Tag: corruption

Attacking Gunslingers: Why “shooting from the hip” makes a great business leader

I have a bit of a reputation professionally and personally for shooting from the hip, metaphorically speaking. People who say that about me speak it as if it were a bad thing that indicates recklessness. They also say the same type of thing when professional quarterbacks are quick to throw the ball down the field under risky circumstances—they call those people “gunslingers,” as if the term concocted abandon of calculation and patience. So I need to set the record straight on a couple of things that I have been thinking about as I have contemplated the root cause of my sudden obsession with Cowboy Fast Draw. Like my bullwhip work, most of the targeting is done more through feeling than in properly lining up the barrel with a target with careful assessment. I happen to be good at quick targeting, as I have shown under many competitions of speed and accuracy with bullwhips and am routinely very good at the Ohio Bullwhip Fast Draw that we perform each year at the Annie Oakley Days in Greenville, Ohio. There is no time to take care and to aim the bullwhip at a target. I have learned through muscle memory where all the points of trajectory are, how wind affects my aim, and to consider all the factors of targeting under stressful, timed conditions. I have it down to seconds with a bullwhip, and my new obsession with Cowboy Fast Draw is to further speed up my thinking to the hundredths of a second instead of just a second or two. That’s why I’m personally attracted to those types of hobbies—but I find society’s labeling of those types of people to be disturbing and indicative of something much more symptomatic of an overall disease that is crippling our country.

There is a new breed of American, and world bureaucrat educated with modern scholastic emphasis on metaphorically taking more aim before one shoots in life who have deliberately, and maliciously sought to smear the name of the bold and the reckless that stand behind just about every profitable enterprise in the history of mankind.   This has left our nation and world in a state where the very timid and fragile minded rule the world through paperwork, regulations and an emphasis on calculation as the mode of representing quality instead of how quickly a target is hit. Using guns as a metaphor, the modern bureaucrat believes the quality of an endeavor is in the form of the aim, not in the objective of shooting. The reason of course is that since the masses cannot think and act fast, they have placed upon the world a mandate through democracy that the weakest and most timid can rule the corporate world by handcuffing the strong and decisive with mundane regulation and law that they create to give themselves a shot at equality.

With the Cowboy Fast Draw Association what I love most is that the aim and accuracy of the endeavor is all performed by shooting from the hip. If a shooter takes the time to aim, they will lose. Too much time is taken off the clock unless a shooter literally plucks the gun from their holster and levels the barrel just above the rim with a quick pivot and unleashes a shot within a hundredth of a second from seeing a light indicating that action needs to take place. I have thought about this concept for years with my bullwhip work and the net result for me is that when I need to make a hard decision fast, I can and do with tremendous accuracy. I have a great track record of making good decisions in a split second manner. But that’s not good enough for me. I want to be faster, so I am taking up Cowboy Fast Draw to improve myself. When I say that I intend my official career to be that of a gunfighter, this is part of why I reference it this way.

Just because something is shot from the hip or struck without a proper aim—traditionally defined, it does not mean the act is reckless or without skill. Quite the contrary—in many ways shooting from the hip for those skilled in the act is a way to encompass both speed and accuracy into as seamless of an action possible.   Whereas the typical academic is focused on only one of those elements, they have attempted to define the quality of an endeavor based on the time it takes. If speed is desired, then they instantly reference more people to accomplish the task because it plays into their overall collectivist mindset. They don’t like that an individual can provide both speed and accuracy when it comes to complicated tasks, so they have found countless ways to instill laborious monstrosities of inefficiency to give themselves more time to think—which they love to do. But they hate action—actually pulling the trigger at a decision gate.

That is why in many manufacturing fields across the United States, from aerospace to auto manufacturing our ability to produce has been greatly crippled by allowing these timid types who require of themselves to aim very carefully in order to hit a target to strangle our productivity because their primary objective in life has been to diminish the input of the traditional gunslinger—the bright eyed problem solver who shoots from the hip often and hits most of the time. Their jealousy and need for social equality have actually crippled our manufacturing capacity with mundane academics that are so timid to pull the trigger on anything for fear of not landing a mark that they shoot slowly and miss often. When they declare that “so and so” “shoots from the hip” they mean it as an insult, but what they reveal is the source of a vast detriment—the root cause for the declining effectiveness of American manufacturing through improper association toward definitions of quality.

In Cowboy Fast Draw the rules are strict, just as they are in the world of manufacturing. You must have your gun holstered and your hand cannot be in the trigger guard. You must use a single action firearm. The distances you shoot from are 15’, 18’, and 21’, which is quite a distance for a firearm. You cannot shoot before the light comes on. Within that context, you must figure out a way to draw your gun, hit your target and do it within a fraction of a second. If you miss, yet beat your rival to the draw, you don’t get a score. You must have speed and accuracy—just like in our bullwhip competitions. The goal of the skill is to develop both, not just be strong in one facet. You have to be accurate and fast, not just fast, not just accurate. By that unit of measure the timid fuddy-duddy is just as wrong as the hasty fool who is often referenced as a “gunslinger.” So when the bureaucrat says that the person who shoots from their hip is reckless, they are just as dangerous, because their inaction is just as detrimental as a mistake. Just because a shot isn’t taken doesn’t mean it wasn’t needed.

In the field of life, there are many targets and most of them have to be hit at 21’ or less, metaphorically speaking. And they require speed and accuracy to deal with them. Necessity dictates that the quickest to the target gets the prize, and in the competition of life, the first to draw and hit their target wins. Time does not wait for the timid to pull their gun, aim the sights, take a deep breath, let out half of it, then to squeeze the trigger at just the right moment. In life, you have to draw and shoot before an eye can blink. Bureaucrats try diligently to stop time itself with mountains of paperwork to hide the fact that they don’t have the courage to draw and fire. Both actions require decision-making rooted in having a conceptual understanding of the target and hitting it without the aid of eyes and time to guide the bullet to the intended destination. You have to know where the target is in space and time and trust yourself to hit it faster than a mind can think about it.

Those who are successful at shooting from the hip are those like the people in Cowboy Fast Draw. There they dress up in cowboy outfits from the late 1800s period of American history. But they might as well be the deal makers and job creators who have made the economy of America the greatest in the world. Shooting from the hip for them is necessary, and a skill that few have. In their hands, it’s a competent task. But in the hands of the bureaucrat it’s a serious risk that is nearly a guaranteed failure.   Bureaucrats are incorrect to assume that all people shooting from the hip are reckless just because the skill in being successful at it is something they lack. Rather, they should work hard to become better and to stop trying to stop the world with paperwork so that they can “feel” successful. In life you have to hit your targets and you have to do it quickly—before someone else does. The world doesn’t stop for anybody—especially those laced with indecision and timidity that lead to massive bureaucracy. Success finds those who shoot from the hip, because they are able to do things in life with the two ingredients necessary for accomplishment—to perform tasks with speed and accuracy. Nothing else is suitable for a definition of success—and that is why the term “gunslinger” has been slandered to hide the real incompetence of the typical bureaucrat.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Welcome to the Future: Liberty Center opens and a city unfolds within a small town community

imageI really didn’t think it was possible. I always did love the Back to the Future films, especially the second one when they traveled from 1985 to October 21st 2015, which was just a few days ago as of this writing. So I had those old movies on my mind when Liberty Center opened in my neighborhood on October 22, 2015—one day after Back to the Future Day. I parked in the back parking garage behind the new movie theater a little displaced because for my entire life this area had been an empty field alongside I-75. I never imagined that anything of any importance would ever be where I parked my car on that sunny October day. I was meeting my family at the Rusty Bucket but wasn’t quite sure where lead to where, so I made my way south until I found the main road which ran through the center of the complex. It was ironically just like the scene in Back to the Future II, where I came out of an alley into the hard sun of a fall afternoon and the future hit me right in the face. It looked just like Hill Valley from that famous movie series, square and all.

Short of hover boards and flying cars, it was the future as I never would have imagined it. The stores were modern versions of the type I grew up with, but the way they were presented were very tech heavy and architecturally specific. Living space was stacked in creative ways to make a dynamic world that really has not been possible before in any other shopping experience I’ve ever seen. As I thought of some of the places I’ve been, such as Downtown Disney, La Isla in Cancun, or the Americana in Glendale, California, nothing was like what I saw at Liberty Center in my hometown. It was more astonishing than I thought it would be. The reason we ate at the Rusty Bucket was because it was next door to the Cobb movie theater which is extremely important to me. I wanted to talk to the owners about some upcoming plans, and that was why my family was there on opening day. It was as nice as I would have imagined a luxury theater to be that has made its mark in Tampa, Florida where another shopping destination that I love a lot, The International Mall is rather common.

As a guy, I don’t like shopping very much—my wife does, but I don’t like the task of actually shopping. I do love the exhibition of capitalism, especially when it’s as openly unapologetic as it is at Liberty Center. As I’ve said many times, I have a soft spot for developers because they are often the first cogs in the wheel toward economic development. Because of their creations money moves through an economy and in an age where the shopping experience is competing directly with online sales, something new has to be tried, and they did at Liberty Center—a long time in the making.

Yes they have an Apple Store. Yes, they have a really nice Victoria’s Secret which is good for me and my wife. She likes the quality of that store and it makes me happy to see her happy. Yes they have a number of upper crust restaurant experiences. Looming over the square I was in was a large facade of a Marriot hotel looking down into the action below. It replaced the clock tower in the Back to the Future film regarding iconic skyline. As I hiked and drove the back roads that used to pass through that location way back in 1985 I never would have imagined that in 2015 there would be terraced gardens exotic fountains, and advanced shopping destinations in such a place, unless I could have been placed into a time machine and shown first-hand.

And that’s where my family found me, they were perched above the shops on a patio waving to me to come up and join them in the sun. Step for step I felt just as Marty McFly when he first saw Hill Valley in 2015. It was a strange experience that I couldn’t have anticipated even as I watched them build the place brick by brick. Liberty Township instantly had a downtown district that was every bit as cultured and sophisticated as any of the big cities of America or the world for that matter. As I thought of the countless hours I’ve spent around Fountain Square in Cincinnati on business and pleasure surrounded by skyscrapers and dozens of neatly tucked restaurants situated everywhere, the rural community of Liberty Township had instantly built for itself a downtown that looked big time, but was small enough to still have the feel of a tight-knit community.

If engineers designing living conditions for intergalactic space travelers had to design something that divided function, luxury, and necessity into an all-encompassing package Liberty Center would be it. It was small and enormously large all at the same time and surrounded shoppers with an all-encompassing experience. People walked the streets without worrying about prostitutes and beggars—which is impossible in most big cities these days totally ruining the experience of economic frivolity. A quick trip down Times Square in New York or the strip in Vegas as a couple out for a night together means you are often molested by whores and malcontents. Vegas is terrible for that kind of thing. Times Square is nearly as bad. Liberty Center was free of that mess—but it had all the good things left behind. It was for all matters of thought a conservative utopia. If John Galt had built a shopping center, this is what he would have designed, from the famous novel Atlas Shrugged. It had all the plus elements of an economic development without all the trash created by liberal city governments who mismanage their downtowns into a trash heap of mixed values and nonsense. Liberty Center was built for people who like the good life, and know how to live it.

I heard up to his opening that Liberty Center would essentially be a carbon copy of The Greene in Dayton, or Newport on the Levy in Northern Kentucky—but it was obvious that it was different right from the start. It was the infusion of sophistication mixed with rural charm that really is unequal and reminded me almost of a movie set, something that is common at Universal Studios where complicated streets change the whole feel of a place just one block from a previous position. Clearly the designers had learned something from those entertainment complexes in Florida as far as space utilization where geographically the terrain may seem simple, but architecturally a visitor might feel like they had visited a new world getaway by the time they walked from one end to the other.

It was special more for me because I picked just the right spot to walk in at just the right time of day to nearly simulate a Back to the Future moment. As I stepped onto a sidewalk out into the Center square a car went by, a modern looking Cadillac nearly on queue with the events of when the same thing happened to Marty McFly. All that was missing were the flying cars and the holographs, but that technology isn’t that far off, and Liberty Center looks staged up to take advantage when it does hit the market. On one end was an enclosed mall that led to Dillards and Dick’s Sporting Good, both marvelous stores in their own right. At the other a Marriott hotel and a gorgeous movie theater that really was designed in one of my dreams—and in the middle was everything else.

It was for me, the future.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Was Bush at Fault for 9/11: Is Trump right to ask the question?

Another thing that I like about Trump is that he isn’t afraid to call out a tough issue—even if it’s controversial—such as the county’s reaction to post 9/11. There has been a lot proven that there are discrepancies in the whole event, the destruction of the World Trade Center, the allocated blame, and aftermath of the destruction—the deficit spending it created, the expansion of government with the Department of Homeland Security and many other fallacies that could have been averted if people had just done their jobs pre 9/11. When Trump said the event probably wouldn’t have happened on his watch, he’s talking about a level of management competency that only people used to positions of power understand. George W. Bush had barely won a hard election against Al Gore, was over his head with a lot of the management aspects of the job as President, and clearly wanted to right wrongs issued against his family from the first Iraq War. Judgments were clouded and decision gates not attended by the best minds—clearly. Conspiracy theories abound regarding the destruction of the World Trade Center—and subsequent buildings in the area—and those conspiracies are created by minds adding up the facts and noticing holes. So there is merit to Trump’s criticism.

But more telling is the response from brother Jeb Bush who is actually pleading big warm blanket progressive government in defense of George W. Bush. Trump is talking about competency of government; Jeb is talking about sentimentality instead of hindsight 20/20 analysis. If many of the follies of modern American patriotism could be traced back to a single event, 9/11 is it.   Hatred of George W. Bush brought us essentially the socialist Barack Obama and the tremendous debt we currently hold. It gave rise to the Tea Party movement 8 years later as a direct reaction to the mismanagement and rapid expansion of government since 9/11. It launched the second Iraq War and eventually put ISIS into power by 2014. It lowered the respect of the American brand around the world—so from Trump’s position, the criticism of 9/11 is perfectly valid. But the Bush family expects no questions to be asked about such an event because George W. Bush made America safe.

How did 9/11 make America safe, and is safety worth what we lost with the creation of the TSA, DOH, and the general overreaction of just about every government agency that was caught sleeping on that bright sunny day in September prior to open terrorist insurrection against the United States on American soil? It wasn’t the first time of course, and that point was made during a defense of the Bush family by some political pundits angry at Trump. It was mentioned that Trump’s criticism of George W. Bush is as ridiculous as assuming that FDR knew that Pearl Harbor would be bombed by the Japanese and that 9/11 would assume that Bush the younger as president allowed the World Trade Center to be bombed so that a war with Iraq could be provoked—and thus get revenge on a long time family rival. Well, that idea is not so crazy; in fact, there is likely some truth to that conspiracy about Pearl Harbor.

We know that FDR supported the clandestine activity of the AVG Flying Tigers over China against Japan leading up to World War II. He supplied outdated planes to General Claire Lee Chennault to lead the effort of defending China to keep Japan from gaining access to the natural resources of that country so to slowly choke off the military of the Rising Sun from a long sustained fight in the Pacific. All of this was unofficial of course. There are also reports that Japan in retaliation against FDR was planning to bomb Pearl Harbor and that the President knew about it. So outdated battleships were lined up in the harbor while the valuable carriers were out to sea—in safety. The conspiracy suggests that FDR knew that if the Japanese attacked it would unite the nation behind the war effort, which was inevitable anyway. So the valuable assets were removed and disposable collateral assets were put conveniently in place for the Sunday bombing run which to everyone else was a surprise.

Guess what happened next, the nation united behind the war effort, defeated the Japanese and FDR was able to usher in many of the socialist policies he had been working on, including an update to the League of Nations first proposed by President Woodrow Wilson called the United Nations. All that happened because of World War II and the obvious patriotism behind the war effort as a natural reaction of anger toward a recognized enemy uniting the country under a flag of malice. Many Constitutional liberties were trampled on as a result including the gathering up of American/Japanese citizens into prison camps for the “safety” of all Americans.

Did FDR know about the bombing of Pearl Harbor before hand? I think history indicates that he did and I also think he did what he did thinking it was good for the greatest number of people. He thought that a sacrifice was needed to unite the country and that a terrible thing he wished hadn’t happened did on December 7th 1941. But he was awfully well prepared for the speech he gave which launched America into the war.

During 9/11 a lot of very stupid people let a lot of things slide through the cracks to allow a bunch of terrorists to attack the symbol of American economic power around the world. Americans united behind the effort and Iraq was crushed into dust—government expanded, and spending against the United States GDP sent our economy into an eventual collapse culminating in a 2008 recession and the reckless antics of the years since. Do I think that George W. Bush screwed up, that he ignored reports of clandestine activity emerging from Florida—from pilots training to fly, but not to land? Yes, I don’t think he was as stupid as he looked in that event. I think that there was a political desire to unite the country behind a tragedy while evidence that needed to be destroyed was in the devastation that followed. I believe Presidents of the United States can justify a fight for the greater good by accepting collateral damage as a reality of their job—and their desensitization and lack of professional training in these kinds of philosophic matters make them easy to steer by manipulative CIA directors and power-hungry domestic insurgents all with their focus on a global prize. After all, George W. Bush was an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team. He didn’t have to make these kinds of life and death decisions when they decided to trade a pitcher. So he was probably incompetent at that stage of his presidency to think properly on the matter. That is Trump’s complaint.

Logic and emotion are not equal in the defense of an issue. Bush defends his family name with emotion when logic shows that his brother made serious mistakes obvious in hindsight. And this is what has fueled the conspiracy theories. Did Bush and his team plan the 9/11 bombing—probably not, but did they secretly hope in the back of their minds that something would happen to unify the country behind their desired tactical goals? And when those goals were implemented, and proven failures, how do you cover the burden for the bad decision? Bush in that case tossed money at the situation to cover the embarrassment—which threw us into a massive deficit and gave Republicans Barack Obama for eight years as punishment for their incompetence. Trump has a spectacular point and it should be covered. Bush doesn’t get off the hook just because George W. Bush kept us safe for a few years. How did he keep us safe if he expanded the size of government and threw us further into debt just because he couldn’t deal with some towel headed terrorists? The answer is he didn’t, he just used money to hide the real issue, that the government failed under his watch and that is why there was a tragedy, because people didn’t do their jobs either deliberately, or by accident—but regardless, his administration was too loose and ill prepared.

Trump is right again, and nobody else will dare say it—but him. No wonder he is the Republican front-runner after everything else that has occurred.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Boycotting Disney: To do so, or not to do so–that is the question

It is worth listening to. Alex Jones during a recent show had several melt-downs as the subjects of the day overwhelmed his commentary. I think Alex overreacts a lot of times, and I don’t think the “global elite” are as smart and sinister as he thinks they are. I do agree with him that they “think” they are the smartest people in any room and that they do have global plans to eradicate borders, cheapen values, control people through their drinking water, and generally take over the world with a one world government dissolving national sovereignty completely. I do believe “they” are guilty of many false flag operations and malicious activity ranging from the recent trend of tattoos among young people to the collapse of the United States economy. But much of what they are doing they get by with not because they are the smartest people on planet earth, but because most people are too lazy to challenge them. That’s really what it all comes down to, and the reason they get the illusion that they are the “illuminated” ones who should rule us all is because not enough people tell them what a bunch of idiots they are. Sorry, that’s not going to happen—but it won’t stop them from trying. So to understand the scope of the situation, I suggest dear reader that you watch and listen to this Alex Jones show which goes on for a while. It is well worth the investment of time.

Like Alex, I do believe the primary media corporations—Disney included—are all wrapped up in this psychological game of remolding the human mind toward progressive sentiments. George Soros has been a major player in shaping that vision and it concerns me greatly that Marvel comics has moved in such a progressive direction—going so far to make Alex Jones one of the villains in their storylines—where a black Captain America fights against the Tea Party types in favor of global politics. That is not the Captain America I grew up with, and under Disney’s watch they are allowing for this mass progressivism to filter in and attempt to reshape the thinking of the consuming public. That is one of the reasons I am concerned about Star Wars. I am hopeful that it will be what I want it to be, but there is a real fear that they might attempt to blur the lines between good and evil putting a progressive twist on a storyline that was molded out of American westerns.

Unlike Alex, I won’t be boycotting Disney. I love Disney World and I do like Disney films—some of them—not all of them. I do get angry, and I would spend more money at Disney if they stayed away from cramming gay rights down my throat with rainbow-colored castles and employees who are too gay to assimilate properly into society. When a ride announcer is talking, I don’t want to be made aware that the guy might be a butt-plugger because of the tone of his speech. Disney is a family oriented company—at least that’s the way Uncle Walt planned it—and if Disney as a corporation strays too far off the path of American tradition—they’ll lose a lot of money. In the end, money talks and ideology walks, and the board at Disney will pick the money over progressive George Soros inspired social assimilation strategies.

That doesn’t mean however that Alex is wrong. Rather than boycott and not enjoy the family aspects of Disney I vote with my wallet, and believe me they do know what works and what doesn’t. I’m not going to buy comics of superheroes who fight for United Nations goals over United States sovereignty. Young people may be seduced by the stories, but the end game will cost Disney and their shareholders will notice the drop in interest among their readership. The Disney Channel and much of the content at the Florida parks are some of the best family entertainment in the world currently. I even like ESPN because it has a bit of family fun to it—it’s fairly clean and optimistic, the way you’d expect Disney to be. But I notice it a lot where individual employees, or even producers and directors attempt to slide progressive ideas to young people under the door, which people like Bob Iger likely don’t notice. Iger and even George Lucas lean too far to the political left these days, but I don’t think they are overtly trying to reprogram the youth into becoming fluoride seduced homosexuals who want to stick their junk into every knothole in the fence. I think they want from their perspective to do the right thing and they have a lot of liberals radicalized by creative institutions to think too far to the political left working for them and that radicalism shows up in their products. I can promise this, if the mainstream American public feels uncomfortable with the product Disney produces, they won’t buy it.

For example, take Demi Moore for example that played the lead female in the Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1996. That same summer Demi who had been a top box office superstar prior to that year also stared in Striptease, which was essentially an early version of Magic Mike. Demi got naked and was supposedly a stripper in that film to take care of her kid because she was a single mom. It was a heavily progressive movie that was a joke and people rejected it. It sold a few tickets because people wanted to see Demi Moore naked, but once they did, they were done with her, and her career tanked—immediately. It didn’t help that she was in the Disney film. Notice you don’t hear the Alan Menken songs from that cartoon at the Disney stores these days. The film only made $325 million at the box office—which was good, but the repeat business wasn’t there because there were a lot of moms who had been turned off by Demi Moore who didn’t take their little kids to see The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney hasn’t really recovered from that tragedy in their animated film division until Frozen broke the spell a few years ago.

As Alex Jones says, the entire industry is being controlled by these progressive idiots, and I can say that he is largely right. Hollywood would make a lot more money if they would step of the ideological bandwagon and make movies that Americans want. But a lot of producers and directors are hoping that a lack of competition will force America to adapt their values to the products they are producing. What they are discovering however is the opposite, that people are just tuning them out in favor of some other entertainment option. If Disney puts a couple of gay people on the screen kissing in an animated feature, they may never recover their reputation and they know that. Society won’t change the way that the progressive radicals hope it will, and Disney won’t have the patience to play the waiting game of a century long reprogramming of the human mind. They are expected to maintain profit growth each business quarter. Right now Bob Iger has positioned the Disney Company around Star Wars which shows strong signs of maintaining that anticipated growth through at least 2021. But, if Star Wars becomes more progressive, that whole formula is in serious jeopardy, and the company is at risk.

For Disney to crash and burn, the way Alex is preaching—because of their participation in progressive political theater, a boycott isn’t necessary. All it will take are declined revenue streams from books, t-shirts, park attendance and Wal-Mart toys. A drop of 5% would destroy Disney, because of the extraordinary cost of their business model. So even if Disney execs were at the Bilderberg meetings—which I believe some are, or if they attend the Bohemian Grove meetings and burn effigies of sacrifice to pagan gods of a time long past—they aren’t that smart. If Disney abuses their mythological product making devices for the sake of Bohemian collectivists, they’ll come up short because the American public will reject that product in favor of something else.

To me the “global elite” aren’t that smart. They make a lot of mistakes and the only way they hide those mistakes from the public is by keeping the media they largely control from reporting it. But people do reject their products—often, and they do feel the pain. Even if Disney executives wanted to make a romantic comedy animated feature about two gay guys getting married and living happily ever after—they couldn’t because the American public would reject it. Just as Marvel owned by Disney is making a huge mistake by trying to make their superheroes more progressively oriented. Young men grow up to become conservatives once they start raising a family and they’ll abandon the Marvel product in the future if Disney goes in that direction.   People are people, and their desires are innate—meaning they come from raw instinct and evolution. Of those innate desires are sexual unions between a man and a woman because that activity advances the human race with new generations—that strong lead male characters are preferred, and that Disney princesses should not take off their cloths—or the public will reject them. In the end the marketplace of capitalism takes care of everything. But it’s important to know who is trying what and for what reason. And on that topic, Alex Jones is 100% correct. Intentions are quite obvious. Competency is another matter.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Firewhips in Slow Motion: Being authentic when it matters most

My whip making friend David Crain came over to have a look at my new Cowboy Fast Draw Association equipment and to deliver some repairs he made to my firewhips, which had evolved into a bad state. The firewhips hold up well under regular use, but I am hard on them and apply more force and speed than they are intended to handle. When they are typically used in shows, they are more or less a cosmetic application. Most people are happy to see a bullwhip on fire. But the way I use them I do the way I write about them in my Cliffhanger stories. There have been readers who have read The Curse of Fort Seven Mile chapter titled “Sacrifice to Santa Maurta” who have doubted that Cliffhanger could have eradicated a whole gang of drug dealing scum bags armed with guns using just a few flaming firewhips which tore open their necks with precision cuts. Even when I do the firewhips in regular speed it is hard for people to see what’s going on, so David and I slowed down the action with footage photographed at 240 fps so that viewers could see what was really going on with firewhips as they circle around my body during use. In the case of the Cliffhanger story, the bandits didn’t have a chance. The action happened  so fast that their superior numbers were no match for the flaming whips—which is usually how it is in real life as well. Like I’ve said, my fiction has to reflect reality. This video will show a bit about what I’m talking about.

During that video I sped up the time to normal a little over the halfway point to show how fast the whips were really traveling so that it could be seen what was going on during all the slow motion footage. With all the smoke it is easy to see the shock waves that come from the sonic booms at the end of the whip, and it is also easy to see the precision of the cuts. If those cuts are directed at a target they do lay open flesh with the same ease that a knife cuts away flesh. So whips can be extremely dangerous to work with. It should also be noted that I am not wearing any kind of gloves for protection, and that I am easily slinging the whips around a poncho, just the way Cliffhanger does in that particular fight scene. For the uninitiated I can understand that they might think that scene was the work of fiction rooted in impracticability, because firewhips seem like a very exotic device devised in the modern-day of CGI graphics. But, they are quite real and I wouldn’t write about them the way I do if I couldn’t or haven’t experienced such a thing in reality at some point.

I have worked with bullwhips for years and have even used them in very urban settings, so when I write I am working with a pretty extensive library of experience. The poncho that I’m wearing is something I’ve had for a very long time and is one of my favorite items of clothing. Most people know me from suits and other forms of business attire, but around my home it’s what I wear the most. Many years ago I lived on the University of Cincinnati campus for over a year. It was during a time when the grunge music scene was just emerging and people were starting to dress to reflect that Seattle music invasion which to me was a meditation on communist propaganda. So I rebelled in my own way from the trends of that day and as a young man in my mid-twenties who was very pleasant to look at, decided to go into a different direction. Attracting women was never a problem for me—so looking back on it with some measure of pride it took a lot of guts to walk around campus the way I did. I dressed exactly the way I appeared in that video everywhere I went. The poncho allowed me to wear my bullwhips around with me up and down Vine Street at 3 AM without anybody knowing they were there. When I rented movies, or went out for a bite to eat in the middle of the night, I dressed exactly the way that I appeared in that video—with that exact poncho. When all the other kids were cruising McMicken going from bar to bar with their hats turned backward and their polo shirts looking for love in all the wrong places, I was dressed with my poncho and hat just the way I appeared in that video. I dressed like that everywhere I went—and I did that for several years.

And I did get into trouble, a lot of it at times. But I’m still standing and a lot of people aren’t. History has a way of defining winners and losers and I certainly applied that knowledge to my Cliffhanger character. So yes, the firewhips are real and the use of the poncho is too. I have a lot of experience with it. The poncho doesn’t catch on fire the way I work firewhips. The poncho is effective in such combative circumstances that it conceals the weapons around the body of a fighter and it can also hide the hands so would-be assailants don’t know what your hands are doing or what direction to look from. Those types of tactics can buy those precious fractions of a second when most things happen.

I dressed the way I did at that time because the temptation to assimilate was incredible at that age. It would have been very easy for me to put on the nice cloths that were expected of me and to become quite a gigolo. People much less gifted than me were having quite a lot of fun living that type of life. I purposely dressed that way because of the Cowboy Way that I have been talking about so much lately. I stood in opposition to the grunge scene and I lived as authentically to my values as possible in a hostile environment. I observed that nightlight on McMicken where girls dressed as sluts, Goth types wore their black lipstick and tattooed freaks roamed around with their new piercings in those early days of Seattle grunge that people didn’t expect to be harassed. So if a guy wanted to walk around with a poncho and outback hat everywhere nobody should gaze in my direction with scrutiny either. That’s the way I figured things should be. I mean most of the young men on Vine Street barely had their pants on as the whole pulling down the pants thing was beginning to appear in the ghetto culture—so my poncho and hat were not out of step. Of course people didn’t know what to make of it, because nobody else on campus dressed that way, but they had no right to say anything—because dressing the way they did—they had no room to talk.

It’s like what I told my son-in-law about why I wore a cowboy hat, which I have previously discussed. The outfit to me was a signifier of distinction. I was not like those other people and I had no plans to ever be. And I’ve never looked back and wished I had done things differently. I can wear business attire now in professional environments because I know internally that I have done the hard work of affirming my authenticity at a critical point in my life when I was being measured from that point on regarding the scale of social orthodox. Society was moving in a direction I wasn’t going to go. So I held my ground when it mattered and maintained my authenticity. I learned a lot in college, I learned that to succeed in that environment I’d have to pretend to not be so smart, and that I’d have to make personal concessions to enjoy success. I wasn’t willing to do that starting with my attire and I’m very happy now that I held my ground.

There was a Frisch’s down on Central Parkway where I ate breakfast and read my books each morning so that I could enjoy the buffet. Out of all my time on the U.C. campus those mornings were my favorite—I could read what I wanted, eat as much as I wanted, and be generally left alone. Most of the people at Frisch’s during that time were the old timers who had watched their neighborhoods fall into mismanagement during their lifetimes going from prestigious homes during the 1950s to slums by the 1990s—they enjoyed the way I dressed. Once a cop who ate there every day also and took notice of my outfit asked me why I wasn’t out with all the other kids “getting laid” and having a good time. I held up my book and my plate of eggs and bacon and told him that I was having a good time.

Over two decades later I still dress the same way and pretty much do the same things. My friend David came over to my house and we played with fire for a while the way men are supposed to on a Saturday night. It’s the little things in life that matter and speaking of that—the Cowboy Fast Draw equipment that I assembled shortly after I wrote about it yesterday was much better than I had thought it would be. The Cowboy Fast Draw Association really has their act together. I was very impressed with how my order from them was organized. One thing became clear as I was assembling it—that there will be reason to make a whole lot of new slow motion videos with firearms just as I have with firewhips over the years.   And that action will be even faster! I may dress the same, but in life speed and accuracy matters, and the older you get—you should get even better. I plan to.

Rich “Cliffhanger” Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Why NBC Caved To Trump: Patti Alderson’s mural at the West Chester hospital

I couldn’t help but think of the irony as my second grandchild, a little girl, was born at the West Chester hospital on October 15th 2015. As I waited for my daughter to give birth I sat in the waiting room of the birthing center and studied a very nice mural of the popular attractions in and around the hospital. Even Liberty Center was on the painting, which meant that it was created very recently as the shopping complex had not yet opened as of this writing. Then I noticed in the bottom corner of the giant wall sized painting that it was commissioned by Dick and Patti Alderson—whom are the local big players of the local Republican Party. It was a nice painting and I enjoyed looking at it. I’m sure from their perspective they were doing all good things in their life balancing their wealth with community enrichment and all those wonderful, sentimental things. I will always have a bad taste in my mouth because of Patti and the way she stuck herself into my No Lakota Levy group from the inside for what she perceived to be the community good. Her goal was to place my group under the scrutiny of public consensus which all Republicans these days from every city were adhering. Her Republican strategy was to be more like Democrats—publicly giving, soft-natured, and generally passive. Under the guidance of people like her from every city they created losing presidential campaigns from both McCain in 2008 then Mitt Romney in 2012. They tried to apply the same constraints on me, which of course I didn’t adhere to. I tried to tell them how wrong they were at the time, but they didn’t listen. Now, with Donald Trump increasing his lead in just about every national poll that matters, they are learning now why they should have listened to me in 2012. They would have been much better prepared for what’s happening now than they are.

As I looked at that painting I was thinking of Donald Trump and how much of a stand NBC took against him for his illegal alien comments. That NBC protest reminded me of the way Patti Alderson pulled on area Republicans to distance themselves from my guidance centering on No Lakota Levy. I told everyone that it wouldn’t work that people would still listen to me because they wanted someone who fought. The public doesn’t want Republicans who cave under pressure. Trump instinctively knew that and when NBC pulled away from him to try to yank him back to a centralist’s political presence, he lashed out at them. Now, within just three months of their spectacular divorce, NBC is welcoming Trump back to their network. Trump will host Saturday Night Live which will be a huge deal for the presidential candidate. The ratings for the show will be explosive, which Loren Michaels clearly understands. Even though SNL will have to make the same offer to the other presidential candidates under the equal time rule, the situation clearly plays in favor of Trump. SNL is willing to take a ratings hit on those other candidates so that they can have Trump. That’s how powerful his message is.

Many hours later after the sun came up and my daughter had finally gave birth my grandson and I went over to the VOA Park to keep him busy as the hospital cleaned up his new little sister and tended to my daughter with some much-needed rest. The media found me there playing with him next to the lake dock watching the ducks swim in the October sunshine. Trump does things on a bigger scale than I do—he seems to like that kind of attention more than me—but “A” type personalities are always entertaining and able to bounce back no matter what is thrown at them. Trump certainly fits that description and it’s always been a personality trait of mine—to fight through anything and everything to come out on top. The Journal News reporter was a nice guy looking to do a community piece about how the park was being used so he took some pictures of my grandson and me playing.

Patti Alderson had made the Lakota schools system a promise that she would use her resources to block me out of public attention. A small legion of pro levy supporting advocates flooded The Pulse Journal and WLW radio with angry letters because they covered me so much. So those media outlets reacted and listened to the anger and covered me less. The Pulse Journal is all but out of business now, they had to drop their lease at the nice plaza by Lakota East and Clear Channel radio in Cincinnati is struggling under a changing marketplace. XM radio and iHeart are changing the business and the WLW tower that I could see easily from the VOA Park has much less relevance than it once did. As usual, guys like me outlast the controversy and are always poised for a photograph or a quote whereas the media outlets that buckle to the pressure find themselves slowly dying if they hold the line by listening to people like Patti and avoiding people like me. I have much better quotes in much higher quantities of content which go without saying.

NBC knows why Trump is successful and no matter how much they might resent the presidential billionaire candidate—they know they have to cover him or they will lose ratings—because the public likes what Trump stands for and what he might be able to do as a leader of the free world. If nothing else, he will at least entertain them. I made those predictions when Patti tried to move the Republican Party against me and paint me out of the media. Well, all that happened was that new media outlets covered me and my blog has more daily readers than most newspapers. I’m still in business while a lot of them are letting people go because their business is so terrible. So who got hurt and who succeeded?

The world had changed a lot politically in just the last four years. In 2009 the VOA Park was the location of John Kasich’s run for governor where he appealed to the Tea Party crowd successfully distancing himself from his friend Ted Strickland. Patti Alderson was all about that brand of conservatism and supported those efforts as a roaring crowd filled the fields with an ocean of vicious support for the would-be governor. Patti became a part of Kasich’s administration and continued to be a major donor and host of the Party. But as it turned out Kasich and Strickland where ideologically more alike than not—both middle grounders politically who played on both sides of the aisle—just as Patti, one of the biggest leaders of the Party from a social standpoint was. She was a tax increase supporter and major fundraiser which forced many Republicans to play ball by the rules she invoked—quietly. Clearly Patti and her gang of area Republican wouldn’t organize such a festival at the VOA Park for Donald Trump for all the reasons that she alienated herself from me.

It saddened me a bit to think of the VOA Park, such a nice place that was the center of much political mastery—in a good way. When Patti and many others brought Kasich to the VOA Park half a decade ago, it was a packed event. When that loser governor came just a few years ago back to the same location to hold an event at the Ronald Reagan building—which is a wonderful venue for such a thing—there were only a few people there to hear the speech. Event organizers had to spread out the crowd to make it look better for media reporters who couldn’t help but catch all the bare spots where there wasn’t any crowd in the audience—because not enough people were interested in seeing the governor who had expanded Medicare, led the state to more alliance with Barrack Obama, and lost to the labor unions at the negotiating table over Senate Bill 5.

While the world of the old Republicans continues to dwindle, due to an adherence to their own failed ideology of centralist political behavior, those who do what they say and actually stand for something continue to succeed. Republicans only have themselves to blame. The resources are all there, they have just misused them with an arrogance that they could apply their considerable political pull to yank the entire society in a direction they didn’t want to go. Trump will still come to Cincinnati and will fill some venue with screaming fans. He doesn’t need Patti Alderson to move and shake things for him—which probably steams her to no end. Trump won’t come to her summer parties and he won’t make time for her charity events. So she might encourage people to boycott him, just as she encouraged boycotts of me in the past on a much smaller scale, but the result will be the same, just as NBC has had to learn.

You people will do much better at life if you just shut up and listen to me. I do know best and your lives will be much better off once you accept that. I will say that painting at the West Chester Hospital was very nice. It’s nice to do nice things for hospitals and schools. But the hard decisions and bulk of the activity regarding productivity will always fall on the “A” type personalities who cannot be stuffed in a box with social pressure. Because the reality of social pressure is that they need people like Trump more than Trump needs them. The sooner they realize that basic notion, the better off the Republican Party will be and the VOA Park could and should be filled with Trump supporters at a future rally. NBC learned that hard lesson. Its time that everyone else learn it too for their own good.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

$18 Trillion Dollars in New Spending: Bernie Sanders and the comedy of a proposed socialist government

I don’t think I have ever laughed as hard as I did when I learned about Bernie Sanders proposed budget if he wins President of the United States in 2016. I know Sanders is a socialist, and I know his usual sales pitch for progressive policies. He is essentially a carbon copy of the typical school levy supporter—so I’ve heard his kind many times. I have been aware that he has been doing well among socialists, communists and progressive Democrats, but I didn’t know the details until Fox News did a little exposé about Sanders and covered how much his programs would cost the United States—and they did it with a straight face. The number……………………drum roll please……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………and remember, this was supposed to be serious……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..$18 trillion dollars!

I don’t know what planet this guy is from nor if he even has a brain. If all the wealth of every billionaire were 100% confiscated it wouldn’t even begin to pay for all of Bernie Sanders proposed projects. Keep in mind that we are nearly $19 trillion dollars in debt now—Bernie proposes to double that amount as President of the United States. The GDP of the entire nation is only around $17-19 Trillion per year so there is no way that the bill for Bernie’s dreams could ever hope to be paid for by any amount of money anywhere. There isn’t enough money in the world to cover his budget—yet nobody even covered it. Like I said, Fox News went over the material “fair and balanced.”

I laughed so hard I lost my voice from straining my vocal cords. It may be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I know there are stories of my mother-in-law promising my sister-in-law that she could have the moon in her bedroom if she’d be good when she was a little girl, which I have always thought was a ridiculous promise to make—because kids don’t know better, and they expect you to deliver. This budget from Bernie Sanders is more ridiculous than that and a good part of the nation like a small child thinks it’s actually possible. That is funny!

If that is what the Democrats have to pack stadiums with enthusiasm, they are in a world of serious trouble. I know the political left thinks Donald Trump is just as ridiculous. However, the difference is Trump has an actual track record of creating wealth. Bernie has nothing. He’s just an old hippie from Vermont—a socialist who has slid through the cracks for years and as an old man has the supporters of the malcontents and anti-capitalists losers who want free stuff and an entitlement society. I don’t blame Bernie for being a senile old man drowning in communist ideology—but the people who support him might as well be cast on the television show, The Walking Dead. No brain zombies destined to rot their way through life on the backs of the hard-working.

I know I’ve always stated that liberals are unrealistic, too collectivist in their philosophic demeanor, and are detriments to themselves—but Bernie Sanders indicates that I have understated their vast stupidity. The real answer to this upcoming election is one of two paths, you either go with Trump and hope that he can do as he has with his private wealth and explode our national GDP to 7-20% growth, or you tell Americans that they have to pull up the boot straps and cut, cut, and cut some more. America will have to cut Social Security, welfare benefits, Medicare—everything because the money is going to run out soon and the ambition to make more money will evaporate. Under liberal leadership the “rich” will stop trying leaving fewer opportunities to build wealth that can be taxed to pay for everything. It’s not hard to understand. America is at that point, right now. Politicians either have that hard talk with the American people or some politician—like Trump—will have to put their name and reputation on creating a new day of capitalism that can carry the burdens with excessive economic growth unheard of in the history of mankind. I am rooting for Trump so that America doesn’t have to go through the pain of all those hard cuts. But in the back of my mind, I think it’s unavoidable anyway. Even if Trump were only 50% successful in all that he’s promising, America is still in trouble. The Bernie Sanders method is just unfathomable. It’s not even on the radar scope of possibility.

It has probably been noticed by long time readers here that I have a sudden vigorous interest in firearms. It’s not because I didn’t like them before, but because I see an expanding role in their value. Most of my articles have been about education reform and economic issues up to this point hoping that sense would evolve into action and bad times might be averted. Well, I no longer have that hope. The moral depravity of our society, the terrible work ethic of the younger generations, the debt, the effects of that bad education system add up to a lot of bad things on the horizon. Guns will be a larger part of my life because I see a greater need for the foundations of the original Bill of Rights. If I lived during the days of the Constitutional Convention I would have been an anti-Federalist and would avoid large government involvement in everything. So the Bill of Rights have more power to me than the original Constitution because it is too “pro government” for my taste. The present situation is a perfect example of what happens when there is too much Federal control given to incompetent people. Bernie Sanders would expand that incompetence by thousands of times their present imposition—which nothing could survive. That’s why the situation is so funny.

An anti-Federalist position is much cheaper than a Federalist one—which is a more effective way to communicate the matter since so many Republicans and Democrats are interchangeable in today’s world. They just want big government spending on different things. For the anti-Federalist, we don’t need government to solve child custody issues, we would handle it ourselves. We wouldn’t need lawyer to protect us from immanent domain land grabs. We’d settle it directly with the advocate and either get rich on the deal or erase them from the earth using the protection afforded to us with the 2nd Amendment and perhaps even the 4th and 5th. Everything would be cheaper if only the Bill of Rights were followed—we’re not even talking about the original Constitution here which the Supreme Court has essentially wrecked with watered down case-law. Bernie Sanders is suggesting a lot more of this kind of mess—not less of it which then creates a lot of unintended consequences that are very negative.

With the expansion of government comes directly the expansion of incompetence because when people are well paid for doing mediocre work, the incentive to give more of the same becomes the driving force. So not only are programs like Bernie Sanders suggests too expensive, but they drive down the quality of what is made in the country’s GDP proportionally as an unintended consequence. A hundred years ago, I might have understood that Bernie might have had an audience for his ridiculous proposals—because the ideas were new then, and hadn’t been tried very much. But now they have—we have over a hundred years of progressive failure that just about everything we see in a decrepit state can be blamed on. And now that idiot wants more of that same failure—but in even greater quantities. Now that is hilarious!

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

The Cowboy Way: Living by a code of honor with guns as a centerpiece

Those who don’t know much about guns or their place in American culture are easy to seduce toward the diatribes of those who fundamentally want to change our nation into something else—a much less morally reticent and overwhelmingly evil utopia for the socialist of heart. They think of the NRA as a mean spirited organization resistant to change. Well, resistant to change is true—because what gun-grabbers want to change America into is something that gun owners typically don’t like. I am obviously a member of the NRA, but also of satellite groups within it—affiliates such as Second Call Defense. I’ll remind you again dear reader, if you go to the Second Call Defense website and type in Overmanwarrior, they’ll give you your first month free—and you should do that—for your own good. I am also a very proud new member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association—which reflects my new hobby/career as a gunfighter. I’m so serious about it that I’m thinking of listing it as my new official profession. As we speak I am turning the basement of my home into an indoor shooting range specific to that hobby—and I’m very excited about it. The reason why is that I love the type of people who are in these groups—especially the CFDA.   They live by a very specific code of ethics called the Cowboy Way. Below are a few examples of that way of life for which gun owners in the CFDA adhere.

Gene Autry’s Code of Honor

  1. A cowboy never takes unfair advantage – even of an enemy.
  2. A cowboy never betrays a trust. He never goes back on his word.
  3. A cowboy always tells the truth.
  4. A cowboy is kind and gentle to small children, old folks, and animals.
  5. A cowboy is free from racial and religious intolerances.
  6. A cowboy is always helpful when someone is in trouble.
  7. A cowboy is always a good worker.
  8. A cowboy respects womanhood, his parents and his nation’s laws.
  9. A cowboy is clean about his person in thought, word, and deed.
  10. A cowboy is a Patriot.

Hopalong Cassidy’s Creed

  1. The highest badge of honor a person can wear is honesty. Be truthful at all times.
  2. Your parents are the best friends you have. Listen to them and obey their instructions.
  3. If you want to be respected, you must respect others. Show good manners in every way.
  4. Only through hard work and study can you succeed. Don’t be lazy.
  5. Your good deeds always come to light. So don’t boast or be a show-off.
  6. If you waste time or money today, you will regret it tomorrow. Practice thrift in all ways.
  7. Many animals are good and loyal companions. Be friendly and kind to them.
  8. A strong, healthy body is a precious gift. Be neat and clean.
  9. Our country’s laws are made for your protection. Observe them carefully.
  10. Children in many foreign lands are less fortunate than you. Be glad and proud you are an American.

http://www.jcs-group.com/johnwayne/literary/codes.htm

When people or groups of people criticize the “Wild West” and “cowboys” in general they are essentially attacking the values expressed above. In today’s world those values might appear to be out-of-step, and archaic—but I think they are a whole lot better than what anybody in the world of today is adhering to. The mythology of the American gunfighter as expressed by the values of old cowboys like Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy is worthy of more serious consideration. When I talk inflamingly about being an American gunfighter it isn’t so much to have the ability to shoot human beings—it is to behave in a way to protect the Cowboy Way reflected above. Being a gunfighter isn’t about fighting with guns—it is about fighting for them and propping them up as a symbol of those Gene Autry values. I dare anybody from any gun-grabbing group to criticize those Cowboy Way values—because those who do have designated themselves villains against the American philosophy that built our nation.

Guns in American culture is not about killing, or even hints at violence—although those are certainly associations most common to weapons of all kinds. Guns are about preserving the Cowboy Way, which is why NRA members and other shooters tend to embody respectful values toward one another that reflect those elements because the traditions that guns protect are rooted in the Cowboy Way. That Cowboy Way was established during a period of western expansion that took place after the Civil War and was built up through a mythology of the American gunfighter. The strength of that mythology lasted well into the next century all the way up essentially until the 1960s when communist insurgents implanted themselves in the hippie movement and advocated against those Cowboy Way values.

Being a gunfighter is an essential part of American culture and with every gun grabbing politician and modern entertainer who stands against that Cowboy Way mentality we all have a right to be extremely angry at them for what they are trying to do. One of the ways I am combating that imposition and channeling that anger in a constructive way is in taking up membership with the Cowboy Fast Draw Association so that I can preserve the way of the cowboy from an older generation that needs some support. They are directly an affiliate of the NRA—so they are gold in my book. Additionally, I have lent myself to the Second Call Defense for the same precise reason. An armed America is a good America because the roots of gun ownership resides with the philosophy of the Cowboy Way—which is a whole lot older in this country than the recent progressive slant toward European sentiment.

When I say I intend to be a gunfighter as a profession, it doesn’t mean that I plan to assassinate bad guys with a gun—although if I do find myself in a self-defense shooting, I have my Second Call Defense card and I’ll let them handle the police when and if it happens. So far Second Call Defense has an excellent track record. Most self-defense shootings by members aren’t even going to trial because of it, because police know that with Second Call Defense they can’t use a shooting to politicize an issue or justify their false interpretation of the law under the scrutiny of a pro Second Amendment lawyer. So they just leave the case alone to avoid the embarrassment of prosecution in court. A lot of times the shooter in those self-defense cases has a lot more rights than they think they do, and gun-grabbers hope that the general public never learns that reality—so they can continue to weaken the Second Amendment due to ignorance. I see Second Call Defense as a perfect way to strengthen the Second Amendment, so I am a supporter. I carry my membership card proudly.

Yet for me that’s not enough. I want to be even more proactive in defending the Second Amendment especially due to the latest round of incursions from the political left. We have talked about this gun-grabbing time for a long period leading up to this latest phase, so now is the time to buckle down the defense of the Second Amendment into something more voracious. That’s why I’m proud to be a member of the Cowboy Fast Draw Association. They stand for the roots of firearms ownership, the Cowboy Way—the mythology built around gunfighters and the capitalist oasis that they paved to become the greatest country on earth. There is no way to remain a great country without private gun ownership because it all starts there—not with the intent to kill or maim with them—but in honoring guns as the instrument of focus for establishing a Cowboy Way of thinking evolved through the heart, bravery, and tenacity of the American gunfighter.

The Cowboy Way is a mode of thinking that not only needs to be resurrected in American culture; it needs daily maintenance to solidify into something for which society can build their foundations upon. It completely changes the way people interact with one another—it’s a code of conduct that works hand in hand with capitalism to bring prosperity to all who dare wake up in the morning to enjoy it. It’s unlike anything created anywhere on the face of planet earth during any period of history ever known. So there is no comparison to other nations and what they are doing to ban or reject guns from their societies. America is unique, and part of that story comes from the Cowboy Way. It’s not something we need to change or further contemplate—it is something we need to be proud of and to strictly adhere to from here on out—and that begins with maintaining a love with guns that has been abused due to political influence that is completely unwarranted, and destructive.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

Gun Rights “Shall Not Be Infringed”: Philosophy trumps legality–get to know Senate Bill 199 and Senate Bill 180

I get really tired of all this talk about gun control. On Saturday Night Live shown on October 10, 2015 the obvious attack against guns was incredibly obvious. They did several skits attacking guns showing how the progressive New York culture sees the rest of America. Well, just for clarity not to the gun owners who read this site each day, but those progressive types who are way too politically left-winged, the Second Amendment is not up for debate. It is not up for negotiation. And there is no interpretation of the words “shall not be infringed,” that opens the door for more rules, confiscation, or government involvement. As lawyers do try to discuss the meaning of words which can take on different meanings as times change the Bill of Rights is an extension of American philosophy for which legal terms evolved. The intent of the Constitution therefore does not fall under the proper interpretation of legal minds, but philosophy. And the essence of that philosophy is that governments cannot be trusted—which is grossly evident in our modern news cycles. Here is how the terminology has been misinterpreted by legal minds giving the illusion that the Second Amendment can be modified to suit some progressive diatribe—such as those shown on left leaning news outlets and entertainment venues.

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Such language has created considerable debate regarding the Amendment’s intended scope. On the one hand, some believe that the Amendment’s phrase “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms” creates an individual constitutional right for citizens of the United States. Under this “individual right theory,” the United States Constitution restricts legislative bodies from prohibiting firearm possession, or at the very least, the Amendment renders prohibitory and restrictive regulation presumptively unconstitutional. On the other hand, some scholars point to the prefatory language “a well-regulated Militia” to argue that the Framers intended only to restrict Congress from legislating away a state’s right to self-defense. Scholars have come to call this theory “the collective rights theory.” A collective rights theory of the Second Amendment asserts that citizens do not have an individual right to possess guns and that local, state, and federal legislative bodies therefore possess the authority to regulate firearms without implicating a constitutional right.

In 1939 the U.S. Supreme Court considered the matter in United States v. Miller. 307 U.S. 174. The Court adopted a collective rights approach in this case, determining that Congress could regulate a sawed-off shotgun that had moved in interstate commerce under the National Firearms Act of 1934 because the evidence did not suggest that the shotgun “has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated milita . . . .” The Court then explained that the Framers included the Second Amendment to ensure the effectiveness of the military.

This precedent stood for nearly 70 years when in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court revisited the issue in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290). The plaintiff in Heller challenged the constitutionality of the Washington D.C. handgun ban, a statute that had stood for 32 years. Many considered the statute the most stringent in the nation. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, meticulously detailing the history and tradition of the Second Amendment at the time of the Constitutional Convention, proclaimed that the Second Amendment established an individual right for U.S. citizens to possess firearms and struck down the D.C. handgun ban as violative of that right. The majority carved out Miller as an exception to the general rule that Americans may possess firearms, claiming that law-abiding citizens cannot use sawed-off shotguns for any law-abiding purpose. Similarly, the Court in its dicta found regulations of similar weaponry that cannot be used for law-abiding purposes as laws that would not implicate the Second Amendment. Further, the Court suggested that the United States Constitution would not disallow regulations prohibiting criminals and the mentally ill from firearm possession.

Thus, the Supreme Court has revitalized the Second Amendment. The Court continued to strengthen the Second Amendment through the 2010 decision in McDonald v. City of Chicago (08-1521). The plaintiff in McDonald challenged the constitutionally of the Chicago handgun ban, which prohibited handgun possession by almost all private citizens. In a 5-4 decisions, the Court, citing the intentions of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the incorporation doctrine. However, the Court did not have a majority on which clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the fundamental right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense. While Justice Alito and his supporters looked to the Due Process Clause, Justice Thomas in his concurrence stated that the Privileges and Immunities Clause should justify incorporation.

However, several questions still remain unanswered, such as whether regulations less stringent than the D.C. statute implicate the Second Amendment, whether lower courts will apply their dicta regarding permissible restrictions, and what level of scrutiny the courts should apply when analyzing a statute that infringes on the Second Amendment.

Recent case-law since Heller suggests that courts are willing to, for example, uphold

  • regulations which ban weapons on government property. US v Dorosan, 350 Fed. Appx. 874 (5th Cir. 2009) (upholding defendant’s conviction for bringing a handgun onto post office property);
  • regulations which ban the illegal possession of a handgun as a juvenile, convicted felon.  US v Rene, 583 F.3d 8 (1st Cir. 2009) (holding that the Juvenile Delinquency Act ban of juvenile possession of handguns did not violate the Second Amendment);
  •  regulations which require a permit to carry concealed weapon. Kachalsky v County of Westchester, 701 F.3d 81 (2nd Cir. 2012) (holding that a New York law preventing individuals from obtaining a license to possess a concealed firearm in public for general purposes unless the individual showed proper cause did not violate the Second Amendment.)

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/second_amendment

That’s just a bit of history on how the Second Amendment has been knocked back and forth over the years. Yet the trend in spite of New Yorkers like those found on Saturday Night Live around the rest of the country is for gun laws to become less stringent not more so. For instance in my home state of Ohio there are two pro-gun bills being introduced for discussion which are very important.   The Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee had a hearing Wednesday, October 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the Finance Hearing Room to discuss two pro-gun bills.

Senate Bill 180, sponsored by Senator Joe Uecker (R-14), would allow an employee to store a firearm in their locked vehicle without fear of employer retribution.  Throughout the country, many employers have adopted “No Firearms” policies that extend beyond the physical workplace to include employee parking lots – areas often accessible to the general public and not secure.  In order to comply with these policies, many employees must choose between protecting themselves during their commutes and being subject to termination by their employer.

The fundamental right to self-defense should not stop simply because you park your car in a publicly accessible parking lot owned by your employer.  When companies invite employees to park on their property, they should not be allowed to dictate employees’ constitutional rights inside one’s own vehicle.

Senate Bill 199, also sponsored by Senator Uecker (R-14) and Senator Randy Gardner (R-2), would allow an active duty member of the military to carry a concealed firearm without obtaining a concealed carry license if the active duty member is carrying a valid military identification and a certificate indicating a small arms qualification.

If your company has such a misguided policy that impedes your inherent right to self-defense, please contact NRA-ILA’s State and Local Division at state&local@nrahq.org and share this information.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20151006/ohio-nra-backed-bills-up-in-committee-this-week

And that’s where I stand, there needs to be a lot more guns out there, not less, and we need to be able to carry them in more places more often. The trend is clear and the necessity for more guns is obvious. Guns are not just instruments of death the way left leaning politics frames them—they are part of the philosophic American experience. They transcend legal interpretation as philosophy trumps legality because it is in thought that all law emerges. So to undo some of the laws misinterpreted by sissy-driven legal minds over the years, the Ohio Senate Civil Justice Committee is working to walk back the intrusions that gun owners have been conceding—illegally due to improper legal negotiations from the anti-gun lobby over previous decades. The activism displayed on Saturday Night Live and other anti-gun venues made a false assumption—that gun rights “shall not be infringed,” were up to debate. They aren’t under any circumstance. End of story. It’s not complicated. Guns=philosophy which trumps legality.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.

What Carlos Todd and Donald Trump Had in Common: Eminent domain and the opening of Liberty Center

The Donald Trump speech from Norcross, Georgia at the North Atlanta Trade Center on Saturday October 10, 2015 was particularly telling of American politics. It was a great speech and it should be watched—seen below. Just a day later after the Sunday morning talk shows Trump continued to beat on the same kind of drum. Trump’s accusations were confirmed when Obama appeared on 60 Minutes later that same day after the football games and was grilled by Steve Kroft over the destabilization of the Middle East, also shown below. In that 60 Minutes segment was discussion over the upheavals in the Republican Party after a week of nobody wanting to be Speaker of the House—because of the Freedom Caucus. There is a lot going on, and it’s very clear that only someone like Donald Trump is equipped to handle the very volatile situation. Obama clearly is not privy to the current trends—he’s in extreme denial—as is most of the Beltway.

On issues regarding the Second Amendment, trade, immigration and economic growth, Trump is a far right conservative—so much so that Republicans should be drooling within the party at his intentions. He has the ability to market the Party in a new way they haven’t enjoyed since Ronald Reagan and they’d do well to embrace him. On the other hand, he is rather liberal regarding taxes, healthcare, and eminent domain. I could argue all day long with Trump on those issues—but they are his thoughts and he couldn’t do any worse than what we’ve had so far. I am willing to take what’s right with Trump metaphorically, and literally and offset the negatives because he is the kind of person who can get things done—and things need to get done. The Party bosses may not like Trump, but they’d be stupid to pass up on the chance of a lifetime. Trump would build a wall on the southern border, he’d expand the military, and he’d restructure the tax system all while stimulating the economy which are all things he’s capable as president to have a direct influence on, and at 70 years old, Trump has enough gas in the tank for one last spectacular decade of his life and America should give him a shot to go out with a bang. Obama has already embarrassed America—stepped all over the Constitution, and caused irreparable damage on Capital Hill. Only extreme success can fix the situation now.

As the Liberty Center shopping complex begins to open in my hometown it is ironic that one of the biggest Republican Party bosses in Butler County’s history was laid to rest. Essentially the Liberty Center shopping complex was made possible because of eminent domain. I was always against the Butler County Regional Highway construction which ran right through all the areas I used to play as a kid. Carlos Todd was a developer who built the Republican Party base in Butler County to essentially use crony capitalism to complete his building projects. Our political system is so dysfunctional that the only way to get projects done on a massive scale is to purchase politicians with money and loyalty—and Carlos Todd was one of the masters. He died at 77 eventually to his battle with cancer leaving quite a power vacuum in his wake.

I was in firm opposition to Todd and his Butler County associates Michael Fox and Bob Shelly as the Butler County Regional Highway used largely eminent domain to destroy my childhood home, a cemetery that had Revolutionary War soldiers in it, and several Indian Mounds that populated the area destroying a lot of potential archaeology. I thought of Todd as evil incarnate on the face of the earth because the Republican Party led by him was buying up property to develop for their projects stepping all over the rights of private citizens in the process. It was incredibly wrong and I was made even more furious when they took my father to a baseball game where the developers had a nice private box and convinced him to sell to Todd all in the name of progress. Their basic sales pitch was, sell and profit, or fight and be destroyed. They had the power of government to destroy, so he should take the money. I had been willing to fight them to the ends of the earth with any means necessary, but it was my father’s property—and his right to do with it whatever he wanted. So the developers got their way.

Well, Michael Fox eventually went to jail, Bob Shelley got into sexual harassment troubles and was pushed out of his trustee seat, and Todd drifted off into the shadows as his grandson took over the family business. There has been a lot of change and upheaval since then as the Regional Highway was built and slowly development began to appear around it. Bridgewater Falls is just such a development, which I have slowly come to enjoy over the years. Liberty Center is the latest, and most spectacular, but was it worth all the pain it caused people to run all over their property rights to build it?

When I started No Lakota Levy all the characters from those eminent domain fights joined together with me to fight the Lakota levy because the local public school was blocking out some of those developers from further work and the district had reached a saturation point. Developers had built all the buildings they could hope to ever construct leaving the taxes enormously high on all future development tipping the balance away from everything that had been built by them. I had always been against the explosive growth because of the sustainability of it, so now I was on the same side as people like Carlos Todd and the developers he largely controlled. It was strange to get to know all of them from a perspective on the other side of the fence. Most of the emails I sent or received had Carlos Todd copied on them so he was well aware of what we were doing and it threw me back to when I was in opposition with him and I was able to map out how he controlled things from a distance. My hatred subsided toward him because I saw what he was doing—he used government—which had stuck itself in every crevice it could over a long period of time—to hedge the bets for his projects in his favor. I couldn’t argue his method or reasoning. The developers were productive people making things that didn’t exist previously—and that was a good thing. Some of them I liked quite a lot, some I didn’t. I worked with them and just did my thing eventually doing as I always do—just sort of taking over. When the heat got too hot for them they checked out and we parted ways. Every time we’d meet toward the end they’d try to poke me into running for office, so I deliberately sabotaged the relationship with them to get out of that circle not because I disliked them, but because I needed to maintain my own course.

I’m sure Todd would have liked to see the Liberty Center open, but he didn’t quite make it. I am proud that its there, and of all the hard work many people endeavored to construct it. I think it’s a miracle of economic activity and the best minds of architecture. But was it worth it? Was it worth the building of the Butler County Regional Highway? The destroyed lives, the destroyed history and the integrity of Butler County politics? The answer is yes—even though it cost me personally. True, the world would have been better if everything had been left alone, but there’s a lot to be said about creating something from nothing and I appreciate that more than stagnation for the benefit of sentimentality.

The reason I told that story is that establishment Republicans, many of which were put in place because of people like Carlos Todd have mostly committed vast amounts of evil using eminent domain to destroy the lives of many. Donald Trump is not alone in that effort and he shares a lot in common with Carlos Todd, a developer who used politics to get what he needed to accomplish done. Getting to know Todd and his troops well from the other side of the fence I was able to see what was really in their heart. Sure, some people were bad, and they went to jail, lost their seats or ended up wiped from the face of the earth one way or another. But the good ones endured because through competition there really is no other way to sustain your essence, but through authenticity, and Carlos Todd was authentic—just as Donald Trump is. No question when you do things that relate to other people, they will have an opinion one way or the other. The judgment of a person’s character is determined by how they act under pressure. What people do under pressure validates their worth—and Todd showed that he had a lot. I might not always like what he planned to do, but his effort had purity to it. But within that purity there were many people who were trampled on and were smacked around quite a lot.

The real answer is to get politics out of development and remove many of the regulations that cause all this evil. Until that happens people like Carlos Todd and Donald Trump will work the system to their advantage. That is why I feel that Trump—after a lifetime of making deals and running over people can actually straighten out the mess of politics and its terrible relationship to business. Ideological people who have not built things themselves but were relegated to just giving their opinions about things do not have the benefit of my life where I’ve been very active on both sides and know clearly where the line is drawn. I can only treasure that opportunity because it gave me the philosophic foundations to understand all these complexities without losing sight of the real objective—economic growth, the sanctity of private property, and the evil of a system that the most clever among us learn to use to get things done—in spite of the desire of that system to destroy all thought and action. Donald Trump is an insider, and I would love to see what someone like him—who likely hates the system as much as I do, would commit himself to if given a chance to right the ship in ways that Carlos Todd never came close to achieving. But for Republicans to turn on Trump as a radical maniac who would wreck the party—they are in denial at what put them in office in the first place. They’d be wise to get behind Trump for the strength he provides and for giving them an opportunity to have their office seats. Because without people like Carlos Todd, Donald Trump and eminent domain—most of them would still be small time hacks looking for an opportunity that would never come otherwise.

The only way to change the system is from the inside by someone who knows it better than anybody. That’s why I’m voting for Trump. His use of eminent domain and the guilt I’m sure he feels about it I think would make a person determined to correct that situation for the benefit of economic wonder which everyone would eventually enjoy. Trump is in a position to morally build a philosophy of growth by utilizing the lessons learned from crony capitalism into a more laissez-faire system perhaps for the first time since the first few decades of America’s creation. And that would be wonderful.

Rich Hoffman

 CLIFFHANGER RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Listen to The Blaze Radio Network by CLICKING HERE.