boy Scouts was certainly not the first step down the PC road taken by the BSA. Other poor decisions have been made, and membership has plummeted in recent years. There were 6.5 million Boy Scouts during the 1970s. The total in 2016 was 2.3 million.
Since I couldn’t understand why the BSA decided to let girls join, I asked a friend, who’s been a scoutmaster for decades, what was going on. He said the Girl Scouts have campouts, but the kids and their parents are not required to actually camp. They can visit the campsite, and then retire to a hotel for the night, and come back in the morning if they want. And if the parents don’t camp, the girls can’t camp, either. A lot of the girls want to actually camp, really honestly camp, so they want to be in BSA.
So this problem was caused by parents who are so weak, so over-civilized, so pathetically and embarrassingly and disgustingly wimpy (in short, such bad parents), that they won’t sleep in a tent a few times a year so their daughters can have fun and learn valuable life skills. This is a sad commentary on our nation, and humanity in general.
Parenting is not an easy job, and if people aren’t willing to make sacrifices they shouldn’t become parents. Mom and Dad have to put the welfare and development of their children above their own feelings and comfort. If your job or your house or your car, or a good night’s sleep, is more important to you than your children, you don’t deserve to have children.
Now the BSA isn’t even the BSA anymore. The directors have officially changed the name to just ‘Scouts BSA.’ Allowing girls to join was an effort to boost membership, but it will, in fact, have the opposite affect. The Mormons have already announced they will pull out of Scouting and start their own organization. Others will follow suit, and before long the once-proud Boy Scouts of America will fade into obscurity. Another fine and honorable institution beaten to death with the nail-studded bludgeon of political correctness.
I’m glad Zaidle didn’t live to see it . . .
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Comments
Good thing the BSA is dying out, with the direction it's decided to go... There is an awesome up and coming group that has stepped up to fill the shoes that BSA left behind called, "Trail Life USA". Trail Life has a many troops in Tx, the nearest to us being in Abilene. Boys, and young men thrive when these experiences are present in their life!
https://www.traillifeusa.com/
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PermalinkTrail Life is in San Angelo. Troop 44 sponsored by Cornerstone Christian School
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PermalinkIt's not updated on their site yet I guess, but that is good. Some people would fall apart if we had to go back to basics and live off the land again, the skills that can be passed from father to son and from organizations such as trail life, are one's that will always be valuable.
If the internet shut down and the economy crashed, folks would be flocking to those who have these skills, either to attempt to take by force or to live at peace with them for survival.
You may watch a video on how to do all manner of survival techniques that pertain to the wilderness, but youtube is no substitute for relationships and experience.
I may not have a degree in higher learning, but the things that I do know about in the wilderness are extremely valuable assets to my family and, every chance I get to teach them to another person, I take... You never know when you may need a bowline or a half hitch... You may need to start a fire with wet wood, or collect water safely from cactus in a pit with some plastic.
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PermalinkPolitical correctness, the moral intoxicant of the idle and psy-op weapon of the powerful. My first two articles here dealt with this topic, and the "everyone's a winner" offshoot of this plague. Another piece I did, dealt with the impending vilification of casual, flirtatious, male and female interaction. Since then, these types of movements have spiraled into arenas of ridiculousness, that would escape the cognizance and projections of humanity's most astute pessimists.
In this instance we're seeing one of the many sour fruits of political correctness: Misandry, the supposition that masculine traits, imagery, instincts and innate condition of anything "male" is seen as "aggressive", "brutish" and in some cases, "criminal". Men who display a sheepish, passive attitude towards life are lauded as virtuous. We're told that men who are readily willing to identify with their female counterparts, rather than objectively recognize and appreciate the differences are somehow above the fray, and socially superior to the knuckle draggers, with their fanciful assertions of cultural and biological gender roles!
For years, it was men's intelligence that was continuously berated. Virtually every shitty, Hollywood cookie-cutter production and product advertising campaign was (and still is) saturated with misandrous attacks on men -- fathers, sons, brothers, boyfriends, we're all just bumbling fools who are lucky enough to be at the mercy of whatever benevolent goddess wishes to take us in and tame our puppy-like retardation.
Anyone recall a trailer for the movie ''Bad Teacher"? Cameron Diaz plays a late 30'ish, indifferent, crass, party-loving teacher. See, having an irresponsible, bad influence around children is adorable -- so long as it's a cutesy female Cameron Diaz. In the trailer, during a game of dodgeball, Cameron hurls a ball into the crotch of a male student -- because it's hilarious when females assault male genitalia, right? Would such a film had done as well (or seen the light of day, for that matter), if Michael Madsen drunkenly stumbled his way around a schoolyard, cursing and hurling balls into the pubic region of teenaged female students? The outcry would be deafening.
A more current example of our socially acceptable, femi-nazi climate would be a certain insurance commercial, where a woman is seen tossing out (what we're to presume is) her boyfriend's belongings. The commercial's narrarator eludes to ridding of things which aren't needed, as the next shot pans down to the street, where we see our male patsy, pacing in bewilderment at his meager belongings being nonchalantly hurled out of a 2 story window and destroyed. Again, gender roles reversed, would this be as comical, or would this man find himself at the bottom of a cop dog pile within 10 minutes?
Lately, we've moved into a different phase of misandry. Men are now not only mentally inept doormats, but are dangerous, too. It was only a matter of time, before we'd go from "men looking at my tits makes ME uncomfortable" to "men looking at my tits makes THEM criminals". We'd hear terms like "eye rape" and the hilarious command of "don't sexualize me!". Enter the "me too" charade: every average, unsuspecting male who has the misfortune of working with or among the cackling "cry wolf" types, has to tip toe through his workday, for fear of an unchecked masculine impulse getting the better of him . . . like the horrific prospect of complimenting a woman, or asking her to join him for coffee.
The hoards of ''me too'ers'' and other feminist dregs are now resting their laurels, they've ingrained the desired image within the fabric of American society, and are now raking in the notoriety and influence, as they cross their fingers that soon the rest of us will lose the ability to differentiate between sexual assault and some idiot hollering out "nice ass!".
Blurring the lines between the sexes, gender fluidity, the absence of distinctive, inalienable roles and differences among the two sexes -- it's artifice, and in mankind's never ending, egocentric battle against Nature, Nature always prevails, if ONLY to present itself as a temporary thorn in the side of PC'ness.
"God says...", "Granddaddy thought...", "tradition says..." -- Nature laughs.
We'd do ourselves a favor, seeing through the veil and recognizing exactly WHO stands to gain from pushing the myth of universal equality and misandristic agendas. Sure, perpetually fearful, docile men are easy to control, and all the better if their passions are curbed and drives stifled. Real men shake things up. Men question, challenge authority and butt heads with authority if needed to initiate change -- something certain powerful factions among us simply do not want.
Let's see what it's like sending young soldiers off to war, after decades of pussified Lefist indoctrination, where their adversary either shames them into surrender, or sends them looking for the nearest "crying closet" or basket of cuddly puppies.
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PermalinkWhat does this nature that you speak about consist of? Because as far as I can tell, you have given us here no definitive basis for your theory of these "Natural", passions and drives. You are quick to "take" what you like about human characteristics and attribute it to "nature", so tell me, how did these natural attributes get inside of us apart from God making us in His image?
I may not like to post long, and uninteresting rants that aren't even directly for the "masses", but as long as you spew out nonsense Lares, I'm going to ask you to back it up. I will do all the research I need, to pull apart your theories, which are weak at best, because you give no foundation for those beliefs.
What does Lares think the origins of life are for this natural mankind, what is the history of this nature, that can be pointed to and examined.
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PermalinkI've found that while talking to people of your ilk, any potential for a rational or cordial exchange of thoughts and ideas is nearly impossible. No one's paying me to tutor you, even if they were, I'd bet my last dime you'd gain nothing from the experience.
See, the burden of proof if not on me, in respects to this "God" you so conveniently whip out when you're at a loss for words. People know Nature exists, simply by observing the world around them. You on the other hand, would just as well dismiss the mechanics behind Nature and kill the entire discourse by peppering the discussion with....well, nonsense.
Scientific theory supports the "foundations" of all which is examined in Nature -- reliable accounts of the living world. Your God, as omnipotent as he's said to be, cannot even make the cut to stage one (hypothesis) as there is no observable phenomena to cite to even begin to entertain the notion of his existence.
I could throw caution to the wind and make a genuine attempt at going into the facets of human behavior, perhaps even site an evolutionary adaptation which alludes to the theories of why we do X,Y or Z, but again, if I'm offering a forthright, good faith effort at a civil discussion and all I can expect in return is "because God says so" or a cut and paste job, I feel I've been cheated.
There are countless educational materials on sociology, anthropology and human psychology. You might find some of the material interesting if you weren't so adamant that everything you needed to know was contained in your little book of Jewish fables.
I'd prefer to keep a civil discourse, but if we've moved into the arena of "pulling apart theories" and "things which can be pointed to an examined", trust me, an exchange of this kind will not be very sympathetic, to you or your imaginary friends.
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PermalinkI'll hand it to you Lares... Not all Christians will engage in an in depth discussion... Try not to hold it against them, they are after all just like anyone else... I have to laugh at the idea of you wanting to be paid for tutoring.
Please wait as I cut and paste from my Bible... Romans 1:20-21- 20. Ever since the world was created it has been possible to see the qualities of God that are not seen. I'm talking about his eternal power and about the fact that he is God. Those things can be seen in what he has made. So people have no excuse for what they do. 21. They knew God. But they didn't honor him as God. They didn't thank him. Their thinking became worthless. Their foolish hearts became dark.
In verse 20 of the above reference, God is plainly stating that the evidence for him is visible throughout all of nature...
Honestly, you're lying to yourself and everyone else if you think the burden is on me to prove God's existence, He's already done that, the burden is on you to look objectively and see what He's made known. This science that you speak of actually does more to support a "creator" than it does to say that all happened by random chance.
Observable evidence of God? How about Mt. Sinai, the top of which is still burned black today from when God gave the commandments to Moses... Or what about the evidence of a global flood? The grand canyon shows more signs of having been the result of a singular catastrophic flood, then it does signs of millions of years of water flowing. What about Carbon 14 being found in dinosaur fossils that are said to be "millions" of years old... Carbon 14 only has a 1/2 life of up to 10,000 years give or take a year or 2. Scientists are still finding "flesh" that is "squishy" in these fossils, which, even if well reserved, couldn't possibly remain in said condition over millions of years. Then there's D.N.A., It couldn't have put together to form human life randomly... It too, points to intelligent design... How about you debate each of the points I just used here and "prove" that what I claim is false.
Never, has a single instance of "something, popping up from nothing", occurred in recorded history.
We haven't even began down the road of all the extra- biblical evidences that have no reason to support biblical claims, doing exactly that. The historicity and authenticity of the bible have more supporting evidence than any other book in the world... What is your response to that claim... It has to be true or false... It's not a matter of faith or opinion.
I don't write to be discourteous, I just can't stand to listen to your ideas, most of which are gleaned from biblical principles and then twisted. You still haven't answered how you have a basis for morality without a "universal" source from which that morality was gleaned. Without God, you don't have an excuse for the way that you feel when you see evil against a loved one, or any various other atrocities... If were just natural beings, then why are you so upset at people following that natural course?
I prefer to be cordial as well, but you make some pretty outrageous stretches for your claims and I would enjoy really digging into these topics because I'm confident that you won't be able to confidently defend your claims when we put them to the test.
Debate my claims and offer supporting evidence with links to follow... I haven't linked anything because you asked me not to, but I can and surely will, I don't have a P.H.D. but I can read and think for myself and I've take the time to review both sides of the argument... I'm sure of which side has more evidence, I just have to fight through the weak theories to show anybody... It's not me who is avoiding these specific topics and running with nothing more than a " I just have faith that God exists", argument.
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PermalinkHow old is that picture with Shyt stain Nugent? He was supposed to "dead or in jail" if Obama won re-election. This Hemphill guy should write about the end of honor and the clergy.
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PermalinkPosting a good ol boy image with pants-shitting draft dodger Ted Nugent while championing this relic, I'm sorry bastion, of Americana reduces your credibility to zero.
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PermalinkHyde has heard this one.
So two boys on night shift start a discussion. The conversation gets deeper and deeper. The Colonel walks into the room with his left Hand raised above his head.
The boys ask the Colonel what’s he doing?
It’s a good watch boys, my daddy gave it to me, this is my only hope to save it from how deep all the bullshit is in here.
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