Alaska: One of the Last Conservative Frontiers

Two weeks ago, I decided to get away from politics, work, and people and planned a two day trip to Juneau, Alaska to photograph landscape and majestic wilderness. It was during this excursion from politics that I realized that Alaska is not only the last frontier for vast wilderness but it is also the last frontier in constitutional, patriotic, and conservative values.

An Alaskan lifestyle is what every patriot dreams of having here on the mainland. A second amendment that isn’t challenged, the right to openly wave the American flag proudly, and where conservative women can escape feminist liberal ideals held on the mainland. The Obama administration have fought diligently to strengthen gun laws and to work towards bending the second amendment to their advantage for over two years. In ultra liberal states, these attempts at stricter gun laws have been successful. As conservatives, we have come to expect nothing less from the liberals and their majority states. But there is something that sets Alaska apart even from its fellow conservative states on the mainland. In Tennessee, according to the NRA-ILA, you have to obtain a permit to carry a handgun. Even in the great state of Texas, you have to obtain that same permit to carry that same handgun. Don’t get me wrong Tennessee and Texas are pretty comfortable with the second amendment, but when you look to Alaska’s law a permit is not required to carry a hand gun you see a different picture. One might ask why is Alaska more adherent to the right to bear arms than its conservative counter parts Tennessee and Texas? While Alaskan citizens cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the police to fight off a perpetrator and a simple hike in the woods requires a weapon of protection against wild animals that they would encounter there is a more important benefit to keeping this amendment in tact. By keeping the guns in the hands of its citizens and not allowing the second amendment to be bent, the state of Alaska is keeping gun regulations out of their states. By following their example, the mainland states have a better chance of keeping our guns, our second amendment rights, and can prevent the loss of any other rights that would follow the seizure of the second amendment.

In Florida, a Veteran had more than one battle with his homeowners association over the display of an American flag according to a report by Fox News Insider on June 14th of this year. Another veteran who wanted to display his flag everyday instead of just the Fourth of July was threatened with fines by his homeowners associations if he did not take the flag down. With the help of many supporting patriots and neighbors his battle was won. But the war to show our American pride with our flag wages on. Fines are issued and people are forced to take it down. Yet during my time in Juneau, Alaska every time I turned around I would see a flag–outside businesses, in the center of downtown, and inside classrooms. I was also happy to see houses adorned in the red white and blue. One house even had three flags on it. I felt like I had stepped back in time when we loved our country and were proud to show it. It was just as refreshing to witness this display of patriotic love as it was to see the mountains and great glaciers Alaska has to offer. It brought me to the conclusion that even though citizens that reside in Alaska through a separated peninsula, they are more connected to the patriotic colors of our country than many that live in the other forty-eight states of the mainland.

Conservative women battle liberal women like a bad cavity. The use and abuse of our gender by women of the left make us have to work harder to obtain whatever position we choose in life. As conservative women, we believe we have many roles in this world to choose from and do not rely on government aide to fit into these roles. We aren’t ashamed to be stay-at-home moms, breadwinners (as long as we are not with a liberal couch potato), and successful businesswomen. Some of us use guns for hunting or protection or both. But here on the mainland we battle our counterparts for being the all of the things mentioned above. Christine Cunningham, who wrote a series on women hunters of Alaska, describes women in her article Women Hunters of Alaska as self-reliant, independent, and thoughtful. That is a description that fits the lifestyle of a conservative woman. In Alaska, all of these are required as a woman to survive and be successful. Is it the wilderness that shapes women up? Sarah Palin is a strong example of this and what women better represents the modern conservative than Palin herself. Whatever the secret is, I hope it’s contagious and makes it way outside the wilderness and past the borders of the mainland.

As time goes on and we continue to fight the bonds of liberalism and pseudo socialism here on the mainland, it is refreshing to know that Alaska not only holds the last frontier of wilderness and wild, but it is the also last frontier of a conservative world that is being fought to be taken away from us on the mainland. If Alaska can hold on to the second amendments, show pride in our country’s flag, and allow women to be freed from the bonds of feminism then the other forty nine states are without reason to allow any of these to be taken away.