Tag: Bullwhips

The Chamber Alliance Error: Leadership 21 efforts to make a community of followers

Many years ago I attended a leadership course called C.O.P.E. (Challenging Outdoor Physical Experience) which was an early, hard-core version of the same type of thing that members of the West Chester Chamber Alliance conduct through their Leadership 21 course.  See the below video for testimonials by the Class of 2012 where Lakota Treasurer Jenny Logan attended.  The goal of the endeavor was to force participants to realize that they could not achieve certain tasks alone—but needed to find ways to work together to achieve objectives. Among the tasks was the fall from a ladder, having to work to climb a tall wall with nothing but the people on your team as support, and having to move 15 people across a series of tree stumps using only two 2X4’s without anybody touching the ground.  The exercise was designed to destroy the illusion that individuals can go it alone and must rely on others.  There were some useful elements to the program, but conclusively what I learned was that as a natural leader I had to bend people to my will to use them to my effect—to get over a wall without tools—and that most everyone else had very little else to contribute to the problem solving efforts.  I had to bend them to my will for their own good and the intentions of the task at hand.  That is the heavy responsibility that leaders have—but the issue of why some people are leaders, and some not—and why everybody can’t be one is the topic of obsession revolving around the parameter of the Leadership 21 course and public education in general.  Over the years I have rejected most of what the C.O.P.E. organizers implemented in their course and proven their theories inaccurate.  Sadly, the organizers of Leadership 21 have not yet realized this error in leadership study—and are contaminating the many minds of the West Chester and Liberty Township communities with out-dated tripe.

For those who now understand what Agenda 21 is, and how buzz words like “sustainable development” are indications of the United Nations attempt to supplant local government with government from the United Nations and the progressive politics driving them, it should be easily recognized what Leadership 21 is—it is leadership training for the 21st century.  The point of emphasis and I know this first hand—is the recognition that individuals must integrate themselves into collective assistance and that only team building exercises have any social merit.  The new class for Leadership 21 2015 is coming up and begins in September of 2014 running through May of the new calendar year and will likely include more involvement from Lakota schools under the guidance of Superintendent Karen Mantia and school board vice-president Lynda O’Conner.  In the above video Jenny Logan the Lakota treasurer provided testimony as to the effectiveness of the course saying “this process allowed me to let go…..to learn.  I learned more about me, and to let go.”  Of course when she says to let go she is referring to the process undermining an individual’s desire to be in control of one’s destiny and to fall into arms of the collective group—the team assembled for the Leadership 21 course.  This is most elaborately exhibited in the fall from the ladder backwards into the waiting arms of your teammates with the message that it’s OK to fall, because someone will catch you.

Over the last 20 years I have rejected the things that such leadership courses tried to teach me understanding that the bottom-line to their message was a greater dependency on the social safety net of public services.  In my adventures with C.O.P.E. there were many police and fire department organizations who took the exact same course and the message to them was that a social safety net had more power than any one individual.  That conclusion of course has proven to be complete, unmitigated hogwash and it is incredibly disappointing to see that one of the wealthiest areas in the State of Ohio—if not the United States—has so little understanding about the nature of entrepreneurship than to adhere to this foolish idea of leadership in the 21st century as it was disseminated by some idiot in Geneva, Switzerland.

The exercises given in Leadership 21 of recognizing certain values in your co-workers—or team members is one to obviously pull the awareness of individuals away from themselves and onto others—to get to know their names, to see changes in their appearance, to pay attention to “others” as a valuable trait.  But this has nothing to do with real leadership other than making people feel good about themselves in the presence of others.  Leadership is not about making people feel good, or softening the human race’s desire for intense competition.  Leadership is about decision-making ahead of a given problem and mathematically there are not many people capable or willing to stand at the cutting edge of a decision-making process to perform a leadership task—otherwise there would be more good leaders.

Business cannot breed leaders through such a class to believe that through collective collaboration and multiple viewpoints that a correct decision about anything can ever be reached.  What they are teaching at such courses like Leadership 21 is to follow, not lead.  The purpose of Leadership 21 is the same as the C.O.P.E. course I was involved in, and that is to teach that the new leader of the 21st century is “consensus,” and that everyone needed to let go, and surrender to it putting aside their individual needs.  The end result, and falsehood of their premise is that following is more important than leading and that the business community needs to adopt these measures to better serve the collective hive of society through public enterprise.  Where the emphasis of C.O.P.E. was to ultimately develop firefighters and police officers, Leadership 21 is also concerned with public education and law enforcement.  It is ultimately those services which become the pace setters of modern society—according to them—and that is just wrong.

Leadership 21 has an intention of teaching their yearly class of students to migrate out into the community to spread the message of what they learned—and the crux of that consensus always points to more taxation, more legislation, and an expansion of government in general.  The purpose of the Leadership 21 alums is to convince all resistance to such expansion to step aside and bend to the will of consensus because it is the collective sum of their merry band of followers who set the course for which society must obey.  And this is the primary philosophy taught in public schools—and the reason that Jenni Logan as Treasurer at Lakota was accepted as opposed to another applicant.  But another alumni of Leadership 21 is the former superintendent of Lakota Ron Spurlock.  The leaders of the 21st century are everyone, not just the few exceptional people with skill and aptitude.  In the world of the Leadership 21 types, everyone has a chance to be a leader through collaboration masking their personal incompetency of individual judgment.  They intend to end the top down model of a solitary innovator, and entrepreneur who goes it alone and drives GDP with their cutting edge leadership—they hope to attach to such people a host of parasites who can hold such a person up if only they could convince them to fall into the arms of the community from atop a tall ladder.

But leaders are supposed to avoid falling altogether, and if they do their jobs right, there should never be any arms to fall into.  They should never have the need.  The world of the real leader is out on the edge of perception well in front of the rest of society who watches like timid animals about to step out of a hole where a snake is feared to be perched.  A real leader already has gotten by any danger and found the way forward—and followers tow behind as they should—and they need to keep their mouths shut so that the leader can think about what is yet ahead and not be encumbered by some encounter group trying to build the self-esteem of a weak-kneed group.

Leadership 21 is just another instance of how public sector jobs such as police, fire, and education are hanging their star onto the business community through local Chamber of Commerce organizations and taking credit for the good work done by real job creators.  The bridge between the two worlds is the West Chester Chamber Alliance and when it comes time for tax increases, the Chamber expects their Alliance members to give generously—after all they have had the chance to sleep with Jenni Logan at camp and helped push her over a wall, and she was there to catch business leaders as they fell from a tall ladder—and when it comes time to pass a school levy—they’ll think of Jenni, Ron, Karen, and Lynda and remember what nice people they were at Chamber dinners and Leadership 21 events—and they’ll support that school levy every 5 to 7 years—even if it costs them a lot of money in additional taxes.  The public pressure through the Chamber Alliance is more painful than the money spent.  They’ll support that police levy because through the Chamber, they have met some of those public servants and had their political, social, and otherwise individual opinions stripped away from them through Chamber consensus building exercises—like Leadership 21.

The product of Leadership 21 is a loss of intellect and aptitude because both have to be surrendered to participate fully.  When Jenni talks about letting go, this is part of what’s lost—and for some there is relief in losing that responsibility.  It is much easier to allow a herd to make decisions than to take full responsibility on an individual basis.  What starts with a few people at Camp Joy becomes a community of followers willing to take the leadership of public service as their guiding light.  And public officials such as school administrators, police, and many others get to use the shield of the productive to protect them from scrutiny because the Chamber Alliance has arranged for a scam to take place where the productive freely give their efforts to the incompetent.   Awards are given and dinners celebrate the exchange, but the general objective was and always will be the theft of value from job creators to shield the failed philosophy of those who wish to advance government and the money it consumes.  Leadership 21 is just a fancy way to say that the desire of a 21st century world is that everyone has the opportunity to be a leader—but first the real leaders of society must be convinced to give up their claim to such a title.  Then they must accept the help of their fellow community participants with the reduced expectations of competency and replace those expectations with a trust in the team building exercises that Leadership 21 is designed to establish with physical reliance as opposed to intellectual aptitude.  Thus the message of Leadership 21 is to surrender thought to physical trust and understand that value judgments are relative to individual position which is subservient to the collective will of consensus.  And it is for that reason that I reject the entire premise and believe it to be one of the greatest threats disguised behind good-will that we have before us.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Bullwhips For Self-Defense: The techniques of Anthony De Longis

One thing that is different from my view of bullwhip work and many of my friends who spend a lot of time working on technique with an emphasis on dance like choreography is that I find the whip most useful as a melee weapon in martial arts. In my novel The Symposium of Justice, the main character Cliffhanger uses bullwhips exclusively as his primary weapon to fight the forces of evil. Even when firearms and modern technology present options that might otherwise be considered more attractive—Cliffhanger uses two bullwhips to slice up and dominate his rivals with blistering effectiveness. My friend Gery Deer runs the only bullwhip instructional studio in the world, and his emphasis has always been non-combative instruction. So when the two of us get together we politely avoid the subject. Most bullwhip artists feel the same way that Gery does—and for good reason. There is a stigma that bullwhips are naturally violent weapons, so to promote the sport, they put emphasis on the non combative aspects of it. But, bullwhips by their nature are very violent, and are among the most flexible and versatile weapons ever created by a human being. And a guy who has made quite an extensive living teaching bullwhip combat techniques is Anthony De Longis.

Anthony has a long history with bullwhips and has done a good job of promoting them within Hollywood. Once while I was doing a short picture in Glendale, California which is Anthony’s hometown his name came up often by the stunt people and stunt coordinators. He is well-known within the Hollywood community as the go-to guy for bullwhips in film and he has worked with great passion to create interest in his spare time.

As a published writer, De Longis has contributed articles on the sword and the bullwhip to both martial arts and stage combat publications. These include articles on the Spanish Mysterious Circle, published in Fight Master, Inside Karate and Martial Arts Insider, and on sabre in Black Belt. Articles on the bullwhip have appeared in Inside Karate, Black Belt and Inside Stunts.

Off-camera, De Longis was Fight Director for the Los Angeles Music Center Opera from 1985 to 2003. He was Swordmaster / Stunt Coordinator for episodes 1-6 of The Queen Of Swords, and Swordmaster for Secondhand Lions.

He is also a professional stage movement and combat instructor, teaching in academic (UCLA Theatre Arts Dept. 1974-1993), small group and private settings seminars. He was inducted into the Black Belt Hall of Fame as 2008 Weapons Instructor of the Year and into the International Knife Throwers Hall of Fame in 2009,

http://www.delongis.com/Biography.html

He shares with many of the people I most associate with a love of these kinds of skills—these western arts–and his impact to the industry deserves respect. He and I share specifically a love for Terry Jacka made bullwhips from Australia as most of the rest of the industry leans toward Joe Strain. There are others, but those two names are among the highest in the business. Samples of both their work can be found at Western Stage Props. However, both whip makers can be found at their individual sites.

http://www.westernstageprops.com/

But when it comes to combat and the bullwhip, I can think of no better weapon in the world to deal with an armed thug in melee combat. There isn’t a martial artist that I’ve met, or a weapon used in those arts which surpasses the ability of a bullwhip. They can be coiled up for easy transportation and stuffed into a bag for concealment, but can become a projector of danger as lethal as knives from a safe distance of 8’ to 10’. They can disarm a foe, or tie up their feet if they are trying to run away from a treacherous act, or bullwhips can choke an assailant to within inches of their life with the leverage needed to cut off the oxygen and blood to their brain with much more effectiveness than bare hands even among the strongest man.

Years ago I sold cars and spent a lot of time on the car lot waiting for customers to visit so I could sell them something. To kill time, I often practiced with my bullwhip in the back lot, which attracted the attention of the various lot techs and mechanics. On one particular occasion a couple of strong guys who thought they were particularly tough wanted to spar with me, their knives and baseball bats from the trunk of their car against my whip. Three of them against me and my bullwhip. It wasn’t even close. I was able to get the 12’ whip around me so quick that they couldn’t attack without getting hit. When they tried to come all at the same time I was easily able to go after the head of one of them to break their line and step out behind it keeping them from trapping me. If they elected to take the hit, it would have hurt them catastrophically—which was the intention because we were playing that kind of game. One of them finally got smart and stepped on the end my whip as it was so long, it took a lot longer to move around than some of the smaller 6’ whips. Once he had the end of the whip trapped, he thought he and his friends had me defenseless. But what they didn’t know was that I could then close ranks and wrap the whip around their necks and use the handle as a club—very similar to a blackjack.

My grandfather used to carry a police style blackjack in his pocket and considered this adequate to knock away most foes he met around town in times of crises. I used it a few times, but retired it quickly realizing that it was best to get distance away from your opponents as opposed to being close enough to use a small club. I replaced the blackjack with a bullwhip and have never since stopped. If an opponent has control of the end of the whip it essentially takes their hands out of the fight. This gives the bullwhip wielder the advantage in a conflict because they can then use the handle as a club against an unarmed victim.

My use of bullwhips has always been combat related as opposed to showmanship. Recently a reader of my daughter’s website wondered why I had a bullwhip with me on our trip to the Ghost Ship of Cincinnati. Well, there were reports that some of the locals might be hostile and often take shots at people who visit the Ghost Ship. That turned out not to be the case—the people I met were quite nice—but you never know when you might run across some drug dealer’s marijuana patch, or someone burying a body deep in the woods—and in times like that you don’t want to be unarmed. So I bring my bullwhip as I always have. When people think of such things, they think of Indiana Jones—but the truth of the matter is, Indiana Jones is a practical adventurer—he knew how to dress for occasions and what to bring. Ironically, my daughter and I used my bullwhip to climb up the side of the ship. Of course I didn’t use one of my Jacka whips for that task—I used one of my long rawhide whips which are very tough. With those whips you can swing across things and climb trees—or disassemble someone who means to do you harm.

I could tell many stories about bullwhips, and when it comes to combat work with bullwhips, Anthony De Longis is the current spokesman at the entertainment level. What he has been preaching is real, and really just begins to touch on the possibilities. But those possibilities are infinitely exciting when it comes to weapons and their effectiveness.  In my opinion learning any other skill for any other weapon is pointless and a waste of time. There is nothing that I’d choose to use for self-defense than a bullwhip and that includes a firearm. Most firearms are shot at a close range and often miss their mark the first time—just because of the implication of what it means to shoot another person—death—long jail times, that kind of thing. The bullwhip will put an end to such threats within 1.5 seconds which is often the time it takes to decide to pull a trigger. The legal impact to such a self-defense measure is far less, and much more beneficial to staying out of court in the aftermath. Anybody who has been thinking of learning such a skill might want to visit Anthony out at his ranch to learn a thing or two about combat bullwhip techniques. That skill will likely save the life of you and those who mean you harm with the most effective way to remove threats under circumstances of coercion.   His site can be reached by the link above.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

A “Kick-Ass” Satire of Rich Hoffman: Living authentically–against the current.

I have a lot of readers and obviously the kids who made the video below were satirically bringing their perspective to my content and life as viewed from their California neighborhood culture.  Their comedy skit against bullwhip superheroes also looks to be shaped by the movie Kick-Ass 2 which wasn’t nearly as good as the first one—but did make some good points.  My novel The Symposium of Justice was a work of philosophy written at a fairly young age molded after my personal experiences with politics and bullwhips during the 1990s.  In those years I was in my twenties and knew what I thought about things, but couldn’t yet understand why just because there wasn’t enough contextual information.  About a year ago I wrote an article titled Taking the Mask off Once Again, (CLICK HERE TO REVIEW,) which put a kind of end cap on that period from my twenties to current—which essentially came to a similar conclusion as the ending of Kick-Ass 2—superhereos aren’t needed on movie screens and behind crazy costumes and masks as much as they are in real life.  Fictional characters are fun for telling stories but the world is in desperate need of real life people who are willing to do heroic things without a mask of any kind—whether the mask is literature, an entertainment personality, or a literal costumed avenger.

From the culture of young people taught to not have any values or a code of ethics I’m sure a lot of the things I do seem to them the way they were presented in that video—they cited a Midwestern lifestyle, a grandfather’s bullwhip, and the desire to save America by using it in their plot.  They are products of public school peer pressure shaped by the politics of our day—which is crumbling in virtually every social category.  Of course they hold the belief that America doesn’t need a bullwhip wielding superhero from the Midwest—because they don’t yet see the crises before them.

After I wrote The Symposium of Justice I didn’t feel comfortable performing the normal role of author.  Scholarly pursuits centered on philosophy were a pretty new concept for me and wasn’t exactly the direction I thought my life should go.  I was used to performing actual physical feats, and doing things that were actually very dangerous.  So it felt strange to write about things as opposed to doing things.  In my neighborhood—bad things were happening—and the lag period between books was just too great to solve problems in real-time.  When presented with those kinds of problems a person should use every skill they have to solve problems.  The results often mean the revelation at the ending of Kick-Ass 2—that the world needs real people to do extraordinary things and to do it without the concealment of a mask.

As an author of a couple of books now and using this blog site to tackle problems in real-time instead of the long publication periods it takes to move a novel through the normal process of going to print most of what I have written can be confirmed by some real life experience.  I have never been satisfied telling stories or providing content without experience lending perspective to my work.  And to get experience you have to do things—as a person.  Watching that satirical video I can’t help but feel sorry for those kids—like most young people they are finishing a long career of public school education shaped by a statist government and they believe they have the tools of assessment needed to enter the world.  But they don’t—instead they will travel through the normal cycle that most people go through, they will start their lives voting for people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (if they vote at all).  They will then support all the liberal causes, “Global Warming,” economic socialism, gay rights over traditional marriage, and collective value over individual merit.  By the time they hit their late 20s and early 30s they’ll discover that to have children of their own—they’ll become more conservative.  At that time they will often support a presidential candidate like Mitt Romney (soft Republican), they’ll start becoming frustrated with larger government once they see their taxes increase once they purchase a home, and they’ll start thinking like a Republican after cutting grass in their own yards each week.  They’ll spend their lives trying to make their bosses happy, will stare at their high school senior yearbooks wondering where all their friends went and will discover that they now have resentful teenagers who do not show respect for them during their 40s and 50s.  The kids of course will be angry at their parents for not providing a good role model as their parents will spend most of their lives as social boot-lickers instead of admirable parents, and homeowners.  During their late fifties their children will reconcile with them as those young people then realize that their liberal educations and salty outlook on life has not prepared them for the needs of their individual lives—and the parent and child will likely sit in a restaurant embracing each other on how mysterious life is and how screwed up their preparation for it was.  In their 60s the parent will likely then become a real conservative who will want to see the world they are leaving behind restored in some fashion to what it was when they were children because they see how detrimental everything has become during their lifespan—and they will at that point regret it—hoping to improve that life while they still live.  During their 70s and 80s those parents will find themselves abandoned by their children, overlooked by their grandchildren, and completely despondent to their great-grandchildren.  They’ll watch in frustration as the world of politics spirals out of control in spite of all their efforts and the last days of their lives will shrivel away into oblivion.  Not long after, nobody will visit their grave sites and history will forget them.

That cycle is a standard one for anybody who follows the shaped life of a statist government where the service and attention of that entity takes precedence over individuality.  There is no other ending for most of the people in our society—who follow that path.  My hope has been to maybe change the lives of a few so that such a miserable existence could be avoided and I use the skills I have in all their capacity to perform that task.  The kids who made that video have no other path in their life but the one described above they will live it nearly word for word and there is nothing I or anybody else can do to help them.  They are simply too far gone.  Even in comedy, much about reality is revealed.  Nothing is just a joke—everything has a cost associated with it—and you can’t cheat life without cheating yourself in some fashion.

Recently I told a bit of the story of the movie Bronco Billy by Clint Eastwood and for me, it taught me early on that people only get one chance to live their unique life the way they see fit.  That choice may run counter to the culture of society—but the goal is to be authentic to your individuality—and to not yield to the social pressure of conformity.  I made my choice long ago to live an authentically personal life in spite of the social pressures to serve a bind system led by sightless bureaucrats.  I have lent my support to many causes of the day in real life, a spokesman against taxes, Tea Party groups, talk radio, business,   and countless other endeavors—but I have never stopped being who I uniquely am even as those movements have ebbed and flowed.  And it always comes back around to the term “Justice Comes from the Crack of a Whip” from The Symposium of Justice.  In that novel the justice that most of us seek does not come from the laws of politicians, it comes from our own personal authenticity and those destinations can only be found by living life honestly even when the currents of civilization seem opposed to the task.  To be the last living things left on a receding beach, you have to stand against the current because then and only then—will you discover what was always hidden from view.  I communicated what I saw in my novel but felt I needed to dig deeper and to do that—it required real physical action instead of just observation to discover the concealment that holds many of life’s real answers.   And a tool for getting at those answers can be obtained with a bullwhip if you know how to use them.  A mask isn’t required.

Even though those kids thought they were making a satire of Kick-Ass at my expense, they obviously missed the point of the movie.  But that doesn’t surprise me.  It won’t hit them for another 25 years but eventually they will look at how they saw the world now and regret it.  They’ll also learn that they were woefully wrong—America does need such a hero and that even though they changed the title to avoid direct slander “The Crack of Justice” the proper way to always frame the situation is that “JUSTICE COMES WITH THE CRACK OF A WHIP”—because it does.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Why People Like Lois Lerner Fear Conservatives: The McDonald’s matrix

People’s political opinions largely are formed by the kind of work they do, so it is not unusual within the Beltway of Washington to find people who think the way Lois Lerner does about “radical right-wingers.” For them, anybody who is not willing to throw endless amounts of money at government jobs and altruistic causes progressives support—is a “dangerous right-winger.” The same mentality caught by the Lois Lerner emails can be found in virtually any public school, or where government workers have unrealistic expectations about wage rates and quality of living under the umbrella of government. The desire for government to always expand is to bring in more employees who will thus protect it from insurgency. It is that concern of rejection that people like Lois Lerner fear—a rejection of their lifestyle and beliefs which is frightening to them.

One of the reasons I have spent the last week talking about the Annie Oakley Festival that I recently attended was because the entire region around Darke County, Ohio where it’s held is so wonderfully free of the type of people who work for government. There are of course police who sit like parasites on the side of the road looking to give out tickets to meet their revenue quotas—there are school teachers, and Post Office workers around town, but a vast majority of the people were farmers or people who have fled the urban life for the rural countryside to get away from government in some form or another. Nobody I met during my visit were radicals, but there were a lot of people who were to the political right of my position who have Don’t Tread on Me flags hanging from their porches, and gun racks in the windows of their trucks and they didn’t vote for Obama—that is for sure. They are the mainstream of rural America which makes up most of the country—and in those lands, they are filed with the kind of people who Lois Lerner fears most—those scary people who call in to talk radio shows and express anti-government opinions.

Lois Lerner and Barack Obama gladly put on blinders to the outside world of the Beltway. Their entire life and culture of their occupations centers around government employment which is not performance based, but measured by kiss-ass ability. Schmoozing, brown-nosing, and boot licking to gain promotions are particularly prevalent in government occupations if they want to accelerate faster than their annual merit increases. The fear that those government employees have of the “radical right” are essentially of those who have value, who likely attend church on Sundays, who are engaged in long marriages to the same spouse, who prefer straight sex over anal sex—in essence people who care about things over those who don’t.

I tend to judge cultures based on the McDonald’s matrix. Since McDonald’s restaurants essentially are the same everywhere—the food is the same, costs are the same and is of the same quality, the only differences from one to another is in the people who generally attend. For instance, if a McDonald’s is attended in Finneytown, Ohio it is common to see women wearing hoochy mama heels looking like they are Vegas prostitutes because the welfare culture in and around the area produces those types of people. I actually had this experience last week during a lunch rush. The people were discombobulated and behaved as if they were perpetually intoxicated. The people in front and behind the counter were fragmented—the static patterns of their lives had major holes that were filled by chaos. The best way to attribute their behavior was that they were the result of government employment—in one way or another they were victims of government employment. They either worked for the government in some way, or they were welfare families mooching off the tax payer for their sustenance. Just days later my wife and I stopped at a very nice McDonald’s in downtown Eaton, Ohio—in the middle of a very rural community. Sitting in the seats were old men reading newspapers and talking to their neighbors, groups of women planning yard sales, and families bringing their kids to play on the vast indoor playground they have there. Behind the counter the young women were very nice, and seemed engaged with life. It looked like the town McDonald’s was a major employer in that remote country town, so people treated the job with care—like it was something to cherish. A truck drove by me outside with a Confederate Flag in the back window and had a sticker of the church they attended on the bumper. This was the land that people like Lois Lerner fears most from the vantage point of the Beltway.

Using the McDonald’s matrix it is easy to determine the quality of people from region to region. Most of the time the root cause of degradation of a population can be determined by properly measuring the amount of government influence there is on a community. In places where welfare checks are more frequent than privately employed citizens, the quality of people goes down dramatically by way of personal values and taste. In places where getting a job at McDonald’s is a coveted occupation the value for the type of clothing one wears, the way they speak, the kind of things they put in their heads goes up dramatically. My trip to the Eaton McDonald’s was in itself a vacation because it was nice to be around people who had value. Beltway types and big government employees would say that such places are racist or “extreme” in their political views simply because they themselves fear such places the way that a demon might fear Holy Water. They ridicule the people in such towns because they don’t have control of them. They don’t fear the people who live in Finnytown.

Lois Lerner is reflective of a Beltway culture from both Republicans and Democrats who live in a bubble of their own making constructed by their social mooching and rampant looting of those who do have value. Since they are fleeing from judgment for their social crimes they have no other recourse but to hate and slander. The very existence of some people is too much for typical government workers to handle. During my entire trip to the Annie Oakley Festival from the time I left my driveway to the show itself, the interaction with the people was wonderfully American in that they were self-motivated and lacking that haze over their eyes that you often get when dealing with government employees—where the light is on, but nobody is home upstairs.

It is this culture of having somebody home who can think with their minds that Lois Lerner and her type of government worker fears so emphatically. They slander it, they tax it, they try with everything they have to destroy it—but when they can’t they hide from it in their Beltway offices and their expensive homes hoping to change the world into their image by other means. And when they can’t, they complain about it. I’ve been to D.C. and have traveled all around the area. I covered enough ground on my trip to the Annie Oakley Festival to eat the land mass of Washington D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles put together. The people who live in that vast summation of land won’t be opening their doors to the type of government interference that has corrupted Finneytown, and the other suburbs of Cincinnati where former glorious homes now rot under the care of the lazy, the addicted, and the minds with nobody home.

To illustrate the point let’s look at some census data between the two regions, Finnytown then Eaton.

In Finnytown the population was 12,741 at the U.S. 2010 census, in 5,294 housing units.[2] However, as of the 2000 census,[3] formerly there had been 13,492 people, 5,194 households, and 3,807 families residing in the CDP. The population density had been 3,382.8 people per square mile (1,305.6/km²). There had been 5,336 housing units in 2000. The racial makeup of the CDP in 2010 was 61.7% White, 33.7% Black, 1.9% Hispanic, with others 1% or less. However, the racial makeup in 2000 had been 72.95% White, 23.83% African American, 0.16% Native American, 1.10% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 0.45% from other races, and 1.48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race had been 0.80% of the population in 2000.

There had been 5,194 households, out of which 34.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 55.7% were married couples living together, 14.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26.7% were non-families. 23.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.57 and the average family size was 3.04.

In the CDP in 2000, the population was spread out, with 27.6% under the age of 18, 6.1% from 18 to 24, 26.3% from 25 to 44, 22.9% from 45 to 64, and 17.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 87.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.3 males.

The median income for a household in the CDP in 2000 had been $52,219, and the median income for a family had been $58,393. Males had a median income of $41,932 versus $31,250 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $25,355. About 4.3% of families and 5.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.5% of those under age 18 and 4.1% of those age 65 or over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finneytown%2C_Ohio

In Eaton as of the census[2] of 2010, there were 8,407 people, 3,486 households, and 2,181 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,358.2 inhabitants per square mile (524.4 /km2). There were 3,903 housing units at an average density of 630.5 per square mile (243.4 /km2). The racial makeup of the city was 96.3% White, 0.6% African-American, 0.2% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 0.5% from other races, and 1.5% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.8% of the population.

There were 3,486 households of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.2% were married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.6% had a male householder with no wife present, and 37.4% were non-families. 32.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 15.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the average family size was 2.90.

The median age in the city was 40.4 years. 23.3% of residents were under the age of 18; 8% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 23.7% were from 25 to 44; 25.7% were from 45 to 64; and 19.1% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.2% male and 52.8% female.

There were 3,274 households out of which 30.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.3% were married couples living together, 11.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.3% were non-families. 29.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.89.

In the city the population was spread out with 24.0% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 21.6% from 45 to 64, and 18.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 89.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $37,231, and the median income for a family was $42,241. Males had a median income of $32,404 versus $24,006 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,771. About 5.8% of families and 8.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.0% of those under age 18 and 9.5% of those age 65 or over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaton,_Ohio

Statically, they look very similar they have similar numbers of family size, similar numbers of female lead homes with no husband present and median incomes that are close. The big difference is that Eaton has nearly 9 more males per 100 females than Finnytown. The other statistic that doesn’t show up in this a case like this is the number of those married homes that are from first marriages. Obviously Eaton has a much higher success rate of first marriages than Finnytown leading to fewer fragmented homes and less dependency on government subsidy. One town has a greater welfare culture than the other and produces a mentality in one group that is vastly different from the other.

It is this nasty little secret that Lois Lerner’s type hope to hide from public knowledge and the reason she campaigned against those same groups using the power of the IRS to alter elections and suppress the opinions of those people outside of the Beltway which she felt so comfortable protecting. Just because they are scared doesn’t make government worker reality valid, it just means they have a frame of mind that is weaker due to their dependency on government than the hardier types who live outside the reach of Lois Lerner and her government employees contributing to the daily erosion that takes place with a government issued check in whatever form.

Rich Hoffman www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Why to Buy a David Crain Whip: The ‘Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw’ in slow motion

I have won the Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw competition for several years during its decade of existence. I don’t win it every year, but most of the time I either win it, or I’m climbing around the top contenders and if I lose it is because of a miss. I can’t ever recall being beat to a target. In 2014 the whip maker David Crain told me before we paired off against each other that he had built a whip just for the annual event and showed it to me. As I looked it over it was built of nylon, which is his style, and was very springy. It had nice movement and was well balanced—but it felt light. I’m used to my whips built by Terry Jacka in Australia which are a nice balance between heavy and the weight of the nylon whips so I had my doubts that his whip would be fast to the target in spite of his efforts. But when we paired off, and the judge called “draw” it looked to me that our whips both reached the target at the same time. It was too close to call, but the judge gave him the win as seen below.

I was impressed by how his whip sprang into action from about the 11:00 position over his head and jumped toward the target like a rubber band.   It moved differently than my whip which could be seen in the slow motion breakdown. Crain’s nylon whip launched toward the target and got there quick. The effect was impressive and demonstrated that the “roo” hide whips from Australia were not the only ones capable of winning at the Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw.

I have used Crain’s whips often and can testify to their quickness, my grandson has three of them. They are great for two-handed vollies and general technique. But after seeing them perform at this year’s Annie Oakley event in Greenville I am convinced that they perform excellently in competitions as well. David Crain’s whips are well made and unique featuring finely finished wooden handles making them easy to manipulate and excellent to look at. But in the hands of an expert, they are proving to be as quick as whips like the ones I use which cost $600 to $800 dollars. Crain’s whips typically cost a third of that but are every bit as accurate and many times are faster cutting through the air.

For me the elation of life is in the moments of time when a judge announces “draw” and when the whip hits the target. I find bullwhips more fascinating than firearms because all of the movement of the whip is done by a human being transferring the power of momentum through several strips of leather brought together by a whip maker to provide a focused force at the point of impact. By watching the coil of my whip strike its target in slow motion it is easy to see the world the way I do—first in the fast form, then slowed down the way it works in my mind. I live for those fractions of moments in time—those moments between seconds where decisions and momentum come together to define an objective. The same skills are used when driving a car, or making decisions that might affect millions of dollars in profitability—often we are only given a fraction of a second to make a decision and to act. The beauty of the bullwhip quick draw is all the decisions that have to be made in far less than a second, the uncoiling of the whip, the calculation of where the end is in space and time, the rotation of the handle to get the lay of the whip pointed in the right direction on the upswing from the coiled position—because if you go against it, the whip will push-off its mark during the strike, then finally the projection of the target cut with the whip in the air and pointed in the right direction, the flip of the wrist to get the coil started and finally the pop of the whip hitting the target squarely.

It was easy to see how I pulled off my side of the target cut, but David’s shot was a bit different. I looks like in slow motion that he was able to skip a few steps in the process. His whip being made of nylon didn’t have to be rotated in his hand to prevent working against the natural direction of the belly inside the whip that is formed to the coiled direction of a leather whip. From the extended position above his head it looks that he was able to launch the whip toward the target with a sling shot type of effect which can be seen the way the end of the whip turns into waves after it meets the target. What is easy to see in the very slow motion of the bullwhip fast draw above is that the nylon whip and kangaroo whip behaved very differently during the bullwhip fast draw but the goal is to reach the target first. In slow motion it looks like there is great advantage in using a nylon whip in the bullwhip fast draw.

For those who want to win the bullwhip fast draw in the future, a David Crain whip might be very wise. As it can easily be seen in the video, a lot happens in the span of time that two whip experts attack a target in the moments fragmented by such occasions. And like regular life that often feels slow and mundane it is those fragments of time that dictate the direction of success or failure—so the bullwhip fast draw is an excellent way to train the mind into the types of decisions that accompany such moments.

When people wonder how I do some of the things that I do in regular life whether it is under the guise of a suit and tie, or torn cloths hunting ghost ships in the back woods of river tributaries, the secret is not in a book, or a college, or any institutional influence. It is in the lessons learned in the fragments of time seen in the Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw and how those lessons can be applied to problems others might find overwhelming and impossible. Even with all my years of experience I still see new things and learn from them as I did from David Crain this year—lessons that I will carry with me that will prove very valuable. But for others contemplating such a thing in the future consider that last year David didn’t think he had the experience or skill to perform such a feat—but only one year later, he has proven himself to be a contender of great repute. And part of his journey in getting there was in building a whip that would do supernatural things under great pressure and as it can be seen by the video, he was successful.

David Crain can be found at the following link:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heartbeat-Artistry/169569816413486

 

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Secrets of Competition: The fountain of youth discovered in Ohio’s ‘Speed Switch’

Every year I look forward to the whip contests at the Annie Oakley Festival because for me it is a measurement that I take to determine my personal efficiencies. Whip work and what it takes to strike 10 targets in 12 seconds or less possesses the same skills that make forward leaning philosophy so cutting edge or management strategies fluidly clear. When you step up to the line to begin those contests, all the same emotions rush through your mind, push too hard or fast and you will miss targets. Take things too casually, and your stopwatch time will be bad, and physical timing is everything—maintaining a nice even pace that accomplishes the task is of utmost importance. Many might think that it is the desire to beat the other competitors that drives a person like me in these competitions—but its not. I happen to think the world of all the people who participate in the Annie Oakley events and I rejoice when they do well—even if it is at my expense. The real challenge as it is in most competitions—it is always yourself that you must compete against. The optimal thing is to show up, do your best measured against your values, and relish the results for the sake of them happening. I had a rough start in the competitions this year; I had a couple of penalties which added 10 seconds to my time on the Speed and Accuracy. It bothered me that things didn’t go as well as they should, so on the next competition I performed much better on the Speed Switch, seen below.

On that one, the speed was perfect, the rhythm was there, and the strikes were wonderful even with both hands. Upon completing that run, it felt good to strike that final crack because I felt I had my mind and body centered from the task which is exactly the feeling I was looking for. I really didn’t care what the time was, and I would have been happy to see someone come up with a better time. What mattered to me was the feeling of having everything working in perfect harmony controlled by me and my effort for a positive conclusion. It is primarily because of that exercise that I have worked with whips for well over three decades now.

When you have to compete against others it is different from setting up the same course in your backyard, which I do have. Other people push you to be better, so when I discovered that my Speed Switch time was just over 11 seconds, I was proud. If I were doing the same exercise alone in my back yard, the time would have likely been a second or two slower, but because of the competition it pushes you to do better. So it was a better time because of the competitive environment.

In the scheme of things the time doesn’t matter much. Next year it will be forgotten just like last year’s Superbowl champions are often lost in time. But the thrill of the moment is in pushing yourself to achieve something you might not otherwise strive to do—and it makes you sharper, stronger, and generally better. After pushing your mind and body in these kinds of events, hot dogs taste better, soft drinks at a concession stand are sweeter, and the sun is always more brilliant. If the level of competition is of a better quality, it makes a win even better—not because the other guy lost but because you know they are good and the meaning has proportional value based on the strength of their talents.

Politically, when rules created through legislation, take away competition from any process, they help destroy it. When labor unions prevent such competition to the process of making a job better, they are destroying those jobs. Without competition, minds rot away and the thrill of becoming better is robbed from an otherwise curious mind. For me, a guy closer to age 50 than 40 there aren’t many chances to challenge myself. At this age, you are at the top of your game. If you have done things well in your life, you should be the father who knows best, you should be the top performer in your career, you should be a shining citizen in your community, your lawn should be beautiful, you should make good decisions because you have learned how to be the best possible person that you can be through years of trial and tribulation. But if the competition is taken away from you, then your mind starts to go and with it comes the edge that your maturity brings to the table of innovation and success.

Organizations where competition is removed from their processes are filled with corruption and apathy. When trophies are given for victory without a competition taking place the way collective bargaining agreements provide for union workers, sluggish behavior permeates the endeavor with a less than satisfactory resolution. In my life, I still look for ways to compete the way I did when I was young and still test myself not for my competitors but to keep myself in shape, and sharp and to feel that thrill of life of a task well done on a Saturday afternoon. It’s not about the other competitors only in that they tend to push you to be better just by their presence. Without that competition in our lives, human beings decay and wither away into complacency.

It is also important for those who are currently the best to help others become better by giving them a target to pursue. This is essentially the secret to parenting, but it is more broadly termed as “mentoring.” It is good for young people to chase after old people to become better than they are, because through competition, everyone becomes better. One generation should surpass the older one so innovation occurs. Young people always want to feel they did better than those who came before them, but for them to do that, it is the responsibility of the old to make it hard for the young.

During the Bullwhip Fast Draw contest this year David Crain won against me and when he did I couldn’t help but be happy for him. He was fast and when he discovered that he had hit the target first, he rejoiced not so much for the win, but because he thought it would be hard to beat me. So for him, a hot dog tasted better on Saturday because he won a hard-fought battle. It is my task to make it hard for other competitors, but it is also my job to be happy for those who win because innovation has taken place, and everything has become better.


If competition is not present, innovation stops and minds die. Anywhere that competition is lacking, this is the result—poor performance occurs. And when you get to an older age where opportunities for competition are no longer constantly on your radar—there is a tendency to decay. This is why I look forward to the bullwhip competitions each year at Annie Oakley. Bullwhips mean more to me than other things in my life, so there is something at risk when I compete lending gravity to the situation that might otherwise not be present.

In that regard I was very happy to get such a good time on the Speed Switch. It is hard, and when everything comes together like that, pride is the only emotion. I could have been down on myself for not doing very well on the Speed and Accuracy event, but instead I was able to get it together and come back like I do most things in my life. But the reason I learned to overcome things in other parts of my life are because I know I can—because through competition I have learned how and applied those same skills to solving sometimes ridiculously difficult problems. Before you can do that consistently it helps tremendously to push yourself on ground that you are familiar with—whether it is baking a pie, shooting a rifle, or cracking a whip—competition makes you a better person in virtually every category. You may not always win, but you will always become better—especially if you learn from those who do win often. There is a reason they do—and the way to achieve that same boon is to surpass them through innovation and technique.

After a few days of rest I am already looking forward to next year. It is one of those events that never fail to restore in me a hope for humanity because of the people involved and the nature of the competition and what everyone gets from it. I remember what the bullwhip competitions were like when they were done in Las Vegas with the Wild West Arts Club, but Gery Deer, who runs the Annie Oakley event wanted to improve on those, and he has. The Bullwhip Fast Draw was born out of that desire and new to this year was the Indiana Jones Quick Draw which was a lot of fun and very entertaining. The need to always get better is at the heart of innovation and those needs cannot be measured until competition draws them to the surface. I am happy with my performance in 2014 but already have my eye on 2015 and will change some of my approach to get better. And during that process everything else in my life will improve just as a by-product. It is for that reason that I am so happy for the Annie Oakley bullwhip competitions and all the wonderful experiences that have come from them over the years. There is contained within their simplicity a secret to youth which often dies in grown adults not because of age—but a lack of competition and a laziness to push themselves once they have mastered their own fates.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

The 2014 Annie Oakley Western Showcase: Bringing Lash LaRue off the silver screen into reality

As usual it was a marvelous weekend at our annual Annie Oakley event.  What started as a large group that originally met at Las Vegas each year is now just a handful of whip crackers, knife throwers, trick ropers and magicians intent to put a smile on the faces of young people and wow the adults who graced the grounds of the 2014 Annie Oakley Festival in Darke County.  The venue this year was moved from the usual fairgrounds in town to a more remote location just to the north.  It felt a long way out and even deeper into “God’s Country” but a very large crowd turned out and what they found there were shooting contests, fast draw contests from the Single Action Shooting Society, theater drama, and the 12th Annual Annie Oakley Western Arts Showcase accompanied by the many venders selling goods.  Most of the venders very unique with little booths set-up mingling among the trees of York Woods.  For over ten years now some of the best whip crackers in the country have gathered to meet with their own kind at the event and as usual it was a marvelous enterprise.

I said many times during the day which was absolutely perfect for July weather with mild temperatures and occasional rain bursts erupting just to the north and south painting a menacing sky at times across the vast plains of farmland extending out into Indiana—that my love of this event was yearly maintenance; it restored my faith in humanity.  The people who attend are some of the few people left in the entire world who do these kinds of things which used to be common place during Annie Oakley’s time.  A few are in long-term marriages which are inspiring, and most have spouses that they bring with them where they enjoy each other in a healthy way and it is just good to associate with people of that character.  I’ve said it before, but it is applicable, the people in our group are nearly identical to the characters shown in the Clint Eastwood film Bronco Billy—which is a favorite of mine.  They are a small group of people who are all that is keeping a way of life in America alive for the next generation.

There are many in the world who might say good riddance to classic American arts—particularly those residing around large metropolitan areas—which is why attending each year restores my faith in humanity.  It is so refreshing to spend time around genuine people who truly love something rooted in classic Americana.  But to lose these values, the whip cracking, the gun spinning, roping, and knife throwing—with vaudeville type shows conducted from corn fields in the middle of nowhere—U.S.A would be treacherous.  The heart of what it means to be an American is in those shows, I have now known the ring master of the Annie Oakley event—Gery Deer for over ten years and each year he finds new ways to change-up the show to always keep it interesting.  At first there were concerns over moving the Annie Oakley Festival to the outskirts of Greenville—but quickly those worries proved pointless.  Large crowds attended and the celebration was nothing short of inspiring.

It took me a while to get warmed up but by the time we got to the Speed Switch contest which allows bullwhip artists to strike at ten targets as fast as they could–first with one hand then with the other on the way back up the target row, I had hit my stride.  This year it was obvious that everyone was a bit smoother and had been practicing.  The times were faster generally for everyone which made for an exciting show for the people watching from the bleachers.  I had my fastest time ever on the Speed Switch—just a bit over 11 seconds which is fast for even the Speed and Accuracy contest so well-known to seasoned veterans.  I enjoyed the location, the vast open spaces all around the touring bus of the Brother’s and Company set up as a backdrop for the stage as a generator provided all the power needed for the show.  The crowd sat in the beginnings of the York Woods where shade gave them shelter from the sun which peaked out often around menacing storm clouds.  If anything pushed my speed a bit it was a combination of those elements.

Many of the same people who came last year came this time around again traveling from far away destinations to arrive.  Some couldn’t make it, but the beauty of the event is that each year there are opportunities to do it again and recharge their batteries from a punishing year.  It is punishing to stand behind these classic American art forms when the current trend is to run away.  Often the skeptics will stand on the outskirts of the roped off area and watch with curiosity as most of their thoughts were created by pop culture—but after a few moments, they can’t help but smile at the cheesy jokes and purity of the type of Western Showcase that Gery routinely puts on.  There is a playful innocence in it that is unmistakable and it doesn’t take long to reach into the inner child of the typical viewer to touch that part of themselves which has long ago been ignored—and suppressed.

I saw some of that at the end of the day when my wife and I went to the restaurant we normally gather at in Greenville to make reservations for the back half of the dining room.  The rest of our group was on the tour bus coming down from the York Woods location so we wanted to have everything set up for when they arrived.   As the manager arranged tables I saw some of that modern cynicism in the bar where my wife and I waited.  A corner contained a group of young twenty-somethings watching a baseball game and as I stood silhouetted in the doorway between the bar and dining room a young kid with his date looked my way and started texting his friends sitting next to him murmuring—it’s “Crocodile Dundee.”  I stared at the kid just to make him feel uncomfortable and to let him know that I could hear him, which he hadn’t expected.  He wanted anonymity from the security of his reality among his friends so I made a point to not give it to him.  This isn’t the first time this has happened and it won’t be the last.  On more than one occasion in that same bar we’ve encountered worse but quickly converted them over into fans.  One year Chris Camp took a skeptical woman outside and made her into a whip target stand in the parking lot in front of her husband cracking straws from her outstretched hands.  Moments before she had been similar to the kids in the corner, but after about five minutes was gushing all over herself at the coolness of having a weapon break the sound barrier right next to her face.  The only references modern people have toward such things outside of the type of events that Gery puts on, is music, movies, and television which has turned dramatically against the American Western, or any form of rugged individualism.

The clash of cultures is one where the values of two groups of people crash in places like that bar.  At the Annie Oakley Festival the context is already presented.  It is not unusual for members of the Western Arts Showcase to roam around the event in costume.  I typically wear my whips with me, and nobody bats an eye—they expect it because of the context of the show.  When our members used to attend the Fairlawn restaurant in years prior the strip of road separating it from the Darke County Fairgrounds was filled with people attending the festival.   This year there was no late night activity in town, because the Annie Oakley event had moved far to the north—so the Fairlawn was filled with regular people living their regular lives watching baseball games and trying to show how well they fit into the modern world of the big nearby cities like Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati to the south.  So for the kids in the bar they had no idea there was an Annie Oakley event in town as it had moved.  The boy who made the Crocodile Dundee comment likely hoped that his girl friend would be impressed by his remark and the laughs and giggles among his friends would earn him an honor of some kind, to prove that he was just as much of a douche bag as the next guy.  What kids like that don’t know, because it’s not part of their experience, is that the heroes of old, which the Ohio Western Arts group is dedicated to preserving are people like Lash LaRue, Douglas Fairbanks, and of course Annie Oakley—people they have no experience with.  If they did, they’d have a much more fulfilled life—their marriages would last longer, their lives would be richer, and they’d be generally happy people.  Some of the members of our group travel in trucks and vans that are twenty years old filled with stage props.  Often they sleep in a cramped back seat traveling from gig to gig in a hope that their sheer charisma might improve the lives of just one person with the kind of hopes and dreams born from the mind of America.  Most of the time they get paid decently, but are drained from the experience only to dust off the feeling and do it again weekend after weekend year after year.

I have never seen a young girl who didn’t melt away into butter when a confident whip handler removed a target from her lips.  If the kid wanted to impress his date—and I wanted to tell him this—the best thing he could do for himself is to learn the skills our group brought to the Annie Oakley Festival.  As our group arrived and filled the back of the room, the kid stood in the doorway wondering who all those people were sitting with that same guy in the Australian style outback hat.  His perplexed look was one of realizing that there was a group of people in the world functioning around him who were different from the patterns he had learned—that certain music was popular, certain modes of dress acceptable, and that there were people out there who considered non-conformity to be far superior to social conformity.  It is that trait that the Annual Annie Oakley Festival in Darke County, Ohio appeals to best, and the primary reason that so many make the yearly pilgrimage.

I certainly have a lot of experience with such things measuring public temperament.  Unlike the other attendees I have chosen a more controversial roll using my desire to preserve the Western Arts in a way that I think the real Lash LaRue would have done in his day—I have made it part of my political discourse.    I have fought higher taxes and known political corruption using the skills nurtured along over the years with the bullwhip to have the same effect the young guy in the bar experienced.  When it comes to traditional American art, I feel that the best ground to defend it is outside of the shows where viewers can watch comfortably from behind a roped off area.  I take great pleasure in bringing the show to the safety of the herd because it is there that they need to see it most.

At the end of the night there were jokes about how out-of-fashion we were as a group and pride was taken in being so out of style.  I remarked that all we needed to do was wait another 50 years and there will be hordes of people desiring deeply the traditional American arts displayed yearly at the Annie Oakley Festival—it will at that time become fashionable again.  But right now, especially with the failure of the Lone Ranger at the box office last year, nobody in movies or television is going to produce a film like Zorro or Lash LaRue in the jaded culture we have now.  But for those who still desire such things, the way we do who perform them, the yearly event of Annie Oakley is a real treat.  It recharges my batteries with meaning after a year of typical cynicism in a way nothing else does.  I typically wear my hat year round everywhere from Michigan to Florida and in every possible venue from wealthy to poor—so it is routine to get the kind of reaction I received from the kid in the bar.  But what is unique is that a horde of people dressed similarly who share my values don’t often come walking in behind me.  And while I might want to take Lash LaRue off the silver screen and plop him down into America in 2014 with my real life antics, it is the one and only time a year that I get more from everyone else than I typically give leaving me feeling uncharacteristically fulfilled.  In that regard, I hope that Gery gets the circus tent next year that he’s talking about—because that would be absolutely grand and a good next step to the new venue at York Woods marking of the start of a second decade in a long march toward eternity.

Rich Hoffman   www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

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The Nature of Productivity: Lessons learned from the 20th Century Motor Company

The following three videos should be listened to completely—for they contain the secrets to manufacturing success within them.  To understand the effects of positive GDP forecasts, or the growth of a manufacturing sector in a country—the following clips read from the pages of Atlas Shrugged contain the hidden knowledge that is required to comprehend the cause and reasons for any kind of productive growth or decline.  In the fictional 20th Century Motor Company as described in the classic 50+ year novel—an entire company is driven to ruin for some mysterious reason.  That reason would later be confirmed cryptically by the entire  real-life city of Detroit, General Motors, and hundreds of thousands of smaller companies who like the factory in the novel that were once thriving places of industry but soon found their doors closed and overtaken by plant life from abandonment, followed the same path.  The philosophy of productivity for good or bad is contained within these three videos.  Once understood all the books written about modern finance, management, or lean manufacturing techniques will become obsolete as the truth contained is undeniable.  No matter what one’s opinion of Ayn Rand might be—whether or not they agree or disagree with her politics of small government, pure capitalism, and  value based society represented by money—her understanding of economics and business in general is among the greatest minds over the last three hundred years.  Let me explain why.

As a young man I saw on a much smaller scale the same type of things talked about in the 20th Century Motor Company as narrated by a former employee in the presented videos.  One place that I worked at nearly right out of high school while attending college night school was a metal stamping factory full of tough guys born and raised nearly exclusively in unionized households where their parents worked for General Motors or large local paper companies which had gone out of business.  They had deep in their internal workings the same beliefs as the narrator describing the 20th Century Motors situation and I immediately came into direct conflict with them.  Lucky for me, my background included hard-working parents, two sets of grandparents who owned professional farms and my first work experiences where around members of the Chicago Chinese mob.  So I had the opportunity from a very young age without reading Atlas Shrugged to learn about what values money represented about people and learned about the nature of good and evil as related.  My job at the stamping factory was a clash of two worlds, one where a majority of the people thought just like the narrator in the Atlas Shrugged excerpts, and I.  At this factory there was a piece per hour rate that was established by management of 400 parts on average.  The presses had lines of workers who each operated a part of the process in making compressor housings for air conditioners, the first press would press out a rough shape from a sheet of metal, the second would trim the excess away, the third usually involved several workers who had to do a number of punch operations to make connection holes.  Each had a unique challenge to physical labor that had to be done quickly to even think of getting close to 400 parts per hour.

I learned without much time expiring to do well over that 400 part per hour rate and soon found that management put me on the lead at the start of the line to set the pace for everyone else.  Employees downstream on the line when they realized I was pushing to do more than 400 per hour would slow down and let the parts build up on the conveyors leading to their presses.  But having parts backed up would often stress them out forcing them to do more than they wanted anyway so productivity increased and the management was happy.  This of course led to many conflicts and parking lot fights.  However, with my background–some rough characters from my youthful enterprises, and my natural hobby with bullwhips as my primary exercise item, I never had to worry about handling myself against rough-neck employees and their labor union backgrounds.  Through conflict I earned their respect and even though they resented being pushed, came to like me well enough to not resist my wishes.

I never bought into the line of thought that believed workers should only produce 400 parts per hour if they could do more because it seemed wrong to regulate productive enterprise.  I learned quickly that no matter how hard I worked, a majority of the workers would gladly ride my coat tails without putting forth any effort, and if I wanted to produce excess—which to me felt natural, I had to learn to fix the line myself when maintenance issues arose, or other problems presented themselves.  Often I felt that I carried the manufacturing capacity of the place on my back alone by pushing the culture toward productivity. Eventually I would leave that job and they immediately went through a period of struggle.  The next company I went to had very similar manufacturing challenges but instead of metal, it was injection plastic.  Again, it was the same story, a part per hour rate, my desire to exceed it, and a company full of employees who wanted to fight me over it to protect their “rights” against “management.”  In this place I talked the management into letting me work double shifts every day of the week—(16) hours a day, and on the weekends I’d back off only working (8) hour days.  I worked (7) days a week averaging around 96 hours of work per week.  Many in management thought I would keel over but they wanted my efforts which essentially was outpacing around (7) of their hourly workers and I was doing it on 2nd and 3rd shifts which were hard to staff.  This was a big place and my average output alone outpaced much of the totals from their entire first shift because of the amount of time I spent in their building working.

I knew people were mooching off me both in my private life and professional by the droves and my response was to see how much I could carry.  I performed like that for nearly 2 years straight then left there to work at Cincinnati Milacron.  There I ran into extreme levels of the kind of behavior talked about in the 20th Century Motor Company.  There, I was doing a very individually based job which prevented my direct impact on the productive culture.  The jobs perished as a result—not just mine, but everyone’s.  The site where I used to work is now a shopping center.  The large campus of manufacturing at “The Mill” is now gone, and my job with it.  My next place of business to work was a unionized shop doing manufacture for Amazon.com distribution centers.  There I had many conflicts with the employees some of which have been discussed in detail, but I routinely produced 150% efficiencies over the manufacturing rate per day, as opposed to the normal rate of 40% to 60% that the union employees fresh off a strike were producing.  That company like Milacron soon was sold off from a company that was drowning in losses—so I lost that job too along with many others employed there.  The way that the employees were throttling the piece rate was that many of the manufactured units had a 4 to 5 hour time, and most of the union workers would milk out that time to produce one unit per day on an eight-hour shift.  I was routinely producing two which pushed my rate well over 100% on average.  In that shop a forklift had to bring supplies to build with, so I learned that when I was out of material not to trust the forklift operator sitting on his unionized butt to help me achieve my goals, I would grab a forklift on my own and get my own stuff.  Of course this enraged people—but I did it anyway the entire time I worked there.

The long story made short is that there is excessive truth contained in the video clips presented.  The evil talked about is an evil that I have fought without really knowing the definition for years.  I only knew at the time that I wanted to fight that evil, I didn’t understand why until much later.  When I had figured it out, I then read Atlas Shrugged to have that confirmation thought, but that has been within the last decade.  I figured out what made the 20 Century Motor Company fail by experience instead of being told by a book.  I am proud to look back on my life now never yielding to the pressures of the masses to restrict my outputs and thus prevented becoming myself a contributor to that evil described.  I never produced at such levels to get a pat on the back from management, or even to make more money—even though those things did come to me, I did them because there was something inherently right about it.  The culture I grew up with aside from my family, the mob, and the money laundering from a job I had before the metal stamping place (not conducted by me, but discovered), had signed up for the same evil that destroyed the fictional 20th Century Motor Company.  I luckily had learned the value of money from people who naturally possessed great value, and even learned a lot from a criminal class who clearly understood the benefits of capitalism.  Their crimes were against politics, not the morality of money—and this is something I learned very early in my life which was a real gift.  By the time my wife begged me to take up honest hard-working jobs that were clean of criminals, hit men, and money laundering, I had already met the worst that any factory thug could present, and I knew how to deal with them.  In this way I was never beaten down for doing too much, and never stopped from being productive.  And I was able to confirm the validity of Ayn Rand’s work through more than theory.  I saw it firsthand.  The difference between myself and Ayn Rand is that she developed her philosophy around removing her input through a strike—her John Galt quit the world and took the productive with him.  I on the other hand felt the challenge to carry everything on my back the way Hank Reardon did, but without ever breaking.  My life would have been easier if I had done things the way Ayn Rand suggested, but I chose to fight it instead, and I’m glad to this day that I did.  But whatever the position, she was right and the narrator who is speaking her words is spot on.  The thing that is killing our world of productivity is the evil described in these videos.  It is not a fiction; the evil is as real as the sun, stars and moon and cannot be trivialized no matter how much a collective mass of people wishes. Productivity is good when boundaries are pushed beyond their expectations because it is there that creativity resides.  And it is specifically in creativity that production springs forth.  If creativity is embraced, a company flourishes.  If it is stifled even in small ways, the way of the 20th Century Motor Company will spring forth and slowly destroy everything that the company stood for.  Profit isn’t evil; it is the natural by-product of excess achieved through effort, creativity, and honor.  I didn’t work those two years of straight 96 hour work weeks to arrive at any other conclusion—and I didn’t do it for the graces of management.  I did it because it was the right thing to do at the right time because the creativity which put the product before me to make needed that effort to deliver it to a market in need.  And because it was delivered, the owners were paid, and in turn I was rewarded for my efforts—and that is how it is supposed to be.

Rich Hoffman

 

 

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

“I WAS ONLY DOING MY JOB”: Why Lois Lerner should be tarred and feathered

When John Adams defended the shooters of the Boston Massacre the essence of the defense was that the soldier, who fell under pressure from a raging mob—largely led by John Adams cousin Sam, accidentally fired into the crowd launching a barrage of shots from the other English troops killing several in the crowd. The defense was that the soldier was simply doing his job as a servant to the Crown and the uniform. Later of course John Adams would take up the patriot cause more and more until he would be an eventual President of The United States. However, the foundations of his argument hastens back to the many evils often perpetrated by individuals in service to a system created by collectivism and uttered by the simple words—“I was only doing my job.”

The term is used daily all across the world when phrased as an explanation for something that goes wrong. The presumption is that the individual is somehow disassociated from an act because of service to a system and the requirements of surrendering thought to collective action. When somebody does something bad against someone else they often look for the escape—“I was only doing my job” to alleviate responsibility for their actions.

For instance, when a cop gives an expensive ticket to a housewife on her way to the grocery store and she declares that the only reason she was getting a ticket is because she’s driving a nice car, lives in a nice area, and has a nice life and can therefore pay the ticket without further trouble for the court—the cop says—“I am only doing my job.” With those simple words the officer shrugs off any personal responsibility for decisions and surrenders his actions to the benefit of the collective whole even though he did target the housewife instead of the Cheech and Chong look-a-likes who might have been in the next car. The housewife was an easy target, low confrontation type who typically pays the fee without any trouble. The other types might not even have the money for the fee creating defaults in court, time in jail, and all kinds of further work for the officer, so he picked the housewife for a ticket and blamed the system he served.

When a White House spokesman lies to the public to defend a president guilty of many crimes—the spokesman claims that “I was only doing my job.” When a lawyer defends a murderer whom he knows is guilty but provides a defense anyway doing whatever may be done to get the client off the punishments for the accused crime the lawyer says—“it is my job.”   The term itself refers to the notion that crimes can be committed so long as they are for a collective causes within an institutional system—but if that same act is committed between individuals, then punishment is expected.

This term, “I was only doing my job” is an old archaic notion left over from our primitive past as nomads and hunters and gathers where a village chief pointed the society they led to the higher cause of collective salvation. Modern society is only a few hundred years removed from this type of remnant behavior, so the type of individuality represented by American philosophy has not yet been biologically accepted as a new static pattern socially. People are still socially, mindless creatures trying to figure out where they stand in the grand scheme of things and their personal focus is still centered on service to a system over their own impulses to think. This is what is meant when someone declares, “I am only doing my job.”

Responsibility is not lost to the phrase, just the acknowledgment of an imposition. It is impossible to blame a system blob like presence like the “federal government, or a corporation over the individual behavior of the participants. When the police declare that they are just doing their job to kick in doors and arrest people for charges more politically motivated than attempts at justice—they are allowing the institution and their service to it to guide their thought instead of contemplating the value of an order given by a “superior.” When something goes wrong, they declare—“I was just following orders.” In this fashion the current IRS scandals was thought to be avoided as the participants taken individually are likely good people who shop at the same stores as everyone else, raise kids, see movies and eat at restaurants. But when they were asked by Lois Lerner to perform illegal actions of activism they said to all who questioned them, “I am only doing my job.” In this way many crimes were committed by the IRS because the leader at the time was a political activist using the arm of the IRS for personal conquest of opponents to a big government philosophy.

When Commissioner of Customs John Malcolm was accused of telling on tea smugglers in Boston in 1773 he was stripped, tarred and feathered and paraded around the city as a victory against tyranny. Before the lynching the man attempted to declare—“I’m just doing my job” hoping that it would relieve him of judgment by the angry mob who was sick of taxation without representation and the monopoly power of the tea supply company to levy taxes. The mob, led again by Sam Adams and witnessed by his cousin John held the Commissioner responsible for his individual actions not as a member of the East India Company or a favored member of the Crown in England—but as an individual who made a conscious decision to participate in a system perpetrating tyranny against the colonies. The difference between then and now is that the Sons of Liberty involved in the Boston Tea Party were holding individuals accountable for their evils instead of allowing the responsibility of a “system” to suck blame like a black hole—and this forced change.

By those who resent America the Boston Tea Party is often thought of as a terrorist act comparable to something like the World Trade Center attack, or the Boston Marathon Bombing. But there is a distinct difference that must be brought to light. The radicals of Islam, and other related tribal mentality terrorism is utilized to attack the collective mass through fear to have an impact on the institutions represented. For instance, the World Trade Center attack was designed to strike at the American economy as an institution by attacking a collective symbol—the sky scrapers of economic activity. The essence of the Tea Party attack in 1773 Boston was to remove the mask of individual responsibility to collective evil—by negating the term—“I was only doing my job.”

The crises that John Adams felt—America’s second president—was that he had defended that institutional position when defending the Red Coats during the Boston Massacre. Because of his fair and civil defense of the Crown’s army, Adams was offered into the elite circles of the King’s personal advisors as a reward. Yet Adams turned away from this being appalled by the actions leading up to the Boston Tea Party ultimately he made the decision as a very good lawyer to stand behind individual merit instead of collective sacrifice. By the time he was nominated to attend the First Continental Congress, he had evolved as a person who could argue in defense of men guilty of crime by declaring that “they were only doing their jobs” and begin holding people accountable for their individual actions in spite of their role in the institutional representation.

Much evil is conducted behind the façade of goodness to an institutional cause. But this does not get people off the hook of judgment. They are still required to be good people and to make decisions based on what’s right as an individual–opposed to an entity functioning as a tyranny because of institutional commitment to non-thinking collectivism. The Boston Tea Party was an act of accountability—in not allowing individuals to hide behind institutional evils.   The 9/11 terror attacks were collectivist attacks upon an institution thought of as American imperialism. In that circumstance the terrorists were individuals serving a collective desire—whether that desire was world bankers advancing their investments, or crazed lunatics committed to Islam it does not matter. One was an act of aggression for the good and one was for the bad. The difference between good and bad in this case is the commitment to individual value or collective based institutional assessment. America was formed upon individual value and it is there that the great differences reside. It is why John Adams came to realize that his cousin Sam was actually not such a provocateur and was actually standing for something unique on the world stage—a commitment to justice as judged by individuals as opposed to institutional preservation. In this case the term, “doing my job” has roots in the value of the individual instead of institutional concerns and does not allow vile acts to be performed behind a curtain of indecision, such as what has been happening at the IRS which dictates another type of Boston Tea Party where the individuals helping conceal the crimes should be tarred and feathered in pursuit of justice that has value where it is otherwise vacant. And this should be the fate of Lois Lerner so to send the message that institutional preservation is not going to hide behind the evils, lies and deliberate crimes of IRS leaders and their political activism paving the way for attacks against value. She was not “doing her job,” she was allowing tyranny to spread through institutional corruption and that deserves punishment.

 

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com

 

Practitioners of Drunkenness: Why ‘Gladiator’ was such a great movie

The aspect of the second-hander is the only one that makes sense when many of the world’s problems are analyzed.  My hatred of the intoxication culture stems from this division between second-handers and producers—which was elaborated upon as a kind of identifiable introduction in a previous article.  One of the primary reasons that I have enjoyed the movie Gladiator so intensely is because it deals squarely with this problem of producers and second-handers—as the Emperor’s son was a second hander, and Maximus was a producer.  When that same son—Commodus inherited the throne through treachery—and attempted to completely destroy Maximus by killing his family, robbing him of all his social connections, and leaving him for dead in a forest the producer lead Maximus rose up through the ranks of the gladiators to challenge the entire Empire not through any other effort but sheer tenacity.  Commodus could not understand how his old rival had managed to regain such respect and stature because as a second hander, he had to be given his value through others.  The new Emperor believed that because he stole away the life of Maximus that he destroyed the man.  But Maximus was a producer and therefore a great leader—it didn’t matter if it was among the best fighters in the world at the time of Roman legionnaires or the dregs of society as gladiators fighting for their life in the arena.  Maximus thrived because he didn’t know how to do anything else but generate success—as a producer which eventually destroyed the emperor.  Gladiator was a great movie primarily for this reason.

Producer types make their own way, and enjoy thinking.  They typically don’t pray to the gods for success, they don’t seek to live off the inheritance of their ancestors, and they don’t gamble or purchase lottery tickets hoping to be filled by chance of a draw so that they can wake up one morning filled by the efforts of others.  Everything they do is geared toward productive enterprise even when they are performing in leisurely endeavors.  That said producers would typically not be comfortable in social settings like bars where intoxication is the objective.  Producers do not wish to lose their mental faculties.  Second handers however do wish to lose their ability to think—as mentioned in the previous article about people who prefer electric shock over thinking.  The practitioners of drunkenness are second handers because they are surrendering thought to chance as relief from the responsibility of action.

Intoxication is one of the vilest activities that could be perpetrated against an active mind.  Yet second handers routinely abuse their thinking because they cannot allow the impulse of their own inner producer developed as children to reemerge to the life of choice competing with their adult decisions to remain a passive second hander waiting for others to fill them with thoughts and action.  When it is said that someone is “drunk with power” this is something to which they speak—taking the example of Commodus once again, the new Emperor killed the old one believing that his actions would settle the issue of who would lead next the Roman Empire after the conquest of the Germanic people of the north.  But Maximus interfered with this equation with a new set of rules—that of a producer who did not care for politics—because he did not need politicians or social connections to give him authority—he simply generated it.  Maximus didn’t need a god to give him authority or validation to be great—because he already knew that he was.  And Maximus didn’t need favors granted by those in a bloodline of leadership because he knew he was a natural leader functioning well as a producer.  So Commodus tried to have Maximus killed to preserve his illusion of power and right by blood to lead an entire region of people as if he had a right to the throne by grace of the gods.

The drunk does the same thing in essence; they drink to lose their minds from the observations of contrary reality which conflicts with their path of parasitic social behavior—that of the second hander who needs the approval of others.  A room full of drunks as a bar is a palace of second handers evading their destiny as thinking producers.  Instead they have surrendered their fates to being filled by others for their sustenance.  Getting drunk helps them not feel the conflict of thought which is always seeking to emerge.

A constant companion of dialogue in these modern times is the term “depression” which is thrown about so flamboyantly by second handers to explain their affliction—much of which is prescribed drugs to alleviate the pain.  The cause of depression is the desire for something which does not come to second handers by luck—such as love, money, respect, or general value.  When those things fail to come to a second hander by the grace of invisible rulers—people find themselves depressed and seek alcohol or other drugs to relieve them of that pain.    As alcohol is a depressant it often makes depression worse—but what is really sought is the numbness of thinking—not the affliction of depression which usually becomes more pronounced.  A producer generally does not feel depression because their thoughts are not out of alignment from their actions.  Producers are not let down because their IRS refund check did not come in the mail, or some perfect job fell upon them by social connections.  They make these things for themselves and are generally a happy lot of people because they are living authentically to their nature—as producers.

If you walk into any environment where large amounts of alcohol are being consumed you are seeing a temple of second handers seeking to suppress thought and responsibility for productivity.  As second handers they try to crush their inner Maximus so that their Commodus can speak to them.  And what Commodus says to them often exacerbates the tendency toward depression they feel, but without thought to measure against—they are free of the pain so long as they drink.  This is why second handers tend to drink to get intoxicated and producers do not.  Producers value their thoughts as second handers are running away.  This means that if anything is ever to be fixed in the world about us, it has to start with this tendency toward second hander behavior.  The world cannot be run and built by second handers—because they are incapable and are not equal in value to the producers of the world.  The issue is not one of race, sex, or even fate—it is one of decisions and mental faculties by way of focus.

Rich Hoffman

www.OVERMANWARRIOR.com