Dear reader, if you go back to my arguments on the radio, in the newspapers, on television, and in public speeches about the state of education in 2010, then look around the colleges and public schools of our day now—you’ll understand what I was saying. It has come to fruition. And there is no going back. The tragedy will have to run its course. The situation was dire when I was talking about it then, but now that train has come and already left the station and the tracks that it’s on will take our country through one of its darkest periods. My children are members of this Millennial age that have had their minds nearly completely destroyed by progressive politics and public education. Only my children had the benefit of being home schooled for a time and had very traditional parents who helped them through the minefield of modern progressivism. All the things I write about on this site they’ve heard from me before in person. But most children weren’t so lucky, and it shows.
A lot has been said of this Millennial generation. I’m not a fan of them. I didn’t even like my own generation, or my parents generation. My favorite generation was that of my grandparents days, so I won’t rationalize my own generation or those of the idiot sixty’s flower children as being better than the present one. They weren’t, in fact they set the stage for the mess that the Millennials find themselves in. The parents of these poor children allowed themselves to be pulled into the lure of dual income homes leaving kids to raise themselves. The mothers allowed themselves to be emasculated into more of a male role within the home all in search for “equal rights,” which was a mistake. And the net result has been catastrophic. The Millennials are a self-entitled group who had to raise themselves by parents who felt guilty about what they’ve done to those poor children. The parents wanted to believe the government—that if they spent $50,000 to $100,000 on a college education that they could purchase success for their children—but it didn’t work. It only liberalized those kids into believing the platform of the Democratic Party. In just a few short years those kids will be voting and in charge of our nation—and they aren’t intellectually prepared for it.
And I will be there to tell everyone so. As the world walks toward that edge of social, economic, and intellectual destruction—I will not be with it. The current toward that destruction may be swift but I will continue to stand against it and will be there to rub everyone’s face in the dung of their own creation—just as I have for years against those who are openly making serious mistakes in their own families driven by social pressure. For instance, I had an aunt once who tried to emasculate my wife—since she was a stay-at-home mom who poured everything into raising our children—which I fully supported by working two full-time jobs and all the overtime I could get at them to make the money our family needed. Our social rejection of progressive engineering within the family structure made other family members uncomfortable with their own choices so some of the more radicalized feminists sought to undermine my wife behind my back—many times—with pressure lunches encouraging her to go build a life for herself outside of our home. Of course that angered me, but I always let my wife make her own decisions and eventually she always snapped into the right frame of mind without my input. I certainly gave my opinion, but I always let her make up her own mind—even if it personally cost me a great deal. Because if we weren’t both on the same page, it would flow over into our children—so I’d allow those types of manipulations knowing the intent hoping my wife would come to the same conclusion after our discussions. She always did and on that particular occasion that braless feminist angry at my wife for her life decisions threatened at the end of the meeting—uncharacteristically violent—“we women must stick together.” We haven’t spoken to that person in over a decade—only on the most polite of occasions, a death or some other unfortunate gathering. I never forget things like that, and neither does my wife, not for the sake of holding a grudge, but because it is people like that who have made this ridiculous generation of the Millennials.
Millennials are lazy, entitled, essentially neurotic spoiled brats. They take too many drugs, have too low of a pain threshold, and are messes politically. They pick government dependence over self-reliance because it gives them more game time on their Xboxs and social networks. They don’t make the connection between productivity and healthy living because nobody taught them anything about any of that. They are lost, weak, and intellectually soft. Their music is depressing, their world outlook shaped for them by public education is too liberalized, and they are going to make terrible parents because they don’t want to work at it. They want to buy a good child like a fast food hamburger. They make no connection between hard work and success—even though many of them will work hard to become proficient at Call of Duty. They certainly don’t work to keep a car nice, or to maintain a home, or a job. If they have they slightest little fever, the call off work and log onto Facebook. They figure the world will go on whether or not they show up for work and they take that attitude with them to everything in life.
I told the kids who interviewed me during the Lakota debates between 2010 and 2012 what was coming their way and they’d look at me like I was an out-dated old man warning them about it being too cold outside. Now just three years later many of them are in their early or late twenties and they are starting to see the writing on the wall. Rent is too high, jobs pay too little, relationships are too hard, and children soak up all their “me” time. Life is hard and they don’t know how to work on their own cars, they stay on their parent’s insurance plans too long, or they just get on government help having the honor of providing for themselves stolen before they ever get started in life, and their nation will soon be $20 trillion in debt with little to no hope in paying that money off with a declining GDP nationally, because those Millennials won’t fight to start a new business—it’s just too hard and regulations make it impossible for their short attention spans to muscle through. Government has loaded up opposition and they lack the will to fight back. So bad times are coming for their poor generation which has been excessively fortunate up to this point—but that will change rapidly in the years to come.
Unfortunately for everyone else, I am right most of the time. If I care enough about something to declare it in some sort of statement, then I know enough to give a warning. If people listened, they could save themselves a lot of trouble. But most of them don’t. I saw a fabulous looking young Millennial woman the other day. She had all the features of a top Victoria Secret model, and she couldn’t have been much older than 21. However, she had a nose piercing, tongue piercing, and an eye brow piercing–gauges in her ears and she had full body tattoos that were visible through her lace stockings and mid-section which was revealed to everyone as she stood confidently smoking on a lunch break. She was working retail selling perfume for a nice establishment and she looked far from a skank. Most of the men with me gave her that “I’d like to plow that” type of middle-aged stare, but I felt sorry for the girl. In just a few years those tattoos would start to look terrible. By the time she’s forty, they will be embarrassments on saggy skin. The holes she’s put in her body will never really heal, but will leave behind scar tissue. When she’s fifty she’ll look like she was a burn victim in a fire—her skin will stay stretched out in proportion for the rest of her life. And she’ll lose all her moral authority for her eventual children because her past will be on full display for them to see during those important impressionable first years.
The saddest thing of all is that she’s not alone—she’s actually quite common. She was prettier than most, but the results all lead to the same place. If her generation is detrimentally terrible, then her kids will be worse—because she will have proven herself to be a terrible role model and we now know that public schools and colleges are unable to complete the job of raising proper children. They ruin them. So her children will have no hope whatsoever of a happy and good life. I’m as sure of it as she was standing there. All of life is a math problem. You don’t put together a negative and a negative and get a positive. In fact, a positive and a negative lead to a negative. Only a string of positives can provide a net result toward desirable outcomes. If three negatives are introduced to a child’s life, then six positives are needed to overcome the quantitative effects toward a net gain. It’s not hard to figure these things out.
Now, as is evident in the videos above, it has started—and it will be a mess. The evidence is literally everywhere and its all coming unraveled much faster than anybody was prepared for. There will come a day when the kids of the kids of these Millennials will want to go back in time and fix everything. For them, I will write it all down so that they can have a playbook on how to get out of the quandary they inherited. I don’t blame the Millennials for being complete idiots. They were raised by my generation who listened to the generation before as those old hippies failed to maintain a proper national philosophy in favor of the family unit. But that is all water flowing under the bridge now. There is no stopping it, the damage is done. But once those waters recede, there will be a future who will want to rebuild, and for them I will proudly declare that I always stood on the right side of history, and will gladly show them how to live correctly toward the proper objectives that are best for themselves, and their society. Inwardly however, I will say proudly—“I told you so.”
Matt Clark had me on his show to actually co-host with him as we spoke to Robert Tracinski who writes for The Federalist. He had written an interesting article about how it was unlikely that J.J. Abrams could screw up the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, so long as he stuck with the formula. There were some condescending aspects to Tracisnski’s article which I was willing to overlook, because he was right about a lot of things. But more than anything Tracisnski had been dismissive of the original trilogy as not being very good—which I thought was odd. So I was eager to talk to him. It only took a few moments into the interview however to learn the root of his issues—he was a Star Trek fan and had only come to Star Wars through his children. His position was that Star Trek was philosophically superior to Star Wars and that these new movies were kid stuff that he was enjoying with his children. Listen to that interview here:
I don’t care much for Star Trek, to me it is the United Nations in space. While Robert Tracinski is not a liberal and is a pretty committed Objectivist, which is Ayn Rand’s philosophy—it was clear to me quickly why Robert didn’t like Star Wars much in his article. I disagree with him on a number of topics regarding the formula of Star Wars, or its appeal. I think the Star Wars films are deeply philosophical; especially The Empire Strikes Back—much more so than Star Trek. I mean, people are not lining up across the world to see the latest Star Trek movie, and Star Wars isn’t as popular as it is because it’s just adults living out their childhoods once again through a movie. It’s more complicated than that. As we were talking to Tracinski, because of his background with Ayn Rand I kept wondering if I had met him someplace before, so I wanted to cut him some slack. Everyone comes to things in their own time and if he came to Star Wars late in life through his kids—so be it. One aspect that Tracinski got right in his article was the perception that Han Solo is the key to the franchise—so I stuck to that topic in our conversation.
Matt and I spent the first segment of his Saturday WAAM show talking about Disney and their progressive activism with a gentle warning about messing with the formula of Star Wars and the impact that might have on their massive investment. Matt and I love Disney—the Uncle Walt version. I love that Disney is a family friendly entertainment group—so I am willing to overlook a little of their liberal activism. Something that Robert Tracinski did bring up on his show that was true. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were the best conservative filmmakers coming out of the 80s. I personally think they were both seduced by Bill Clinton in the 90s and have lost their minds since. The reason their early films were so successful was because they all had conservative leanings to them. Once both directors had achieved their monstrous success and essentially stepped away from the Objectivist roots of their film careers, their movies started making a lot less money. Without question George Lucas was at least attracted to Ayn Rand in his early days—when she was at the height of her influence—and Han Solo was a character that represented that struggle within George. As he become more liberal with age and success—perhaps feeling a little guilty that all his liberal employees were constantly berating him for his capitalist tendencies, he softened up on his stance for individualism and began to accept collectivism to a much higher degree, which was clearly represented in the prequel films—which were noticeably absent of the Han Solo type of character.
Where I disagree with Tracinski about the prequel films is that I don’t think George Lucas ever intended those films to be successes. They were dark movies about the failure of a Republic—and have great political merit to them. They are very philosophical from the position of how poorly constructed philosophies can destroy a body of government. Even though Lucas had been moving to the left—politically, his message about the failure of groups to detect evil, and how institutional failure is indicative of all government cycles is powerful stuff that set the stage for some pretty deep storytelling. As much as people dismiss the prequel films as silly, they are important in the larger scope of the intended message. The movies did lack heroics on the scale of a Han Solo, but that was on purpose. A lot of characters including Yoda and Obi-wan Kenobi made mistakes that they spent the rest of their lives correcting. So the films were never supposed to be heroic repeats of the original trilogy. For that story Han Solo was the savior, he kept Luke alive, married his sister Leia and that set up the events of these new films. Solo is an Ayn Rand character and Disney even with all their activism against conservative causes—can’t ignore that the magic of Star Wars isn’t Luke Skywalker, or anything about the Force—it’s about Han Solo’s position against hooky religions and ancient weapons not being as competent as a good blaster at your side.
Just a few days before Matt and I had our radio show together Harrison Ford was on with Jimmy Kimmel dressed up for Halloween as a hot dog. It was a funny segment and of course Ford was asked about the new Star Wars film. I thought his comments were interesting to say the least. He stated that nobody would be disappointed—at all. That was a remarkable statement considering what’s at stake. He knows the potential cost of over-anticipated hype—so his comments had me very curious in relation to Disney’s strategy going forward. Han Solo is going to be playing a larger role in Star Wars than he has in the past largely because the character tests well demographically. His children will without question be the subject of the new stories but Disney will find every opportunity to insert a younger Han Solo into the movies at every juncture. To be successful at that, Disney will have no choice but to adopt the obvious aspects of Han Solo’s Objectivism view points—his natural conservatism and love of capitalist endeavors if they want Star Wars to continue being successful.
After Matt’s show I spent time at my children’s house going trick or treating with my grandkids—and kids. Late into the night my oldest daughter and I spent time talking about Han Solo and how it seems obvious now that Disney will find a way to put him in the stand alone films as much as possible just to use him as a springboard to success. Like Robert Tracinski and I spoke about on Matt’s show, without Han Solo, I think the Star Wars saga crashes and burns. If they try to turn him into a sacrificial collectivist Disney will lose a lot of money because people will reject the premise. The ticket buying public will only accept the Objectivist Han Solo—and nothing less—the hero who acts in his own self-interest. Even though the moment at the end of A New Hope was intended to show that Solo was able to act for others, the need to save Luke at the last moment was out of Solo’s self-interest because he was starting to like the kid. Like I said, Star Wars is a lot more philosophical than people give it credit for, and I’d think that as much as Tracinski likes Ayn Rand, that he’d prefer Star Wars over the United Nations in space—Star Trek and all that “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” crap. Screw Spock and his pointy ears—he’s a damn collectivist. Solo is a rugged, gun slinging individualist who acts out of his own self-interest. That’s why Star Wars is better than Star Trek.
We’ll see what happens, time will tell. It was a good conversation that was worth listening to, especially given what Star Wars will mean when it opens in a few weeks. There will be no escape; the opening of The Force Awakens will impact just about everyone no matter where they live. It will be impossible to not notice something about it as the merchandising around Christmas will be everywhere. Just watch the Duracell commercial shown above. Star Wars will literally be everywhere in just a few weeks of this writing. There will be nothing like it ever—history is being made both commercially and philosophically. The question will be whether or not The Force Awakens will be as anticipated on the 19th of December as it was on the 18th after people start seeing the movie. To be as successful as Disney needs it to be people will need to see the film several times. And to have that kind of power over the mind of fans—Han Solo will have to be a part of it with an Objectivist approach—otherwise the whole thing falls apart. It’s not the lightsaber battles and space antics that make Star Wars so great—it’s the Objectivist leanings of its basic premise:
Han Solo—“marching into the detention area is not what I had in mind.”
Luke Skywalker—“but she’s rich.”
Han Solo—“How rich?”
Luke Skywalker—“More wealth than you can imagine.”
Han Solo—“I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.”
Luke Skywalker—“you’ll get it.”
Han Solo—“I better!”
Luke Skywalker—“You will!”
Han Solo—“Alright kid, what’s your plan?”
That’s Star Wars—it’s an Objectivist love fest designed before George Lucas was overly liberalized. It’s also why twice during the broadcast with Matt that I uttered to his millions and millions of listeners—“Han shot first!” When Lucas changed Star Wars in 1997 to have the bounty hunter Greedo shoot at Han first in the Mos Eisley cantina fans were angry. It was a liberalized mistake for Lucas to cave under the pressure from the liberal film community to make Han Solo not appear as such a blood thirsty killer. But Solo acting out of self-interest shot first because that is the nature of his character—he’s an Ayn Rand survivalist and the heart of what makes Star Wars great.
I really didn’t think it was possible. I always did love the Back to the Future films, especially the second one when they traveled from 1985 to October 21st 2015, which was just a few days ago as of this writing. So I had those old movies on my mind when Liberty Center opened in my neighborhood on October 22, 2015—one day after Back to the Future Day. I parked in the back parking garage behind the new movie theater a little displaced because for my entire life this area had been an empty field alongside I-75. I never imagined that anything of any importance would ever be where I parked my car on that sunny October day. I was meeting my family at the Rusty Bucket but wasn’t quite sure where lead to where, so I made my way south until I found the main road which ran through the center of the complex. It was ironically just like the scene in Back to the Future II, where I came out of an alley into the hard sun of a fall afternoon and the future hit me right in the face. It looked just like Hill Valley from that famous movie series, square and all.
Short of hover boards and flying cars, it was the future as I never would have imagined it. The stores were modern versions of the type I grew up with, but the way they were presented were very tech heavy and architecturally specific. Living space was stacked in creative ways to make a dynamic world that really has not been possible before in any other shopping experience I’ve ever seen. As I thought of some of the places I’ve been, such as Downtown Disney, La Isla in Cancun, or the Americana in Glendale, California, nothing was like what I saw at Liberty Center in my hometown. It was more astonishing than I thought it would be. The reason we ate at the Rusty Bucket was because it was next door to the Cobb movie theater which is extremely important to me. I wanted to talk to the owners about some upcoming plans, and that was why my family was there on opening day. It was as nice as I would have imagined a luxury theater to be that has made its mark in Tampa, Florida where another shopping destination that I love a lot, The International Mall is rather common.
As a guy, I don’t like shopping very much—my wife does, but I don’t like the task of actually shopping. I do love the exhibition of capitalism, especially when it’s as openly unapologetic as it is at Liberty Center. As I’ve said many times, I have a soft spot for developers because they are often the first cogs in the wheel toward economic development. Because of their creations money moves through an economy and in an age where the shopping experience is competing directly with online sales, something new has to be tried, and they did at Liberty Center—a long time in the making.
Yes they have an Apple Store. Yes, they have a really nice Victoria’s Secret which is good for me and my wife. She likes the quality of that store and it makes me happy to see her happy. Yes they have a number of upper crust restaurant experiences. Looming over the square I was in was a large facade of a Marriot hotel looking down into the action below. It replaced the clock tower in the Back to the Future film regarding iconic skyline. As I hiked and drove the back roads that used to pass through that location way back in 1985 I never would have imagined that in 2015 there would be terraced gardens exotic fountains, and advanced shopping destinations in such a place, unless I could have been placed into a time machine and shown first-hand.
And that’s where my family found me, they were perched above the shops on a patio waving to me to come up and join them in the sun. Step for step I felt just as Marty McFly when he first saw Hill Valley in 2015. It was a strange experience that I couldn’t have anticipated even as I watched them build the place brick by brick. Liberty Township instantly had a downtown district that was every bit as cultured and sophisticated as any of the big cities of America or the world for that matter. As I thought of the countless hours I’ve spent around Fountain Square in Cincinnati on business and pleasure surrounded by skyscrapers and dozens of neatly tucked restaurants situated everywhere, the rural community of Liberty Township had instantly built for itself a downtown that looked big time, but was small enough to still have the feel of a tight-knit community.
If engineers designing living conditions for intergalactic space travelers had to design something that divided function, luxury, and necessity into an all-encompassing package Liberty Center would be it. It was small and enormously large all at the same time and surrounded shoppers with an all-encompassing experience. People walked the streets without worrying about prostitutes and beggars—which is impossible in most big cities these days totally ruining the experience of economic frivolity. A quick trip down Times Square in New York or the strip in Vegas as a couple out for a night together means you are often molested by whores and malcontents. Vegas is terrible for that kind of thing. Times Square is nearly as bad. Liberty Center was free of that mess—but it had all the good things left behind. It was for all matters of thought a conservative utopia. If John Galt had built a shopping center, this is what he would have designed, from the famous novel Atlas Shrugged. It had all the plus elements of an economic development without all the trash created by liberal city governments who mismanage their downtowns into a trash heap of mixed values and nonsense. Liberty Center was built for people who like the good life, and know how to live it.
I heard up to his opening that Liberty Center would essentially be a carbon copy of The Greene in Dayton, or Newport on the Levy in Northern Kentucky—but it was obvious that it was different right from the start. It was the infusion of sophistication mixed with rural charm that really is unequal and reminded me almost of a movie set, something that is common at Universal Studios where complicated streets change the whole feel of a place just one block from a previous position. Clearly the designers had learned something from those entertainment complexes in Florida as far as space utilization where geographically the terrain may seem simple, but architecturally a visitor might feel like they had visited a new world getaway by the time they walked from one end to the other.
It was special more for me because I picked just the right spot to walk in at just the right time of day to nearly simulate a Back to the Future moment. As I stepped onto a sidewalk out into the Center square a car went by, a modern looking Cadillac nearly on queue with the events of when the same thing happened to Marty McFly. All that was missing were the flying cars and the holographs, but that technology isn’t that far off, and Liberty Center looks staged up to take advantage when it does hit the market. On one end was an enclosed mall that led to Dillards and Dick’s Sporting Good, both marvelous stores in their own right. At the other a Marriott hotel and a gorgeous movie theater that really was designed in one of my dreams—and in the middle was everything else.
Another thing that I like about Trump is that he isn’t afraid to call out a tough issue—even if it’s controversial—such as the county’s reaction to post 9/11. There has been a lot proven that there are discrepancies in the whole event, the destruction of the World Trade Center, the allocated blame, and aftermath of the destruction—the deficit spending it created, the expansion of government with the Department of Homeland Security and many other fallacies that could have been averted if people had just done their jobs pre 9/11. When Trump said the event probably wouldn’t have happened on his watch, he’s talking about a level of management competency that only people used to positions of power understand. George W. Bush had barely won a hard election against Al Gore, was over his head with a lot of the management aspects of the job as President, and clearly wanted to right wrongs issued against his family from the first Iraq War. Judgments were clouded and decision gates not attended by the best minds—clearly. Conspiracy theories abound regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center—and subsequent buildings in the area—and those conspiracies are created by minds adding up the facts and noticing holes. So there is merit to Trump’s criticism.
But more telling is the response from brother Jeb Bush who is actually pleading big warm blanket progressive government in defense of George W. Bush. Trump is talking about competency of government; Jeb is talking about sentimentality instead of hindsight 20/20 analysis. If many of the follies of modern American patriotism could be traced back to a single event, 9/11 is it. Hatred of George W. Bush brought us essentially the socialist Barack Obama and the tremendous debt we currently hold. It gave rise to the Tea Party movement 8 years later as a direct reaction to the mismanagement and rapid expansion of government since 9/11. It launched the second Iraq War and eventually put ISIS into power by 2014. It lowered the respect of the American brand around the world—so from Trump’s position, the criticism of 9/11 is perfectly valid. But the Bush family expects no questions to be asked about such an event because George W. Bush made America safe.
How did 9/11 make America safe, and is safety worth what we lost with the creation of the TSA, DOH, and the general overreaction of just about every government agency that was caught sleeping on that bright sunny day in September prior to open terrorist insurrection against the United States on American soil? It wasn’t the first time of course, and that point was made during a defense of the Bush family by some political pundits angry at Trump. It was mentioned that Trump’s criticism of George W. Bush is as ridiculous as assuming that FDR knew that Pearl Harbor would be bombed by the Japanese and that 9/11 would assume that Bush the younger as president allowed the World Trade Center to be bombed so that a war with Iraq could be provoked—and thus get revenge on a long time family rival. Well, that idea is not so crazy; in fact, there is likely some truth to that conspiracy about Pearl Harbor.
We know that FDR supported the clandestine activity of the AVG Flying Tigers over China against Japan leading up to World War II. He supplied outdated planes to General Claire Lee Chennault to lead the effort of defending China to keep Japan from gaining access to the natural resources of that country so to slowly choke off the military of the Rising Sun from a long sustained fight in the Pacific. All of this was unofficial of course. There are also reports that Japan in retaliation against FDR was planning to bomb Pearl Harbor and that the President knew about it. So outdated battleships were lined up in the harbor while the valuable carriers were out to sea—in safety. The conspiracy suggests that FDR knew that if the Japanese attacked it would unite the nation behind the war effort, which was inevitable anyway. So the valuable assets were removed and disposable collateral assets were put conveniently in place for the Sunday bombing run which to everyone else was a surprise.
Guess what happened next, the nation united behind the war effort, defeated the Japanese and FDR was able to usher in many of the socialist policies he had been working on, including an update to the League of Nations first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson called the United Nations. All that happened because of World War II and the obvious patriotism behind the war effort as a natural reaction of anger toward a recognized enemy uniting the country under a flag of malice. Many Constitutional liberties were trampled on as a result including the gathering up of American/Japanese citizens into prison camps for the “safety” of all Americans.
Did FDR know about the bombing of Pearl Harbor before hand? I think history indicates that he did and I also think he did what he did thinking it was good for the greatest number of people. He thought that a sacrifice was needed to unite the country and that a terrible thing he wished hadn’t happened did on December 7th 1941. But he was awfully well prepared for the speech he gave which launched America into the war.
During 9/11 a lot of very stupid people let a lot of things slide through the cracks to allow a bunch of terrorists to attack the symbol of American economic power around the world. Americans united behind the effort and Iraq was crushed into dust—government expanded, and spending against the United States GDP sent our economy into an eventual collapse culminating in a 2008 recession and the reckless antics of the years since. Do I think that George W. Bush screwed up, that he ignored reports of clandestine activity emerging from Florida—from pilots training to fly, but not to land? Yes, I don’t think he was as stupid as he looked in that event. I think that there was a political desire to unite the country behind a tragedy while evidence that needed to be destroyed was in the devastation that followed. I believe Presidents of the United States can justify a fight for the greater good by accepting collateral damage as a reality of their job—and their desensitization and lack of professional training in these kinds of philosophic matters make them easy to steer by manipulative CIA directors and power-hungry domestic insurgents all with their focus on a global prize. After all, George W. Bush was an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. He didn’t have to make these kinds of life and death decisions when they decided to trade a pitcher. So he was probably incompetent at that stage of his presidency to think properly on the matter. That is Trump’s complaint.
Logic and emotion are not equal in the defense of an issue. Bush defends his family name with emotion when logic shows that his brother made serious mistakes obvious in hindsight. And this is what has fueled the conspiracy theories. Did Bush and his team plan the 9/11 bombing—probably not, but did they secretly hope in the back of their minds that something would happen to unify the country behind their desired tactical goals? And when those goals were implemented, and proven failures, how do you cover the burden for the bad decision? Bush in that case tossed money at the situation to cover the embarrassment—which threw us into a massive deficit and gave Republicans Barack Obama for eight years as punishment for their incompetence. Trump has a spectacular point and it should be covered. Bush doesn’t get off the hook just because George W. Bush kept us safe for a few years. How did he keep us safe if he expanded the size of government and threw us further into debt just because he couldn’t deal with some towel headed terrorists? The answer is he didn’t, he just used money to hide the real issue, that the government failed under his watch and that is why there was a tragedy, because people didn’t do their jobs either deliberately, or by accident—but regardless, his administration was too loose and ill prepared.
Trump is right again, and nobody else will dare say it—but him. No wonder he is the Republican front-runner after everything else that has occurred.
With me it’s always about quality—as in the Metaphysics of Quality defined by the philosopher Robert Pirsig. As I get excited about something, like I often do when I take the time to write about things it is because whatever it is shows obvious signs of the Metaphysics of Quality. To me, that MOQ is very important. More important than most everything else, so when I see it, I get very excited and I gush about how wonderful it is. That is why I love architectural achievements like the Liberty Center shopping complex near my home—because it has obvious elements of MOQ within its construction, vision and implementation. I enjoy fine restaurants for the same reason even if I might stand against the social placement of those economic devices—if I see that there is a positive MOQ involved I get excited about whatever it is. I see MOQ as being more important than legal concerns or personal rights because not all people are of a “high quality.” That can be a dangerous road to travel down, but my criteria for judgment is contained with the Metaphysics of Quality as defined by the fine book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s a very important concept to behold.
So I was rather stunned to open up the box from my new group, the Cowboy Fast Draw Association containing my membership information and my targeting equipment. I’ll have to admit, I know a lot of these cowboy types and over the years, most of them barely scrape by. As good of people as they are, they often don’t have much money and do live from paycheck to paycheck. Their idea of quality is usually something very tacky from a flea market. When I placed a very expensive order with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association, I’ll have to admit that I didn’t have very high expectations. I anticipated that what they’d send me I’d have to spend hours at Radio Shack trying to piece together additional parts. I had ordered a Cowboy Fast Draw shooting lane, which consists of a metal target, a light, sensor, a switch to start the timer and a clock that breaks down the time to thousands of a second. A lot of the equipment is fairly advanced stuff—so my expectations where that there would be issues with assembly.
The way the system works is that you buy a fast draw gun, for me it was a Vaquero, a speed draw custom holster, wax bullets for ammunition, special .45 Colt ammunition cases specially designed to hold a shotgun primer. Then you set all that up to the Fast Draw Target System. A light comes on the target, you draw and shoot the metal plate and the time it takes to hit the target is recorded. There are a couple of different modes, there is competition mode and practice mode. Under practice the timer will randomly run through different start times so that the shooter can’t anticipate the light. That helps the shooter develop properly their reaction time to the start light. It is pretty sophisticated for a shooting range, but once built, makes shooting relatively cheap—about six cents per shot. The wax bullets are about $44 for a thousand and the primers can be obtained for a similar cost. Once it’s all set up, it’s easy to use and efficient.
Putting together the target assembly was simple; the wires were color coded, the sensors screwed to the target plate and the start light attached with a magnet behind the target that shines through a Plexiglas hole in the face. Within about 15 minutes I had the whole thing together—which surprised me greatly. I had budgeted about 3 hours for the effort, and it took a lot less time. Even more remarkable was that everything worked. That shouldn’t have shocked me, but it did. Even on all the little timers were label indicators for Cowboy Fast Draw very professionally done. If I didn’t know better I would have thought I bought the whole setup from Cabela’s for several thousand dollars. It was good enough to sell as a mass market item—not what I would have expected for an organization with not yet 5000 members.
That’s when it hit me that these people running the Cowboy Fast Draw Association were people functioning naturally from the MOQ philosophy by their very nature. I doubt it’s something they are consciously aware of, but they had taken the time to do all the little things very right—including the packaging of the equipment within the box they shipped it to me in. Everything was very carefully wrapped and complete—someone who really cared about the contents put the whole thing together. But even slicker was that somebody had figured out how to make all these things work together to make one of the best secrets of modern shooting possible. And they didn’t skimp on anything; all the components were good quality items built to stand the rigor of shooting at them with firearms.
That’s where I really started increasing my respect for the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. Part of what killed the Wild West Arts Club which I had been a part of for quite some time was that they over expensed themselves. They charged way too much money for items to cover areas of their operational costs that they had gone into the red on. The result is all that’s left of them is what consists of my little Annie Oakley group that meet each year in Greenville, Ohio during the last weekend of July. One of the reasons for me picking bullwhips to work with as opposed to firearms was because nobody had figured out how to make such a thing work in a neighborhood setting—a place that didn’t require 100 acres of land to go shooting—so there was no way to practice or get good. With this targeting system that the Cowboy Fast Draw Association had come up with, a typical gun range could be set up in a garage. The shotgun primers are not much louder than a cap gun and the bullets fly out about the same rate as a juiced up pellet gun. It really isn’t much harder than the projectiles used in paintball—which is perfect for practicing the western arts of fast draw and gun spinning. These guys had figured out a lot of very neat concepts and they weren’t trying to make a killing off it—they just want to expand the sport, so everything was very reasonably priced. It was priced for expansion—not grotesque profit. There is no way the Cowboy Fast Draw Association has large margins on their sales. Yet they still put all the effort into the job as if they were making millions of dollars. That was impressive.
It doesn’t happen very often. But when it does, I write about it. Cowboy Fast Draw is one of those associations that have their roots in the Metaphysics of Quality. Not only was the sport of Fast Draw something that is good for all American shooters, the association itself was filled with quality people who took the extra steps to exceed expectations. I find that same attention to detail with Brownells, they are always very conscious about what and how they ship items. For that matter gun companies in general are so pleasant to work with. They really put an emphasis on quality and customer service. Even down to an association like Cowboy Fast Draw, the emphasis on American ingenuity and quality is assumed as an afterthought. If I liked firearms a lot before I assembled my target lane from CFDA I really respected them after—because even a very specific field of endeavor such as fast draw brings out the best of what is left in America.
When people wonder what I expect from others it is best embodied by CFDA. I expected a group of people barely hanging on to throw some things in a box and toss it my way for the exchange of some easy money. What I received as a lot of love and care for firearms and tradition that was obvious by the way the box was taped up. The products were reasonably priced and still the people cared about what they were doing. America used to be filled with those types of people. Now it’s a rarity—so much so that I’m very happy when I meet people or organizations that possess a level of Metaphysics of Quality that are respectable. Especially when it is unexpected—if I pay $70 dollars for a steak dinner, I expect quality—if I’m buying wax bullets and fast draw targets, I expect the kind of service that you might find at a casino or flee market. And in the case of CFDA, I was extremely surprised to find a very quality organization equal to a fine steak dinner.
About a decade ago when my oldest daughter’s boyfriend from Europe was trying to win me over for support, he put more than the average effort in to impress me. He joined me with my bullwhip friends in competitions and became pretty good. He and I worked for many hours in my backyard developing further the bullwhip fast draw modeled after the Ohio Fast Draw Association that also competed at our events for years. He even started dressing like me in some ways, with his own spin to the outfit. This of course made my daughter very happy and convinced her to make a long-term commitment to the fella. Whereas bad fathers are the type of people who make the common sluts and bar trash that are so prevalent these days, good fathers raise girls who think about bigger things so endorsements of potential mates are important to such daughters. For her the icing on the cake was that my future son-in-law bought himself an outback hat similar to mine and started wearing it everywhere very proudly.
I’ve been content to keep things pretty much independent of the outside world. I don’t need a lot of social support, so my way of doing things has worked just fine for me. My adherence to the Cowboy Way has been a silent code that I have not rammed down the throats of everyone I have met too much—other than wearing my hat in public most of the time. It did the job with my son-in-law and let him know what kind of family he was marrying into and I was happy with that. However, the days where that was enough are gone—the world has moved further away from that Cowboy Way in recent years and I don’t find that acceptable. Politically the Trump run for president has been a godsend, because he is covering a lot of the topics I have for the last five years, but on a bigger stage with the press eating out of his hand. So I don’t feel a need to continue beating on that drum, since somebody else has it covered—at least for now. Additionally I have a respectable number of grandchildren all of a sudden, and like that impressionable potential mate that my future son-in-law was—kids need much more of a role model figure much earlier which is my job—and I take it very seriously. My son-in-law was around 15 to 16 at the time of our talk in the backyard; he’s now climbing toward thirty fast. Time does move quickly and if you want to make an impression, you better do it quick. Kids are ruined if you don’t get to them by the age of 11 or 12. In my son-in-law’s case he was lucky to have been raised in England with a traditional way which protected him from the corruption of progressive cities like London, New York, and San Francisco. But he wanted more and he was on my doorstep looking for it, and it was my job to make sure the young lad was at least pointed in the right direction not just for his sake, but my daughter’s. After all, you raise these kids, give them all this hope, and they need to have people in their lives who share those values. The task is a rather large one. But by the time I knew him, most of his foundation thoughts were already in place. What I was saying might have small influences over how he conducted his life, but major ones probably wouldn’t be possible that late in his climb toward manhood. I promised myself that when I started having grandchildren that I would step up this Cowboy Way philosophy for their sake so that they’d have the right tools equipped intellectually to deal with a modern world spiraling over the precipice. I am one hundred percent sure that the Cowboy Way is the answer to much of what sickens America right now, and that is one major thing that Donald Trump cannot have much impact on as a presidential candidate. So I have taken major steps in advocating the Cowboy Way in a fashion that I had long been thinking about—taking up Cowboy Fast Draw as a sport.
As a grown man I probably shouldn’t have been so excited to join up with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. My package of materials arrived the day that my new granddaughter arrived home from the hospital after being born. It was a huge forty pound package that contained a lot of lights, timers and targeting equipment. Included was my new membership card and some pins that will come in handy down the road. My membership number is 4265 and of course my alias is Cliffhanger. In Cowboy Fast Draw all members must have an alias so of course mine would be Cliffhanger which is the philosophic foundation of this whole endeavor. In my fictional pulp series The Curse of Fort Seven Mile I wanted advance the direction of the character—but before I could do that of course I had to live the reality first—as my fiction has to reflect reality—otherwise I’m not interested in doing it. My membership card clearly has CLIFFHANGER written on it with a disclaimer on the back for police officers saying, “THE BEARER OF THIS CARD IS A PROFESSIONAL FAST DRAW COMPETITOR AND CARRIES SINGLE ACTION REVOLVERS FOR PURPOSES OF DEMONSTRATION AND COMPETITION.” In short, when roaming around wherever and need to maintain my practice with single action revolvers to maintain and increase my skills toward the Cowboy Way, cops shouldn’t be concerned or alarmed, because I’m a member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. Of course if that isn’t enough and I end up in some kind of self-defense altercation, I’ll call my buddies at Second Call Defense and let them handle the police—which is the other reason I have suddenly become so openly pro gun and an advocate of Second Call Defense. I have to protect my investment.
The Cowboy Fast Draw Association reminds me of how our Wild West Arts Club used to be over a decade ago. In a lot of ways, its much better. It was quite a privilege to open up my membership material and see several issues of the Gunslinger’s Gazette included. The group is working on expanding their membership base to over 5000 of which I was number 4265. I’d like to see it at over 20,000 and climbing, because I think it contains within it the essence that every American should be striving to behold as a nation built on philosophy and freedom—the Cowboy Way. The Gunslinger’s Gazette is essentially a publication dedicated to the Cowboy Way so it was wonderful to see a physical copy of the paper instead of the online edition I had been reading.
But to top it off the culmination of all this has not been easy. I have been a bullwhip guy for many decades, so accepting a new skill has not been painless for me. However, I have done pretty much what I can with bullwhips. I like what some of my friends have done to break records with them, but as a symbol of the Cowboy Way, bullwhips need help because they are not part of the American consciousness the way that single action firearms have been. So I needed to add that skill to my wheelhouse and I promised myself at a certain time “professionally” that I would buy my new Vaquero by Ruger and start this journey. Well that time came for me a few weeks ago. It had taken me a long time to get there, but I eventually did, and the very first thing I did was purchase the Vaquero which now sits by my side everywhere I go. I have to work with it all the time to build the muscles up in my hands, and that was the final gate to this new section of my life.
Needless to say, I’m proud to be affiliated with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association under the name of Cliffhanger. I’m also proud to be a part of Second Call Defense which helps make this new sport possible with the legal support that will help protect the validity of that membership card by CFDA. Having a firearm is an essential part of the Cowboy Way just like wearing the hat. One of the reasons my son-in-law was attracted to American life was that they didn’t allow firearms in England. He met my daughter and wanted to win me over essentially so that he could own firearms. It was my job to help him find what he was looking for. But that need doesn’t end with him, there are millions of people in just the same situation—they just don’t know how to go about it. That’s where introducing them to the Cowboy Way will help—it explains why the Second Amendment is so important and if the police get too power hungry at the sight of Cowboy Fast Draw Association members armed with single action Ruger Vaqueros on the plain states of Iowa, or Montana at a local burger joint on the way to a competition, Second Call Defense will be there to help preserve that Cowboy Way when the questions are asked. It is within these types of people who America needs to get to know itself once again—those who read the Gunslinger’s Gazette.
My grandchildren are going to get what they need; I’ll make sure of it. And of that necessity is a strong understanding of the Cowboy Way. I don’t preach to people who don’t want to listen, and I raise children that way, under a laissez-faire approach that allows individuals to invest of themselves into what I’m selling. If they walk away, they walk away, and I won’t track them down to the ends of the earth to help them. Rather I live by example, which is one of the most important parts of the Cowboy Way. And with my new membership into the Cowboy Fast Draw Association, and my friends at Second Call Defense, the gunsmithing equipment at Brownells the powder purchases from Cabela’s and many other support organizations, we’re going to protect that Second Amendment from the trying times that are before us. And it all starts with the beauty and simplicity of the Ruger Vaquero. This is going to be fun!
I don’t think I have ever laughed as hard as I did when I learned about Bernie Sanders proposed budget if he wins President of the United States in 2016. I know Sanders is a socialist, and I know his usual sales pitch for progressive policies. He is essentially a carbon copy of the typical school levy supporter—so I’ve heard his kind many times. I have been aware that he has been doing well among socialists, communists and progressive Democrats, but I didn’t know the details until Fox News did a little exposé about Sanders and covered how much his programs would cost the United States—and they did it with a straight face. The number……………………drum roll please……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………and remember, this was supposed to be serious……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..$18 trillion dollars!
I don’t know what planet this guy is from nor if he even has a brain. If all the wealth of every billionaire were 100% confiscated it wouldn’t even begin to pay for all of Bernie Sanders proposed projects. Keep in mind that we are nearly $19 trillion dollars in debt now—Bernie proposes to double that amount as President of the United States. The GDP of the entire nation is only around $17-19 Trillion per year so there is no way that the bill for Bernie’s dreams could ever hope to be paid for by any amount of money anywhere. There isn’t enough money in the world to cover his budget—yet nobody even covered it. Like I said, Fox News went over the material “fair and balanced.”
I laughed so hard I lost my voice from straining my vocal cords. It may be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I know there are stories of my mother-in-law promising my sister-in-law that she could have the moon in her bedroom if she’d be good when she was a little girl, which I have always thought was a ridiculous promise to make—because kids don’t know better, and they expect you to deliver. This budget from Bernie Sanders is more ridiculous than that and a good part of the nation like a small child thinks it’s actually possible. That is funny!
If that is what the Democrats have to pack stadiums with enthusiasm, they are in a world of serious trouble. I know the political left thinks Donald Trump is just as ridiculous. However, the difference is Trump has an actual track record of creating wealth. Bernie has nothing. He’s just an old hippie from Vermont—a socialist who has slid through the cracks for years and as an old man has the supporters of the malcontents and anti-capitalists losers who want free stuff and an entitlement society. I don’t blame Bernie for being a senile old man drowning in communist ideology—but the people who support him might as well be cast on the television show, The Walking Dead. No brain zombies destined to rot their way through life on the backs of the hard-working.
I know I’ve always stated that liberals are unrealistic, too collectivist in their philosophic demeanor, and are detriments to themselves—but Bernie Sanders indicates that I have understated their vast stupidity. The real answer to this upcoming election is one of two paths, you either go with Trump and hope that he can do as he has with his private wealth and explode our national GDP to 7-20% growth, or you tell Americans that they have to pull up the boot straps and cut, cut, and cut some more. America will have to cut Social Security, welfare benefits, Medicare—everything because the money is going to run out soon and the ambition to make more money will evaporate. Under liberal leadership the “rich” will stop trying leaving fewer opportunities to build wealth that can be taxed to pay for everything. It’s not hard to understand. America is at that point, right now. Politicians either have that hard talk with the American people or some politician—like Trump—will have to put their name and reputation on creating a new day of capitalism that can carry the burdens with excessive economic growth unheard of in the history of mankind. I am rooting for Trump so that America doesn’t have to go through the pain of all those hard cuts. But in the back of my mind, I think it’s unavoidable anyway. Even if Trump were only 50% successful in all that he’s promising, America is still in trouble. The Bernie Sanders method is just unfathomable. It’s not even on the radar scope of possibility.
It has probably been noticed by long time readers here that I have a sudden vigorous interest in firearms. It’s not because I didn’t like them before, but because I see an expanding role in their value. Most of my articles have been about education reform and economic issues up to this point hoping that sense would evolve into action and bad times might be averted. Well, I no longer have that hope. The moral depravity of our society, the terrible work ethic of the younger generations, the debt, the effects of that bad education system add up to a lot of bad things on the horizon. Guns will be a larger part of my life because I see a greater need for the foundations of the original Bill of Rights. If I lived during the days of the Constitutional Convention I would have been an anti-Federalist and would avoid large government involvement in everything. So the Bill of Rights have more power to me than the original Constitution because it is too “pro government” for my taste. The present situation is a perfect example of what happens when there is too much Federal control given to incompetent people. Bernie Sanders would expand that incompetence by thousands of times their present imposition—which nothing could survive. That’s why the situation is so funny.
An anti-Federalist position is much cheaper than a Federalist one—which is a more effective way to communicate the matter since so many Republicans and Democrats are interchangeable in today’s world. They just want big government spending on different things. For the anti-Federalist, we don’t need government to solve child custody issues, we would handle it ourselves. We wouldn’t need lawyer to protect us from immanent domain land grabs. We’d settle it directly with the advocate and either get rich on the deal or erase them from the earth using the protection afforded to us with the 2nd Amendment and perhaps even the 4th and 5th. Everything would be cheaper if only the Bill of Rights were followed—we’re not even talking about the original Constitution here which the Supreme Court has essentially wrecked with watered down case-law. Bernie Sanders is suggesting a lot more of this kind of mess—not less of it which then creates a lot of unintended consequences that are very negative.
With the expansion of government comes directly the expansion of incompetence because when people are well paid for doing mediocre work, the incentive to give more of the same becomes the driving force. So not only are programs like Bernie Sanders suggests too expensive, but they drive down the quality of what is made in the country’s GDP proportionally as an unintended consequence. A hundred years ago, I might have understood that Bernie might have had an audience for his ridiculous proposals—because the ideas were new then, and hadn’t been tried very much. But now they have—we have over a hundred years of progressive failure that just about everything we see in a decrepit state can be blamed on. And now that idiot wants more of that same failure—but in even greater quantities. Now that is hilarious!
I get really tired of all this talk about gun control. On Saturday Night Live shown on October 10, 2015 the obvious attack against guns was incredibly obvious. They did several skits attacking guns showing how the progressive New York culture sees the rest of America. Well, just for clarity not to the gun owners who read this site each day, but those progressive types who are way too politically left-winged, the Second Amendment is not up for debate. It is not up for negotiation. And there is no interpretation of the words “shall not be infringed,” that opens the door for more rules, confiscation, or government involvement. As lawyers do try to discuss the meaning of words which can take on different meanings as times change the Bill of Rights is an extension of American philosophy for which legal terms evolved. The intent of the Constitution therefore does not fall under the proper interpretation of legal minds, but philosophy. And the essence of that philosophy is that governments cannot be trusted—which is grossly evident in our modern news cycles. Here is how the terminology has been misinterpreted by legal minds giving the illusion that the Second Amendment can be modified to suit some progressive diatribe—such as those shown on left leaning news outlets and entertainment venues.
The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment’s intended scope. On the one hand, some believe that the Amendment’s phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” creates an individual constitutional right for citizens of the United States. Under this “individual right theory,” the United States Constitution restricts legislative bodies from prohibiting firearm possession, or at the very least, the Amendment renders prohibitory and restrictive regulation presumptively unconstitutional. On the other hand, some scholars point to the prefatory language “a well-regulated Militia” to argue that the Framers intended only to restrict Congress from legislating away a state’s right to self-defense. Scholars have come to call this theory “the collective rights theory.” A collective rights theory of the Second Amendment asserts that citizens do not have an individual right to possess guns and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies therefore possess the authority to regulate firearms without implicating a constitutional right.
In 1939 the U.S. Supreme Court considered the matter in United States v. Miller. 307 U.S. 174. The Court adopted a collective rights approach in this case, determining that Congress could regulate a sawed-off shotgun that had moved in interstate commerce under the National Firearms Act of 1934 because the evidence did not suggest that the shotgun “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated milita . . . .” The Court then explained that the Framers included the Second Amendment to ensure the effectiveness of the military.
This precedent stood for nearly 70 years when in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290). The plaintiff in Heller challenged the constitutionality of the Washington D.C. handgun ban, a statute that had stood for 32 years. Many considered the statute the most stringent in the nation. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, meticulously detailing the history and tradition of the Second Amendment at the time of the Constitutional Convention, proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms and struck down the D.C. handgun ban as violative of that right. The majority carved out Miller as an exception to the general rule that Americans may possess firearms, claiming that law-abiding citizens cannot use sawed-off shotguns for any law-abiding purpose. Similarly, the Court in its dicta found regulations of similar weaponry that cannot be used for law-abiding purposes as laws that would not implicate the Second Amendment. Further, the Court suggested that the United States Constitution would not disallow regulations prohibiting criminals and the mentally ill from firearm possession.
Thus, the Supreme Court has revitalized the Second Amendment. The Court continued to strengthen the Second Amendment through the 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago (08-1521). The plaintiff in McDonald challenged the constitutionally of the Chicago handgun ban, which prohibited handgun possession by almost all private citizens. In a 5-4 decisions, the Court, citing the intentions of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the incorporation doctrine. However, the Court did not have a majority on which clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. While Justice Alito and his supporters looked to the Due Process Clause, Justice Thomas in his concurrence stated that the Privileges and Immunities Clause should justify incorporation.
However, several questions still remain unanswered, such as whether regulations less stringent than the D.C. statute implicate the Second Amendment, whether lower courts will apply their dicta regarding permissible restrictions, and what level of scrutiny the courts should apply when analyzing a statute that infringes on the Second Amendment.
Recent case-law since Heller suggests that courts are willing to, for example, uphold
regulations which ban weapons on government property. US v Dorosan, 350 Fed. Appx. 874 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding defendant’s conviction for bringing a handgun onto post office property);
regulations which ban the illegal possession of a handgun as a juvenile, convicted felon. US v Rene, 583 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2009) (holding that the Juvenile Delinquency Act ban of juvenile possession of handguns did not violate the Second Amendment);
regulations which require a permit to carry concealed weapon. Kachalsky v County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81 (2nd Cir. 2012) (holding that a New York law preventing individuals from obtaining a license to possess a concealed firearm in public for general purposes unless the individual showed proper cause did not violate the Second Amendment.)
That’s just a bit of history on how the Second Amendment has been knocked back and forth over the years. Yet the trend in spite of New Yorkers like those found on Saturday Night Live around the rest of the country is for gun laws to become less stringent not more so. For instance in my home state of Ohio there are two pro-gun bills being introduced for discussion which are very important. The Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee had a hearing Wednesday, October 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the Finance Hearing Room to discuss two pro-gun bills.
Senate Bill 180, sponsored by Senator Joe Uecker (R-14), would allow an employee to store a firearm in their locked vehicle without fear of employer retribution. Throughout the country, many employers have adopted “No Firearms” policies that extend beyond the physical workplace to include employee parking lots – areas often accessible to the general public and not secure. In order to comply with these policies, many employees must choose between protecting themselves during their commutes and being subject to termination by their employer.
The fundamental right to self-defense should not stop simply because you park your car in a publicly accessible parking lot owned by your employer. When companies invite employees to park on their property, they should not be allowed to dictate employees’ constitutional rights inside one’s own vehicle.
Senate Bill 199, also sponsored by Senator Uecker (R-14) and Senator Randy Gardner (R-2), would allow an active duty member of the military to carry a concealed firearm without obtaining a concealed carry license if the active duty member is carrying a valid military identification and a certificate indicating a small arms qualification.
If your company has such a misguided policy that impedes your inherent right to self-defense, please contact NRA-ILA’s State and Local Division at state&local@nrahq.org and share this information.
And that’s where I stand, there needs to be a lot more guns out there, not less, and we need to be able to carry them in more places more often. The trend is clear and the necessity for more guns is obvious. Guns are not just instruments of death the way left leaning politics frames them—they are part of the philosophic American experience. They transcend legal interpretation as philosophy trumps legality because it is in thought that all law emerges. So to undo some of the laws misinterpreted by sissy-driven legal minds over the years, the Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee is working to walk back the intrusions that gun owners have been conceding—illegally due to improper legal negotiations from the anti-gun lobby over previous decades. The activism displayed on Saturday Night Live and other anti-gun venues made a false assumption—that gun rights “shall not be infringed,” were up to debate. They aren’t under any circumstance. End of story. It’s not complicated. Guns=philosophy which trumps legality.
There is nothing about my new Ruger Vaquero .45 that speaks of violence to me. Looking at it all I think about is cowboy trick shooting and stunts that can be performed with it. It is to me equivalent to a nicely made basketball intended to be thrown into a net by a good athlete, or a wonderful pair of golf clubs meant to drive a ball across a vast green into a hole 400 yards away in increments. Shooting with the Vaquero shown in the picture is essentially a sport where science and skill combine into hitting a target under timed circumstances. There is nothing violent about the act whatsoever. Guns might have been invented out of war like necessity and the sport of shooting to practice for that eventuality—but the sport of shooting is just another human endeavor intended to test skill against adversity with the drama of competition to drive
What struck me on this particular gun—as they all do these days is the nice messaging that often comes with them. Ruger in this case was grateful for my purchase and the supplied literature made it clear. It showed to me a serious interest by the Ruger Company to build a solid base of customer support for a product unquestionably made in America by good, hard working people. The gun feels like a well-crafted work of art, its machining is immaculate, the tolerances on its critical junctures well inspected, and it feels incredibly competent. This is not a company that should be targeted by liberal hate groups. Ruger is not a company making death—it makes life, and tradition. There is nothing about my Ruger Vaquero that speaks of violence if a person really understands what shooting is all about in the world of sport. It’s a fine tool to me for exhibiting traditional American art forms, and it’s a miracle of modern science—more sophisticated than driving a golf ball into a hole, or throwing a football 50 yards down field into the arms of a waiting receiver. To me the Vaquero by Ruger is the ultimate individual sport where great power is incorporated into the mechanisms of great engineering and it deserves to be respected as such.
But it’s not lost to me how grateful the Ruger Company is with each purchase made of their firearms. It is because of their attitude toward their customers that I get a special feeling whenever I see the emblem blazed across a t-shirt of hat, or on a banner at a competition. I know they care about their customers in spite of a world led by liberals that wants to eradicate them from the face of the planet because those political minds want to make the company into a representation of hate and violence. Football is a violent sport, golf clubs are sometimes used as weapons of hate when they are slammed over the head of a victim, but political advocates don’t seek to ban golf courses or the sport of golf. The gun has a special hatred aimed at it because liberals have no idea or desire to understand that guns like the Vaquero are designed for much more than hunting or self defense—they are built for the sport of the Cowboy Fast Draw.
In such groups as those in the preservation of the Wild West arts are some of the best people I have ever met. The world would be a whole lot better off if more people interacted with these great Americans. And on the hips of most of them are often Vaqueros by Ruger. They wear them openly in public often and nobody ever gets shot, and there are seldom ever hard words spoken to others. There is almost always respect for their fellow shooters. Within that alliance of sportsman they revere each other with camaraderie that is exceptionally healthy and overwhelmingly positive.
When I picked up my Vaquero at Right 2 Arms it was the owner’s parents who were working the store and were armed behind the counter. There was no reason to feel apprehension at that visible support of what looked like a Glock holstered on the father. We proceeded to have a very nice conversation about Gatlinburg, Tennessee while the background check came through for me. They were good people and I looked over my Vaquero as they spoke about their upcoming vacation plans. It was good, healthy conversation among highly armed people who invoked no danger whatsoever. Instead, the presence of guns elevated our interaction to something of respectful banter united under support for the 2nd Amendment.
Just two days prior I had a wonderful lunch with some VIP’s within the shooting world. We talked about gun ranges, plans for helping the youth through learning marksmanship, and the bad rap that guns were getting in the wake of the Oregon shooting. I enjoyed the company more than I would if the conversation were a usual business lunch where all the things that people really like are talked around because of political correctness. With these guys, we could all just be ourselves which was refreshing. It was much better to talk about things that really interested us instead of sports scores and the season trajectory of our favorite football teams. There always is a solid foundation of realness that comes from those types of lunches as opposed to others that feel like a clip on tie at a wedding. It confirmed much of what I have been feeling lately about firearms and their role behind the American experience. We need to be more proud of that heritage, not less so.
I mentioned to the guys at the power lunch that we needed to market firearms differently as a public perception—that as shooters we needed to stop riding the ropes of the obvious political fights we are without question in. We need to get into the center of the ring and control the fight from that position instead of just taking the shots to the face and hoping to outlast our opponents—the gun grabbers, the liberal radicals teaching in our public schools, and the political class that wants to turn America back into an aristocracy similar to Europe—instead of one founded on independence from gun possession.
The reason my Vaquero as opposed to other guns I have bought is so special is that its purpose is exclusively for use as a cowboy shooter for the sport of Western Arts. It is the type of single action that won the West in America and that means a lot to me symbolically, and the sports that have risen up in the wake of that historical memory is not much different from the battlefield strategies of football. The games might have been invented by inclinations of war, but they evolve into camaraderie and tradition that brings out the best that a society has to offer. The gun in America exhibits the best of this example.
The summation of my contacts the week that I picked up my Vaquero at Right 2 Arms is guns make people better—not worse as progressive politics suggests. The political left had misdiagnosed the root cause of human evil and sold it back to society in a package of deceit. When that deceit is removed and Americans are allowed to wear their firearms on their hips, and discuss them as extensions of themselves, a higher quality in people emerges built out of respect. The knowledge that domination of the another person is not possible—so a respectful exchange emerges between human beings when both have guns. The trouble emerges when that relationship is lopsided, where a maniac is armed and a peaceful person is not—that’s where abuse happens. But Ruger is not about feeding that fear—they are about making America a better place and that sentiment begins with the simple thank you note that they package with their guns. I felt honored to open up my new Vaquero. It’s an honor to have such a fine gun from such a quality company. As is typical of most gun manufacturers, they are examples of what’s best about American manufacturing and that is certainly the case with Ruger. They are one of the very best, and every time I look at my Ruger Vaquero, I will think of what’s best about America and the culture that should otherwise thrive in a society open to gun use for the skills that emerge from them in sports.
We used to call a boy who wanted to dress up like, or act like a girl a sissy. Of course that was before liberals used the education system and every platform available to them to attempt to change words and values against the will of logic. Now calling someone a sissy is equivalent to a hate crime—but is the best term available to most people of the male sex these days. Being a sissy is not only disingenuous to themselves, it is to the wives and children they will have as adults, and it should be discouraged—in spite of the progressive attempts to eradicate the meaning of the word for the benefits of their social strategy of valueless assessment of all people no matter what the condition—because their aims are mass collectivism. That means essentially that the very good is equal to the very bad equating the human race to the value of zero—which explains a lot why our society is as messed up today as it is. Thank a progressive who pushed for society to stop calling flailing young boys, sissies.
Over a decade ago, 14 years or so as of this writing I saved a young man from committing suicide by invigorating in him the spark of life. He worked with me and for many consecutive days during a certain period of his life he was seriously about to end it all. He only kept going so that he could talk to me the next day at work so that he could get some little peril of wisdom that I’d give him as an excuse to keep living. I was glad each day that I saw him because it meant he listened to me and had not committed the act. Of course I didn’t take away what honor he had left and involve the authorities in the matter. Likely, if I had it would have only delayed the process by a few years. No, this kid needed to be fixed at the level of the soul, and he needed me to help him—so I did.
Largely his problem was that he had experimented with drugs, his sexuality, and his ethics and he felt it would be impossible for him to be a good person from there on. Usually people in his condition might turn toward God for redemption and the psychological mechanism of eternal forgiveness so that they could call themselves born again Christians. But this kid’s real father was a louse, his mother a slut and his sister was gutter trash. He really didn’t have any family support to nurture a church going turn-around. His live-in girl friend that he had three kids by was sleeping with everyone in town, his children were quickly headed down the tubes also and he really didn’t know what to do. Remarkably, he was a smart kid given the surroundings that he came from which made it worse for him—because he knew the hand he had been given in life was taking him somewhere that offered little hope for the future.
One particular day I didn’t think he’d make it through the break period at work. He was crying and was curled up in a fetal position on the ground ready to end it all. There was nothing that could reach him. So I thought of all the old John Wayne movies I had watched as a kid and did my best impression—with a straight face in all seriousness. I told him, “stop being a sissy and deal with what’s in front of you.” He looked at me through tears and asked how………………so I told him.
I taught him The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, which is an old book on Japanese samurai strategy as a way to give the kid a fresh outlook on life—to take him out of his immediate problems and place his mind in a higher place. Each break at work I played the role of a Japanese sword master and worked with him on the art of sword play and a warrior’s philosophy. This went on for about two months, but within a few weeks of it, his desire for suicide went away. Instead he was reading books about samurai, watching old Kurosawa movies, and started dressing with a top knot pony tail off an otherwise shaved head. He was losing weight and within six weeks or so was a lean figure bulging with muscle. Instead of killing himself, he was building himself and his body took the form of a warrior. His top knot hair cut did get some looks, but for a kid who was planning to kill himself, what did he care if people thought his hair was strange. It worked for him, and he was building a life for himself around the values he had been learning.
He began practicing all the time with a katana swords at home, at work, and anywhere he went. Eventually he developed a new association of friends who shared with him a love of samurai culture and Japanese art and they invited him to a beach visit the following summer, and he took his swords and spent most of the time not chasing women, but practicing with his katana on the beach. He became very good and soon found a very nice girlfriend and got his life on the right track within a year of wanting to kill himself. He became very stoic and sure of himself because of his practicing with the katana sword following the code of the samurai.
That code of the samurai is still very present in modern Japan. It is not something they take lightly and something of samurai code can be found in most aspects of their culture to this very day. The Japanese would not put up with an anti-samurai movement in Japan. If such people rose up to challenge their heritage, they would likely eradicate them, because they value their heritage and the code of conduct established largely by myth of the Feudal period where samurai roamed their island homeland with great respect.
That kid to thank me gave me a very nice katana sword as a way to honor me for saving his life. That sword still hangs on a gun rack in my bedroom and I think about it at least once every day. Without my input that kid would have been dead. He knew it, I knew it, his kids knew it—everyone knew it. But all he really needed was a new set of values to sink his teeth into that were aligned with his inner most needs. His parents gave him a lot of garbage to work through and he needed to completely refocus his energy in a positive direction. For him he found solace in the way of the samurai.
In a lot of ways our nation is trying to commit suicide presently—here in 2015. It reminds me a lot of the way of life that individual kid was living when I first met him. It needs to find the values it requires to continue living. To me the answer is exceptionally easy. The rightful comparison to the Japanese samurai is the American gunfighter. The gunfighter is America’s heritage and a code of conduct that it can use to put itself back together again away from the terrible progressive influences that are deliberating attacking all aspects of the culture within the United States. It is my very strong feeling that the entire nation, just like that single kid, would fix itself quite quickly if it could adopt a correct code of conduct that all people could agree to—and the best solution to that quandary is the American gunfighter. So like that kid, I saw in his eye a chance to introduce a healing philosophy to him, I see the same on the American nation as a whole. But for our nation we don’t need sentiments from the East—we just need to look inside at our own heritage.
The answers are already there for us. All we need to do is rediscover the wonder of our own ability through an art form we respect. Young men really need to rediscover their inner warrior, and young women will appreciate it when they do. Because in life we all have to fight through hard times, and it takes sometimes a warrior’s mind to achieve the tenacity to accomplish the task—and in American culture the way of the warrior is through the art of the gun. Understanding that relationship will unlock many of the troubles our times are currently enduring. And before anything can be fixed, our relationship to the gun must be not only accepted, but embraced fully and with great love. It’s time for half the people in our country to stop being a bunch of sissies.
