Lock and Load

On the Auto Industry 'Bailout'

2008-11-19T09:57:00.003-07:00

Not to put too fine a point on it, but does anyone in the lamestream, drive-by media possess the integrity to place the blame for the 'big three automakers' going down the tubes where it belongs? Autos were more fuel efficient before they became mobile computers with platinum exhausts (have you priced platinum lately?). Government interference - in the form of mandated seat belts (a law that clearly and specifically violated Amendment XIV - we are not the 'property' of the State to be dictated to) and air bags (the mechanical kind, not mothers-in-law) and rapacious trial lawyers suing everyone but the individual responsible for a preventable accident have ballooned costs (and every cost to the auto maker is recouped in spades by cost to the purchaser). And leave us not forget the unions, whose absurd 'demands' for $35 per hour, guaranteed jobs for high school dropouts turning lugnuts onto wheels - plus an equivalent amount in 'benefits' - has driven the price of 'basic transportation' beyond the price paid for a house only a few years ago.

Before demanding our sympathy for all the jobs to be lost if the government fails to shell out a few billions extorted from the populace for corporate welfare, perhaps the unions might ponder on how their greed led us here. Perhaps that selfsame government might consider that its illicit nanny-state policies pushed us down that path. Perhaps, of course, before that happens, we might also be overrun with pixies, faeries, unicorns, honest politicians and similar fictional creatures.

What Makes Us Different

2008-11-17T22:28:00.002-07:00

The following was originally written to a supporter, disappointed that I wasn't elected, regarding what we, as private citizens and Americans, 'can do'.

Unlike the Europeans, we have the 'tools' to resist subjugation - by 'invasion' or by legislation - whether or not we have the will to use them is another question. Unfortunately, it's not only muslims that get 'special privileges' here - they're handed out to blacks, to women, to union members, to any self-described 'minority' that agitates determinedly enough. In effect, the descendants of those 'old, dead white Europeans' are the niggers of today, and too many welcome it.

For the rest of us, there are the 'four boxes of freedom': The soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and finally, if necessary, the bullet box. Those of us who can take the first and drive whomever we can to the second - which is why I'm at every gun show. AZCDL was in some part responsible for Arizona turning more conservative while the country made a hard left this election - we're more effective, apparently, than the NRA - but we need to convince our friends and neighbors to band together in 'pressure groups' - formally organized ones or not - to hold our elected representatives' feet to the fire and realize that they work for us, and if they violate their oaths of office, they will lose the office, or worse.

Rather than continue the sermon this is turning into, I'll summarize: Now is the time to start working to find and support candidates for 2010, to organize, and to begin contacting your legiscritters to let them know what you expect of them, and the standards to which you intend to hold them.

More Hypocrisy - From the 'Right'

2008-11-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

The latest conservative plaint is that we need another Reagan, a 'great communicator' for this generation. It would help if they came out of their ivory towers and listened.

Far be it from me to pretend to the mantle, but the reaction at 'Republican' meetings and the 2008 Gun Rights Policy Conference are anything to judge by, my 'G-d, Guns and Guts' harangue has energized a crowd or two, and my presentations on the Bill of Rights (or, as it has in practice become, the 'list of permissions') to national and international Mensa conventions have garnered respect - and in some cases, understanding - of the document across the political spectrum.

Coupled with the failure to listen, the 'party' - at national, state and county level - is afflicted with tunnel vision, focusing on 'electable' candidates rather than taking a broader look at candidates at all levels who represent the ideals they pay lip service to. In Arizona's Legislative District 27, taking no public funding and running a one-man campaign on under $1000, I pulled almost 20% of the vote against two well-entrenched and well publicized incumbents - burying the ultraliberal who outspent me 20-to-1 and garnered just over 5%. What 'help' did I get from 'the party'? What publicity? What money? What, are you kidding?

It wasn't just me - Gene Chewning, running to unseat the meskin street thug misrepresenting Congressional District 7 since it was formed, had democrats clamoring to sign his nominating petition. He actually had the chance to unseat an incumbent unpopular with his own party, with a little support. Unfortunately, the county party adamantly refused to acknowledge the 'importance' of any race not against the one-term incumbent in CD 7. I like and respect Tim Bee, but there are two CDs - thanks to the gerrymandering redistricting pen - dividing not only Pima County, but the city of Tucson, and one of them, in the eyes of the Pima County Republican 'leadership', apparently counts for naught...as do any State Legislative Districts the headquarters building is not located within.

If the Republican party is to continue as a viable organization, without repeatedly shooting itself in both feet, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and most of all, maintain some semblance of its founding principles, it's time for a correction - forcibly if necessary - of its current cranio-rectal inversion.

We're Back

2008-11-06T19:57:00.001-07:00

Been a while, but campaigning for a seat in the State House tends to take up a little time.

I have some bad feelings about the way the national elections turned out, and frankly, I think the Constitution is in for a rough time over the next few years. Whether or not it survives, especially in its depleted state, is an area of grave concern, but whether there is the will and the means to allow it to survive is a greater one.

The fact that we now have the first President 'elected' by the media is a benchmark that brings no pleasure to achieve, nor is the fact that while the campaign raised an appalling amount of money, almost half of it was from countries with interests inimical to ours and donors like 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Dick Tracy'. Unfortunately, there will be no investigation, there will be no accountability, there will be no reason for an equally unscrupulous individual to repeat the felony, as the new coward-in-chief enlarged on those of the administration of the last days of the XX Century. And leave us not ignore the 'voters': I personally witnessed 'volunteers' wearing 'acorn' and 'move on' identification at two bus terminals 'registering' the homeless and non-English speakers by filling out, and in some cases signing, the forms for them. Any investigation? Not with a Governor who'd prostitute herself for a position in the administration.

The President-elect's positions are clear - everything he said, everything he did, everyone he claimed as friend and mentor show him for the lying hypocrite he is. I have, and have always had, the greatest respect for the office of the Presidency - more than the individual preparing to fill it - but as of the moment, only contempt for him and those who saw fit to elect him.

Sorry for the lack of eloquence, but (see first paragraph), I'm tired.

The More things change...

2008-09-03T00:30:00.002-07:00

Almost two and a half centuries ago, as the hand of a government far removed from its subjects systematically deprived them of the rights granted them by a far higher power, a handful of brave and honorable men drafted a document which altered the course of history. Today, a regime even further removed from its citizens and demonstrably more oppressive levies taxes far higher than those rebelled against; more arbitrarily imprisons its citizens; denies more fundamental rights and with force or threat of force relegates those rights to privileges, revocable at whim. A nation subjugated by its employees, a nation with borders so porous as to not exist, a nation whose elected representatives have ceded their duties and responsibilities to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, a nation perverting its very charter is no longer a nation, but a satrapy in bondage.

Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That the repetition be positive rather than chaotic, fruitful rather than destructive, herewith:

The unanimous Declaration of the fifty united STATES of AMERICA,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a nation to dissolve its governing body, established under the aegis of a written Constitution which they have taken solemn oaths to uphold and protect, and to replace it with a government faithful to the letter and spirit of such Constitution, recognizing the separate and equal powers so clearly delineated, so clearly defined and explained, respecting the rights and liberties of the People which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the dissolution.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these joint and several States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their present Government. The history of the present Legislature, of the present Judiciary, of the present Executive is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

They have forbidden Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, superseding such Laws clearly within the dominion of the individual State with federal dictates in clear opposition to the desires of the citizens of such States; and far in excess of the Powers and Authority clearly specified.

They have enacted other Laws for the accommodation of large classes of people, granting such people inordinate Representation in the Legislature, and establishing for them such specious ‘rights’ unavailable to the majority of the citizenry, establishing a tyranny of mediocrity.

They have called together a legislative body the primary concern of which has been its own perpetuation, committed more to the appearance of ‘taking action’ and less to valid accomplishment, extorting from the populace to fund a public treasury to sack for the purpose of self perpetuation, at times unusual and uncomfortable and for those they are alleged to represent, for their own convenience and amusement, for the sole purpose of maintaining their positions.

They have fixated on partisanship and patronage to the detriment of liberty and obligation to the principles under which their positions have been created, repeatedly invading on the rights of the people.

They have refused to cause others to be elected; undermining such processes as established by law for nomination and election of such candidates, whereby the Legislative powers, have been usurped from those elected as representatives and servants of We the People, to a state wherein such government has become we the Masters of the people; the People at large no longer exercise inalienable rights under fear of persecution; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

They have endeavored to prevent the population of these States enacting Laws for regulation of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to control illegal migrations hither, and Appropriation of Lands both privately owned, or held in trust by the individual States.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by appointing such Justices and Judges as interpret Laws according to their individual prejudices or political fealty, rather than understanding and commitment to the letter and spirit of the Supreme Law of the Land, making Judges dependent on political persuasion, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

They have erected a multitude of New Offices and unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies, granting authority to such to usurp the power of the Legislature to create, and of the Judiciary to enforce Law, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

They have kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies under the guise of ‘agencies of security’, without the informed consent of the People nor regard for the rights and liberties of a free People.

They have affected to render such paramilitary forces independent of and superior to the Civil power.

They have combined, legislatively and judicially, to subject us to the jurisdiction of laws foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving precedence and substance to such oppressive and repugnant laws as we had rebelled against, and which a majority of citizens had fled.

For arming the agents of the State while illicitly disarming the People.

For establishing a de facto ‘police state’ protecting, and granting such agents rights and privileges denied the general populace, by immunizing them from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For fostering Trade with all parts of the world at the expense of domestic trade and industry.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent, for purposes clearly unauthorized by, and in conflict with, the Constitution.

For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury.

For seizing and transporting citizens beyond Seas to be held without trial for pretended offences.

For abolishing the freedoms guaranteed by such Laws establishing the nation and its government; by abrogation, infringment upon, and reinterpretation of such laws; by requiring the written permission grantable only upon payment of a bribe for the exercise of only such limited rights as remain; establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing absolute power over the joint and several States, and the people thereof.

For overriding our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Form of our Government.

For rendering our Legislatures impotent in matters over which it arbitrarily and capriciously seizes dominion, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have effectively abolished local Government by declaring such rights as they deem threatening or unprofitable to be criminal acts against the State.

They have plundered our property, ravaged our cities and towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

They have disbanded Armies and destroyed weapons and munitions necessary for the protection of the Nation and its citizens, threatened our existence by crippling our defenses, and repeatedly failed to react to attacks and acts of aggression, thereby opening us to further and more disastrous attack. exposing the nation to such attack both from without and within.

They have, by constraining our fellow Citizens from exercising their recognized natural rights, been responsible for the slaughter of our most valuable resource: Our children and those who educate them.
They have excited domestic insurrections amongst us, setting citizen against citizen, and prevented justice from being exercised among the populace.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. Such government as has interfered in the commerce, the very lives of its citizenry, in its bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and storage areas is neither representative of, nor tolerable to, a free people.

We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these United States, solemnly publish and declare: That these States united, and the citizens thereof, are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to a central government which has denied its allegiance to the very principles upon which it was founded, and that such current government be totally dissolved; to be replaced by a central government under the terms and conditions of the Constitution as written both in letter and in spirit; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to rescind their obligations under such Constitution should such government not be established, nor uphold the terms under which established.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Depends On How You Define 'Victory'

2008-07-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

Received the August "America's First Freedom" magazine today, the cover emblazoned "Justice Antonin Scalia and the U.S. Supreme Court deliver a resounding blow for freedom by striking down the D.C. gun ban." Kind of made me wonder if I was living in an alternate universe: Four Justices on the highest court in the land either have not read the Constitution, or despite years of 'legal education', understood it. The so-called 'resounding blow for freedom' was hardly more than a love tap, any force it may have otherwise possessed gutted by the ill-advised 'reasonable regulation' caveat - most likely to entice Justice Windsock to sign on without appearing to take a 'principled stand' (or, in the case of the dissenters, an unprincipled one).

Perhaps physical distance sharpens perspective, but from the vantage point of the semi-free State of Arizona, I see no difference between the 'new emergency regulations' since the alleged 'victory' and those precipitating the initial lawsuit. In point of fact, the deceptively rights-friendly language of the decision is more favorable to the gun grabbers than to the pro-rights faction: Yes, the Court did narrowly concede that the right to keep and bear arms is an 'individual' right, a conclusion obvious to any third-grader possessed of a room-temperature IQ, but it also allows for 'reasonable' restriction and regulation. I doubt my definition of 'reasonable', or Tom Paine's, or even Sandy Froman's, would be found in the same dictionary as Upchuck Schumer's, or Barack Hussein's, or Sarah Brady's.

Not to belabor the painfully obvious, but when 'control' of a right is seized by government, to grant, deny or regulate at whim, it has by definition become reduced to the status of 'privilege'. Further not belaboring the excruciatingly obvious, the process of subverting the Constitution has a name: Treason. Those who would, despite the hypocrisy inherent in their swearing an oath to uphold it, violate the letter and the spirit of that Constitution, by legislation or judicial fiat, merit impeachment for such crime. Of course, in our 'tolerant, politically correct' era, that's as likely as Je$$e Ja¢k$on and Al $harpton campaigning for Ron Paul and against affirmative discrimination.

There is, of course, another possibility: In every election this November there is a choice. Not all of them are as clear-cut as we might like, not all of them pit a clearly pro-rights candidate against a nanny-state collectivist, but someone is going to win each and every one of those elections. It was once understood that with every liberty comes a concomitant responsibility. As (still semi-)free individuals, that responsibility includes finding (or becoming) candidates who will 'represent' you in the cause of maintaining that liberty. It was once understood that our elected representatives are just that: Our agents, our 'hired help'. They work for us - we hire them, we can fire them...but it requires every one of us to put down the remote, the game controller, the golf club and get to the polls. You fail to vote, you have forfeited your right to complain - and I do not deserve the government the lowest common denominator wants.

Another Education Rant

2008-06-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, in a land of elsewhen, people went to school and learned to speak, write and spell English – even diagramming sentences, learning the difference between verbs and adverbs, nouns and adjectives, transitive and intransitive verbs. We learned simple arithmetic and eventually mathematics, the basics of logical reasoning, and studied the history of the world, and the nation – warts and all. We learned that words have meanings and actions have consequences, that we were responsible for what we did or said, and that world-changing ideas have a pedigree separate and distinct from their authors, and that most ‘revolutionary’ concepts come about because their authors are standing on the shoulders of geniuses. And that a major percentage of those geniuses are ‘dead white European males’. And if you didn’t learn enough of everything taught during the course of your school year, you got the opportunity to repeat it.

Those of us who remember the country we once had feel an obligation - a 'higher calling', if you will - to do what we can to maintain or reinstate those standards and values - even if only in an attempt to stave off what appears inevitable.

Some of us still believe in that flavor of education. Given the opportunity, even in the face of teachers unions and school boards – and parents who think it’s more important that their precious little ones ‘feel good about themselves’ than be capable of anything more advanced than flipping greaseburgers at the local junk food depot – arrayed against us, despite the feeling that we're merely individuals shoveling shit against the tide, we believe a ‘real’ education is worth fighting for. We need scientists and engineers, leaders who can communicate their thoughts and concepts, elected officials who can read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and understand the concepts, the history, the intent of the Founding Fathers who framed them. We need a nation of educated citizens to hold those we choose to trust with our laws and our liberty accountable, not a continent-wide hive of drones subservient to whichever queen happens to win a popularity contest: American citizens, not the American idle.

It’s a war worth waging, a battle for the minds – and soul – of the nation. At the risk of being labeled a ‘romantic’, it's salmost like the movies of the Revolution or the Civil War: As armies marched at each other, into a hail of shot and shell, whenever the flag bearer was hit, someone always sprang to catch the flag before it hit the ground, and continued to move it forward. It wasn't a position with a great life expectancy, but some things had a significance far beyond their reality. Reclaiming the education system from the hands of the indoctrination establishment has both significance and painful reality.

"Not Yours To Give"

2008-05-13T08:54:00.002-07:00

Sometimes, 'the obvious' isn't, and sometimes what has been written over a century ago just cannot be 'improved on'. On the 'authority' of Congress to 'appropriate' [i]your[/i] money:

"Not Yours To Give"
Col. David Crockett
US Representative from Tennessee

One day in the House of Representatives a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:

"Mr. Speaker--I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.

We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.

"Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:

"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but as I thought, rather coldly.

"I began: 'Well friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates and---

"Yes I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine, I shall not vote for you again."

"This was a sockdolger...I begged him tell me what was the matter.

"Well Colonel, it is hardly worthwhile to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting you or wounding you.'

"I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest.

But an understanding of the constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the honest he is.'

"'I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake. Though I live in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by fire in Georgetown. Is that true?

"Well my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just the same as I did.'

"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means.

What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he.

If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give at all; and as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. 'No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity.'

"'Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this country as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have Thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life.'

"The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from necessity of giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.'

"'So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.'

"I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go to talking and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I was so fully convinced that he was right, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him:

"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot.'

"He laughingly replied; 'Yes, Colonel, you have sworn to that once before, but I will trust you again upon one condition. You are convinced that your vote was wrong. Your acknowledgment of it will do more good than beating you for it. If, as you go around the district, you will tell people about this vote, and that you are satisfied it was wrong, I will not only vote for you, but will do what I can to keep down opposition, and perhaps, I may exert some little influence in that way.'

"If I don't, said I, 'I wish I may be shot; and to convince you that I am in earnest in what I say I will come back this way in a week or ten days, and if you will get up a gathering of people, I will make a speech to them. Get up a barbecue, and I will pay for it.'

"No, Colonel, we are not rich people in this section but we have plenty of provisions to contribute for a barbecue, and some to spare for those who have none. The push of crops will be over in a few days, and we can then afford a day for a barbecue. 'This Thursday; I will see to getting it up on Saturday week. Come to my house on Friday, and we will go together, and I promise you a very respectable crowd to see and hear you.

"'Well I will be here. But one thing more before I say good-bye. I must know your name."

"'My name is Bunce.'

"'Not Horatio Bunce?'

"'Yes

"'Well, Mr. Bunce, I never saw you before, though you say you have seen me, but I know you very well. I am glad I have met you, and very proud that I may hope to have you for my friend.'

"It was one of the luckiest hits of my life that I met him. He mingled but little with the public, but was widely known for his remarkable intelligence, and for a heart brim-full and running over with kindness and benevolence, which showed themselves not only in words but in acts. He was the oracle of the whole country around him, and his fame had extended far beyond the circle of his immediate acquaintance. Though I had never met him, before, I had heard much of him, and but for this meeting it is very likely I should have had opposition, and had been beaten. One thing is very certain, no man could now stand up in that district under such a vote.

"At the appointed time I was at his house, having told our conversation to every crowd I had met, and to every man I stayed all night with, and I found that it gave the people an interest and confidence in me stronger than I had ever seen manifested before.

"Though I was considerably fatigued when I reached his house, and, under ordinary circumstances, should have gone early to bed, I kept him up until midnight talking about the principles and affairs of government, and got more real, true knowledge of them than I had got all my life before."

"I have known and seen much of him since, for I respect him - no, that is not the word - I reverence and love him more than any living man, and I go to see him two or three times every year; and I will tell you, sir, if every one who professes to be a Christian lived and acted and enjoyed it as he does, the religion of Christ would take the world by storm.

"But to return to my story. The next morning we went to the barbecue and, to my surprise, found about a thousand men there. I met a good many whom I had not known before, and they and my friend introduced me around until I had got pretty well acquainted - at least, they all knew me.

"In due time notice was given that I would speak to them. They gathered up around a stand that had been erected. I opened my speech by saying:

"Fellow-citizens - I present myself before you today feeling like a new man. My eyes have lately been opened to truths which ignorance or prejudice or both, had heretofore hidden from my view. I feel that I can today offer you the ability to render you more valuable service than I have ever been able to render before. I am here today more for the purpose of acknowledging my error than to seek your votes. That I should make this acknowledgment is due to myself as well as to you. Whether you will vote for me is a matter for your consideration only."

"I went on to tell them about the fire and my vote for the appropriation and then told them why I was satisfied it was wrong. I closed by saying:

"And now, fellow-citizens, it remains only for me to tell you that the most of the speech you have listened to with so much interest was simply a repetition of the arguments by which your neighbor, Mr. Bunce, convinced me of my error.

"It is the best speech I ever made in my life, but he is entitled to the credit for it. And now I hope he is satisfied with his convert and that he will get up here and tell you so.'

"He came up to the stand and said:

"Fellow-citizens - it affords me great pleasure to comply with the request of Colonel Crockett. I have always considered him a thoroughly honest man, and I am satisfied that he will faithfully perform all that he has promised you today.'

"He went down, and there went up from that crowd such a shout for Davy Crockett as his name never called forth before.'

"I am not much given to tears, but I was taken with a choking then and felt some big drops rolling down my cheeks. And I tell you now that the remembrance of those few words spoken by such a man, and the honest, hearty shout they produced, is worth more to me than all the honors I have received and all the reputation I have ever made, or ever shall make, as a member of Congress.'

"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. "There is one thing which I will call your attention, "you remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men - men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $20,000 when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

(Originally published in "The Life of Colonel David Crockett," by Edward Sylvester Ellis.)

A small (but to-be-continued) rant on the perversion of the language

2008-04-12T21:56:00.003-07:00

Get your damned hands off of my language!

The English language is composed of words, and words have meanings! On this side of Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass, the meanings do not
change to what one wants them to mean for only as long as one chooses them to mean that.

Take 'gun control': What it means is the ability to put all of your rounds into one jagged hole. The nonsensical victim disarmament ordinances ineptly yclept 'gun control' aren't about 'guns', they're about control. If the problem they were allegedly intended to solve is one of criminal action, then they would be 'criminal control' laws - and enacted as such - and would impact the criminal population - possibly even 'control' it - not the overwhelming majority of honest citizenry turned into 'criminals' by the stroke of a pen.

Every dictionary I own defines 'gay' as 'happy, carefree, joyous', or some similar verbiage. It has nothing to do with non-hetrosexual behavior, and has never needed to be 'expanded' to cover such: There are already perfectly adequate and more honest descriptives for them. Unless the practitioners of those behaviors are ashamed of them, why corrupt a valid word with 'meanings' it was never intended to cover? What one does in the privacy of his/her/its own home is nobody's 'business' but the practitoner's - I have no interest in interfering with your sex life, grant my language the same respect.

And what, precisely, is a 'baby mama' or 'baby daddy'? Babies having babies - a clear and obvious indication of the disintigration of our society (but that's another rant) - are commonplace, and were the term descriptive - as it justifiably might be - of an individual barely experiencing puberty carrying a miniature replicant, it would be - linguistically - acceptable. As illiterate shorthand for 'the mother/father of my child', it is not.

And 'texting' is not English. It may be adequate for the undereducated victims of the education establishment to communicate electronically, or as notational shorthand, but it is not a 'language', and certainly not that of Locke, Shakespeare,
Hobbes - hell, it's not even the language of Tom Clancy. One of the beauties of English words is
that they contain vowels - 'razr' not a word, and the real word it's pronounced as already exists, with a current and adequate meaning - and changing the vowels in an English word can completely alter the meaning. Omitting them produces mere gibberish.

More to come.

"Principles" My @$$!

2008-04-07T21:01:00.000-07:00

"Principles" are the last resort of the charlatan.

You cannot justify boycotting the political process 'from the ground up' - refusing to take part at the precinct level, detaching yourself from participation in the district and county decisions on party leadership, ignoring the dialogue on state leadership, bypassing those 'local, grassroots' conventions, demurring on representation, officer and candidate selection - and refuse to vote for the 'lousy' candidates 'they' selected 'on principle'. You cannot throw away your vote on a write-in for 'your' candidate or Mickey Mouse - or on a 'third (or fourth, or seventh) party' candidate - effectively casting one uncanceled one for the worst of the lot - and scream 'principles'. You cannot hold 'them' culpable for selecting a 'bad' candidate when you are just as culpable, by your lack of interest and participation for that choice, and sit home on Election Day 'on principle'.

If you indeed possessed those 'principles' you lay claim to at this late date, if you had even a reasonable comprehension of what it means to be 'principled', you would have acted on them. If enough of you had, at least one major party might - might - have rediscovered its principles; perhaps they may have nominated a 'principled' candidate.

Refusing to vote for a candidate your failure to exercise your so-called 'principles' stuck us with is not a statement of 'principle', it is an exercise in irresponsibility.

Read Any Pro-Rights 'Editorials' Lately?

2008-03-20T13:59:00.000-07:00

What is it about the subject of firearms and rights that turns ‘editorial’ scribblers into conscienceless liars, willfully and maliciously denying every documented fact, every unbiased study of the subject? What impulse prompts them to lie, slander, and pervert any semblance of truth, allowing their prejudices to far outrun any lingering respect they may harbor for any established verity they ignore as 'irrelevant'?

In New York City, both in the Amadou Diallo case and in the Sean Bell case, an unbiased observer would see an overreaction by the police – due to the fact that anyone other than police presumed in possession of a firearm in New York is de facto also presumed to be a 'violent criminal'. In more rational jurisdictions, of course, outside the fiefdoms of New York, Chicago, the District of Columbia, et. al., where police understand that the individual is responsible for his own safety, and that there is no obligation to ‘protect’ any specific individual; where the lives of officers have been saved by armed citizens; where it is still commonly understood that it is the obligation of every citizen to oppose criminal action; working officers are comfortable with an armed, aware citizenry. Political ‘command echelon’ appointees and idiotorial writers, unfortunately, are not. Reality Check, folks: The police and the citizens they serve are on the same side, your divisive efforts get both killed.

In point of fact, every State and municipality where 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms' has not been illegally suppressed, violent crime has decreased; in every city that restricts the right of its citizens to defend themselves, violent crime flourishes. Should the media concentrate on demanding our elected officials and their appointed enforcers concentrate on arresting and incarcerating actual criminals, rather than depicting law-abiding citizens as criminals for exercising a right that predates the founding of the nation; should they demand action against the perpetrators of crime, rather than scapegoating inanimate tools; they would soon lose the favor of those elected officials. No more ‘press conferences’ with free food and free booze – we can’t have that, it would be downright un-American!

Fact: Even the stupidest of predators will gravitate to 'low risk' prey and avoid confrontations where the risk of obtaining little more for his efforts than a fatal bullet.

Fact: In the past decade and a half, every State that has adopted ‘shall issue’ concealed carry laws has seen a sharp decrease in violent crime.

Fact: In every case, predictions of ‘rivers of blood running in the streets’, of minor accidents turning into ‘shootouts at the OK Corral’, of ‘gunfights over parking spaces’ have proven nothing but alarmist nonsense.

Fact: In every State which ‘allows’ its citizens to obtain State ‘permission’ to exercise the right of the people to go armed about their daily business, less than one half of one percent of all carry permits issued have been revoked, and only a small percentage of those for ‘firearms related’ cause.

Fact: Automatic weapons – the dreaded ‘machine guns’ – are not ‘illegal’, federal law only mandates taxation and registration, thousands are privately owned and operated, and the only documented case (real world, not TV) of an automatic weapon being used in a crime involved a police officer as the perpetrator.

Fact: Estimates of defensive use of firearm – merely by its presence, without being drawn or fired – range from 1.5 to 2.5 million annually. One would think, in a rational world, discouraging or preventing crime might be a desired end. Apparently, one would be wrong: According to the scribblers on our editorial pages, the talking heads on our wide-screen, flat-panel TVs, those ‘evil guns’ possess the power to mesmerize their owners into acts of despicable violence and carnage, or the wherewithal to commit such acts of their own mechanical ‘will’.

The Supreme Court is currently engaged in ‘deciding’ whether the right to keep and bear arms is the individual right the Framers of the Constitution and Bill of Rights intended it to be, a right recognized as belonging to ‘the people’ – the same ‘people’ specifically mentioned in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and to what extent government has the authority to regulate it. Logic and reason (never major constraints on the legal profession) would dictate minimal interference with a right that far predates the establishment of the nation. Logic and reason should dictate that, had the Framers intended such right to be reserved for hunting, or for protection against the odd brigand, they would have so specified. Logic and reason should dictate that, having just recently wrested control of the nascent nation from the grip of one tyrant by force of arms, their clear intent – as expressed in their copious concurrent writings – was to prevent the takeover of the infant government by another, if necessary by identical means. Logic and reason should dictate that, insofar as ‘the government’ and those who constitute it serve at the pleasure of the people, and by definition are the servants, rather than the masters, any legislation or ordinance infringing on the rights of those people should be subject to the closest scrutiny; should be enacted or adopted only if there is clear and pressing evidence that such serves the people, and not the government. Logic and reason, alas, are too often mere spectators in a court of law.

U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act Notice

2008-03-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Found on the 'net without accreditation:

Citizens and Residents Of The United States and U.S Persons ;
USA PATRIOT Act Notice:

You are hereby notified that under the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, you may be placed under electronic surveillance while viewing this or any other similar website/email by intelligence or law enforcement agencies at any time or for any purpose for which they may deem fit, without your knowledge or permission and without the order or supervision of any court of law, regardless of the provisions of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As the provisions of the Act strictly prohibit, with fines and imprisonment, the managers of this site from disclosing such surveillance should it be known to us, you should assume that you are under surveillance while viewing this or any other similar web site, electronic mail or any other form of electronic communication related thereto. Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security Agency (NSA) and FISA laws may have been ignored, and this email read and placed in your file without warning, warrant, or notice. They may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no recourse, nor protection from this intrusion on your personal freedoms.

You may not review your file which is secret. The President reserves the right to use "signing statements" to give himself permission to ignore the law, as he is above accountability. As Nixon said, "If the president does it, it is not illegal." If you are not with us, you are for the terrorists; be aware that dissent is considered sedition: resistance to lawful authority. It may be considered treason to question authority; as it is un-American and unpatriotic to criticize the actions of your President. Your only recourse is to remove the entire presidential cabinet, most of the Senate, more of the House and 45% of the Supreme Court thru impeachment proceedings.

I Don't Really Care

2008-03-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

I don’t have to explain how I feel about this country, and I certainly don’t have to apologize for anything I’ve said in its defense, or in criticism of where it’s erred. With all its faults, its still, in the words of Ronald Reagan, the ‘bright, shining city on a hill’; or to take the perspective of a foreign leader, when British Prime Minister Tony Blair was asked by a member of Parliament why he believes so strongly in the United States, he replied: “A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in, and how many want out." Millions have flocked to this country from all over the world, risking death to follow that dream. Citizens seeking permanent exit or renouncing their citizenship wouldn’t fill Donald Trump’s boardroom.

That said, let’s address the most pressing question facing this nation today: Are we or are we not fighting a war on terrorists or are we not? Was it or was it not started over thirty years ago by Islamic ‘extremists’, brought to our shores for the first time in 1993 with the bombing of the World Trade Center, again in 1997 with the shootings at the Empire State Building, and finally goading us into action with the attacks on 11 September 2001? And not only in our homeland, any list of attacks on us by ‘islamic extremists’ must include (at minimum):

June 16, 1976: Ambassador Francis E. Meloy, Jr. and Economic Counselor Robert O. Waring were kidnapped in Beirut while on their way to meet with President-elect Sarkis. Meloy, Waring, and their Lebanese chauffeur were found dead near a beach several hours alter. No demands

Ambassador to Afghanistan Assassinated, February 14, 1979: Four Afghans kidnapped U.S. Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Kabul and demanded the release of various "religious figures." Dubs was killed, along with four alleged terrorists, when Afghan police stormed the hotel room where he was being held.

Iran Hostage Crisis, November 4, 1979: After President Carter agreed to admit the Shah of Iran into the US, Iranian radicals seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 American diplomats hostage. Thirteen hostages were soon released, but the remaining 53 were held until their release on January 20, 1981.

August 27, 1980: Unknown assailants in Beirut fired on Ambassador John Gunther Dean's car. He and his party escaped unharmed.

Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut, April 18, 1983: Sixty-three people, including the CIA’s Middle East director, were killed and 120 were injured in a 400-pound suicide truck-bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Bombing of Marine Barracks, Beirut, October 23, 1983: Simultaneous suicide truck-bomb attacks were made on American and French compounds in Beirut, Lebanon. A 12,000-pound bomb destroyed the U.S. compound, killing 242 Americans, while 58 French troops were killed when a 400-pound device destroyed a French base. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Kidnapping of Embassy Official, March 16, 1984: The Islamic Jihad kidnapped and later murdered Political Officer William Buckley in Beirut, Lebanon. Other U.S. citizens not connected to the U.S. government were seized over a succeeding two-year period.

TWA Hijacking, June 14, 1985: A Trans-World Airlines flight was hijacked en route to Rome from Athens by two Lebanese Hizballah terrorists and forced to fly to Beirut. The eight crew members and 145 passengers were held for seventeen days, during which one American hostage, a U.S. Navy sailor, was murdered. After being flown twice to Algiers, the aircraft was returned to Beirut after Israel released 435 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners.

Achille Lauro Hijacking, October 7, 1985: Four Palestinian Liberation Front terrorists seized the Italian cruise liner in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, taking more than 700 hostages. One U.S. passenger was murdered before the Egyptian government offered the terrorists safe haven in return for the hostages’ freedom.

Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, November 23, 1985: An EgyptAir airplane bound from Athens to Malta and carrying several U.S. citizens was hijacked by the Abu Nidal Group.

Airport Attacks in Rome and Vienna, December 27, 1985: Four gunmen belonging to the Abu Nidal Organization attacked the El Al and Trans World Airlines ticket counters at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport with grenades and automatic rifles. Thirteen persons were killed and 75 were wounded before Italian police and Israeli security guards killed three of the gunmen and captured the fourth. Three more Abu Nidal gunmen attacked the El Al ticket counter at Vienna’s Schwechat Airport, killing three persons and wounding 30. Austrian police killed one of the gunmen and captured the others.

Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986: A Palestinian splinter group detonated a bomb as TWA Flight 840 approached Athens airport, killing four U.S. citizens.

Berlin Discothèque Bombing, April 5, 1986: Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 79 American servicemen were injured in a Libyan bomb attack on a nightclub in West Berlin, West Germany. In retaliation U.S. military jets bombed targets in and around Tripoli and Benghazi.

Kidnapping of William Higgins, February 17, 1988: U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel W. Higgins was kidnapped and murdered by the Iranian-backed Hizballah group while serving with the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) in southern Lebanon.

Naples USO Attack, April 14, 1988: The Organization of Jihad Brigades exploded a car-bomb outside a USO Club in Naples, Italy, killing one U.S. sailor.

Pan Am 103 Bombing, December 21, 1988: Pan American Airlines Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, by a bomb believed to have been placed on the aircraft by Libyan terrorists in Frankfurt, West Germany. All 259 people on board were killed.

Bombing of UTA Flight 772, September 19, 1989: A bomb explosion destroyed UTA Flight 772 over the Sahara Desert in southern Niger during a flight from Brazzaville to Paris. All 170 persons aboard were killed. Six Libyans were later found guilty in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment.

U.S. Soldiers Assassinated in the Philippines, May 13, 1990: The New People’s Army (NPA) killed two U.S. Air Force personnel near Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines.

Attempted Iraqi Attacks on U.S. Posts, January 18-19, 1991: Iraqi agents planted bombs at the U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia’s home residence and at the USIS library in Manila.

World Trade Center Bombing, February 26, 1993: The World Trade Center in New York City was badly damaged when a car bomb planted by Islamic terrorists exploded in an underground garage. The bomb left 6 people dead and 1,000 injured. The men carrying out the attack were followers of Umar Abd al-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric who preached in the New York City area.

Attempted Assassination of President Bush by Iraqi Agents, April 14, 1993: The Iraqi intelligence service attempted to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during a visit to Kuwait. In retaliation, the U.S. launched a cruise missile attack 2 months later on the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Saudi Military Installation Attack, November 13, 1995: The Islamic Movement of Change planted a bomb in a Riyadh military compound that killed one U.S. citizen, several foreign national employees of the U.S. government, and over 40 others.

Egyptian Embassy Attack, November 19, 1995: A suicide bomber drove a vehicle into the Egyptian Embassy compound in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing at least 16 and injuring 60 persons. Three militant Islamic groups claimed responsibility.

HAMAS Bus Attack, February 26, 1996: In Jerusalem, a suicide bomber blew up a bus, killing 26 persons, including three U.S. citizens, and injuring some 80 persons, including three other US citizens.

Dizengoff Center Bombing, March 4, 1996: HAMAS and the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) both claimed responsibility for a bombing outside of Tel Aviv's largest shopping mall that killed 20 persons and injured 75 others, including 2 U.S. citizens.

Khobar Towers Bombing, June 25, 1996: A fuel truck carrying a bomb exploded outside the US military's Khobar Towers housing facility in Dhahran, killing 19 U.S. military personnel and wounding 515 persons, including 240 U.S. personnel. Several groups claimed responsibility for the attack.

Egyptian Letter Bombs, January 2-13, 1997: A series of letter bombs with Alexandria, Egypt, postmarks were discovered at Al-Hayat newspaper bureaus in Washington, New York City, London, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Three similar devices, also postmarked in Egypt, were found at a prison facility in Leavenworth, Kansas. Bomb disposal experts defused all the devices, but one detonated at the Al-Hayat office in London, injuring two security guards and causing minor damage.

Empire State Building Sniper Attack, February 23, 1997: A Palestinian gunman opened fire on tourists at an observation deck atop the Empire State Building in New York City, killing a Danish national and wounding visitors from the United States, Argentina, Switzerland, and France before turning the gun on himself. A handwritten note carried by the gunman claimed this was a punishment attack against the "enemies of Palestine."

U.S. Embassy Bombings in East Africa, August 7, 1998: A bomb exploded at the rear entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 12 U.S. citizens, 32 Foreign Service Nationals (FSNs), and 247 Kenyan citizens. Approximately 5,000 Kenyans, 6 U.S. citizens, and 13 FSNs were injured. The U.S. Embassy building sustained extensive structural damage. Almost simultaneously, a bomb detonated outside the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killing 7 FSNs and 3 Tanzanian citizens, and injuring 1 U.S. citizen and 76 Tanzanians. The explosion caused major structural damage to the U.S. Embassy facility. The U.S. Government held Usama Bin Laden responsible.

Attack on U.S.S. Cole, October 12, 2000: In Aden, Yemen, a small dingy carrying explosives rammed the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39 others. Supporters of Usama Bin Laden were suspected.

Manila Bombing, December 30, 2000: A bomb exploded in a plaza across the street from the U.S. Embassy in Manila, injuring nine persons. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front was likely responsible.

Philippines Hostage Incident, May 27, 2001: Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas seized 13 tourists and 3 staff members at a resort on Palawan Island and took their captives to Basilan Island. The captives included three U.S. citizens: Guellermo Sobero and missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham. Philippine troops fought a series of battles with the guerrillas between June 1 and June 3 during which 9 hostages escaped and two were found dead. The guerrillas took additional hostages when they seized the hospital in the town of Lamitan. On June 12, Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya claimed that Sobero had been killed and beheaded; his body was found in October. The Burnhams remained in captivity until June 2002.

Death of "the Lion of the Panjshir", September 9, 2001: Two suicide bombers fatally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, a leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, which had opposed both the Soviet occupation and the post-Soviet Taliban government. The bombers posed as journalists and were apparently linked to al-Qaida. The Northern Alliance did not confirm Massoud’s death until September 15.

Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Homeland, September 11, 2001: Two hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon was struck by a third hijacked plane. A fourth hijacked plane, suspected to be bound for a high-profile target in Washington, crashed into a field in southern Pennsylvania. The attacks killed 3,025 U.S. citizens and other nationals. President Bush and Cabinet officials indicated that Usama Bin Laden was the prime suspect and that they considered the United States in a state of war with ‘international terrorism’.

Were over three thousand people – people from all over the world, but primarily Americans – brutally murdered on that day? Were they not burned, crushed, shredded merely for the ‘crime’ of not being muslim? And I’m supposed to rise up in indignation not because these people were brutally murdered, but because a copy of the ‘holy book’ these butchers follow was ‘desecrated’ when some American soldier ‘touched’ it, or let it fall to the ground, or let it get wet? A soldier that these animals would murder, along with his family, without the slightest compunction? Pardon the living dog chit outta me, but I don’t particularly give a rat’s @$$.

Let me quote the words of a New Jersey housewife:
I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.
I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia .
I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.
I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.
I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.
I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights.

Some of the things I do care about include persecuting a Marine for going beyond ‘politely requesting information’ from a terrorist who has just killed his best friends; disgracing a fine officer for instilling the terror in a murderer that he and his have attempted to kindle in the civilized world; victimizing an entire group of American soldiers for what amounts to little more than a college hazing and less than an average day of Boot Camp, but being foolish enough to photograph it. What I care about is a Marine being crucified for insuring a wounded terrorist will not blow him and his squad up as a dying act, what I do not care about is the so-called ‘journalist’ who taped the incident and his carefully crafted, self-serving ‘agonizing over whether to publish it’.

I don’t give a rat’s patoot about how some fanatic pronounces the name of his ‘holy book’, or how it’s spelled, or whether or not it gets wet, or gets dirty, or gets ‘desecrated’, or frankly, whether it does get shredded and flushed down a toilet. It wasn’t, but had it been, I’d care about it only slightly less than I would about who won a game of checkers at the local park. I do care that the murdering scum who make these allegations are being fed, clothed and housed in a manner superior to anything they’ve experienced in their wasted lives, given prayer mats and Q’rans on my tax dollar, and that all we ‘take’ from them is their freedom (and that, for most, only temporarily), while they would use that freedom to take our lives.

I care about the fact that in their irrational hatred of the President of the United States, elected ‘representatives of the people’, the underwhelming majority of print and broadcast media, and the benighted sheeple who’ve been indoctrinated out of the ability to think for themselves would rather walk away from the fight and let it come to the streets of Boston and Manhattan, rather than win it on the streets of Baghdad and Mosul; would accept the nonsense that we are somehow ‘responsible’ for over three decades of attacks and murders by a perverted ‘religion’ having as one of its basic tenets the death or subjugation of any person or nation not adopting it. I care that a nation with freedom of religion as one of its founding principles has restricted the public observance of the Judeo-Christian principles underlying its law, custom and traditions at the behest of a vocal minority while granting ‘special privileges’ for the teaching and ‘understanding’ of a religious philosophy with the declared intention of destroying us and all we stand for, as elucidated in its ‘holy book’.

I care that the same media and ‘educational’ institutions that condemn the principles of democracy and capitalism that built the greatest nation on earth also actively discourage its citizens from practicing our virtues or defending the nation; I care that my tax dollars underwrite the very existence of many of those ‘educational’ institutions; I care that the next generation is being taught that any whim or perversion is ‘morally equivalent’ to any other. I care that a patriot like Chris Simcox is invited to speak at Columbia and shouted down with impunity while scum like Iran’s Amaddoginheat is invited and cheered by the mindless.

I care that my country and way of life is under assault. If it takes the death of every islamofascist murderer bearing arms or homicide bombs or advocating their cause or condoning their cause or ignoring their atrocities, you can take one thing to the bank: I don’t care.

Government Run Amok and the Death of the English Language (and Liberty)

2007-12-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, in a culture long forgotten, children learned that their language - in this particular nation, the English language (or the American variant) had certain rules: To be considered a 'sentence', a group of words must include a subject and a predicate. The initial word of a sentence, and all proper nouns, were capitalized. Homonyms - words that sounded alike but had different spellings and meanings - existed, and using the wrong word turned a coherent thought to nonsense. And spelling counted.

In that era, in that culture, there were related ideals, taught side-by-side with the 'practical' applications of "readin', writin' and 'rithmetic" - that individuals were responsible for their actions; that they were judged by the way they presented themselves, both physically and verbally; that a teacher could explain something to you but could not learn it for you; that words have clear and specific meanings and that actions have consequences.

Many factors are responsible for the decline of the language - the ease of transcribing 'thought' (granting some latitude in the definition of the term) to screen via keyboard vice the laborious process of penning it to paper (a process nominally requiring 'attention'), and conversely, the process of 'reviewing' and 'editing' that required infinitely less effort with the medium was disregarded (as was the process); the advent of minicomputers in cell phones giving rise to 'texting', and the congruent 'acceptance' by the semiliterate of its shortcuts and 'abbreviations' as 'the New English'; the overall relinquishment of personal accountability and individual responsibility induced by 'full credit for trying' because 'you have to feel good about yourself' (whether or not you've done anything to earn 'feeling good about'; even the infringement of government at all levels on personal liberty and mandating suffocating 'protective measures' on all for fear someone, somewhere, might 'hurt himself'.

Wrapping the individual members of a society in protective 'regulatory cushioning' has produced more harm to that society than individual 'risk-taking' has ever done: Mandating seat belts, air bags and 'crash-proof' passenger compartments has led to an increase in vehicular accidents - because the false sense of security leads to careless operation on the theory that 'I'm protected anyway'. Hell, mandating bicycle helmets has the same effect on kids - they take stupid risks because they're 'protected', and that's the 'lesson' they take into adulthood. (Interjected random thought: Do infants enjoy their infancy as much as adults enjoy their adultery?)

Mandating 'weapon-free areas' - more succinctly, designated victim zones - would be a fine, high-minded idea in a perfect world, but as should be obvious to even the most casual observer, this is most assuredly not a perfect world, and the evil, the deranged and delusional, those on the fringes of society are not deterred by brightly painted signage: The sheeple who meekly obey become dead statistics, victims of the politicians, bureaucrats and judges who rendered them incapable of defending themselves 'for their own good' (and, of course, 'for the children').

What, you ask, has this to do with the English language slipping into life support? In every case, the government-imposed abdication of personal responsibility has repercussions beyond the individual law or regulation: Layer on layer, law on law, regulation on regulation, literally from cradle to coffin the individual 'learns' that he has no 'responsibility', anything 'bad' that 'happens to' him is someone else's fault, that he 'deserves' to 'feel good about himself', that 'the government' will protect and provide for him. He can 'express himself' in any manner, way, shape or form - or degree of illiteracy - that 'feels good', and there will never be any consequences; that if his gibberish is 'misunderstood' it's the listener's (or reader's) 'fault'; that he's being 'judged' or denigrated - that some bully is (perish forbid! Heaven forfend!) making him 'feel bad'.

Civilization has advanced over the past few million years because people took responsibility for their actions, took pride in their achievements, took risks. 'Literature' has been advanced, and 'great books' have been written, by people who understood and respected their language - and who took responsibility for their thoughts, their craft, their words. We now have Orwellian laws against what is neither more nor less than 'thought crimes'. What we need are personal 'laws' making lack of thought a crime.

The Bill Of Reservations?

2007-12-13T11:41:00.000-07:00

There has been some confusion as to what the 'rights', as enumerated in the First Ten Amendments to the Constitution of the United States mean in practice, as opposed to how they were written and intended to apply. For those desirous of a fuller understanding of how the government views, and the courts enforce, those 'rights' recognized by the Founding Fathers as preexisting the founding of the nation and specifically exempted from regulation by any lesser authority than that which bestowed them, an elucidation:

Bill of Rights (As Applicable in the XXI Century):

Article I: Congress shall enact any law restricting the practice of those religions on which the Nation was founded, allowing only the publicly sanctioned teachings of those who make war on us; it shall stand idly by while government agencies and subordinate governments tax and regulate the ‘right’ of citizens to peaceably assemble; nor shall it hold the press responsible for lies and distortions; nor shall it accept the petitions of the governed for redress of grievances, but only those of large campaign contributors.

Article II: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be restricted to only those deemed acceptable by the changing fashions of the times, and shall be regulated by unelected officials and appointed bureaucrats who shall not be held to any standard of continuity or ethical conduct. The citizen militia shall be abolished, and replaced by a standing Army and subordinating the State Guard units of the joint and several States, and only those holding a position in such units may be allowed the use of such arms forbidden to the general populace, and only such times as they are on duty, or actively occupied in such tasks which the government sanctions them as requiring them, or during time of war, declared or otherwise.

Article III: No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, declared or otherwise, but in a manner decided by the mood of the government and administration of the moment. Neither shall any restraint apply for the seizure by government of any property it deems may better serve its purposes than those of the owner of record, or for transfer to another entity which may provide greater tax revenue.

Article IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, contingent on the definition of unreasonable as defined on a day-to-day basis by the courts, or the governing body; and no warrants shall issue, but upon suspected or alleged cause, supported by oath, affirmation, or hearsay, generally and approximately describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Due to their ‘special’ status, none of these protections shall apply to airline passengers, who shall have no right of privacy in their persons or possessions.

Article V: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, when in actual service in time of war, whether or not formally declared, or of public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, save that a ‘civil’ trial may follow a ‘criminal’ prosecution, whatever the verdict; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself unless the prosecution and presiding judge are already convinced of his guilt, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of notification that the government has prefers he not own such property, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without maximum intimidation or minimal compensation.

Article VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial in the media, obviating the necessity of criminal court proceedings, save for public entertainment. Particularly heinous crimes may additionally include requests for changes in venue, to such locations as might find the actions of the perpetrator less offensive to ‘community standards’. In less than capital crimes, the court shall presume the defendant guilty on the basis of being charged, or presume to levy fines and/or confiscate property on such basis.

Article VII: In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed whatever arbitrary amount suits the court or the prosecution, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, said jurors to be selected on the basis of being least qualified to comprehend the law, legal jargon, or the laws pertaining; and no fact tried by such jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law, or the popularity of the defendant.

Article VIII: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines to exceed the annual income of the defendant, to include punitive damages and arbitrary surcharges as determined by the temper of the justice presiding, nor shall such punishments deemed inconvenient or unpleasant be inflicted, regardless of the savagery of the subject crime or offense.

Article IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall be binding on the populace only insofar as interpreted by the legislatures of the United States, the joint and several States and their municipalities, and their appointed justices and judges; and nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as binding, save as in context of such interpretations as may be, from time to time, presented by such legislatures and judiciaries. Any such implied or inferred rights shall be contingent on the convenience of duly constituted and/or elected authority.

Article X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, subject to their abrogation by the central government of the United States, with or without arbitrary justification. Further, said government of the United States reserves the power to cancel or suspend any such right as a privilege granted or revoked at its pleasure, and to employ extortion or military force against any such state or individual presumed reluctant accept such rewritten Constitution as directed.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but 'special interest groups' and the professional politicians whose power is preserved by pandering to them have, with the connivance of the judiciary and the appointed bureaucracy, distorted the intent and meaning of almost the entire Constitution and Bill of Rights. "We the People" have ceded our power to our 'hired help', our employees whom we elect to represent us - not to dictate to us. Santayana wrote that "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it", and as surely as the 'bread and circuses' - financed by a populace willing to partake but dismissive of their responsibility - of the Roman Empire were a key cause of its decline and fall, as surely as the liberties taken with their power led the Republic to monarchy and disaster, the extortion of the electorate to finance the 'bread and circuses' of today, the excesses and blatant violation of their charter by our elected 'representatives' has established a self-appointed 'elite' which controls a subject populace, limits their education to mere indoctrination, and legislates natural rights into privileges which we must petition and bribe 'the authorities' to exercise.

This is not the nation of the Constitution, this is not even the nation of my youth, a scant century and a half later. Unless and until "we the People" read, comprehend, and enforce on 'the government' the rule under which it is chartered, the restrictions on its powers and the prohibitions on its interference with the liberty guaranteed its citizenry - the rights of 'we the People' - this 'last great hope of mankind, this 'shining city on a hill' - will actively carry yet another 'great civilization' to the ash heap of history.

The question is not whether 'they' get the government 'they' deserve, but whether we get the government 'they' do.

2007-11-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

2007-11-23T19:03:00.000-07:00

2007-11-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

More Idle Ramblings

2007-11-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

I enjoy books by people like John D. MacDonald and Robert B. Parker, stories in which the protagonists are less than perfect, have the same human frailties and weaknesses as 'real' people; generally - but not always - succeed or triumph over 'evil', and reach a 'satisfactory' conclusion, albeit not necessarily a 'happy ending'. It satisfies some sense of logic and order, grants some assurance that 'real life' problems that we're too close to may, indeed, have solutions, and we might well either grind to them or step back far enough to see. They take place in carefully constructed worlds, providing escape from a world that sometimes appears to have no structure, no logic or reason.

They also - sometimes - inspire a desire to 'do something': To position oneself where one can 'make a difference': To be able to punish evildoers, to make blatant stupidity a criminal offense, to mandate even the most passive of sheeple have and consider all facts, all consequences, ramifications before forming conclusions, before taking actions that affect others, and be capable of justifying those decisions. On every level, from what route they take to work to how they vote. To insure, before they're even permitted to cast a ballot that they be capable of intelligently discussing the issues and the differences between (or among) candidates.

Of course, reorganizing the world to conform to conform to 'western' concepts of 'right' and 'just' would entail some slight additional modifications: Wresting power back from a government that increasingly treats rights as privileges and the military as a social experiment; that is increasingly composed of professional politicians more concerned with keeping and increasing power than governing; that has abandoned its function as servant of the people in its drive to become the master. It would involve the 'voluntary' reassumption of personal 'virtues' including - but hardly limited to - self-discipline, personal responsibility, integrity, a commitment to ethics and morality; a realization that certain basic 'revelations', no matter how simply and obviously stated -"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", "An armed society is a polite society", "Words have meanings and actions have consequences" - are irrevocable truths.

It's 'common knowledge' that one person cannot change the world. Don't tell that to Abraham, or to Moses, or to Jesus, or even to that homosexual pedophile Mohamed. One person can change himself, and that might just be where 'changing the world' begins.

This Isn't My Generation

2007-10-25T12:06:00.000-07:00

One sometimes wonders what became of such standards of my misspent youth as honor, courage, self-discipline (generally reinforced by 'external' discipline), innovative thought, 'sweat equity', and such similar values as once defined this country. Every Sunday, from the onset of Autumn to early February, we don team colors, paint our faces and taunt our neighbors and in-laws when 'our' team wins and theirs loses - but we teach our kids that 'winning' isn't 'important', only 'feeling good about yourself'. Not doing anything to 'earn' that feeling, mind you, not 'accomplishing' anything, not putting forth any manner of 'effort', merely 'feeling' good.

The concept of innovation has been reduced to the mundanity of 'thinking outside the box' - and debased by Madison Avenue to 'coloring outside the lines' or the appetite-destroying (in oh, so many ways) 'thinking outside the bun'.

Through - or perhaps despite - it all, a small percentage of young men and women reject the 'politically correct' indoctrination, understand that we CANNOT 'all get along' with people who hate us enough to die if it means killing us. Teenagers and young adults that comprehend the necessity for excellence, and the sacrifices necessary to achieve it. Individuals who choose to define themselves by accomplishment at best, striving for excellence at worst - not let 'society' pigeonhole them with their lesser contemporaries.

Fortunately for us now, albeit unfortunately for the nation as a whole, these 'best and brightest' also understand that to insure the existence of a field on which to play out their dreams, they must first deal with those who would extinguish them. They are aware of the fact that there is 'good' in this world, and there is 'evil'; that as imperfect as they and their country may be, it is still the 'good', and those who wish to drag it into ignorance and poverty; those who wish only to kill or convert, to stifle independent thought and subjugate innovation are 'evil'. They know instictively that in war - and make no mistake, we are at war - 'away games' are always preferable (OK, 'we' are not at war, the military is at war. 'We' are at the mall.)

While 'elite' colleges and universities, or even the neighborhood high school, demand even more of the national treasury for bloated administrative salaries, for failed 'programs', for 'ebonics' and 'new, new math', they bar reality from their campus: ROTC (and JROTC) programs are decertified, military recruiters forbidden - and they expect 'the system' to continue, to revel in the 'benefits' while undercutting the only thing that has, for the past 237 years, guaranteed there WOULD be a 'system', that there would be a (somewhat) 'free' and independent nation: The uniformed minions trained to kill but prepared, if necessary, to die.

If you're expecting a 'point' to the foregoing, feel free to draw your own conclusion. This is, after all, 'ramblings'.

Since I was locked out of the original...

2007-10-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

Thoughts, musings, essays and opinions of a Paleoconservative.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Rambling on about the Constitution

“I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ``needed'' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests,'' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.”

----- Barry Goldwater

That is, in all probability, the pithiest quote the good Senator has uttered in a long career of quotable observations. I've always found myself particularly attracted to it - at least since I first read the Constitution, some decades back. Now, I've never laid claim to being 'the world's smartest person' - I leave that to someone who entertains the sheeple in the Sunday rotogravure - but it seemed painfully obvious to me that even then, before the 'war on poverty' (and I tried to surrender when it came along, but they wouldn't let me), before the People Control Act of 1968, , before the absurdity of 'government funded universal health care', before 'No Child Left Behind', the government was exceeding its mandate.

The Constitution, to borrow from the vernacular, 'isn't about' what you or I may or may not do, it is not an instrument for social experimentation nor a 'living' document, it is a set of strict guidelines detailing what the government is required to do, and what it clearly and expressly is forbidden. The first ten Amendments to that Constitution do not 'grant' any rights - a government which governs by the will and at the pleasure of its constituency cannot grant or revoke rights - 'merely' recognizes those natural rights of man which far preceded the establishment of the nation. Any government - especially and specifically any government which claims legitimacy under that Constitution - that attempts to infringe on and curtail those rights has lost any claim to such legitimacy when it does.

There are provisions in that Constitution which need to be brought to the attention of our elected 'representatives', who also serve at our pleasure, as our 'hired help', and who take an oath to support and abide by the specifications of that Constitution. If your gardener, or your maid, or your driver, or your cook stole from you and lied about it when you confronted them with documented proof, just how long would they continue to work for you? If the sales force in your business, or your accountants, or your lawyers signed a contract and violated it daily, clause by clause, enriching themselves at your expense, stealing from you and distributing their ill-gotten gains among their cronies, would you let them continue drawing a paycheck, or would you see that they drew prison sentences?

A government can only hold sway with the just consent of the governed, can only maintain its legitimacy by maintaining its legitimacy. Income redistribution by extortion is illegitimate. Nanny-stateism is a pernicious abrogation of liberty. Refusal to defend the borders that define the physical limits of the nation is treason. Infringements on the right to speak freely, peaceably assemble, observe religious customs and traditions, maintain the means of personal and national defense is tyranny, pure and simple...and those who stand idly by while it happens, while the Constitution they pay lip service to without reading or comprehending it not only forfeit their right to it, they undermine ours.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

More Random Musings

Some people are still flogging Esperanto as a 'universal' language - pointedly ignoring two fairly obvious points: First, it would require anyone buying into the concept to learn an artificial, 'made-up' language that has sharp contrasts with the internal logic of their 'native' language, and learn it 'from the ground up'; Second, in almost every nation on earth (with the glaring exception of the United States), English is taught as a required subject, along with whatever 'native' language(s) the students may also be taught. English is the language aircraft communicate with control towers in. English is the language international commerce is conducted in.

Hel-lo, we already have a 'universal' language, replete with components and constructions representing almost every major language group of current consequence (and some, like french, of less consequence than its country). This is precisely the sort of mental masturbation for people with no lives of their own who think (and I use the term loosely) that they know what's 'best' for all, and whose 'one size fits all' mentality never accounts for the fact that it doesn't, and wouldn't even were they in position to implement.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs

This is not something I've written (although I wish I had), but it is something I identify with, and am proud to associate with others who identify with it:

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman

By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.

"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke

Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."

Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...

"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

>> Thank you, Colonel.

And You Thought...

...that the idiots who confiscated 'GI Joe' plastic scale model 'guns' and rifle-shaped tie bars - and tried to confiscate General Joe Foss' Medal of Honor (because it looked like a 'ninja throwing star') - were dredged from the shallow end of the gene pool?

I'm no great fan of excessive and unnecessary legislation, but perhaps it's time to establish a 'felony criminal stupidity' statute. When someone who we trust with the education of our children forces his cranial extension this far through his anal sphincter, perhaps we need to give some serious thought to the 'qualifications' - and not just 'academic' - of those so entrusted.

PHOTONETDAILY
Youth suspended over sketch of gun
Officials say drawing by teen 'absolutely considered a threat'

Posted: August 22, 2007
5:10 p.m. Eastern

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Offending drawing (Photo: KPHO-TV, Phoenix)

A 13-year-old boy has been suspended for three days by an Arizona public school because he sketched a picture that resembled a gun, something school officials said they "absolutely" believed could pose a threat.

According to a report by KPHO-TV in Phoenix, it's not the type of greeting the Mosteller family expected when they moved from Colorado Springs to Chandler, Ariz., a few weeks ago.

"My son is a very good boy," Paul Mosteller told the television station. "He doesn't get into trouble. There was nothing on the paper that would signify that it was a threat of any form."

The principal at Payne Junior High School kept the actual drawing, and officials with the Chandler Unified School District declined to release any information about the situation.

"Federal privacy law forbids the school or district from discussing student discipline," the station was told.

Mosteller said her son was just idly drawing pictures, and ended up with a fake laser.

"He was just basically doodling and not thinking a lot about it," she said. "We're not advocates for guns. We don't have guns in our home. We don't promote the use of guns. My son was just basically doodling on a piece of paper."

School officials who initially banned the student for five days lowered the penalty to three days after discussing the situation with the boy's father.

"I just can't believe that there wasn't another way to resolve this," Mosteller told the Associated Press. "He's so upset. The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good."

The drawing did not show blood or bullets. Nor did it show injuries or target anyone, the Mostellers said. It just resembled a gun.

Terry Locke, a spokesman for the district, told the AP the sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," and threatening words or pictures are punishable.

However, the school failed to contact police, and failed to provide counseling or an evaluation for the student to determine if he intended it as a threat, officials said.

The student's father, Ben Mosteller, said school officials told him how serious they considered the situation, and discussed the 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, where two teens shot and killed 12 students and a teacher, and injured dozens more.

That, he said, was extreme and offensive. The family already has contacted the district's governing board about the incident.

The station said it checked the rules students must follow at school, and found there's nothing in a portion of the student handbook that addresses conduct to indicate the drawing of a weapon poses threat.

Participants in a local newspaper forum were irritated.

"If school officials believed this to be a threat, they are in violation of state law by failing to make a police report. Suspend them," said "Bobo A."

"This once great land of ours (now someone else's) gets SICKER by the day. Not the year, not the month, not the week, but by the DAY. Dennis Prager asked a very interesting question: How did the "Greatest Generation" give birth to the "Most Stupid Generation?" (my paraphrase)," added "loamy l".

This 'drawing' looks more like "Stargate SG-1"s "Daedalus" than any firearm - actual or 'conceptional' - I've ever run across. Perhaps this unprincipled Principal assumed the paper it was drawn on was now likelier to inflict the dreaded 'paper cut'? One may legitimately wonder what (if?) these cretins - both teacher and Principal - could have been 'thinking' (and I use the term loosely) when they initially reacted to the sketch. One must definitely pause in awe and wonderment at the 'conclusion' that it 'posed a threat' (to whom - Pablo Picasso?). But one must be virtually struck dumb by the penalty exacted.

When the absurdity of the situation is absorbed, a new set of questions arises: Was this unnamed Principal promoted well above his level of competence as a reward for being a 'good' teacher, or because he was totally inept at that, too - but being a union member, couldn't be fired? Were the unnamed 'school officials' conscious and/or sober? Will anyone, including the parents (who seem ovine enough not to) challenge this idiocy, and bring at minimum child abuse, defamation of character, and malfeasance, misfeasance, and lack of feasance charges against its perpetrators? Will the ACLU send its legions of legal beagles (at least the ones not enjoying their blunts and harassing the Minuteman CDG on the border) to defend Mosteller's 'right' to a government indoctrination - er, 'education'? Or will the sheeple go merrily about their business, ignoring the institutionalized imbecility rampant among our 'politically correct' institutions?

If there has been a more recent example of the crying need for a law against felony criminal stupidity, it has yet to be publicized.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Aside

A question or two has been raised about the URL for the site. Removing my tongue from my cheek long enough to address it: None of the 'good' ones were 'available', so I relied on the 'eyebrow lifting' properties of the statement to attract some slight attention. I do know a little about a lot of 'things', a lot about some, and know how to learn what I don't know, but the important factor is that I know enough to keep my mouth shut when the discussion turns to something I don't know. Now that, I consider 'smart'.

If you own it, you should know how to use it

The right of the people to keep and bear arms is once again being recognized as an right, as well it should be, and the growing number of citizens going armed can be a force for both 'crime control' and, to an extent, 'government control': As more members of the populace choose to exercise one right, so will they be more aware of their other rights, and the incursions of government on them. As with the exercise of any right, there are also responsibilities: When you choose to go armed, you take on the obligation of not only knowing when to 'use' it, but how.

Fumbling for a handgun or searching for the safety when confronted with an armed assailant may well get you killed, as well as put that firearm in the hands of a felon. Firing that sidearm without acquiring - and being certain of - your intended target may result in the death of anyone but your assailant. Mandatory training prior to acquiring government permission to carry has its place, but is nothing more than a foundation for further learning.

One of the premier venues for practical, 'real world' training is found within driving distance of Las Vegas, Nevada: Dr. Ignatius Piazza's Front Sight Institute. Providing that practical training to military, law enforcement and 'civilians', the Institute's instructors work to build both skill and confidence. For further information:

Front Sight Firearms Training Institute

Ignatius Piazza - founder of Front Sight

Ignatius Piazza Blog

Front Sight - in Guns & Ammo

My Experience at Front Sight

Ignatius Piazza - in Fort Worth Star Telegram

Front Sight - in Pajaronian Register

Ignatius Piazza - in Playboy

Ignatius Piazza - in San Francisco Chronicle

Front Sight - in Los Angeles Times

Ignatius Piazza - in Forbes Magazine

Ignatius Piazza - in El Mercurio

Front Sight - in Financial Times

Ignatius Piazza - in Gun World

Front Sight - in The Mail on Sunday Review

Front Sight - on USA Today

Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Sun

Ignatius Piazza - in Small Arms Review

Front Sight - in Icon Magazine

Front Sight - in Sierra Times

Ignatius Piazza - on World Net Daily

Front Sight - on CNN

Front Sight - in Cybercast News Service

Front Sight - in Gun Web

Front Sight - in Santa Cruz Sentinel

Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Life

Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Mercury

Ignatius Piazza - in Handvapen Guiden

Ignatius Piazza - in National Enquirer

Front Sight - on BBC News

Front Sight - in US News & World Report

Ignatius Piazza - in Washington Post

Front Sight - in El Pais Seminal

Front Sight - in London Times

Ignatius Piazza - in Las Vegas Review

Ignatius Piazza - in Chicago Tribune

Front Sight - in Black Belt Magazine

Ignatius Piazza - on Reform America

Front Sight - in New York Times

Ignatius Piazza - in Times Democrat

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Random Musings

The President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Whether or not he has any military experience, and whether or not such experience has included actual combat, he is, for better or worse, unequivocally in command. A cursory reading of the Constitution - specifically the first sentence of Article II, Section 2 - makes this obvious to anyone capable of reading at a third grade level.

What the President does in his capacity as C-in-C is a reflection of who he is: Lincoln appointed commanders who would win, and left their choice of strategies and tactics to them, LBJ chose to micromanage his war down to Platoon level from the Oval Office. Teddy Roosevelt sent the 'Great White Fleet' around the world as a 'friendly show of force', FDR called for war not only on Japan, which had attacked us, but on Germany, Italy and Austria, which hadn't. Jefferson sent ships and troops to the muslim Barbary States which had declared war on us. McKinley and Roosevelt dispatched troops to the Philippines, where muslim 'Moros' had declared war on us. G.W. Bush, after a Congressional vote to declare war, sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq after muslims (is a pattern becoming apparent?) trained, supported and given sanctuary in those nations had repeatedly attacked us.

Far from being 'Bush's War', as the lamestream, drive-by media has managed to convince the shallow and easily led, this is not only the same war that islam has been waging against this nation even before we became a nation, it is the same war islam has been waging against western civilization for over a thousand years. The muslims who blew up the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the muslims who blew in the side of the USS Cole, the muslims who flew jetliners into the World Trade Center are part and parcel of the same culture that overran the Mediterranean from Jerusalem to Poitiers a millennium ago, without the redeeming qualities of their ancestors.

The United States is not Sparta, the 'warrior mentality' has never been a part of our cultural makeup. Throughout most of our history, we have desired nothing more than the peaceful pursuit of our own interests - but for most of that history, when war was thrust upon us, we responded with a ferocity that eventually garnered victory. We have also had war thrust upon us - not coincidentally - when we 'forgot' the truism dating back to the height of Pax Romana: Si vis pacem, para bellum". When we were prepared for war, whether it was Teddy Roosevelt building a dreadnought Navy or Reagan building a modern fleet of 600 ships - and the sailors to man them - we have had 'rumors of war', we have had saber rattling, but we have not had war. When military service was seen as the last refuge of rogues and misfits under FDR, we were attacked, and thrust into war. When our armed forces were pared to the bone, our defense budget gutted for social programs, our military turned into a vast social experiment and service and patriotism derided under the pseudo-bubba occupant of the Oral Office, we were attacked, and thrust into war. A war, incidentally, that may be laid at the feet of that President, but one he lacked the intestinal fortitude to pursue, and his successor inherited.

One Has to Start Somewhere

Any changes in the 'inalienable rights' presupposed by the Declaration of Independence, any infringement or curtailment of rights by the duly elected 'representatives' at any level of government, any seizure of power by such governments despite the clear and distinct prohibitions in the Constitution against such expansion of forbidden powers has been both gradual and 'interpretive'. It is incumbent on those of us still cognizant of the fact that the Constitution is, both de facto and de jure, the supreme Law of the Land, to recognize that any return to Constitutional government, any reversal of these incursions on our 'natural rights', be both gradual and accomplished within the letter and spirit of that Constitution. The alternatives are equally unlikely: An immediate nullification of all laws, regulations and ordinances which violate the Constitution cannot and would not survive the legislatures which enacted them, and armed insurrection, even if successful, would be at best a pyrrhic victory with no guaranty of the reinstatement of the Constitution as written or intended.

It continues as a matter of faith among those of earlier generations and originalist persuasion that succeeding generations have little or no concept of the intent of the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights; that ‘patriotism’ has become a dirty word, smacking of jingoism and elitism; and that military service is regarded by a nanny-state society as a haven for the unfit and the dregs of society, and those who choose it are too lazy or uneducated to succeed in the ‘real world’. It is also a misperception: While a majority of society has been indoctrinated – by unionized ‘teachers’ in government run and funded ‘education’ institutions – to believe these canards, we haven’t yet burned books or banned truth. Honest and honorable men still research and publish, parents still maintain some control over their offspring and provide the discipline and education lacking in the ‘education establishment’, and the internet has broken the stranglehold mass media has so long had on the flow of information. As pervasive as the intentional dissemination of misinformation, disinformation, half-truths and intentional falsehood is, there is also an unlimited access to fact, opinion, and free and open discussion. Even among those lacking formal education beyond elementary reading or arithmetical skills, it is generally an article of faith that ‘anything that seems too good to be true probably is’, and that anything which, on its face seems unlikely or improbable, is unlikely or improbable.

My intent in electronically ‘publishing’ this is not to ‘convert by bludgeoning with irrefutable fact’ (although there are occasions when such appears the only viable alternative), but to encourage the questioning of ‘authority’, especially when such ‘authority’ is speaking from a personal agenda, rather than established, albeit obfuscated, fact. It is also my desire to provide a forum where interested parties can exchange and discover the commonality of their interests: How, as an example, smoking bans and seat belt laws are both unsupportable government incursions on personal liberty and ‘building blocks’ of a totalitarian regime in which the government will control every aspect of what was once personal choice and individual responsibility, or how the fate of owners of ‘ugly black rifles’, ‘sporting’ shotguns and handguns is dependent on their recognizing their commonalities – the success of ‘limitations’ on one is, again, merely a step toward the limitation and eventual confiscation of all. On that subject (with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemoller):

They came for the automatic weapons and I didn't speak, because I had no automatic weapons.
They came for the handguns and I didn't speak, because I had no handguns.
They came for the hunting rifles and I didn't speak, because I had no hunting rifles.
They came for the shotguns and I didn't speak, because I had no shotguns.
They then came for the dissenters, and nobody spoke, because there were no tools of freedom left for them to speak with.

After two months of trying to reaccess the account, we're opening the attack on a new front:

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