Let's Talk

I would like to open up this message board to discussion. Let’s hear what you think. Since no one is reading this board I feel free to ramble on.

For my part, the movie had me thinking in many different directions. Initially I dismissed these people as white trash for the way they treated the land around them. Dump all their refuse on the land, light up an automobile (whatever pollutants that leaves).

Then I looked at those kids and felt anger. Teenagers usually rebel and these kids most likely will want to join the world around them some day. Their parents are giving them the skills to be excellent hippies and maybe excellent skills at inner peace, but they are going to compete very poorly in “the other world” if they someday want to leave the Mesa.

Then it occurred to me that these aren’t normal people who just tired of the rat race that they dis. There are thousands of small rural towns that they could have settled in that are so slow paced they would bore the *beep* out of most people. These same towns live and let live. Haven’t any of these people been to the hundreds of small towns in the “hollers” of Appalachia? No, these are people that are socially maladjusted.

Then I thought of them as a bunch of phonies because they claim to be so self reliant, yet they couldn’t exist without the nearby townies they look down on. They rely on the town for hauling water, they rely on the oil companies to drive their vehicles, they rely on the food donations, they rely on social security, they even rely on the companies that make the paper they roll their joints in.

Then I thought about how these people have a great capacity to love. Love their children, love their ex-wives, love their neighbors, and most interestingly, love their country.

Then I thought about the judicious use of firearms they practice. The way they treated those Nowhere kids, whom they could have blown away in an instant, was remarkable.

Then I thought about how they had it right on when they point out with clarity that our current governmental system is light years away from what the Constitution intended it to be. (For better and for worse). I asked myself, if the great minds of Jefferson and Franklin were to rise out of the grave and spend a day talking with the Board of Directors of Bear Stearns and a day talking with these folks on the Mesa, which would they better relate to?

I came away with the conclusion that these self absorbed, maladjusted dirty hippies may just well be the best damned patriots the USA has.