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.
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.
At an annual dinner conducted by the participants of the Annie Oakley Western Arts Showcase there was much discussion about the new location in 2014 at York Woods in Ansonia, Ohio—just north of Greenville. The reviews of this new site were very favorable, but I wasn’t so sure when we were driving there for the first time. York Woods was founded in the mid 1800s and today is the site of the Greenville Steam Thrashers—a group dedicated to maintaining antique farm equipment. Once we arrived I said to my wife that this country was so much God’s that you felt like you could reach up and scratch his beard. It was amazingly remote and full of character. It was the first location of our annual Western Arts Showcase which has now been going on for well more than a decade that could justify a circus tent for our shows. Here is a video of the event:
We had the idea by seeing what kind of tent the drama group had up and for the first time considered that we should hold our future shows in just such a tent. In previous years our shows were in the Coliseum at the Darke County Fairgrounds about 10 miles to the south. Several times during the day weather threatened to alter our outdoor show, so it put in our minds the need for adjustments in the future if the York Woods site continued to be the destination.
We hoped that it would because there are things we could likely do at York Woods that we would never be allowed to do at the Fairgrounds, such as using firewhips and live ammunition for portions of our shows. I typically don’t perform for the exhibitions due to the many restrictions and my lack of interest in living within too many boundaries. I admire those who do, but I’ve always thought that our shows should incorporate more live fire—as was seen in one of my favorite movies, Bronco Billy. At York Woods the Annie Oakley Committee actually had shooting contests on site which greatly enhanced the event for the crowd. The Fairgrounds was in a fairly dense population area, but out in York Woods, there wasn’t much by way of residential living for at least a mile—maybe two. The farmland was vast and very open giving a truly ideal location for improvements to the Western Showcase.
We could continue to do the shows outside as we have for years, and just work around the weather, but it may well be time to have our own circus tent. Where space was always in short supply at the Fairgrounds, there was no shortage of space at York Woods giving our group for the first time some creative ability not seen before—so a small circus tent is something that we should pursue in the upcoming year.
To do this we are looking for corporate sponsorship that could pay for some of the costs and would be proud to feature all benefactors prominently. There are opportunities here that are unexplored for both parties, the Western Showcase participants and advertisers—so discussion would have to take place to make sure everyone gets what they want.
Interested parties should contact my friend Gery at:
As for my the movie Bronco Billy, it has always been a dream of mine to do for kids what the Clint Eastwood character in that film wanted to achieve. In that film Bronco Billy was operating his life upstream of the current in society and was functioning by a traditional set of rules that were grossly outdated even by the 1970s standards. It has always been a dream of mine to step into a circus tent like the one shown at the end of that movie made of American flags.
Americans for too many years have felt guilty for their history, their art, and their success. The tent at the end of Bronco Billy was a kind of statement of honor in preserving all those things. But it wasn’t real. Bronco Billy was just a movie character and the story was fictional. When the shooting was done, the tent was scrapped, and packed away forever forgotten, except on film. Well, 35 years after that film became a favorite of mine, I’m in the strange position of knowing really the only people left in America who have the ability to put on a show like what Bronco Billy did in that film. Gery Deer is the closest thing alive to Clint Eastwood’s fictional character in that movie and is the reason he and I have had a friendship that has went on for over a decade now.
The people in Gery’s shows are some of the most genuinely good people I have ever met and the gifts they have to offer the world extend well beyond the yearly shows at Annie Oakley’s festival each year in Greenville. But you have to start somewhere and it would appear that the York Woods location is the perfect spot for such an audaciously American fantasy. There were enough crowds at York Woods to fill the stands of a small circus tent and resurrect not in Las Vegas, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, or Orlando, Florida the lost arts of the cowboy, but Ansonia, Ohio the literal birthplace of Annie Oakley herself–one of the best trick shooters anywhere and a person all women should think of as a role model. Annie Oakley used to say, “Aim at a high mark and you’ll hit it. No, not the first time, or the second and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the bull’s eye of success.”
I read those words on the back of the brochure the Annie Oakley Committee passed out to visitors of their festival as I watched our group perform their knife throwing exhibitions, and whip tricks and thought of the possibilities if firearms and other—more audacious elements could be added to the show in York Woods in the future. And I couldn’t help but think of that Bronco Billy circus tent which has been bouncing around in my head for more than three decades now. There is no reason to aim high in this case because we have the firepower at many levels of hitting this target—a new target that was presented through a change that could very well be for the better.
These days it doesn’t matter if a show is ten miles outside of a town that is already many, many miles away from the rest of civilization. This is actually a plus, especially when the performers also have the ability of bringing the show to the rest of the world through “media.” Gery is a television producer—and he is also the producer of the only real Wild West Show left in the world. There are a few theme park types of acts out there, but nobody has the ability to pull the most talented people in the industry in for a real honest to goodness Wild West Show like Gery. All he needs to pull off the chance of a lifetime is a circus tent and a few sponsors.
I’ve been to a lot of Tea Party events and know quite a few people on the inside of the movement and never did anyone bring up the magnificent miniseries done by HBO on John Adams as essential material for studying one of the greatest founding fathers in American history. I assumed that the HBO produced event would be a typical progressive revisionist history that focused all too much on the hypocrisy of slavery and the general presentation as weak average men riding the coat-tails of history. I assumed that since Tom Hanks produced the show that it would be laced with progressive references. But……Laura Linney was in and was playing Abigail Adams—John Adams wife—so I put the series on a “to do” list for later. I liked Linney in the Mothman Prophesies so thought I’d give the show a shot at some future time when I got around to it. That time came six years later in 2014 when I saw that HBO was showing all seven parts of their mini-series on July 4th, so I set the DVR to record it which I eventually viewed a few weeks later when time allowed. It was nothing short of lustrously ostentatious intellectually and overflowing with a visual history into the period which took great pains to be authentic. Without question some will attempt to question the accuracy of the work which is based on the David McCullough books, Adams and 1776 but to compress so much history and character into a relatively short period of time art had to bridge the gaps for the viewer which the series was marvelously successful at. The set direction was monstrously good, the actors outstanding, but it was the writing that really overflowed with radiance. The series covered in a scope I had never seen in a film or series of any kind the lifestyles and politics of France, England and the budding United States very accurately with costume design and makeup that I can’t imagine a more truthful attempt ever attempted.
John Adams is a 2008 American television miniseries chronicling most of U.S. PresidentJohn Adams‘ political life and his role in the founding of the United States. Paul Giamatti portrays John Adams. The miniseries was directed by Tom Hooper. Kirk Ellis wrote the screenplay based on the book John Adams by David McCullough. The biopic of John Adams and the story of the first fifty years of the United States was broadcast in seven parts by HBO between March 16 and April 20, 2008. John Adams received widespread critical acclaim, and many prestigious awards. The show won four Golden Globe awards and thirteen Emmy awards, more than any other miniseries in history.
Part I: Join or Die (1770 A.D. – 1774 A.D.)
The first episode opens with a cold winter in Boston on the night of the Boston Massacre. It portrays John Adams arriving at the scene following the gunshots from British soldiers firing upon a mob of Boston citizens. Adams, a respected lawyer in his mid-30s known for his belief in law and justice, is therefore summoned by the accused Redcoats. Their commander, Captain Thomas Preston asks him to defend them in court. Reluctant at first, he agrees despite knowing this will antagonize his neighbors and friends. Adams is depicted to have taken the case because he believed everyone deserves a fair trial and he wanted to uphold the standard of justice. Adams’ cousin Samuel Adams is one of the main colonists opposed to the actions of the British government. He is one of the executive members of the Sons of Liberty, an anti-British group of agitators. Adams is depicted as a studious man doing his best to defend his clients. The show also illustrates Adams’ appreciation and respect for his wife, Abigail. In one scene, Adams is shown having his wife proofread his summation as he takes her suggestions. After many sessions of court, the jury returns verdicts of not guilty of murder for each defendant. The episode also illustrates the growing tensions over the Coercive Acts (“Intolerable Acts”), and Adams’ election to the First Continental Congress.
Part II: Independence (1774 A.D. – 1776 A.D.)
The second episode covers the disputes among the members of the Second Continental Congress towards declaring independence from Great Britain as well as the final drafting of the Declaration of Independence. At the continental congresses Adams is depicted as the lead advocate for independence. He is in the vanguard in establishing that there is no other option than to break off and declare independence. He is also instrumental in the selection of then-Colonel George Washington as the new head of the Continental Army.
However, in his zeal for immediate action, he manages to alienate many of the other founding fathers, going so far as to insult a peace-loving Quaker member of the Continental Congress, implying that the man suffers from a religiously based moral cowardice, making him a “snake on his belly”. Later, Benjamin Franklin quietly chastens Adams, saying, “It is perfectly acceptable to insult a man in private and he may even thank you for it afterwards but when you do so publicly, it tends to make them think you are serious.” This points out Adams’ primary flaw: his bluntness and lack of gentility toward his political opponents, one that would make him many enemies and which would eventually plague his political career. It would also, eventually, contribute to historians’ disregard for his many achievements. The episode also shows how Abigail innovatively copes with issues at home as her husband was away much of the time participating in the Continental Congress. She employs the use of then pioneer efforts in the field of preventative medicine and vaccination against smallpox for herself and the children.
Part III: Don’t Tread on Me (1777 A.D. – 1781 A.D.)
In Episode 3, Adams travels to Europe with his young son John Quincy during the war seeking alliances with foreign nations, during which the ship transporting them battles a British frigate. It first shows Adams’ embassy with Benjamin Franklin in the court of Louis XVI of France. The old French nobility, who are in the last decade before being consumed by the French Revolution, are portrayed as effete and decadent. They meet cheerfully with Franklin, seeing him as a romantic figure, little noting the democratic infection he brings with him. Adams, on the other hand, is a plain spoken and faithful man, who finds himself out of his depth surrounded by an entertainment- and sex-driven culture among the French elite. Adams finds himself at sharp odds with Benjamin Franklin, who has adapted himself to the French, seeking to obtain by seduction what Adams would gain through histrionics. Franklin sharply rebukes Adams for his lack of diplomatic acumen, describing it as a “direct insult followed by a petulant whine”. Franklin soon has Adams removed from any position of diplomatic authority in Paris. His approach is ultimately successful and was to result in the conclusive Franco-American victory at Yorktown.
Adams, chastened and dismayed but learning from his mistakes, then travels to the Dutch Republic to obtain monetary support for the Revolution. Although the Dutch agree with the American cause, they do not consider the new union a reliable and trustworthy client. Adams ends his time in the Netherlands in a state of progressive illness, having sent his son away as a diplomatic secretary to the Russian Empire.
Part IV: Reunion (1781 A.D. – 1789 A.D.)
The fourth episode shows John Adams being notified of the end of the Revolutionary War and the defeat of the British. He is then sent to Paris to negotiate theTreaty of Paris in 1783. While overseas, he spends time with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and Abigail visits him. Franklin informs John Adams that he was appointed as the first United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom and thus has to relocate to the British Court of St. James’s. John Adams is poorly received by the British during this time—he is the representative for a recently hostile power, and represents in his person what many British at the time regarded as a disastrous end to its early Empire. He meets with his former sovereign, King George III, and while the meeting is not a disaster, he is excoriated in British newspapers. In 1789, he returns to Massachusetts for the first Presidential Election and he and Abigail are reunited with their children, now grown. George Washington is elected the first President of the United States and John Adams as the first Vice President.
Initially, Adams is disappointed and wishes to reject the post of Vice President because he feels there is a disproportionate number of electoral votes in favor of George Washington (Adams number of votes pales in comparison to those garnered by Washington). In addition, John feels the position of Vice President is not a proper reflection of all the years of service he has dedicated to his nation. However, Abigail successfully influences him to accept the nomination.
Part V: Unite or Die (1788 A.D. – 1797 A.D.)
The fifth episode begins with John Adams presiding over the Senate and the debate over what to call the new President. It depicts Adams as frustrated in this role: His opinions are ignored and he has no actual power, except in the case of a tied vote. He’s excluded from George Washington’s inner circle of cabinet members, and his relationships with Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton are strained. Even Washington himself gently rebukes him for his efforts to “royalize” the office of the Presidency. A key event shown is the struggle to enact the Jay Treaty with Britain, which Adams himself must ratify before a deadlocked Senate (although historically his vote was not required). The episode concludes with his inauguration as the second president—and his subsequent arrival in a plundered executive mansion.
Part VI: Unnecessary War (1798 A.D. – 1802 A.D.)
The sixth episode covers Adams’s term as president and the rift between the Hamilton-led Federalists and Jefferson-led Republicans. Adams’s neutrality pleases neither side and often angers both. His shaky relationship with his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, is intensified after taking defensive actions against the French because of failed diplomatic attempts and the signing of the Alien and Sedition Acts. However, Adams also alienates himself from the anti-French Alexander Hamilton after taking all actions possible to prevent a war with France. Adams disowns his son Charles, who soon dies as an alcoholic vagrant. Late in his Presidency, Adams sees success with his campaign of preventing a war with France, but his success is clouded after losing the presidential election of 1800. After receiving so much bad publicity while in office, Adams lost the election against his Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson, and runner-up Aaron Burr (both from the same party). This election is now known as the Revolution of 1800. Adams leaves the Presidential Palace (now known as The White House), retiring to his personal life in Massachusetts, in March 1801.
Part VII: Peacefield (1803 A.D. – 1826 A.D.)
The final episode covers Adams’s retirement years. His home life is full of pain and sorrow as his daughter, Nabby, dies of breast cancer and Abigail succumbs to typhoid fever. Adams does live to see the election of his son, John Quincy, as president, but is too ill to attend the inauguration. Adams and Jefferson are reconciled through correspondence in their last years, and both die mere hours apart on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 4th); Jefferson was 83, Adams was 90.
Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson role was particularly well cast. I have seen many attempts at Jefferson by actors, particularly the Sam Neil portrayal and this one had to be the best of all. The writers could have focused more on the slavery issues and been all caught up in the temperament of our modern times the way the current employees at Monticello do—focusing on the Sally Hemmings aspect of Jefferson’s life as though the man was a raging sexual lunatic. But these interpretations of Jefferson are assumptions based on the faults of modern man. Jefferson was an aristocrat—America’s first—but not in the traditional sense where it was handed to him by his ancestors. Jefferson was just intellectually superior and individually motivated and became an aristocrat by his own choice to be so which is an important distinction. The John Adams miniseries covers this in great detail. I thought the scene of Adams, his wife, and Thomas Jefferson in France witnessing one of the first hot air balloons was particularly captivating. Without the foursome, Adams, Abigail, Jefferson and Franklin there would not be an America today. Even with all the other characters involved, Washington, Sam Adams, Thomas Paine and all the other heroes of the Revolution—it was in essence the polar opposites John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who philosophically molded America with Franklin and Abigail gently directing the two men with warranted criticism and reality. If those four people were not a part of the process so profoundly slavery would still be practiced on earth as a common occurrence in developed countries, and America would have never gotten off the ground beyond the musings of an angry mob in Boston.
Even more so, Jefferson and Adams loved their wives. This I always knew but the HBO series delves into this love in a very mature way that is completely missing from most television dramas. I have now enormous respect for the way Adams loved his wife and wish with every bit of my own essence that such love and respect could return to our society—as I believe it is a fundamental building block of marital sanity. Without Abigail, John Adams would have spun into a haughty lawyer too smart for his own good, and without Adams, Abigail might have closed in on herself from introversion. The two complimented and built a life from friendship that was particularly respectful and free of controversy. Adams in all his time in France never yielded to their flamboyant sexuality—his intellectual position prevented it—which eventually won them over into supporting America in the war with much needed supplies.
But what was most striking was the love of intelligence which both Jefferson and Adams had their entire lives. It was their intellectual capacity and love of learning which launched the nation—not so much the acts of laws and men in times of war. It was the strength of their minds which was evident right up until the time of their deaths that carried America on its back and into the future. The HBO series never wavered from this and displayed it as honestly as possible without being disrespectful in the least. One particular scene in the series was when Adams traveled to England to meet with King George III as the first Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Of course the King was insulted and hostile toward the new nation—it was the first strike against his empire which would eventually crumble away. But when he heard Adams speak, he understood why America had formed and realized that the foundations of intellectual superiority had sprung in the New World and it was because of that—that he lost the Revolutionary War—and he was actually honored. He clearly expected some barbaric heathen which Adams clearly was not. It was a beautiful scene.
Adams was a Federalist while Jefferson was clearly not—he formed the first of the Republican Party of extremely small government minded politics. Adams shared with Hamilton and Washington the notion of much larger government controls which ran contrary to everything they founded the Revolution upon, and the HBO series handles these philosophic conflicts honorably—and honestly. Many of the same arguments permeate politics today, but the HBO series never picks sides—it just presented the information to the best of their ability—which again was quite good.
My opinion about public education—my anger at much of what we see in the world today is the failure of our governments and institutions to give people a proper understanding of history. We have failed as a society to study history properly so that we might have more enriched futures. We have allowed for the eradication and complete revisionism of history in many cases to protect religious belief, and political desire—so work like Adams on HBO are extremely rare, and important. All I have ever wanted in any debate over public education or politics in general is to have the kind of intelligent discussions that Adams and Jefferson had in their lives for the betterment of our times. The ignorance so worshipped these days simply retreats to mechanisms of control and manipulation to win an argument and get laws put in place that essentially steal from producers and give to the lazy—which is something both men would be appalled at. Tom Hanks has done a lot of good work over his many years as an entertainer some of it I enjoy, some I haven’t. He often takes up progressive causes—such as his work in Philadelphia and most recently Cloud Atlas—but in the end he might best be known as the producer of the HBO series Adams. Previously, it might have been Saving Private Ryan, or his role in Forrest Gump or for me his portrayal of Jim Lovell in Apollo 13. The HBO miniseries on Sam Adams will likely be the greatest chapter in the long history of Tom Hanks. I can’t imagine something so good being done by anybody in Hollywood unless someone of his caliber put a lot of love into the project as a producer securing the $100 million dollar budget to pull it off for a cable station—and then pulling in such great actors that had to live up to the high bar he had already set. I don’t think there is another producer out there capable of pulling off something like this any other way. It takes extremely good talent on all sides of the camera to achieve, and Hanks has set the high water mark clearly with this series.
If there is an opportunity to see the HBO series Adams on Netflix or by purchasing it on Amazon—you’d be well suited to do so upon conclusion of this reading. It is an essential part of our history and how America was formed and why. Historians can argue the details but really it is picking fly shit out of pepper when such an epic performance is put on display for public consumption with all the love of people who really poured their heart and souls into a project that would have otherwise never happened. I would go so far to say that not only should every American—child to senior citizen–see this series of movies, but every single member of the world—so that they can see the benefits of minds on fire that wish to only be quenched with freedom from tyranny and all the perils associated with it.
A number of readers here are naturally on the fringe of sanity because of the strategies being used against them to perpetuate evil—evil in this case is using the definition of collectivism versus individual value recognition. Lately I have received email feedback from consistent readers who believe that the times mandate complete attention to the task at hand and that they expect to see my usual hard-hitting opinions and observations about current events and nothing else. Yet it should be noted that at least once or twice a week for over four years now I have taken the time to write about things that appear completely irrelevant and a bit fun. I will explain the reason here today. The article most in question was one recently about the board game Arkham Horror which can be seen by CLICKING HERE. The belief that came back to me by more than one reader was general bewilderment—that currently World War III was happening right under our feet, the IRS is corrupt and an abusive arm of a vile government, and the forces of doom are lining up now to march all of us to concentration camps to have our lives eradicated in a similar way that the Germans did to the Jews during the Holocaust. There is a persistent belief that the bankers of Europe are going to call in their loans and the only payment people will have as currency will be their lives and a massive purge will take place across the entire planet.
Those who know me best would do well to remember that in my life I have seen the worst that human beings can do to each other. Generally I have lived my entire life prepared to meet each day on my own terms. I am generally polite to strangers, sympathetic to the stupid, and respectful of wisdom—particularly the elderly. But I have never been afraid of force either institutional force or individual. I have resisted the designs that others have attempted to impose on me and this has caused much bizarrely placed animosity toward me that has unleashed the absolutely worst behavior that human beings can conger up in their minds. I have had a lifetime of enemies not from my provocation but from their desire to rule me in some fashion or another and I have not let them. When I was younger this seemed unfair and I did not have definitions to explain it, but at the stage of life I’m at now I understand all too well the motivations of why people and institutions do the things they do and my desire here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom is to share those with others of similar mind so that a kind of road map out of the wilderness can be provided so that future allies in these wars of living can be utilized.
The strategy of the modern passive-aggressive personalities so common as a result of the education institutions that constructed their thought processes desire to drive their enemies insane with insult and overwhelming force so to break the will of resistance to their policies. Enemies of humanity no longer show up on our doorsteps with swords of force to execute a strategy; they hide behind institutional policy and faceless provocateurs to let the dirty work of peer pressure do most of their bidding. When those things don’t work, they call upon supernatural assistance. Now before I say what I’m going to next consider what the primary tension between the Jews and Muslims are in the Middle East—particularly the Dome of the Rock issue in Jerusalem where religious differences between God’s pact with Abraham has resulted in conflict and tension emerging around every form of politics essentially centering on the location of the Holy of Holies as well as the sacrificial site of Abraham offering up his son Isaac—where in the last moment God offered up a ram instead. People believe a lot of really dumb things for a lot of dumb reasons. With that said when enemies cannot beat you with strategy, skill, or any form of merit, they turn to what they think are gods and pray against you. More than once I have had enemies consult Ouija boards to ask for black help from beyond the grave, conducted seances against my name, sought voodoo priests to cast spells against me and my family, and locked themselves in upstairs bedrooms chanting incantations against my health and well-being. People believe these things, so they are something that must be dealt with. Whether or not the sought after spiritual aid can be considered Biblical or even demonic is not the purpose of pointing it out at this point. Science is still mapping out the effect of multi-dimensional realities and the concept of a multiverse so at this point spirit aid likely comes from some life form living in those realities. It doesn’t make them magical any more than a modern human can use an airplane to fly. They are just beings that can use tools human beings can’t to utilize attributes which might help the one who summons those forces. I wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t something I’ve had to deal with. The motivating factor is as simple as a football player wishing for a bit of luck to get a touchdown in the closing seconds of a game, or one country praying to god for a victory over another—the desire to summons supernatural aid is a factor even if the nature of that aid is still in question. My name has been frequently abused in this fashion—“please help me get Rich Hoffman out of the way—I’ll sacrifice a goat, a lamb, or my eternal soul if only I can have success today in the land of the living.” Whether the supernatural aid played a part, science will have to explain it to me, because dark forces have entered my life from every direction many, many times and tried to undermine everything I have stood for. More than once I have literally lost everything in my life on a Biblical scale and know very well what it means to wake up with nothing in the world but what could not be taken within one’s own mind. And each time I have overcome whatever obstacles were placed in my path. The threats were not always supernatural, but more often translated out into human intention—and I have seen the vilest of those intentions. The result is that after 20 straight years of that really every day, if you survive you learn an art form of living that is unique and a strategy of implementation that is far superior to what an adversary can claim. I take that experience and share it with others so that they may learn to do the same.
There is a point where all the points connect and make sense and you realize that any ill intentions that paper warriors heading banking clans are actually powerless if their ability to rupture their enemy’s sanity through fear is taken from their arsenal. The reality of sinister motivations is that intention is one thing, but even evil spirits fail—they fall from grace like everything else and they become easily frustrated when immediate satisfaction is not provided to them. Whether the enemy is conjured from religious assistance or a financial payoff, they falter due to competency levels and only have fear as a weapon. In this way The Synagogue of Satan and all the Zionist conspiracy theories are a strategy not of true threat, but of an illusion meant through passive aggressive institutional force to overwhelm the sanity of their adversaries. The merit of their claims is as stupid as the dumb rock they believe Abraham wanted to kill his son Isaac upon—but instead killed a lamb—which is why Muslims around the beginning of October will practice Eid al-Abha to appease Allah. The killing of an animal which takes place over the three-day celebration is a reminder that sacrifice is important if one wishes to stay on the right path in life. But people who think like this are not a threat—millions of them are no match for a single mind who thinks outside of collectivism. Sure they have physical power, but that power erodes away quickly under the hands of incompetency. Their next move 100% of the time, before the world realizes their charade is just smoke and mirrors, is to call upon spiritual aid which sometimes comes as a shadowy figure that enters the side of your vision, or haunts a dream, or even a loved one’s dream. One might find a complete re-occurrence of bad luck inundating them for days, or weeks—perhaps years for no other reason than unseen forces seem hell-bent on destroying their lives. But in the end whether the thugs are spiritual or material, they are still collectivists who have very little power but to walk around and look menacing. The paper they put their laws upon mean nothing because the philosophy they are built upon crumbles as soon as people see the truth of their merit. So their only hope to maintain their charade is to drive good minds insane with worry, or too much information.
Over the years I have been able to bounce back to report these observations to the level I am now exclusively from sanity maintenance. When I brought up the Arkham Horror game there is a good reason—when I was playing it with my family there was one card in it that struck me with a realization that had been perceived, but not completely understood. In the game sanity points are issued against the characters you play to reflect the abuses of a battered mind. From what I have described, I understand what the strategy of a battered mind can do to a person. I have seen people lose their minds and there were times where the pressure was so great upon me where I thought my mind might pop from the weight. People can take, or threaten to take everything you have at any time. The Zionists may want to control the world through finance and the Muslims may want to convert the entire world to a tribal society that wants to sacrifice lambs at the beginning of October because Abraham did it four thousand years ago on a spot that David would build his eventual temple, and his son Soloman would place the Ark of the Covenant on a site called the Holy of Holies which no person except those deemed fit by God may enter—but in the end all they really have is a belief system that will crumble about them the moment they are forced to deal with contrary ideals. To avoid those ideals they will ask for spirit aid, or hire hit men to kill and destroy the evidence of their own heresy—but they can never be right—and they know it.
There were many times where it would have been easier to just jump off a bridge to escape the pain of living—where the forces amassed seemed too overwhelming. In those times I took the only possessions I had which were a few books and sat in Waffle House until 5 AM reading with the rest of society’s rejects to learn that as the world slept so too does the forces of evil who wish to rule the world through fear. Once that is taken from them, those enemies can be obliterated easily no matter how many in number they present themselves as. And it is under that realization that I function from and seek to teach others how to destroy their enemies.
The enemy out there means to drive their targets toward insanity with that constant pressure of always looking over their shoulder for that bullet chambered in the barrel of a sniper hidden carefully in the woods, or across a field. Or to send you to church on Sunday praying to God for protection that only you can really only give yourself. They mean to take your mind from that lucky rabbit’s foot on your key chain that you carry hoping for some spiritual aid when that bullet is shot or that co-worker wishes to harm you at your job, or those terrible spirits enter your dreams delivering nightmares. It is possible to be in complete control of these things and those forces once you understand their motivations. For me, that information was hard won—and I share it openly with my readers so that maybe they might use a fraction of the boon for their own needs.
Equally important to knowing all the bad things that are out there in the world is learning how to comprehend the overwhelming evidence without it crushing your mind. That card I referred to from Arkham Horror came into play during the game when my character uncovered the source of mankind’s origin and went insane with the overwhelming knowledge. He lost his way and had to go to the Asylum to get his mental health back. This reminded me of the old Quiet Riot song, “Mama We’re All Crazy Now” which seemed like an appropriate metaphor for our modern existence. It could be argued that it is crazy to sacrifice a lamb to appease Allah, or to fight over a dirty rock in the Middle East just so that a temple can be rebuilt when much grander structures have been built in Las Vegas and elsewhere by the minds of modern man, or that grown men would lock themselves in their bedrooms chanting against a rival co-worker who is showing them up by being a better person and thus preventing the invocation summons advocate from getting that needed raise. The world’s antagonists—which are voluminous have only one way that they can rule a superior mind—it’s not by force, it’s not by intellect, it’s by diminishing that mind. If that ability is taken from them, they fall under the pressure which they are seeking constant escape.
There was a reason that I have lived the way I have, with the loud music, particularly from Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head” screaming from my car speakers, and there is a reason that I play games and talk about other things besides the war at hand. The goal of war is the suppression of the enemy—and for our enemies, they require a destruction of our minds and they expect those minds to go crazy with frustration by coming up against a wall of apathy which never provides justice. Our enemy in this modern war cannot win with bank notes, or pieces of paper in a vault in England—they have to destroy our minds and sense of right and wrong. This must be deprived from them—otherwise sanity does come into question no matter what the source of provocation may be. The goal is a loss of sanity and therefore an opponent to their schemes. The best rebellion I know of is the one I learned to conduct—which is a flagrant display of sanity in the face of irrational collectivism designed essentially to sacrifice lives upon an altar of superstition for the religious beliefs of a people who are as privy to the secrets of the universe as a bird landing in a tree looking for a worm to eat. And it is good to flaunt logic in their face and turn the tables against their strategy letting them know with audacity that good minds cannot be broken no matter what the enterprise. World War III is not about weapons and territory. Boundaries are only marks on a map—this war is for the mind of mankind—and in that war, we must protect those minds with nurturing—and respect—and pride.
Sometimes, not all the time, it is good to drive 120 MPH down the road with the Quiet Riot song “Bang Your Head” playing as loud as the speakers will take the music. It is good to play Arkham Horror for 8 hours on a Friday night and it is good to thumb your nose at authority in general—because sometimes that’s what it takes to preserve your sanity when the forces of the world wish to take it. The counter to their force is audacity on behalf of mental health and the preservation of sanity so that the victors of World War III are those who still have sanity over those who lost it long ago and are still sacrificing sheep and worshiping rocks with their lips perked against the dirt hoping that rival ideals will perish by supernatural aid before the stupidity of their beliefs is revealed as crazy as it really always has been. This requires big, sane minds to deal with big difficult problems. To perform that task it requires a mind in top form and full of love for life–which means care must be given to it even if the means is sometimes outside of social importance. Many minds are wasted chanting for supernatural aid when the answer was always in front of it, but insanity prevented the revelation. And it is insane to pray to a wall and the history there when most of history is still before us.
For those living near Cincinnati, Ohio they would likely know of the strange archaeological remains of Serpent Mound off to the east—a mound built by an ancient people several thousand years ago clearly displaying a serpent design visible to the air which has astronomical calculations built into certain points of the large site. The people who built it went to incredible trouble for reasons that are even more mysterious. Thickening the plot the site sits on a significant portion of a crypto explosion which took place over 300 million years ago. There was no way that the ancient people could have at the time known of the explosion as erosion had removed most of the sight references visible without advanced scientific equipment. Yet out of all the locations that Serpent Mound could have been built—it was on the edge of this gigantic 4 mile wide crater that looks to have come from inside the earth as opposed to a traditional meteor impact from space. The reason this is significant is that modern scientists are mystified–a helicopter spotted a large mysterious hole in Siberia Tuesday July 15th, 2014—and it has left scientists largely perplexed thus far. The first explanation rationed was that gas from deep in the earth exploded due to the mystical global warming phenomena perpetuated by paper-thin intellectuals—a falsehood designed to disguise their ignorance.
The massive hole, about 260 feet wide, is located in the Yamal peninsula and can easily fit several helicopters inside the entrance, according to the U.K.’s Independent. It is believed to be about two years old, RT.com reported.
The area’s name, Yamal, translates to “end of the world” and is home to some of Russia’s largest gas reserves.
Yet this wasn’t the first such hole to appear in Siberia.
On June 30,1908, a giant fireball exploded in Siberia’s remote Tunguska region, leveling trees for more than 20 miles around and causing atmospheric shock waves that were detected round the world. At the time, scientists thought that a giant meteorite had crashed into the earth. Later, when they failed to find a major crater or clearly identifiable meteorite fragments at the site, they began to question their earlier theory.
Many scientists have since attributed the phenomenon to a comet head that exploded in the air before hitting the earth. Others suggest that a stray clump of antimatter from elsewhere in the universe was the cause through some dimensional portal—a fold of space and time which is concealing the evidence.
Back at Serpent Mound just outside of Cincinnati, hardly a location at the “end of the world” the same type of thing occurred long ago. The valley beneath the effigy is really the western rim of a mysterious, four-mile-wide, circular crater – the eroded remains of a huge, catastrophic event geologists call “The Serpent Mound Disturbance.” About 300 million years ago, either an asteroid collision or an underground explosion blew apart more than seven cubic miles of rock. The central area was uplifted more than 1000 feet, while an outer rim dropped more than 400 feet.
What we see today results from eons of erosion, although the shattered fragments of the “Central Uplift” remain among the hills above Serpent Mound. The distant ridge tops, visible from the overlooks, stand high today because they are the much harder Ordovician bedrock that was offset by the event.
The strange geology of this spot was first noticed in modern times by Dr. John Locke of Cincinnati, who named it “Sunken Mountain” in 1838. Yet, it’s not hard to imagine that the ancient effigy builders could have recognized the unusual land forms. The serpent looks out from the edge of the Central Uplift zone.
This little recent hole in Siberia is much smaller than the four mile wide one that occurred at Serpent Mound but one thing is for sure about the Serpent Mound crater—it wasn’t caused by global warming and much stronger forces were at work. At this time the two craters may have been caused by entirely different forces but what is clear is that even with all of our modern equipment and satellite analysis the hole in Siberia wasn’t even noticed for two years. This confirms that there is very little that modern science really knows about anything as our study into nature is still infantile. The cause and effects of forces known and yet to be discovered are not complete, so static conclusions are impossible at this time.
But what is most mysterious of all is that a so-called primitive people knew enough about the geology of the Ohio area which had filled back in after hundreds of millions of years of erosion to build a tribute to it as if they knew that their monument in the shape of a serpent might appease the forces that created the impact.
Many societies could have risen and fallen over several hundred million years and not all of them may have been terrestrial. Yet by some word of mouth or written documentation which is no longer seen, the ancient people who constructed Serpent Mound likely knew about the strange ancient events that took place on that site. And in our modern times similar holes are opening up right under our feet and we have no explanation for them but to blame the occurrences on our own development and science. That only goes to prove how feeble our modern grasp on reality truly is. The mysteries of the earth are alive and well, and mankind looks upon them with fear of the unknown for which they lack the courage to probe with honesty to an origin that does not reside on this planet—but out into the Milky Way toward one of NASA’s recent proclamations—that within 25 years life will be discovered afar and the answers to some of these mysteries will then become known—and we may not like the answer as it will disturb our religions, mythologies and basic concept of existence. If history is to be followed when matched up against a superior intellect and culture—it is likely that we might want to build a monument to appease them in the same way that a weak-willed politician licks the boots of those they perceive to be their superiors. In that future time the real answer to the mysterious crypto explosions on earth will then be provided by documents that left long ago only to return by the minds responsible.
The term cryptoexplosion structure (or cryptovolcanic structure) means an explosion of unknown cause. The term is now largely obsolete. It was once commonly used to describe sites where there was geological evidence of a large-scale explosion within the Earth’s crust, but no definitive evidence for the cause such as normal volcanic rocks. These sites are usually circular with signs of anomalous rock deformation contrasting with the surrounding region, and often showing evidence that crustal material had been uplifted and/or blown outwards. The assumption was that some unusual form of volcanism, or a gas explosion originating within the crust, was the cause. The use of the term went away with the rise of the science of impact crater recognition in the late 20th Century. Most structures described as cryptoexplosions turned out to be eroded impact craters, caused by the impact of meteorites. Today geologists discount former cryptoexplosion theories.[1]
Yet, geologists have yet to explain what caused “The Serpent Mound Disturbance” and have relegated their investigation to the back of their desk drawers and left investigations to theorists who must resurrect the term, “cryptoexplosion” once again to properly term the classification. And such explosions are not regulated to the distant past, but still occur right under the nose of science who believed that just because they stopped using a term, that the need would cease to call attention to itself. By the evidence of the new hole that has opened in Russia–“cryptoexplosion” would appear to be much more appropriate as a term than “global warming.”
I do not believe that there is a single lawyer, politician or lobbyist who could write the Declaration of Independence today in 2014. When modern progressives, socialists, and domestic terrorists declare that they believe the founding documents of America are “living documents” they are wrong—because the quality of the minds that could contribute in the ways they propose would only diminish the meaning. It is possible that John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were among the greatest collected minds in human history when they gathered to write the Declaration. They were as proficient philosophically as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle only all existing at the same time and without the murder of one by a society protecting itself from their intellectual advancement. When those three gathered and Jefferson wrote the founding document, a new era of philosophic endeavor had begun in the wake of war. A unique window had opened and the three of them stepped in bringing the rest of the new country with them. The results were the Declaration of Independence that was presented and edited by the Continental Congress in the following days leading up to July 4th 1776.
Congress ordered that the draft “lie on the table“.[66] For two days Congress methodically edited Jefferson’s primary document, shortening it by a fourth, removing unnecessary wording, and improving sentence structure.[67] Congress removed Jefferson’s assertion that Britain had forced slavery on the colonies, in order to moderate the document and appease persons in Britain who supported the Revolution. Although Jefferson wrote that Congress had “mangled” his draft version, the Declaration that was finally produced, according to his biographer John Ferling, was “the majestic document that inspired both contemporaries and posterity.”[67]
On Monday, July 1, having tabled the draft of the declaration, Congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, with Benjamin Harrison of Virginia presiding, and resumed debate on Lee’s resolution of independence.[68]John Dickinson made one last effort to delay the decision, arguing that Congress should not declare independence without first securing a foreign alliance and finalizing the Articles of Confederation.[69] John Adams gave a speech in reply to Dickinson, restating the case for an immediate declaration.
After a long day of speeches, a vote was taken. As always, each colony cast a single vote; the delegation for each colony—numbering two to seven members—voted amongst themselves to determine the colony’s vote. Pennsylvania and South Carolina voted against declaring independence. The New York delegation, lacking permission to vote for independence, abstained. Delaware cast no vote because the delegation was split between Thomas McKean (who voted yes) and George Read (who voted no). The remaining nine delegations voted in favor of independence, which meant that the resolution had been approved by the committee of the whole. The next step was for the resolution to be voted upon by the Congress itself. Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, who was opposed to Lee’s resolution but desirous of unanimity, moved that the vote be postponed until the following day.[70]
Here is the text as it appeared after those edits:
Introduction Asserts as a matter of Natural Law the ability of a people to assume political independence; acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained.
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Preamble Outlines a general philosophy of government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights.[77]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Indictment A bill of particulars documenting the king’s “repeated injuries and usurpations” of the Americans’ rights and liberties.[77]
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Denunciation This section essentially finished the case for independence. The conditions that justified revolution have been shown.[77]Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.Conclusion The signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions, and by necessity the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion contains, at its core, the Lee Resolution that had been passed on July 2.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.Signatures The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, and a father and great-grandfather of two other presidents, Benjamin Harrison, were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (age 26), was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (age 70) was the oldest signer. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows (from north to south):[78]
It is unlikely that there is a single mind in all of Washington D.C. who could write those sentences presently let alone put them into a contextual sentence. Clearly those same minds are not capable of participating in a “living document” which evolves over time to accommodate changing circumstances. This is the actual sad part of our history is that the intention was that each generation would produce men and women like Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, but this has not been the case. Instead, American society has regressed into the worship of stupidity and patted themselves on the back for passing gas in the form of a “fart.”
It would be my wish that I could associate with people like these Founding Fathers, instead of the weakened people of the modern age—people unable to understand the above document let alone produce another one of equal value. What is to be respected from this period in America is that intelligence was honored and valor was a part of daily existence and it is these traits that carried America to become the greatest country on earth. It was not the “come lately” types who spent years of their academic lives getting drunk, pursuing sex, and passing gas yet expecting to build their minds into understanding the need for the Declaration of Independence. Worse yet, to even entertain the belief that they were equal to men like the authors.
The sad state of our modern times is that intelligence is attacked and stupidity is worshipped, and it is for this reason alone that no modern man should even conceive of changing a single word of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution—because they simply are not qualified—intellectually. No modern Supreme Court Justice, no lawyer—anywhere, and no current resident of the White House are able to meet the task of intellectual aptitude required to care for the founding documents let alone amend them. They are only capable of winning elections and moving money from one pocket to another—but they are not stewards of America equal to the founders—and authors of The Declaration of Independence.
It’s not a problem for a person to have a home valued at $2,474,520 like Lois Lerner does—if they have earned it productively. However, Lerner and her husband have achieved much of their wealth as government parasites—meaning they live off the efforts of government specifically perpetuating the complexity of IRS law so that only they can translate the information to those willing to pay for the service. Both Lerner and her husband are attorneys who haven’t been discussed in great detail after Lerner was forced to step down from her IRS position in the wake of serious scandal for which she has been caught. As a family of attorneys Lerner understands how to manipulate the system because it was her type who helped shape that same system. For those types of government parasites which Lerner and her husband are but a small part—times are good—so good that they can afford a multi million dollar home essentially living as second-handers. But before understanding why they are such prescribed leeches it is important to study a bit of their background.
Lerner began her career in government as a staff attorney in the Honors Program at the United States Department of Justice. She served as a Special Assistant in the U.S. Attorney’s Office where she was lead counsel handling felony and misdemeanor prosecutions. In 1981, Lerner moved to the Federal Election Commission, serving as the Assistant General Counsel for Enforcement, and ultimately as the Acting General Counsel.[1]
Lerner is a past president of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) and an active member of the Humane Society of the United States where her efforts in performing pet rescues necessitated by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes were widely acknowledged.
Lerner began her IRS service in 2001 as Director Rulings and Agreements in the Exempt Organizations function of TEGE. [2] In January 2006, she was selected as Director Exempt Organizations. In this capacity, Lerner led an organization of 900 employees responsible for a broad range of compliance activities, including examining the operational and financial activities of exempt organizations, processing applications for tax exemption, providing direction through private letter rulings and technical guidance and providing customer education and outreach to the exempt community.[3]
On May 23rd, 2013 Lerner was placed on administrative leave. Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel selected Ken Corbin as the acting director of the exempt organizations division. Corbin was the deputy director of the submission processing, wage, and investment division.
In 2014, Lerner was held in Contempt of Congress in connection with the 2013 IRS controversy.[4][5] The resolution, H.Res. 574, was introduced into the United States House of Representatives on May 7, 2014 by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).[6] The bill was considered on May 7, 2014, and passed in Roll Call Vote 203 with a vote of 231-187.[6] All of the Republicans voted in favor of the bill, along with six Democrats.[7] The resolution holds Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a congressional hearing.[8] Rep. Steve Stockman filed a motion on July 10, 2014 that, if enacted by the House, would direct congressional police to arrest Lois Lerner for contempt of Congress.[9][10]
Lerner is married to Michael R. Miles, Esq., Partner, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP.
Michael Miles provides insurance companies with creative solutions and tax planning strategies for their corporate, insurance, and reinsurance transactions, including cross-border transactions and corporate restructurings. Michael also advises on consolidated return issues, the general taxation of corporations and shareholders, the taxation of regulated investment companies, and the application of withholding rules (including FATCA). He has substantial experience in advising clients on the tax consequences of proposed mergers and other reorganizations, reinsurance transactions, stock and asset acquisitions, and dispositions, distributions, and redemptions.
Before joining Sutherland, Michael served as an attorney in the Office of the Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). He has more than 30 years of experience in handling federal tax controversies, first for the IRS and now for the firm’s corporate and individual clients, as well as substantial experience in obtaining rulings for clients on corporate tax and other matters and in practicing before the IRS.
Knowing these things about Lerner and her husband it becomes clear that their combined incomes exist primarily from second-hand sources—living off the efforts of others. They do not build things, or behave in a productive manner—one was an IRS insider while the other provided tax strategies to a complex code. Like many in the Washington D.C. beltway they are a professional couple making vast sums of money as second-handers. They directly benefit from the efforts of others then redistribute those efforts directly into their pockets. This is how they came to own such a nice home in Montgomery County outside of Washington. It wasn’t earned by productive enterprise—but rather parasitic leverage—(insider knowledge gained by political connections.)
Montgomery County Home:
Owner: MICHAEL R MILES & LERNER G LOIS Total land value: $747,870 Total value for property: $2,474,520 Total assessed value for property: $2,474,520 Base area of building: 6,500 square feet
Lerner only became a household name when she was caught in the current IRS scandal and set up to take the fall so that the rest of the IRS could skate away unharmed as her lawyer husband and past legal experience handled things behind the scenes. Politicians on the Hill benefit from the same second-hander strategies so when the cameras are turned off, there is little will to actually throw Lerner in jail or punish her in any way. The essential reason why is that they are all guilty of the same type of behavior. All around Lerner’s $2,474,520 home are similar properties owned and operated by carbon copies of Lois and her husband, Michael—professional parasites that live off the efforts of others. Once they extort all they can from those sources they move on to new clients to extract all they can from them—until that too is gone, and this process continues until they either run out of clients, or find themselves in legal trouble and having to flee behind the curtain of protected BAR associations and their congressional friends who reside there with them.
When it is wondered what is wrong with Washington D.C. all one need to do is look at Lois Lerner and her husband to know what it is. They represent a deep fault in the current American political system overrun by lawyers, con artists and general second-handers avoiding any productive enterprise aside from the theft of other people’s money. Lois Lerner is not unusual—she is common in her neighborhood—there are carbon copies of her on nearly every street. The only reason that anybody knows about her is that she was the one who got caught. Many of the others are still unseen because their efforts are not so easily detected. But they all have nice homes like the one that Lerner has because they achieve the wealth to buy them from other people’s money as service to government has paid them a healthy ransom and allowed them to live a pirate’s life only with a suit and tie to hide their true identities.
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.
There was a lot of Star Wars news this past week as the world revs up for the most recent reports from that line of mythology originating during the 1970s. As I received news from Lucasfilm about their schedule at Comic Con, San Diego, a fan from Germany did a brilliant YouTube video showing vehicles from the Empire being unloaded at a foreign airport. It was a remarkable short film and showed how easy it is for anybody these days to make wonderful visual effects—putting story telling within reach of the entire world. Even more remarkable was that the creator was not an American, but was German—meaning that the very American Star Wars mythology was important enough to him to create such a video which would have taken a considerable amount of thought and time.
But most remarkable of all was the report from Kevin Smith—the filmmaker from the Clerks movies and Red State who was given permission to visit the Star Wars Episode 7 set by invitation of J.J. Abrams. Smith is personal friends with Ben Affleck and a number of notably progressive Hollywood types, but he is also a very pop culture lover of comic books and heroic endeavor. If he and I had a dinner conversation together it is likely we would agree on nothing related to politics, but everything regarding comic books and Star Wars which is the magic of that particular mythology.
I was not a fan of Smith’s movie Red State—which felt to me like a Hollywood shot at life in the Midwest. Most of the antagonists in the film were perverted versions of the type of characters Hollywood views as “Bible Thumpers” so I nearly ignored the report that Kevin Smith gave after his visit to the Star Wars set. However, under the recommendation from some of the filmmakers from the Atlas Shrugged set I gave it a chance and was glad I did. Smith gave a remarkably honest breakdown not only of what he saw there—but in how it made him feel which reaches to the heart and soul of the entire Star Wars movement.
Star Wars is a movement, philosophical, political, and religious—it is a culture building exercise that extends far beyond simple entertainment. Cultures throughout the world have spent decades now having values removed from them leaving them empty. The causes have been varied—but the results are massive cases of emptiness leaving people desperately hungry to fill themselves with something of value. Star Wars created by George Lucas was intended for children to provide value and this hunger for all things Star Wars is most reflected in the excitement level of grown adults who are rediscovering their inner—long lost child through new movies and products.
I promised my children and wife when we all saw the movie Hook together by Steven Spielberg that I would never become lost like the Robin Williams character and lose my inner Peter Pan. And I have never broken that promise to them—I understand all too well the character of Peter Pan. I live the life of Pan with every breath that I take. With that said, the bedroom of my wife and I looks like a Star Wars toy section at Target. Looming over our bed is a large Millennium Falcon and located around our bedroom are several different versions of that same ship in various sizes. I know what Star Wars means to me because I have never left that part of my life behind—instead I incorporate it seamlessly into my mature life in the way that Peter Pan had to reconcile at the end of Hook.
I’m sure that J.J. Abrams invited Kevin Smith to the Star Wars set to generate positive publicity ahead of Comic Con in San Diego and to put some of the negative rumors about Harrison Ford’s broken leg—which is healing, to rest. Ford is doing what he has always done—he’s fighting back to health so he can complete the film. (Harrison Ford suffered an ACL tear during the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ruptured a disk in his back during the filming of Temple of Doom. In both cases he hit the weight room and recovered and finished his film as the star. He is doing the same thing as a 71-year-old man for Episode 7. That is what makes him great and a man’s man.) Smith came to the set and reported in a video what he saw which was captivating, but what impressed me most was his sense of understanding of what happened to him when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp.
It was an interesting admission that Kevin Smith made when he declared that everything he had been—as an adult—was a corrupt caricature essentially shaped by the times of society’s impression upon him. He was very honest about stating that when he visited the Star Wars set he returned back to his childhood which for him was a treasure—as it is for most people. His intense revelation about crying at the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp says a lot about our culture. It is that lost Peter Pan persona that most of us seek to regain.
So the question must be asked—why do we give up that treasure in our teenage years? Some of the most courageous among us regain that persona later in life once we become grandparents—and too old to care what people think of us. Once we lose our sex appeal, our hair, our nice skin, and the ability to impress others with our appearance there is once again a chance to become childlike with the wisdom of years of learning to support ourselves. Kids don’t care what they look like, they just like to play and have fun, and this is a trait that we should not give up on as adults.
I never have—I promised my family I never would, and I never will under any conditions. Every day in my life is like the end of the Robin Williams version of Peter Pan in Hook. I skipped right over the crises period and just went from childhood to adulthood with the same enthusiasm. What Kevin Smith, Seth McFarlane, and I all have in common is that even though we differ dramatically in our politics—we share emphatically a love of Star Wars for the same reasons—as the mythology is a direct link to the energy of childhood which should never be lost to any adult anywhere.
Kevin Smith obviously would have been a happier person if he didn’t start swearing, doing drugs, and adopting progressive causes. This is why our politics is different essentially. He would have been happier if he had kept that inner child all through his life and dropped the cynicism of adulthood. He shouldn’t have had to cry when he stepped to the top of The Millennium Falcon ramp. But, his friend J.J. Abrams probably did Smith a huge favor on a personal level by bringing him to the set to see the Star Wars shoot in person. It is good that Kevin Smith had that experience and reported it so honestly—because this is part of the healing qualities that I have spoken about so often regarding Star Wars. The culture that will come from all this will leave us all much better off than we are today—because the stories are about values that the inner child in all of us crave so deeply. The cynical adult in us has yielded to the pressures of existence which imposed compromises of those values leaving us shells of ourselves to live as caricatures of our former dreams—which is the essential story of Hook.
Disney will surely give the rest of the world the same opportunity Smith had when they build a full scale Millennium Falcon in Orlando, Florida for visitors to their theme parks. It will be a common sight to see grown adults weeping at the top of the ramp in the same way that Kevin Smith did because the long suppressed magic of childhood will come rushing back to them in that instant. It’s not immature to feel such things–it is actually rational to reacquaint an adult life with the foundations of their belief systems formed during childhood. For many people, Star Wars is the clearest representation of value that they have and is why so many fans go to such elaborate measures to touch that mythology any way they can, even if it is in a short film remarkably done like the one at the German airport. There have been few people who have put their finger on the pulse of the Star Wars movement better than Kevin Smith did when he so honestly reported his visit to the Episode 7 set.
There is no shame in rediscovering the Peter Pan in all of us—the eternal youth forever thoughtful of the hopes and dreams of discovery and imagination. When those things are lost, we are robbed of much—and it is always good to revisit these traits which we are born with. It has only been recently when there was a mythology like Star Wars providing the mechanism through simple sight of a movie prop that could make a grown man cry like a baby at the purity of the emotion—the long lost hopefulness of childhood and the values of the uncompromising dreams of youth.
The Overmanwarrior 