The story follows Brett McBain as he purchased a plot of land in the middle of the desert which nobody otherwise wanted to sink his hopes into real estate that he plans will make him gloriously wealthy. This isn’t the typical story of gold digging or cattle rustling that are so typical of American westerns—this is actually a very intelligent story about something we can all relate with. McBain has made a very calculated risk much in the way that Donald Trump became wealthy—the land he has purchased is sitting on top of a nice aquifer full of fresh water and he knows that steam locomotives need water to run. So he gambles that the railroad will come through his property, and a town called Sweetwater will form around his home making his family rich. This is a very capitalist thing to do and the movie never demonizes that action—in fact it is central to the entire plot.
The value of the railroad itself is provided by the tycoon Morton. Without Morton nothing happens, McBain’s property is just another patch of desert land. The value for the land is provided by Morton’s desire to build a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Without that intention, McBain’s purchase would be meaningless. However along the way to help make it possible to see his dream, Morton hired Frank—a thuggish gunman to eliminate opposition to his plans. In this way the good intentions of Morton become the bad intentions of the crony capitalist which seeks to destroy their competition with force. Along the way, Frank picked on the wrong guy who comes back from the past to face down Frank along the backdrop of the Sweetwater land deal. The avenger of justice in this western is played by Charles Bronson known as Harmonica.
However Morton is sick and Frank fancies destroying his mentor so he can take over his empire, but he doesn’t quite have the business sense that his boss had. Frank learns too late that he’s really only good as a thug and does not have the sweet touch to walk the fine line between good honest business in a capitalist society and a corrupt regime of crony capitalism. He learns this through his failures invoked throughout Once Upon a Time in the West. Frank decides he wants to stop McBain’s deal to build his contractually obligated station for the railroad so that he can complete his part of the fairly complicated business transaction with Morton. Frank kills off McBain and his entire family to essentially stop them from building the proposed train station. Before that killing McBain was feeling pretty good about his life. He had a good business deal and celebrated it by marrying a first class prostitute from New Orleans. Jill didn’t really love old McBain as she had been emotionally hardened after years of prostituting herself but McBain was offering her a second chance at life. In exchange for whoring herself out to one man instead of many, she was getting an instant family and a prominent social place in a growing town. But when she showed up by train to meet her husband and his family she was horrified to find that they had been slaughtered by some gunmen dressed up as known bandits working for an outlaw by the name of Cheyenne. Of course Cheyenne had nothing to do with the killing; Frank simply dressed up his own railroad men to look like those of the recognized bandit. Cheyenne gets blamed for the killing; Frank destroys the ability of McBain to fulfill his contractual obligations to the railroad allowing Frank to sweep in and swipe up the land at an auction making himself rich in the process.
Jill however decides to keep the land which throws a wrench in Frank’s plans. Harmonica steps in to help Jill deal with what Frank is up. He outbids Frank for the land by using the bounty money on Cheyenne’s head to pay for it. Of course Harmonica made a deal with Cheyenne ahead of time to free him before he gets to jail so that the bandit can be a part of foiling the plans of Frank who was the instigator in the set-up. Harmonica then befriends Frank somewhat to get close to him and helps the villain survive an attack by his own. Morton had hired Frank’s gunman as a means of self-preservation because the crippled railroad tycoon realized that he could no longer trust his long time apprentice. Cheyenne escaping from capture then attacked Morton and the rest of Frank’s men as Harmonica and Frank kill off the rest. Of course Jill is considering making Harmonica a sexual mate because he’s strong, mysterious and powerful. But she also has eyes for Cheyenne for the same reasons. She’s angry at Harmonica for helping keep Frank alive but little does she know that the mysterious stranger has been playing Frank the way she attempted to while seducing the killer herself.
Isolated, Frank confronts Harmonica into revealing who he is and what he’s up to. He no longer has any help and the railroad is nearly completed in Sweetwater. So Frank has failed and just wants to know who Harmonica is. That’s when it is revealed that Frank killed Harmonica’s brother many years earlier and the only thing the mysterious stranger wants is revenge. The two fight it out in a classic gun battle where Frank dies. Jill wants one of the two men to stay with her to live out their days together but both Cheyenne and Harmonica leave to avoid being tamed by civilization. Jill meanwhile embraces her role as the matriarch of the town and she gets to live happily ever after with a completely fresh start. Most of the main characters had died leaving only her in the end and the birth of a town that was created under a premise of pure capitalism. It’s actually a very beautiful story that we don’t get enough out of Hollywood.
The central theme throughout the entire film is that the gun is the deliverer of justice. Noticeably not present throughout the whole film are police officers and government officials. The only justice between all the characters is their shared use of firearms. There is no sheriff who brokers mediation between Frank, Morton, or Jill. The only police we see are those taking Cheyenne away when he was turned into the authorities by Harmonica to collect a bounty. But at no time in the whole movie do the police or the government do anything to help solve any problems. All events were driven by the character’s themselves as the highest possible authority of law and order under the drive of laissez-faire capitalism. It is a minimalist tactic utilized by the director, Sergio Leone—but what’s interesting is that it was his Italian interpretation of what the America West was—a free and open land filled with unlimited opportunities. Harmonica enacted his own justice against Frank, in an honorable way. Jill was able to get a fresh start in life because of the capitalist efforts of Morton and McBain. And many thousands of others were employed because of the struggle. It was quite extraordinary to see the train finally coming into Sweetwater carrying hundreds of new workers to relieve the old ones. Without capitalism and the gun to protect it—nothing would be happening in the film Once Upon a Time in the West.
So my ambition to turn back the clock is not to return to slavery, or to move to a time where women couldn’t vote—it is to make the Second Amendment stronger and to invoke a lot more laissez-faire capitalism. When I think of the Old West I think of unlimited opportunities, very limited government, and the honor of equality that guns gave to the people who carried them. The Sergio Leone westerns are not historically accurate, but it is the wishful dreams of a European filmmaker yearning for a place in the world where such dreams were possible. And to his eyes and the large budget provided by Paramount Pictures—Once Upon a Time in the West was an honest philosophic crack at how an example of laissez-faire capitalism could be applied to the world using the American Western as a backdrop of simplicity to tell the story. It is for that reason that it is one of the greatest films of the 20th Century and one of the most underrated enigmas of art to emerge in a free market.
Film schools across the world study Once Upon a Time in the West hoping to recapture that magical movie. But they all miss the point because they don’t understand what the film is really about. They think it’s about Henry Fonda playing a bad guy, or Charles Bronson’s minimalist dialogue. They think it’s about the music and the cinematography, and the ambitious location shooting. Those are all very good things but not the reason it’s one of the greatest westerns of all time and also one of the great movie classics resting alongside Citizen Kane and The Wizard of Oz as an all time great classic. It’s because the movie was about laissez-faire capitalism and how to achieve justice in that world when things go bad then make it endure with just a bit of extra sparkle of obscurity. I can’t say that Leone was a remarkable capitalist as a film director during his whole life. I’d say he leaned more and more political left as his prestige in Hollywood increased. But for a time between 1963 to 1968 Sergio Leone offered some of the best arguments in favor of capitalism than any director has in movie history. And he did it with his wonderful spaghetti westerns—most notably, Once Upon a Time in the West. For me, that is a key to strategizing where we need to go as a civilization in the future. And we will.
The people of the world look to America for leadership……………and hope. It’s in the music from the very first video. Watch the faces of the audience. They know it without realizing that the tears that fall from their eyes is to feel again what once happened upon a time, in the west.
On the Democrats side of the political spectrum, they don’t really have a candidate for president. Hillary Clinton is a criminal and I have serious doubts as of this writing that she will be able to beat the socialist Bernie Sanders for the nomination. Then with that said, I really don’t think America is ready to elect an open socialist. I don’t think in 2016 the nation is ready to accept socialism the way that France has, and many other European countries. A large portion of America has been raised on socialism—especially victims of public school over the last two decades. They have been taught in their educations that socialism is the way to go—especially college graduates. It takes most young people at least a decade to start seeing the reality that they can only get once their parents cut them off from an allowance, and they pop out a couple of kids. Hopefully by that time they aren’t sick with venereal diseases and can actually live moderately healthy lives for two or three decades without overloading the doctor’s office every time they get a sniffle—which is another large contributor to insurance increases—the preponderance of so many people living their life with risky lifestyles—reckless sexual attitudes, chemical abuse through narcotics and alcohol—and high fat diets. What is remarkable however is how stupid most people are these days, and to exemplify it read the comments below from a recent CNN article about health care and the Bernie Sanders socialist approach. We all know they are out there, but it’s another thing to hear them speak so foolishly. Have a look and read the CNN article linked below.
DemandSider12 hours ago
@davidfour @sunny5280
We have let capitalism run rampant, to the point that we borrow money from Communist China, to subsidize the human resource budget of our largest private employer, so that they can profitable import from Communist China. Do you think this is wise?
I’m a Bernie fan but why even get people worked up about this, we all know Congress would never pass 99% of his ideas. What it would cost is irrelevant, he is just getting people talking about it longterm.
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medianone5 hours ago
@hardhatharry You never know…. Conservatives have done a great job of pushing their “anything but Obama” or “anything Obama does it bad, terrible, a failure” to the point that maybe people would consider something different that is not associated with Obama. Maybe?
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QuestionCNN5 hours ago
@hardhatharry What this article refused to mention is that Hillary will do the same thing – increase taxes under the pre-tense of providing Universal Health care, then divert it to pay for her police-state Marxist Utopia. But CNN is in the Clinton camp and is helping her by providing free negative campaign attacks on the other Marxist – Bernie Sanders
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DemandSider5 hours ago
@hardhatharry
This election reminds me a lot of the 1932 election The inequality, the Republican leaning Congress, the economic collapse due to middle class destruction and speculation. With FDR’s election, both Houses switched to heavily Democratic. Sanders’ views are very similar to FDR’s.
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RustyShackel1 hour ago
@DemandSider @hardhatharry Agreed, Bernie does seem like such a believer in the authority of government that he would take actions to throw Americans in imprisonment camps much like FDR did with innocent japanese-American citizens. I wonder who Bernie would target – conservatives? The rich?
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DemandSider1 hour ago
@RustyShackel @DemandSider @hardhatharry
No, you are confusing him with Chewbaca, The Confederate Republican nominee. He’ll probably just put another wing on in Cuba, call it Trumptanomo, and make a killing at tax payer expense, per usual with these “free market” parasites.
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DemandSider7 hours ago
sickforprofit.com/ceos
Stephen Hemsley, CEO, United Health Care, total value of unexercised stock options (Forbes): $744 million
“Hemseley returns $190 million in stock options acquired as as result of practices found to be fraudulent by The SEC” -American Medical News
Edward Hanway, Cigna CEO, total value of unexercised stock options, $28.8 million,five year compensation, $120 million “The family of a 17 year old girl who died hours after Cigna reversed a decision to deny her liver transplant to sue” -Oakland Tribune
Michael McCallister, CEO, Humana, total value of unexercised stock options, $60.8 million, “Humana abandons seniors in Florida; returns after Republicans pass new Medicare law, upping HMO payments by 25%” – NY Times
Has this Bernie Sanders fella no sense of decency??!? Who would hire these, ah, people?
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pulsecolo7 hours ago
@DemandSider Gosh, those salaries could be used to help pay to retrain and pay
all those insurance company employees mentioned earlier….
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JRCHICT6 hours ago
@DemandSider ” Bernie Sanders would LIKELY raise taxes,……”
“SOME experts say,…..”
Great journalism Tami
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medianone5 hours ago
@JRCHICT @DemandSider to be fair, or at least in cutting Tami some slack; we do live in a very litigious society.
Plus the article did say, “Sanders’ plan hasn’t been evaluated by the Congressional Budget Office or major think tanks…” which seems to be the standard for vetting candidate tax proposals.
But I agree with your thinking.
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DemandSider1 hour ago
@medianone @JRCHICT @DemandSider
Yes, for a person to have their medical bills reimbursed, they often MUST be litigious. SIngle payer would ease the burden on our courts.
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DemandSider12 hours ago
Insurance stocks rose with the passage of ACA. I don’t think they’ll rise with single payer. Manufacturers should rejoice, however, as their expenses will fall a lot.
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booboospal11 hours ago
Assuming a President Sanders could get his proposal through Congress, how would it affect (adversely?) the 50 million and increasing number of folks now getting Medicare benefits?
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CPR8 hours ago
@booboospal Well it would greatly impact the hundred thousand plus people that work in private insurance or in support of it.
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booboospal8 hours ago
CPR: Do you know the answer to my question?
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pulsecolo7 hours ago
it would do nothing to adversely affect those folks, the only thing that would happen is that the advantage plans would go away. But, there would no longer be a need for advantage plans as better coverage would prevail for all seniors as well as the rest of us with everyone in the pool. Keep in mind, that the Silver exchange plans under the ACA, that most Americans have with the subsidies, have much higher deductibles and out of pocket costs than traditional Medicare does without any advantage plan at all. The insurance industry successfully lobbied and sold America on the “snake oil need” for advantage plans. Advantage plans have a daily deductible for in hospital stays, and do not cover long term care. Plus, when seniors sign up for them, they may actually be paying more in the long run than had they banked the money they are spending for those plans.
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booboospal6 hours ago
pulse:
Would there still be Part B premiums?
Would retiree pension and investment income be taxed more than now to pay insurance costs?
Would there still be a need for supplementary coverage?
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JRCHICT6 hours ago
@booboospal all good questions.
I’m pretty sure though that we’ll have many who will expect to be perfect right out of the gate. Find any and all reasons to condemn it as we’ve done w/ ACA
Primarily use it as a political football.
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medianone6 hours ago
@booboospal Again, all good questions. And shouldn’t debate on universal health care also include looking at other countries who’ve successfully implemented such systems? Their costs, outcomes, sustainability, etc?
Seems like this debate has been ongoing for decades, at least since Hillary Care proposals. And if other countries have been successfully operating single payer systems and covering 100% of their populations, it is a wonder our “top men” haven’t been able to track these successes and implement them here.
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JRCHICT6 hours ago
@medianone @booboospal I’m not sure our “top men” care more about taking the money from the lobbyists of the health and insurance corporations for same old same old, or they’re interested in doing what’s right for us.
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booboospal10 hours ago
My former employer pays a fixed monthly amount (adjusted each year) toward employee AND RETIREE and dependent health insurance. So far it has been enough $$ to cover a Blue Cross supplemental policy AND the basic tier Medicare Part B premium for both my wife and me. Of course both of us paid for Part A (hospitalization) Medicare coverage by payroll tax while we were employed.
How would the Sanders proposal affect us?
Anyone?
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CNN User8 hours ago
@DemandSider
Republicans: you blame non religions christians, atheists,Muslims, blacks,Hindus, Obama,gays etc. for US weak middle class,but the real problem is no healthcare,expensive college, no paid maternity leave etc. —- -evil socialist countries all rank higher in median wealth(or wealth of the middle class) Source: http://www.middleclasspoliticaleconomist.com/2013/06/us-median-wealth-only-28th-in-world.html
(Before you republicans blame colored people, remember that UAE, Kuwait , Qatar, Singapore have a high percentage of colored folks but still have a richer middle class than us )
If you don’t believe my source just google “median wealth by country” and you will see similar results.
We dont have paid maturity leave, free healthcare or free or reduced college. We are the only developed country to not have this. Thats why we rank so low.
dem. states have a lower percentage of uninsured than republican states
Those are some really poorly educated theories shown above generated by a society raised on a terrible public school system which taught them all the wrong things. The basic instruction was that mixed economies such as what Scandinavian socialism proposes is the answer to equal distribution of resources without considering what the source of the value of what’s distributed entailed. For years the word on the street was that the United States would become more service oriented as other countries would become the producers. Otherwise, China and the Gulf States would make most of our American stuff and we’d have more time to think about things and have service jobs to sustain those “intellectual” pursuits. Well, that plan hasn’t worked out. The “money” jobs are now overseas and socialists think that by raising McDonald’s jobs to $15 an hour that the “middle class” will be sustained. Only idiot academics who live in a campus bubble could have concocted such a stupid notion. Only laissez-faire capitalism will solve our problems. Not crony capitalism which is what the pharmaceuticals and oil conglomerates have—I’m talking about open markets competing with each other to offer the most superior product for the lowest price.
All the countries mentioned above, places like UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Singapore are ultimately servicing the United States demand for products. The United States creates the global demand with their $17 trillion a year in gross domestic product. That GDP in order to survive by the way must increase by nearly double just for us to hope to survive as a country—and for the world in general to even have a chance. Without the United States all those mentioned countries wither away and die. So they are not examples of success or flowering epitaphs to managed economies. Socialism is the tombstone that the epitaph needs to be inscribed upon, because it has not worked. The United States is the only life support the world has. It is sad that more people don’t understand that.
The next president cannot be a Democrat. The House and Senate can’t just have Republicans; it has to have “conservative” Republicans the likes of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Whoever is in the executive branch will have to be willing to fight the world and idiots like those in the comments above from their instructed commitments to socialism and convince them to embrace not just capitalism, but the most open form of it imaginable– laissez-faire. We are no longer at a “theory” phase in this global economic struggle. We are at the rubber hitting the road phase and it’s not the time for games. If the situation doesn’t get fixed right here and now it will be over in the future. Because there are just too many socialists who are having kids and are raising them to be just as stupid as they are—the evidence is right above you—they do exist. Astonishingly they somehow manage to feed themselves, but they aren’t much good for anything else. But they do vote.
Little things matter to me quite a lot. I notice everything and of my many careers over a lifetime, one of them will be a cultural expert where psychology, art, religion, economics and all other forms of unnamed human ambition find their way into every created thing on earth. I grew up for as long as I can remember wanting to be a film director—but not being a very collaborative person—relegated that desire for more inward pursuits. Because of all that I can say with great provocation that the world is in a severe cultural decline. America obviously leads the world in culture—even though many academics might dispute it. The evidence is in our movie houses and our music with great audacious display. So rather than slide my predilections into the direction of the current pendulum swinging culture of global unification I am focusing much more these days on American westerns as a foundation philosophy that stands in contrast to the world currently presented to us.
I was born in 1968 and a few months after my birth one of the greatest films ever made was released—it was a Sergio Leone western called Once Upon a Time in the West. Leone was an Italian director interpreting American westerns for a country trying to fight its way back from cultural decay after World War II. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. Leone at the time was best known for his “Dollars” trilogy which made Clint Eastwood into a star. Those films are and have always been fantastic. But for the director Leone they gained him the opportunity to make the western of his dreams off the success of the previous Eastwood films. Paramount Pictures tossed the world to him along with a host of first class stars and Sergio Leone along with his musical collaborator Ennio Morricone spun a masterpiece called Once Upon a Time in the West.
Some of my very first television memories were these spaghetti westerns by Sergio Leone replaying on Channel 19 in Cincinnati. My grandfather loved westerns and whenever I was at his farm-house he had them on, so my mother also watched them all the time as well because it reminded her of her dad. Of them the Sergio Leone westerns reflected my own observations about people even when I was very young—and I soaked them up. Before I was ever in the kindergarten I was a fan of Once Upon a Time in the West. I often confused all Leone’s westerns together until I was just shy of ten and it was then when I began to appreciate Once Upon a Time in the West as something of its own. The Leone films had hard-wired themselves into my consciousness. My very first time in front of a television camera was when I was sixteen during “tough guy” week on Channel 19. “Tough guy week” was a ratings grab at Channel 19 so they ran Steve McQueen movies along with a lot of Clint Eastwood to bump up their winter numbers. At a young age I had evolved into having a “reputation” and I was sitting at the dinner table of a prominent Sharonville judge, his wife and the biggest criminal of Northern Cincinnati at the time. The event was a Chinese New Year advertisement for a restaurant that I worked at. One of the owner’s sons was a guy who liked to dip his feet into that type of world where justice sits at dinner tables with known criminals and he used me even at that young age as one of his “heavies.” I enjoyed the experience because I was essentially living the life of the protagonists in Sergio Leone’s westerns and I discovered by living those characters in real life that one of my favorite film directors was in fact a genius. As I sat at that table during that day long commercial recording talking to the judge and the crime lord obviously working together with me in the middle and being told by that same judge that when I got into trouble—he’d take care of it–I knew for me there was no going back. At too young of an age I knew way too much about the way the world worked. I was then and still am about 60 years ahead of myself and it does really go back to Leone’s westerns and my young introduction to them. When the commercial aired on television my family was one of the first people back then to have a VCR so I was able to tape it. My television appearance aired with the judge and the criminal seated on either side of me during a showing of For a Few Dollars More. During that same Channel 19 “tough guy” week Once Upon a Time in the West was shown again and I was able to see it as a 16-year-old actually doing in real life much of what the Charles Bronson character was doing in that film and I watched it with new understanding for the first time. It was as real and honest of any motion picture I had ever seen—it was to my eyes much better than The Godfather which was still making cultural waves in that year of 1985. A month later I was involved in a fight with a bunch of people which led to a tragic situation and if I had not been sitting at that table with that judge on that particular day for that commercial, I’d probably have a much different life than I do now and my freedoms would likely be greatly restricted.
I felt it was important for my wife to be to watch Once Upon a Time in the West to understand more about me, so I tried to show it to her early in our relationship. At the time she was a country club girl so she wasn’t ready for movies like that—where the opening was so strange and dramatic. She made fun of it heavily after the first seven minutes and I never tried again to show it to her until January of 2016. I had meant to show the movie to my children at some point so given all my history with it I felt that they should see the movie. I bought the cut of the film that had been restored to 165 minutes as opposed to the version I had seen as a kid, the 145 minute version which was a bit more confusing, and relished being able to finally show it to my wife and at least some of my kids. It was a great experience. The music from Ennio Morricone was so good in that movie that I have used it often to raise my mind above times of incredible stress. Even though my wife didn’t like Once Upon a Time in the West at first I still loved it and thought of it often to carry me through tough times. I was 25-years old and in deep trouble. I had more legal problems and had law suits directed at me from several directions and I had to tap into that raw, primal civility that I had refined when I was 16, where I could walk into any situation and just take care of things no matter how bad the guys on the other side of the table were—or who hid in the shadows where you parked your car. I had for the first time a CD collection of Ennio Morricone’s music which featured a scene on the front from Once Upon a Time in the West. By the 1990s the film was considered an obscure classic and nobody remembered it much except for filmmakers and people who were particularly fascinated with cultural phenomenon. In the hardest days of my life I listened to the music from Once Upon a Time in the West to serve as my moral compass—and it has always worked for me. I sat in my office back then with the world coming down around me and would listen to those Morricone soundtracks and think of “The Man with the Harmonica”—that haunting melody which spoke of revenge, perseverance, and the growth of a human into an Übermensch (German for “Overman, Overhuman, Above-Human, Superman, Superhuman, Ultraman, Ultrahuman, Beyond-Man”; German pronunciation: [ˈˀyːbɐmɛnʃ]) As readers here know I think a lot of the concept which is from the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also Sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. It is a work of philosophical allegory, with a structural similarity to the Gathas of Zoroaster/Zarathustra. I learned later that my love of Sergio Leone had more to do with the concept of the Übermensch than of the westerns themselves—but I can say that there is an honesty in Once Upon a Time in the West that is not present in any other form of art and it should be experienced—especially these days.
After directing The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Leone decided to retire from Westerns and desired to produce his film based on The Hoods, which eventually becameOnce Upon a Time in America. However, Leone accepted an offer from Paramount Pictures to provide access to Henry Fonda and to use a budget to produce another Western film. He recruited Bertolucci and Argento to devise the plot of the film in 1966, researching other Western films in the process. After Clint Eastwood turned down an offer to play the movie’s protagonist, Bronson was offered the role. During production, Leone recruited Donati to rewrite the script due to concerns over time limitations.
The original version by the director was 166 minutes (2 hours and 46 minutes) when it was first released on December 21, 1968. This was the version that was to be shown in European cinemas and was a box office success. For the US release on May 28, 1969, Once Upon a Time in the West was edited down to 145 minutes (2 hours and 25 minutes) by Paramount and was a financial flop. The film is considered by some to be the first installment in Leone’s Once Upon a Time Trilogy, followed by Duck, You Sucker!, called Once Upon a Time… the Revolution in parts of Europe, and Once Upon a Time in America, though the films do not share any characters in common.
The film portrays two conflicts that take place around Flagstone, a fictional town in the American Old West: a land battle related to construction of a railroad, and a mission of vengeance against a cold-blooded killer. A struggle exists for Sweetwater, a piece of land near Flagstone containing the region’s only water source. The land was bought by Brett McBain (Frank Wolff), who foresaw that the railroad would have to pass through that area to provide water for the steam locomotives. When crippled railroad tycoon Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) learns of this, he sends his hired gun Frank (Henry Fonda) to intimidate McBain to move off the land, but Frank instead kills McBain and his three children, planting evidence to frame the bandit Cheyenne (Jason Robards). It appears the land has no owner; however, a former prostitute (Claudia Cardinale) arrives from New Orleans, revealing she is Jill McBain, Brett’s new wife and the owner of the land.
Meanwhile, a mysterious harmonica-playing gunman (Charles Bronson), whom Cheyenne later dubs “Harmonica”, pursues Frank. In the film’s opening scene, Harmonica kills three men sent by Frank to kill him. In a roadhouse on the way to Sweetwater, he informs Cheyenne that the three gunfighters appeared to be posing as Cheyenne’s men.
Back at Sweetwater, construction materials are delivered to build a railroad station and a small town. Harmonica explains that Jill will lose Sweetwater unless the station is built by the time the track’s construction crews reach that point, so Cheyenne puts his men to work building it.
Frank turns against Morton, who wanted to make a deal with Jill; Morton’s disability makes him unable to fight back. After having sex with Jill, Frank forces her to sell the property in an auction. He tries to buy the farm cheaply by intimidating the other bidders, but Harmonica arrives, holding Cheyenne at gunpoint, and makes a much higher bid based on his reward money for delivering Cheyenne to the authorities. Harmonica rebuffs an offer by Frank to buy the farm from him for one dollar more than he paid at the auction. As Cheyenne is placed on a train bound for the Yuma prison, two members of his gang purchase one-way tickets for the train, intending to help him escape.
Frank’s men betray and ambush him, having been paid by Morton to turn against him, but—much to Jill’s outrage—Harmonica helps Frank kill them, intending to kill Frank himself. Frank returns to Morton, only to find that he and the rest of Frank’s men have been killed in a battle with Cheyenne’s gang. Frank then goes to Sweetwater to confront Harmonica. On two occasions, Frank has asked Harmonica who he is, but both times Harmonica refused to answer him. Instead, he mysteriously quoted names of men Frank has murdered. This time, Harmonica says he will reveal who he is “only at the point of dying”. The two men position themselves for a duel, at which point Harmonica’s motive for revenge is revealed in a flashback:
A younger Frank, already a cruel bandit, is forcing a boy to support on his shoulders his older brother, whose neck is in a noose strung from an arch. As the boy struggles to hold his brother’s weight, Frank stuffs a harmonica into the boy’s mouth and tells him to play. The brother curses Frank and kicks his brother away, and dies.
Harmonica draws first and shoots Frank. As he lies dying, Frank again asks who he is, whereupon the harmonica is placed in Frank’s mouth. Frank nods weakly in recognition and dies. Harmonica and Cheyenne say goodbye to Jill, who is supervising construction of the railway station as the track-laying crews reach Sweetwater. Cheyenne collapses, revealing that he had been fatally shot by Morton during the fight with Frank’s gang. The work train arrives, Jill carrying water to the rail workers, while Harmonica rides away with Cheyenne’s body.
Leone’s intent was to take the stock conventions of the American Westerns of John Ford, Howard Hawks and others, and rework them in an ironic fashion, essentially reversing their intended meaning in their original sources to create a darker connotation.[22] The most obvious example of this is the casting of veteran film good guy Henry Fonda as the villainous Frank, but there are also many other, more subtle reversals throughout the film. According to film critic and historian Christopher Frayling, the film quotes from as many as 30 classic American Westerns.
The major films referenced include:
High Noon(1952): The opening sequence is similar to the opening of High Noon, in which three bad guys (Lee Van Cleef, Sheb Wooley and Robert J. Wilke) are shown waiting for the arrival of their leader (named Frank, played by Ian MacDonald) on the noon train. In the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West, three bad guys (Jack Elam, who appeared in a small part in High Noon, Woody Strode, and Al Mulock) take over and wait at a train station. However, the period of waiting is depicted in a lengthy ten-minute sequence, the train arrives several hours after noon, and its passenger is one of the film’s heroes (Charles Bronson) rather than its villain. The scene is famous for its use of natural sounds: a squeaky windmill, knuckles cracking, and Jack Elam’s character trying to shoo off a fly. According to rumor, Leone offered the parts of the three gunmen to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly stars Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach.[23]
3:10 to Yuma(1957): This cult Western by Delmer Daves may have had considerable influence on the film. The most obvious reference is a brief exchange between Keenan Wynn‘s Sheriff and Cheyenne, in which they discuss sending the latter to Yuma In addition, as in West the main villain is played by an actor (Glenn Ford) who normally played good guys. The film also features diegetic music (Ford at one point whistles the film’s theme song just as Harmonica provides music in West). And the scene in which Van Heflin‘s character escorts Ford to the railroad station while avoiding an ambush by his gang may have inspired the ambush of Frank by his own men in Leone’s film.
The Comancheros(1961): The names “McBain” and “Sweetwater” may come from this film. (Contrary to popular belief, the name of the town “Sweetwater” was not taken from Victor Sjöström‘s silent epic dramaThe Wind. Bernardo Bertolucci has stated that he looked at a map of the southwestern United States, found the name of the town in Arizona, and decided to incorporate it into the film. However, both “Sweetwater” and a character named “McBain” appeared in The Comancheros, which Leone admired.[24])
Johnny Guitar(1954): Jill and Vienna have similar backstories (both are former prostitutes who become saloonkeepers), and Harmonica, like Sterling Hayden‘s title character, is a mysterious, gunslinging outsider known by his musical nickname. Some of West’s central plot (Western settlers vs. the railroad company) may be recycled from Nicholas Ray’s film.[24]
The Iron Horse(1924): West may contain several subtle references to this film, including a low angle shot of a shrieking train rushing towards the screen in the opening scene, and the shot of the train pulling into the Sweetwater station at the end.[24]
Shane(1953): The massacre scene in West features young Timmy McBain out hunting with his father, just as Joey does in this movie. The funeral of the McBains is borrowed almost shot-for-shot from Shane.[24]
Vera Cruz(1954): In both films, Charles Bronson’s character plays a harmonica and is known only by a nickname.
The Searchers(1956): Leone admitted that the rustling bushes, the silencing of cicada chirps, and the fluttering pheasants that suggest a menace approaching the farmhouse when the McBain family is massacred were all taken from The Searchers. The ending of the film—where Western nomads Harmonica and Cheyenne move on rather than join modern society—also echoes the famous ending of Ford’s film.[24]
Warlock(1959): At the end of this film, Henry Fonda’s character wears clothing very similar to his costume throughout West. In addition, Warlock features a discussion about mothers between Fonda and Dorothy Malone that is similar to those between Cheyenne and Jill in West. Finally, Warlock contains a sequence in which Fonda’s character kicks a crippled man off his crutches, as he does to Mr. Morton in West.
The Magnificent Seven(1960): In this film, Charles Bronson’s character whittles a piece of wood. In West, he does the same, although in a different context. The Magnificent Seven was based on Seven Samuraiby Akira Kurosawa, whose film Yojimbo (“The Bodyguard”) was the inspiration (and later, litigation) behind Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars.
Winchester ’73(1950): It has been claimed that the scenes in West at the trading post are based on those in Winchester ’73, but the resemblance is slight.[24]
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance(1962): The dusters (long coats) worn by Cheyenne and his gang (and by Frank and his men while impersonating them) resemble those worn by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his henchmen when they are introduced in this film. In addition, the auction scene in West was intended to recall the election scene in Liberty Valance.[24]
Duel in the Sun(1946): The character of Morton, the crippled railroad baron in West, was based on the character played by Lionel Barrymore in this film.[24]
Sergeant Rutledge(1960): This John Ford Western, featuring Woody Strode as the title character, has a scene in which Constance Towers falls asleep in a chair with a rifle in her lap, just as Jill McBain does in Leone’s film.
My Darling Clementine(1946): In the trading post scene, Cheyenne slides Harmonica’s gun down the bar to him, challenging him to shoot – much like Morgan Earp (Ward Bond) sliding his weapon to brother Wyatt (Henry Fonda) in the Ford film when the Earps meet Doc Holliday (Victor Mature) for the first time. Also, a deleted scene in West featured Frank getting a shave with perfume in a barber’s shop, much like Fonda’s Wyatt.
Once Upon a Time in the West was itself explicitly referenced in The Quick and the Dead, when John Herod (Gene Hackman), faces Ellen (Sharon Stone), better known as “The Lady,” in a climactic gunfight. Ellen’s identity is a mystery until the end, when the audience sees Ellen’s flashback to Herod lynching her father, a sheriff. The sadistic Herod gives Ellen (then only a little girl) a chance to save her father by shooting through and breaking the rope wrapped around his neck, but Ellen accidentally kills her father by shooting him in the forehead. As with Frank, Herod yells “Who are you?”, and the only response he receives is an artifact from the earlier lynching—in this case, the sheriff’s badge that Ellen has kept all these years. The Quick and the Dead has another connection to Once Upon a Time in the West: It was the final film for Woody Strode, who died before it could be released.
Many other films have paid tribute to Once Upon a Time in the West over the years: Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglourious Basterds opens with a lengthy sequence entitled Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France (a phrase also used as a tagline for the 2009 film) which introduces the film’s primary villain and features the mass shooting of a family at a farmhouse; Tarantino’s Kill Bill films utilize snatches of Morricone’s harmonica and guitar soundtrack; Back to the Future Part III recreates the station rooftop scene from Once Upon a Time in the West; Baz Luhrmann‘s Australia features several nods to Leone’s film, including a homestead with a squeaky windmill, an almost-identical funeral scene, and an antagonistic relationship between the film’s villains; and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End features a parody of the “Man With a Harmonica” theme on the soundtrack, as the film’s protagonists parley on a sandbar before the final battle.
A lot of people I think have the same reaction my wife had to Once Upon a Time in the West the first time they see it. Let me tell you that 25 years after she laughed at it the first time, she wasn’t laughing any more. Nobody is laughing any more, I can say that. She had grown to appreciate what the film had been saying for decades. She had learned by middle life what I had known as a 16-year-old, and once you know those types of things there is only one place for your mind to go. You either become an Übermensch of some kind or you go insane. There are a lot of characters in the world like Henry Fonda’s “Frank.” And there is only one way to deal with them and Sergio Leone knew how to capture that conflict on-screen like no other person I’ve ever seen in film. A lot of film makers have tried to capture the magic of Once Upon a Time in the West, but they never get it all. Now, nearly five decades later the extremely bright international culture that produced that great film is nearly vanished. It’s not a great film just because it’s a western—but because of the metaphors presented in the seemingly simplistic tapestry of the western—as it was invented in America.
It doesn’t matter that Sergio Leone took an American hero like Henry Fonda and made him into the villain—it’s that Leone knew how to take the strength of his characters whether it be Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood and turn them into Übermenschs to deal with overwhelming evil captured quite accurately. I always think of that dinner table during that filming of the Chinese New Year commercial and how it reminded me so much of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. But even more than that it reminded me of Frank from Once Upon a Time in the West. When Jill gets mad at Harmonica for helping keep Frank alive—it is for the reasons provided that many of the mysteries of our lives go unfulfilled. And yes I’m talking in a bit of a riddle here, but to get the answer watch the movie and remember the line, “time flies.” Knowing what to do with an enemy after you’ve identified them as such is what I have always found valuable about westerns. To understand that you have an enemy is to have a set of values that an enemy fights against and in Once Upon a Time in the West that conflict is poetically displayed in ways that no film has ever mastered as well. Many have tried but nobody has been able to hit it as well as Sergio Leone. Time does fly, whether it’s a 16 year old discovering the truth of how a childhood movie favorite applies to the real world of politics and intrigue and how rivers are often polluted with the remains of politics washed off the parking lot after a strong rain—with the personal stamp of approval from a kindly old judge—or a wife who had grown over the years to see something totally different from her young 20-year-old eyes were ready to appreciate. Some movies reflect culture—others like Sergio Leone’s films make it. And that is why I think so much of him and his films—particularly, Once Upon a Time in the West. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Because “time flies” and so do good ideas—you have to hit them when you get the chance for the motivations only you know about—even if the morality for it only exists outside of time and space in a mythical realm where justice truly does rule—not with blinders—but a six-gun and a lot of tenacity.
I really want to like Quentin Tarantino. I am actually thankful that he has resurrected some fresh music out of the great Italian musical genius of Ennio Morricone in his films Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. I really enjoyed Django Unchained, parts of it, but found the politics distracting. His obvious hatred of the South was too much to fully enjoy his attempt at a western—and I have skipped The Hateful Eight at the box office because I know that Tarantino and his producers at the Weinstein Company are hopeless leftists. Obviously, there are a lot of people who feel the same way as I do. While watching The O’Reilly Factor recently I noticed that The Hateful Eight was under performing at the box office which surprised me. I have been tempted to see it basically to witness that magnificent 70 mm lens Tarantino shot the film with along with an original score by Ennio Morricone. But the politics of Tarantino is just too much to really enjoy his movies completely. With everything that’s good, there are equally bad points politically motivated. But, one thing I do have in common with him is a love of Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. I don’t take pleasure in watching The Hateful Eight fail at the box office. I’d like to see it do well because Hollywood producers will blame the loses on the western genre and not on Tarantino himself, but it is clear that one of the most studied film directors in the world presently is just a second-hander from Knoxville, Tennessee named after the Burt Reynolds character in Gunsmoke. He is not capable of creating from scratch the wildly imaginative stories that Ennio Morricone produced music for as seen below by the Spaghetti Western Orchestra. I must warn you dear reader that some of this is very strange, but as a human achievement applied to the western genre, it was wildly innovative and distinct—and is the reason that a video store clerk like Tarantino wanted to get into film to begin with. Unfortunately the young man missed most of the message and lost sight of the Cowboy Way as a key element to the story. If The Good the Bad and the Ugly is Tarantino’s favorite film, he has grown as a filmmaker into making movies like it, but he obviously forgot to include the good in this plots. And that is ultimately why The Hateful Eight is failing.
I have offered to help modern Hollywood with their problems several times. But I have not been willing to compromise my essential conservatism to do so. To me the Cowboy Way is a very real thing and I live it not just in writing and being in front of the camera—but off-camera as well. I am quite certain that John Wayne would not be able to make films in modern Hollywood—and because of that—I stopped worrying about contributing to the industry to make it better. Many fans of westerns think the many hundreds of Italian westerns called the “spaghetti western” were not a proper reflection of the American western because they often featured “anti-heroes.” It is that aspect that Quentin Tarantino seems particularly obsessed with. Spaghetti westerns often featured complex characters that didn’t always seem so bad or so good, but were sometimes blended together as a kind of gritty combo that made the viewer question the nature of morality. However, I disagree. I think Sergio Leone and his musical collaborator Ennio Morricone were reflections of Nietzsche’s “Übermensch” and that is the key to understanding the morality of the best spaghetti westerns. They aren’t just revenge pictures, they are about the characters overcoming their human limitations to rise above their competition—such as Clint Eastwood surviving gun shots to the heart to beat his rival in the climax of A Fistful of Dollars, or Charles Bronson facing down death and all its possibilities to kill the man who tortured and hung his brother in Once Upon a Time in the West—a wonderful movie. Tarantino understood the revenge, but he missed the “Übermensch” aspect of the characters.
At least at the end of Django Unchained the hero rode off into the sunset with his girl—and I thought that was good. Unfortunately the character succeeded not because he was an Übermensch” but because his rivals were stupid Southern slave holders which of course cheapened the essence of the story. That made Django Unchained a lot of fun and it was truly enjoyable to hear Ennio Morricone again in a western (or what looked like a western) but it lacked the punch of the classic Sergio Leone westerns which is sadly unfortunate, because obviously Tarantino was shooting for that. If I thought he had made an inspired picture uniquely produced by Quentin Tarantino motivated by Sergio Leone I’d go see The Hateful Eight in a second.
I love the spaghetti westerns because of what they represented as an export of American value. Italy was suffering a huge cultural emptiness after the failures of World War II, just as the Japanese had, and they turned to American cinema as a way to lift themselves out of the dust. The Japanese made samurai films based on American westerns and the Italians made westerns for the same reason—so it makes me feel good that America was able to help those two fascist cultures re-invent themselves after their failed insurrections during a colossal world war. Their interpretation of the American western involved a little bit of Nietzsche along with some very innovative music and to me that’s inspiring. America and its values were able to help the world heal after a terrible tragedy and allow them to contribute aspects of their society applied to an American invention and I think that was a very healthy thing for their nations. I love “spaghetti westerns” for that reason. That is my idea of culture—where America exports an idea based on freedom and other societies use that art to lift themselves up to a higher level of thought. The Good the Bad and the Ugly is one of those types of films, it yearns to define a confusing world where good guys and bad guys weren’t so obvious but in the end there was no question. Clint Eastwood could have taken all the gold at the end, but he didn’t. He left his partner with a fair share even though that partner had tried to betray him many times throughout the movie. The “ugly” represented in that classic film could have easily been Italy itself after the war with the old guard of fascism being the “bad.” The “good” was obviously the United States who won World War II and could have taken all the gold, but they didn’t. They took their share of the spoils, but left plenty for everyone else, which is the metaphorical reason that the Sergio Leone movies have so much meaning even now. The Ennio Morricone music simply captured that ambition with extremely creative endeavor that was very unique at the time induced from risk.
Quentin Tarantino missed a lot of these points and all the filmmakers studying him are also going to make the same failure. Tarantino would argue against it, but a movie audience requires a moral tapestry to hang their belief system against—and if that audience has lost that system, they require the filmmaker to give it to them. If neither the audience nor the filmmaker is offering that tapestry, then the project will fail. American westerns helped pull Italy out of the fascism of Mussolini—which was wonderful for their culture. The cinematic western was big enough to even allow other cultures to add their imprint, which Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone was able to apply through art. Tarantino as a filmmaker is missing the essence of his favorite films. He makes movies that look and sound like his favorites, but they lack the punch of those classics because Quentin himself is still trying to figure out what they meant to him. His foundation philosophy is in conflict. He was raised by a guy who loved Burt Reynolds so much that the film director was named after the Gunsmoke character. Now, as a big time Hollywood director surrounded by leftist filmmakers and knuckle dragging slobs— Quentin thinks he’s the standard of filmmaking regarding modern art. Unfortunately, he’s not acquired the mentality of Sergio Leone or Akira Kurasawa yet—and based on his present trajectory, he won’t get there by age 60—and likely never will. So I’ll wait for The Hateful Eight to come out on video and I’ll watch it on my nice television. I may even buy it if Wal-Mart offers it in their $5 bargain bin. But that’s all it means to me, and that fault is Tarantino’s. I get the feeling it wouldn’t take much for Quentin Tarantino and I to be good friends—there is a lot that we both like in common. But he is stuck creatively by the Hollywood priority to have him remain a second-hander to the past instead of doing as a human being what Ennio Morricone did so many years ago—and that’s take a wild chance on a uniquely individual artistic endeavor built by a lifetime of experience.
I heard you! You do not support Governor Kasich for President – even if the Ohio GOP State Central Committee does.
You reenergized my faith in the Constitutional people of Ohio! Yesterday I sent out an email about the Ohio Republican State Central Committee’s endorsement of Governor Kasich. An endorsement by a party means the members of that party are expected to support the candidate.
I received over 200 emails in two hours yesterday telling me ‘Hell No.’ The stories about Governor Kasich and the disdain for the Ohio Republican Party State Central Committee’s endorsement of Kasich was incredible. I could feel the anger coming out of my computer.
Governor Kasich says he balanced Ohio’s budget – all Governors have to balance Ohio’s budget, it’s in the Ohio Constitution. He says he created jobs in Ohio – his term started after the crash in 2008. Yes, there were more jobs created in Ohio after 2008 but was it Kasich that created the jobs or the free market starting to improve? He takes credit for the jobs that our small business owners work hard and create – you didn’t build that Governor Kasich.
Governor Kasich’s support of Common Core, his expanding Medicaid using Obamacare, his increase of spending in Ohio by 30%, his standing in the way of Right to Work, his raising taxes – all of these things and more are reasons that he is not the best choice for President.
I think we all agree that we want a President that will stand by the Constitution and give America a plan to move this country forward, not backward, toward freedom. Whoever that candidate is for you, vote for him or her. No one has the right to expect you to vote a certain way, party or not.
We want political parties that stand on principle, not on who they can get elected. Shame on the State Central Committee. They are up for reelection this March; we must watch those races.
Your mission over the next eight weeks is to make sure everyone you know is ready to vote on March 15, or early vote at your county Board of Elections, starting February 17th. This is the most important primary in the history of the United States of America. Everyone who cares about the future of this country needs to get out and vote!
One of the biggest issues I heard about regarding Governor Kasich was his support of Common Core. I really thought he would flip-flop on this by now, but he is standing strong with Common Core.
A horrible choice for our kids and Ohio Governor Kasich!
I had the privilege of hearing Heidi Huber give an update on Common Core last night. The video is below. We must stand together to make the change we want to see.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontologicalethical theory ascribed to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The theory, developed as a result of Enlightenment rationalism, is based on the view that the only intrinsically good thing is a good will; an action can only be good if its maxim – the principle behind it – is duty to the moral law. Central to Kant’s construction of the moral law is the categorical imperative, which acts on all people, regardless of their interests or desires. Kant formulated the categorical imperative in various ways. His principle of universalisability requires that, for an action to be permissible, it must be possible to apply it to all people without a contradiction occurring. His formulation of humanity as an end in itself requires that humans are never treated merely as a means to an end, but always also as ends in themselves. The formulation of autonomy concludes that rational agents are bound to the moral law by their own will, while Kant’s concept of the Kingdom of Ends requires that people act as if the principles of their actions establish a law for a hypothetical kingdom. Kant also distinguished between perfect and imperfect duties. A perfect duty, such as the duty not to lie, always holds true; an imperfect duty, such as the duty to give to charity, can be made flexible and applied in particular time and place. (Sound like Kasich?)
In political philosophy, Kant has had wide and increasing influence with the major political philosopher of the late twentieth century, John Rawls, drawing heavily on his inspiration in setting out the basis for a liberal view of political institutions. The nature of Rawls’ use of Kant has engendered serious controversy but has demonstrated the vitality of Kantian considerations across a wider range of questions than was once thought plausible.
The poet Heine, who was a friend of Marx and upon whom the latter at one time had a great influence, depicted very vividly Kant’s motives for treading the two paths. Kant had an old and faithful servant, Lampe, who had lived with, and attended to, his master for forty years. For Kant this Lampe was the personification of the average man who could not live without religion. After a brilliant exposition of the revolutionary import of the Critique of Pure Reason in the struggle with theology and with the belief in a Divine Principle, Heine explained why Kant found it necessary to write the Critique of Practical Reason in which the philosopher re-established everything he had torn down before. Here is what Heine wrote:
“After the tragedy comes the farce. Immanuel Kant has hitherto appeared as the grim, inexorable philosopher; he has stormed heaven, put all the garrison to the sword; the ruler of the world swims senseless in his blood; there is no more any mercy, or fatherly goodness, or future reward for present privations; the immortality of the soul is in its last agonies — death rattles and groans. And old Lampe stands by with his umbrella under his arm as a sorrowing spectator, and the sweat of anguish and tears run down his cheeks. Then Immanuel Kant is moved to pity, and shows himself not only a great philosopher, but a good man. He reconsiders, and half good-naturedly and half ironically says, ‘Old Lampe must have a God, or else the poor man cannot be happy, and people really ought to be happy in this world. Practical common sense declares that. Well, meinet wegen, for all I care, let practical reason guarantee the existence of a God.'” [Heinrich Heine, Collected Works. W. Heineman, London, 1906. Vol. 5, pp. 150-151.]
That’s how the political left has been able to implement and enact a communist strategy while at the same time convincing people who think they are hard-core conservative Central Committee members that they are doing the work established by Immanuel Kant. What they don’t know is that Kant put down the foundations of Marxism which would evolve into open communism to essentially destroy the economy of Russia allowing Europe to rise to power after World War I. It’s all German philosophy people. But eventually Kant would influence John Rawls who nearly singlehandedly brought detrimental liberalism to most political institutions academic and social. His magnum opus, A Theory of Justice (1971), was said at the time of its publication to be “the most important work in moral philosophy since the end of World War II“[4]and is now regarded as “one of the primary texts in political philosophy”.[5] His work in political philosophy, dubbed Rawlsianism,[6] takes as its starting point the argument that “the most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree to from a fair position”.[5] Rawls attempts to determine the principles of social justice by employing a number of thought experiments such as the famous original position in which everyone is impartially situated as equals behind a veil of ignorance.[5] He is one of the major thinkers in the tradition of liberal political philosophy. According to English philosopher Jonathan Wolff, while there could be a “dispute about the second most important political philosopher of the 20th century, there could be no dispute about the most important: John Rawls”.[4]
Hey, this very nice young lady understands, Linda Lleshaj has found herself in the middle of some vigorous media attention after she was photographed at a Trump rally wearing one of the Alex Jones t-shirts promoting Hillary Clinton for Prison in 2016. As 2015 closes and 2016 opens a new fashion trend is emerging against Hillary Clinton as millions of Americans have watched her on live television snake her way out of the email scandals, and a movie about government incompetency that she is responsible for is at the movie theaters still trying to deal with the Benghazi killings of innocent Americans in Libya. We’ve watched the debt clock continue to tick upward, then we’ve watched the FBI and the White House fight over the definition of terrorism in San Bernardino as two ISIS sympathizers murdered innocent people just as Obama was trying to cover the tracks of his folly in Syria by letting refuges implant themselves in America to avoid violence there that he caused-making lives for all of us far more dangerous. Obama was far more concerned about gun control than the possibility of more ISIS terrorists coming to America on converted UPS shipping planes under his authorization—and we are all just supposed to go back to sleep? Some are asleep, but many more aren’t and that number is growing every day. Some, like this very fine young lady know that we are at war and she’s doing something about it—and that’s good to see. You can get a shirt like the one she’s wearing at the following links and join the fun.
A radio guy got into a bit of a Twitter scuffle with me on Christmas Eve of 2015. When he wanted out of the clash he said to me, “It’s Christmas Eve! Go hug somebody who loves you.” My reply was, that I had those bases covered and to remind him that he was the one who brought up the following subject, which apparently angered him:
It will be impossible for Hillary to be POTUS against Trump. She’s a criminal and he won’t let anybody forget it.
Rich Hoffman added,
Michael Graham @IAMMGraham
Serious Q for Trump fans: If you knew with metaphysical certitude that voting for Trump would make Hillary POTUS, you’d still do it, right?
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Upon reading that I thought of George Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas Eve to gain a surprise attack against British forces for a victory that was badly needed for the revolution. You don’t win wars sitting around eating turkey and ham and praying at church—you take the fight to the enemy and you stay sharp at all hours of the day and night. For perhaps the 80th time in the short week leading up to Christmas Day I actually had to remind people that we were at war in America. That war is raging and that it was because our incompetent government has refused to acknowledge it that few know that we are in it. I have been saying things like that for longer than Trump has been running for President, as proof of these articles will testify to. I’ve been saying the same things that he’s saying now while he was still giving money to Democrats to help with zoning issues in New York and was focused on his hit show The Apprentice. But, because of what he brings to the fight, I welcome him with open arms—because he’s a tremendous asset to the cause of winning this “civil” war.
A few years ago the kind of people I explained this war to would have thought that I was a tin-hatted conspiracy theorist looking for a fight that wasn’t there. But this year at the Christmas parties and dinners celebrating the close of the fourth quarter of our economy rational people are now listening and I explained to them that they better be ready. The only way that there can be a peaceful conclusion to this war is that Trump gets elected president and takes this fight to the legislative process from the people’s house in the Executive Branch. Otherwise, the streets in America will become active as a civil war of chaos and anxiety. It’s not an organized fight the way the Civil War was in the 1860s over a few definitive issues. This civil war is over fundamental ideologies, the sovereignty of the United States as a nation, and the types of people who have tried to internally weaken it to allow the global community to merge with it.
On Christmas Eve my mail lady, who is a government employee, but is individually a very nice person gave me very strange looks as she brought several packages to my garage. It was a beautiful day so I had the door open to enjoy the weather. She was a little shocked to find me at my work bench wearing one of my guns holstered from my practice and working on several others. I had some time to clean and oil them, so I took advantage of the opportunity. She normally drops packages on the front porch and we never talk, but it was Christmas Eve, and she felt a need to make direct contact because my garage was closer than my porch for her. I thanked her, even though I could tell that she was anxious about the guns—which she shouldn’t have been. The packages were not Christmas presents, but were orders from Brownells for the maintenance of my guns. Specifically, I’m performing a trigger job on my Ruger Vaquero and the new springs were among the parts that were in the boxes she brought to me. I have been dusting off my old gunsmithing skills lately. I’m not doing it for money as of now because I don’t want to go through the trouble of obtaining a FFL, as I’ve had before. When you get one of those you have to get fingerprinted and an ATF agent suddenly has access to your premises to check your records. That’s one of the reasons I gave it up years ago. As she walked back to her delivery van I could see by the way she walked that she was still uneasy about me. If this were communist China—as the Obama administration clearly shows an inclination—she would report me to the enforcement police for reconditioning, one government employee reporting the activities of civilian activity to other government employees. They are nice people when you get to know them, but in their role as employees to the kind of system that is allowing Hillary Clinton to flourish as a Democratic candidate, they are the type of people who could be dire enemies tomorrow. I imagine there were some colorful conversations about me when she arrived back at the Post Office.
A few weeks ago I had an arrival from UPS that required hazmat approval, as the material was explosive in nature. The delivery guy expressed concern about the contents. As a fairly young man he had been trained through social conditioning that deliveries like that were “suspicious.” The government considers people like me more dangerous than their Syrian Trojan horses. I told the kid not to worry about it—“It’s not for a bomb,” I told him answering the question that I knew he wanted to ask. “It’s primers for my reloads, nothing bad.” But to young people trained to be nice government employees from their liberalized public schools and social conditioning, guns are bad—in anybody’s hands. So I added, “don’t worry, my mouth is far more dangerous than anything I have around here.” And that’s the truth.
I am aware that everything I do is being watched by the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA. So they know I’m no danger to the United States—because I am the embodiment of what an American truly is, or should be. But I’m not taking any crap from anybody, because I don’t have to. I know what it feels like to be watched, followed, and even have contracts against you, and it’s not a big deal to me. I’ve dealt with all that before, and apparently Trump has as well. What I like about him is that he’s not afraid of anything—which makes him my kind of person-regardless of politics. I like and respect fearless people. My mouth is the thing they fear the most—and when you understand that, you don’t have to use a gun for offense. The guns are for defense—in case some idiot wants to cross that line. Otherwise, my mouth does more work than an army of gun wielding patriots would—and I’m fine to keep it that way. But if someone loses their mind and wants to impose themselves on me or my rights as a free-born human being—they will have big trouble.
But as for offense, my mouth works just fine, because it is that kind of war. And in this kind of war, Donald Trump is as good as boots on the ground. He fights the kind of war the government is imposing well which gives a platform for young people like Linda Lleshaj to function within. That poor radio guy who wants a certain kind of Republican candidate is falsely assuming that we are not a nation at war, and that the 2016 election is just another cycle of idiots and fools who make promises that they never keep once they get into office. We don’t have time for another Paul Ryan type in an important government office. We have to literally capture the flag, because domestic enemies currently posses it under rules of war and only then can we talk about some sanity in politics. Because I’m not changing my life for anybody-I don’t have to. I play by the rules, I pay my taxes, and I work hard every single day. I take care of my family without government help and I give a lot more to the world around me than I take. I am not the problem and I see clearly the mismanagement of the people who have been responsible, so I wear my guns around the house just in case some desperate fool decides to short-cut sanity and take something that belongs to me. Otherwise, I will be happy to fight the war on the terms of modern battle, and that is mostly with my mouth and through potential elected candidates like Trump.
The essence, and cause of that war is Hillary Clinton and her support organizations—the people who keep her as a viable candidate in spite of severe criminal misconduct. I lived through the Clinton White House during the 90s and I’m not about to put up with that garbage again. She belongs in jail, not in the White House, and it’s about time that more people start realizing it. To her credit, Linda Lleshaj is part of a new generation who has to grapple with that reality. And it is great to see that she is awake and is actively trying to get other young people to wake up as well. Welcome to the battlefield Linda. It’s a Christmas present to me to know you’re out there. That is my idea of a good Christmas. So let’s all cross the metaphorical Delaware together and surprise everyone.
Don’t believe we are at war, watch all the videos above, completely. The evidence is quite clear.
Terrorism and the problems coming from it are the fault of a federal government that has failed to do its job. Most of the terrorist incidents in America over the last twenty years are the direct result of a failed government to do what they were supposed to. Yet their reaction is always that we should give them more government as a result of their incompetency, which most of us realize was a stupid thing to do. Then of course comes the next debate as to private companies having to protect themselves due to the ineffectual policies by the government to hedge against terrorism. People like me think an expansion of the Second Amendment is the needed result, whereas progressive organizations—like Disney believe in gun confiscation and more intrusions of personal liberty.
I am a long time fan of the Disney Company. So it pained me greatly not only to see that they made such a terribly progressive Star Wars film but that they have announced that they are getting rid of toy guns within their parks. For as long as I can remember Frontierland was a place where a child could buy a toy rifle and a coon skin cap as a memory of their Disney World visit. But not anymore. Regretfully, Disney as a company has let the liberal persuasion of capitalizing off government mismanagement marginalize their impact on the minds of our youth by pandering to gun grabbing politicians covering their own fallacies—purposely perpetrated, or by default—with gun censorship. I would go so far as to call the following announcement entirely un-American:
Disney announced that metal detectors will be installed at the entrance to Disneyland and its Florida theme parks starting Thursday. The enhanced security measures will also ban adults from wearing masks or costumes, and discontinue toy gun sales inside all parks.
The entertainment giant announced the changes quietly Thursday, saying they were not based on “any single event,” but were intended to help security personnel and to make guests feel secure.
The portable metal detectors will be positioned beyond the “bag check” area at Disneyland and Walt Disney World parks in Florida. Security personnel will randomly select some visitors to pass through the magnetometers as part of a secondary screening.
The company also announced that it will beef up the deployment of police officers contracted to help with security around the parks. At Disneyland, that means beefing up patrols by the Anaheim Police Department. Disney did not give details about the scope of the expansion.
Disneyland will also increase patrols by explosive-sniffing dogs around the parks and related properties, such as Downtown Disney and its resort hotels, the company said.
The ban on masks and costumes will apply to all guests over 14 years old. And the company will no longer sell toy guns inside its parks, or allow guests to carry toy guns with them, regardless of age. Spokeswoman Suzy Brown said the company banned the toy guns “to avoid confusion or distraction for our cast members and security personnel.”
The rules are an apparent response to recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Paris. Disney’s overseas parks will also enhance security, in accordance with recommendations from its experts at those locations, the company said.
The new rules are included on the company’s Disneyland Resort Park Rules page. “We continually review our comprehensive approach to security and are implementing additional security measures, as appropriate,” Brown said in a statement.
A Universal Studios Hollywood spokesperson said the park is testing metal detection as well, but doesn’t sell toy guns.
“We have begun testing metal detection at our theme park,” the spokesperson said. “We want our guests to feel safe when they come here. We’ve long used metal detection for special events, such as Halloween Horror Nights. This test is a natural progression for us as we study best practices for security in today’s world.”
Here is the hypocrisy of Disney, take away the guns and cannons from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and see how many people line up to ride, or see the movies. Take the guns out of Star Wars and see how much money the films make. Even though the gun was taken away from Woody in Toy Story, at least he had the holster. Guns and their application are a huge part of what has made Disney as a company successful in the past, and is at the heart of their continued success. Taking a stand against toy guns falls right in line with the rest of progressive leaning insurgents from teachers to politicians who are suspending children in public schools for wearing Star Wars characters holding guns on their clothing—in an attempt to change Americas love for firearms—culturally. One of the largest entertainment companies in the history of the world is taking a position against guns not for fear of terrorism, but to solidify the progressive plans of their friends and allies on the liberal side of politics. And it’s disgusting.
Walt Disney would be rolling over in his grave! Frontierland was intended to keep people from forgetting about their heritage in America—which revolved around the gun. The Disney Company has shown at many levels within a day of each other how radicalized against American tradition they have become. The Force Awakens was clearly a liberalized version of Star Wars—the most obvious one yet. In the film again regarding the space cowboy Han Solo there were occasions where he borrowed Chewbacca’s bow caster and was impressed by the power it exhibited. All Han Solo fans know that he prefers a powerful pistol which he’s often seen holding in promotional pictures. It is impossible to believe that as long as he’s known Chewbacca, for over 60 years–that he’s never had a chance to fire that weapon before. Likely there was a decision by the filmmakers to show that Solo appreciated “native” weapons to advance the progressive platform sympathetic to “native” cultures instead of imposing a particular viewpoint on others—it is a small world after all. It could also be that J.J. Abrams or somebody else just wanted to see Han Solo shoot Chewbacca’s gun in the film. But because of Disney’s behavior about guns and progressive acceptance of cultural values conspiracy theories are bound to flash across our minds.
Instead of slowly weaning America off firearms in their entertainment productions, why not go all the way and take guns out of their films and television shows completely? If you want to know the truth, Disney, the reason that The Lone Ranger flopped at the box office was largely because Tonto was the featured character and The Lone Ranger gunfighter aspect was greatly reduced so to appease the progressive activists. Americans wanted to see the gunfighter shooting guns, not flopping around in the film until the very end. So instead of taking guns out of the parks and hiding behind reasons of terrorism prevention to sell it to the public, why not just declare to the American public that as an organization you are against guns? Disney won’t do such a thing because it would have an impact on their bottom line.
The policy is pathetic and further evidence of how far the company has fallen from its roots of preserving traditional American values. The rest of the world is welcome to share in those values, but it should go without saying that American culture is the best, and it’s up to companies like Disney to communicate those values in a way that helps other cultures adapt aspects that might help them be more fruitful. It’s not Disney’s job to try to alter the advancement of American culture back to the ways of the lowly European history—the gun grabbing losers of progressive tendency. Further imposing restrictions on their park visitors with bans on “toy guns” when much of their revenue is generated from “guns” is disrespectful, and intolerable. And let me tell you this dear reader. It is well-known that I love Disney World and the surrounding parks affiliated with their company. But this will change my plans for many years. If Disney as a company will take a stand against guns like they have over this latest issue—I won’t plan a trip in the near future. I many abandon it all together as a future vacation destination. I will not spend my money on such a company. And there are many people like me who won’t either. It’s a pretty bad move on their part.
The Overmanwarrior 