My father was perhaps much wiser than I gave him credit for when he was alive. Like many of us as a young man I felt that I knew better what was right in the modern world.  For better or worse he almost always turned out right and I always turned out wrong.  I do not know to this day how that was possible, but it was almost always the case. 

I will freely admit that many of the things he firmly held would be called politically incorrect today. That doesn't make him wrong.  The older I get the more I see where he was right and today's world wrong.  Freedom was high on his list.  Not the freedom to do what you want, but the freedom to be left alone as long as you did not bother anyone else.  Go figure.  The older I get the more valuable that becomes. 

He swam against the current of most of what society was teaching me.  Society taught license, I learned responsibility.  Society taught tolerance, I learned discernment.  Society teaches emigration, I learned about the distinct American Culture.  Society taught interference at home and abroad, I learned to mind my own business.  

Perhaps the biggest thing I learned is that government mostly wants to make us dependent upon government by talking about our rights but not our responsibilities.  After all someone who is responsible can take care of himself with help from God. Only government can take care of the irresponsible.