Western Rifle Shooters Association

Do not give in to Evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it

Friday, July 31, 2009

Leaflets

Sixty-four years ago tomorrow, warning leaflets were dropped over major Japanese cities, reading as follows:

“Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.”

Five days later, on August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was obliterated by the first use of an atomic weapon against a populated target.

On August 9, 1945, a second atomic weapon was dropped by the US Army Air Force on Nagasaki.

Flash-cut to today.

At the American governmental Leviathan's current course and speed, is it not predictable that someday soon, government lackeys across the former Republic will soon be receiving modern versions of that warning leaflet?

Read this leaflet carefully, as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend.

In the next few months, personnel and facilities of some or all of the governmental agencies at the local, state, and Federal level listed below will be attacked and destroyed by free American men and women. Those personnel and facilities have been hired and used over the past decade to deprive Americans of their basic human rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable arrests, searches, and seizures. The operations of these personnel and facilities violate the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As such, we are determined to destroy the totalitarian vermin who have placed their interests ahead of their fellow Americans, as well as all of the tyrants' tools possessed by those traitors.

Unfortunately, despite every effort to target only specific personnel and facilities, innocent people may be accidentally injured by our actions. So, in accordance with America’s traditional beliefs in fair play and justice, American freedom fighters, who do not wish to injure innocent people, now urge you to do the following:

- If you possibly can, resign from your position in the government. As a believer in traditional American values, you should no longer be willing to aid and abet the monsters who use you to inflict their will on your fellow Americans.

- If you cannot resign from your position but believe that your agency is part of the totalitarian regime destroying this country, provide any and all information you believe might be useful to the American Restoration, in electronic or hard-copy format, to the following electronic and physical addresses:

[insert 3rd-world addresses located in nations estranged from the US government]

- If you must stay in your job, remember to "strike in place", whether by refusing to work efficiently, obstructing or sabotaging your agency's anti-freedom efforts, and/or by providing information regarding your agency's incompetence and/or corruption to as many media outlets as possible.

We in the American fighting forces will make every effort to provide specific advance warnings of attacks against specific targets, wherever possible, so as to minimize any risk to innocent Americans. Stay aware of your circumstances, and when in doubt, avoid government locations and the company of totalitarian collaborators.

Remember: if you are reading this leaflet, you are the American Resistance. Together, we can restore American political freedom and individual human rights.

DEATH TO TRAITORS, COLLABORATORS, AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES

[insert potential target list]

Food for thought, against a terrible hypothetical future.

Beck: The Horrific State of Politics in This Country, Now

Excerpted from Billy Beck:
***
... My net.reading over the last couple of days is fraught with every sort of bloody outrage, but this is very illuminating of the horrific state of politics in this country, now. This is criminal arrogance. No polity that values freedom could possibly brook that in peace. That doddering old sonofabitch -- and all like him -- would be instantly pitched straight into the Potomac. The implications of his audacity ought to be obvious, and I simply do not understand a people who would not be summarily done with him.

That's the very face of hell, right there.
***

Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and The Nation

For your weekend perusal, a long and thoughtful essay from Charles Hugh Smith on what to do post-Collapse.

Read it all.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

"The Window War" Begins (?)


From a reader:

Man throws brick through City Hall, police HQ windows
CBS 42 Reporter: Gregg Watson
Email: gewatson@keyetv.com
Last Update: 7/28 6:28 pm

Austin police say a man tossed a rock through the window of police headquarters after he hit Austin City Hall with a big rock minutes earlier.

The suspect is described as white, in his 30s and with a beard. Police say first a security guard on duty saw the man smash the glass and sprint down Cesar Chavez.

Then 14 minutes later police say the scruffy suspect was captured committing a crime on camera outside police headquarters. On video the suspect is seen shattering the glass and taking off.

The glass at City Hall has been replaced but some are upset city hall was targeted with this misdemeanor madness.

“It’s pretty upsetting. I would have to wonder why someone would do something like that," says Austin lawyer Nikelle Meade. "It’s a beautiful building. It’s a safety issue they could have really hurt somebody.”

“There's no evidence to show he was trying to commit a burglary. He didn’t stay. He didn’t try to pull the windows open or anything like that," says APD spokesman Scott Perry. "He walks up throws the rock turns around and runs off.”

He also created a problem for the cash-strapped city that now has to replace all the broken glass.

“It’s about $500 for the window here at city hall. We don’t know the cost estimate for the one that was broken at APD yet," says Austin building service officer Jill Maness. "It’s a bit of an inconvenience the glass has to ordered, it’s a double pane safety glass. We’ve made a temporary Plexiglas replacement.”

Police haven’t added any officers to their patrol but say they will patrol city owned buildings more often.


See also this site and this site for more helpful information.

Friday, July 24, 2009

'The Window War' -- Coming Soon To A Window Near You

As submitted by a commenter:

'The Window War' - Coming Soon To A Window Near You
by DustoneGT (libertarian)
Thursday, July 23, 2009

What would happen if three percent of American gun owners or maybe even three percent of the American public decided they were ready to take things to the next level with minor breaches of the law?

When British colonists put on the clothing of the Native American and walked out into the ships in Boston's harbor, they weren't there to protest peacefully or be law-abiding citizens.

The message they sent the King of England was simple: "If the law no longer protects our interests, it will no longer protect yours." They let him know that the days of a peaceful and law-abiding citizenry had come to a close in the face of evil and corrupt laws.

Fast forward to 2009. Conservatives and others angry at the recent government actions gathered en masse in many cities to protest peacefully and dubbed these events TEA Parties, but unfortunately the message they sent was far different: "We are unhappy with current government policy, but will continue to abide by the law and work within the corrupt political system."

This is about to change. Many citizens, upset at the lack of results from peaceful things such as voting, calling and writing government officials and even mass protests are about to turn to the time-honored American tradition of minor law-breaking in the form of vandalism and property damage.

It all starts with a short piece of fiction called
'The Window War' by blogger Mike Vanderboegh. In it, a citizen facing similar frustrations writes a small message on a rock and hurls it through his local Republican party headquarters. Realizing that he felt betrayed by the Republicans because he expected better of them, he also destroys the glass over at the Democrat's HQ because they are also a big part of the problem.

In the following days, the town's newspaper editor makes it his personal quest to ridicule the person who threw the rock, but in so doing manages to get his story onto the national wires and spread the idea to the rest of the country. Democrat and Republican windows across the country begin to feel the hurt in the weeks that follow.

This ten-year-old piece of freedom fiction is starting to get popular again. The story has found its way onto many forums and other interactive sites by way of copy and paste, with some suggesting that the Tea Party of 1773 could be repeated in this fashion.

But what would push otherwise law-abiding citizens to this kind of behavior? Would a thing like a senator
calling the police and having them remove peaceful protesters from public property after she felt 'threatened' do it?

In response to the above incident, Western Rifle Shooters Association is asking whether anybody yet has the guts to throw a few of these:

But what does the 'III' on the rock mean?

"Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders' Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation.The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.We are the people that the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril."

Read the rest of 'What is a Three Percenter?' here.

What would happen if three percent of American gun owners or maybe even three percent of the American public decided they were ready to take things to the next level with minor breaches of the law?

It's doubtful the damage would be limited to the headquarters of political parties and the offices of the house and the senate in their districts. Expect to see damage at the multitudes of new offices, which have sent forth swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance in recent decades. Many an alphabet agency's windows are likely to get in on the action. 'The Window War' also hints that private residences are likewise on the list.

It is unclear what would happen after that, but it looks like we are about to find out.

Audentes fortuna iuvat.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Lefevre: The Constitution Revisited

Take a listen to this audio file from the collection of Robert Lefevre's lectures hosted by the Mises Institute.

Food for thought, especially as discussions turn to the Collapse's aftermath.

To quote Einstein:
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Questions


Anybody had the guts yet to hurl a few of these?

How can one reasonably claim to be a "deterrent" when one's opponents don't even know you exist?

And finally, read this account of "constituent representation" and ask yourself why there were any windows left for "banging", per the gutless Congresswoman's subsequent apology?

Sic semper tyrannis.

Vanderboegh: Stauffenberg's Choice

Mike links the July, 1944 plot to kill Hitler, the July 21st anniversary of Count von Stauffenberg's execution, and our recent "20 More Questions" essays in his current post.

Hie thee there and read it all.

And make damned sure you know who and what you will serve.

Tempus fugit.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Denninger: TWENTY-FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS?!

From Denninger's Market Ticker:

***

Ex-freaking-scuse me?

Barofsky said that while the TARP program that Congress passed amounts to $700 billion, the total federal government support since 2007 for the economy and the financial sector could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion. The government has committed significantly more money through a variety of other federal agencies and programs.

WHAT?!

$23.7 trillion dollars?

Where was the Congressional appropriation for that?

This is blatantly unconstitutional, folks. We're talking about nearly double the nation's GDP in debt commitments and more than 33 times the amount authorized by Congress.

Oh, and it gets worse:

Meanwhile, Barofsky's office has opened 35 criminal and civil investigations into issues including suspected accounting fraud, securities fraud, insider trading, mortgage servicer misconduct, mortgage fraud, public corruption, false statements and taxes.

That's right, we have 35 criminal investigations connected to this nearly $24 trillion dollars of largesse too, and that's only what Mr. Barofsky knows about. Anyone care to gander about what's hidden from him? Oh wait - we got a problem there too:

"Treasury’s continued unwillingness to provide basic transparency despite the many recommendations of SIGTARP and Congress and the repeated demonstration that meaningful data from TARP recipients can be gathered and easily disseminated is unacceptable," said a memo prepared by Republicans on the oversight committee.

Hello Richard Nixon! Bailoutgate anyone? Obstruction?

Shall we continue?

This is outrageous and threatens the very stability of our nation. How anyone can believe our banking system or indeed our nation's Treasury can survive the exposure of $24 trillion dollars, twice our GDP, is beyond me.

We most certainly cannot, and when (not if) our creditors and lenders, including China and Japan, wise up to what's going on here the game will quite literally be over, perhaps as soon as "right now"...

***

Read the rest.

Alea iacta est.

UPDATE 1915 edst 7/21/09: Read the entire follow-on article by Denninger, which included this direct link to the IG's report and this table:

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who will guard the guardians?

COIN's Siren Song

Please read this essay from Sic Semper Tyrannis, as cited at Fabius Maximus, on the challenges of effective counterinsurgency where the indigenous folks don't want to be pacified.

Money graf:

***
...In its fullest form the doctrine [of counterinsurgency] can be reduced to three basic elements:

1-Political warfare designed to eliminate the symbolic causes of revolt. This would include such efforts as a reduction of public corruption, adequate representation in government for all parts of the population, etc.

2- Economic development that provides incomes sufficiently large for the masses so that they are not inclined to risk the hazards of support for insurgents.

3- Counterguerrilla operations. Such operations must be a hazard for the insurgents and NOT for the population. We have not been doing well at that in Afghanistan. These counterguerrilla operations are conducted so as to provide a protective "screen" behind which "1" and "2" can occur.

Basically what is attempted in this doctrine is the construction of a society that is more attractive and viable than that promised by the insurgents
...(emphasis added)
***


As the situation in North America continues to devolve over the next decade, anyone care to set odds on the ability of an impoverished and discredited Washington (or Ottawa) being able to construct "a society that is more attractive and viable than that promised by the insurgents" -- especially if the "insurgents" are preaching a gospel that says, "We won't take your money, we won't take your property, we won't interfere in any way, shape or form with your family, and we'll help you stop anybody who tries to do those things"?

Freedom could be very popular.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Recommended

Highly recommended for its first-person accounts of political action by free Irishmen against the occupying British and their lackeys during the Irish War of Independence, this book also features the final warning issued by Michael Collins to members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the occupying British.

There'll be more reference to that declaration in a subsequent essay, but between it and the warning dropped by the USAAF over Japanese cities on 1 August 1945, readers of the recent 20 More Questions, Feedback on '20 More Questions', and Reactions posts will have additional food for thought.

For now, get and read "The Squad". In the meantime, read the text of the pre-Hiroshima warning below and consider a possible 21st-century usage of the concept:

“Read this carefully as it may save your life or the life of a relative or friend. In the next few days, some or all of the cities named on the reverse side will be destroyed by American bombs. These cities contain military installations and workshops or factories which produce military goods. We are determined to destroy all of the tools of the military clique which they are using to prolong this useless war. But, unfortunately, bombs have no eyes. So, in accordance with America’s humanitarian policies, the American Air Force, which does not wish to injure innocent people, now gives you warning to evacuate the cities named and save your lives. America is not fighting the Japanese people but is fighting the military clique which has enslaved the Japanese people. The peace which America will bring will free the people from the oppression of the military clique and mean the emergence of a new and better Japan. You can restore peace by demanding new and good leaders who will end the war. We cannot promise that only these cities will be among those attacked but some or all of them will be, so heed this warning and evacuate these cities immediately.”

To be continued...

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Quote of the Week

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they have been resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.

-- Frederick Douglass

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Reactions

Several outraged reactions have been posted thus far to this piece discussing the vulnerability of government workers to political action by freedom-lovers.

Read all of the comments, but a few things need emphasis:

1) Oath-Keepers: I was an early supporter of this fine organization founded by Stewart Rhodes earlier this year, both in this space and elsewhere. Unlike many, I traveled (along with Mike Vanderboegh) to Lexington Green on April 19th, renewed my oath, and participated in the Oath-Keepers' truly inspiring event. I applaud every single Oath-Keeper's commitment to personal freedom, political liberty, and the restoration of the American Republic. I commend all Oath-Keepers for their unwavering commitment to The Ten Orders We Will Not Obey, and I will stand and fight besides the good men and women of that organization, do or die.

But remember Admiral Stockdale's Paradox?

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The most brutal facts of our current reality are as I posted in comment reply last night:

Re Oath Keepers:

Presumably, every Oath Keeper who is honest will acknowledge that:

a) they are paid via taxes collected through the threat of force from American citizens;

b) as such, they are, by definition, subordinate to the people that pay them, both by virtue of who is actually the productive party in the taxpayer/tax parasite relationship and by virtue of the guiding principles of the American Republic (see comment above);

c) all of the current and former oathtakers since 1916 or so have failed in their duty to defend the Constitution from domestic enemies such as Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and the Kenyan, along with the respective Congresses from 1916 forward; and

d) they are well overdue in actually doing something (other than talking) about reversing that abysmal 93-year record of failure in actual, effective oath-keeping.

Re Anon and his point re target ID, amen. I do not truly believe that every .gov employee is my enemy.

But boys and girls, it is no-shit well past time for those men and women of good faith within government to start linking up with the Resistance and getting as much info and materiel out to the freedom team as possible. Every day that you folks sit on the sideline, the more each of you is tarred forever more with the indelible fecal smear of Comrades Soetero, Pelosi, and Reid.

Maybe I should have titled the essay "Collaborator, Quisling, or Undercover Operative? Time to Choose".

Know my rules?

1) The man or woman shooting besides me at the enemy is my friend;

2) The man or woman shooting AT me (or helping others shoot at me) is my enemy; and

3) Anyone not in groups 1 or 2 (unless they are feeding me information/materiel/other logistics support) is, at best, a high security risk.

Make sense?


Now, to be honest, in the light of day, I regret that reply.

More specifically, I regret that I left the philandering Jack Kennedy off the list of American Presidents who have successfully violated the Constitutional limits on their power, based upon his undeclared wars in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs and in a little place called Vietnam.

Everything else stands.

Note that I said nothing derogatory whatsoever about Stewart's organization.

Nothing.

What I did say is the simple and bitter truth -- that since 1916 straight through today, everyone who has taken an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution and its express limitations on Federal power has failed completely in their oath-bound duty.

Everyone.

Myself included.

Has failed.

Completely.

Anyone who doubts that painful fact need only look to today's Leviathan, comparing the scope and scale of the combined Federal/state/local apparatus to the minimalist structure mandated by the Constitution.

If you need any additional proof, run your copy of the fundamental human rights enshrined and "guaranteed" by the Bill of Rights against the everyday and unaccountable actions of Leviathan's agents everywhere across this country.

If you have the courage and the intellectual honesty to do so, you'll weep. I know I have, on multiple occasions.

I've wept for what has been lost, and I have also wept for how few men and women in today's America are willing to do what it will take to stop the totalitarian bastards who continue, even as I write, to use all of their energy and all of their power to eradicate the country and the principles in and by which I was raised.

So what to do when you get knocked on your tail?

You get up and do whatever it takes, by any means necessary, to

- stop the enemy, including his allies, accomplices, collaborators, and Quislings;

- reverse his gains;

- destroy his fighting ability; and

- hold any surviving enemy forces fully accountable for their actions.

So, my fellow oathtakers and Oath-Keepers, let's get busy. We've got 93 years of defeats to avenge.

Forward.

2) Fundamental Principles: The next part of my comments was inspired by the late Bill Hicks, a brilliant comic who performed, flamed out, and died in the Nineties. His advice to marketers and advertisers in the following video segment is my advice to every government worker, be it at the Federal, state, local, or tribal level, who does not understand the following basic principles:

a) You live off the tax dollars stolen by force from every productive non-government worker, business owner, and saver in this country; and

b) As a government worker in the American system, you are, by definition, subordinate to your true bosses -- the taxpaying non-governmental American citizen. As long as you remain as a government worker -- from new hire, all the way up to President of the United States -- you remain, regardless of rank or job description, subordinate to every single taxpaying non-governmental American citizen.

I know that there are many (most?) government workers who understand, accept, and even celebrate these fundamental principles of the dying American Republic. For those of you in the audience who do not, I commend to you the same actions as Bill Hicks suggests for marketers and advertisers in this video clip (caution: harsh language):



Really -- I am not kidding. Do it now.

And you're welcome for the advice.

3) "Terrorist Organization"
: A commenter called the essay "a sure fire recipe for failure for your "freedom team" since it will be considered a terrorist org. by anyone except radical Atlas Shrugs toting anarchists."

Well, chiefie, everyone's entitled to his opinion. My opinion is that everyone who comes to this site is already pinged for special treatment as a thoughtcriminal. Rather than deal with that fact and acting accordingly, you and your ilk are wasting precious time trying to figure out how to be nice to statists so that they won't hurt you.

Guess what? Leviathan will eat you too.

So sorry.

And besides, I'll bet you haven't even read Atlas Shrugged. You should -- it might clean some of the mush from your skull.

Forward.

Vanderboegh: The ATF Keeps Tap Dancing in a Minefield

Mike updates the story he broke last May about a FedGov death threat against a noted member of the Second Amendment community.

Not good news, either. Read both articles, please.

To me, the key message is in this paragraph of the letter Mike sent to Attorney General Holder in May:

***
... And Eric, not to put too fine a point on it, but you and I both can make an educated guess about what mischief will likely ensue if ANY high-profile Second Amendment activist "has an accident". Best to tell your lads and lasses to stick to those nice safe paper cases (you know, the ones with the 4473s completed with a "Y", rather than "yes") and confine their wet-work fantasies to their off-duty reading. There's still lots of vicious drug gangs, murderous career criminals and real terrorists out there to keep them busy without picking a fight with honest American gunowners who merely want to be left alone...
***


As I noted here:

***
...For in the end, there is no chain of command for American freedom fighters. The lack of centralized command-and-control mechanisms that insulate leaderless insurrections from many conventional military tactics also leaves the "launch order" as a matter of individual (or small group) discretion...
***


Keep poking the bear, boys.

Just watch what happens next.

Volk on Freedom

Courtesy of Oleg, another classic.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Thought for the Weekend

A comment to this piece, from a reader:

After a bad front-end/head-on car wreck a few years ago, I'm a poster-child for the benefits of movement and focused exercise to keep the parts working and to accept mild muscle pain instead of debilitating nerve and joint pain. It makes you strong and hungry (which makes food taste better) to work out regularly.

If you are over 30 and not in good shape or injured, a few visits to a professional physical therapist to investigate your condition and design a program of conditioning might be a good investment of time and a few dollars. You may be covered under work or private medical insurance, and insurers like to spend on PT because it's so cheap compared to surgical or hospitalization (post-injury) medical intervention.

Start slow. Don't push it and get hurt. Hot spots mean blisters soon: stop and fix. Wear good socks and boots. Listen to your feet, muscles and lungs. Get home believing that you could have gone 20% more (in the morning, you will be glad that you didn't).

Drink water.

Drink water.

Drink water.

Quarts per hour should be consumed when moving.

Stop-drink-breathe-move.

You don't have to let them know that your objective is to carry a 40 pound pack and a rifle 6 miles in 3 hours (up hill both ways over broken terrain).

Nice side effect of exercise is that lung capacity goes up, making hands and eyes steadier, and intentional breathing pauses can be comfortably longer. Your groups will tighten.

Talk to your doctor and pharmacist about what meds can be safely dropped and how. Blood Pressure, blood sugar, E.D., attention span while reading, and other annoying troubles of getting older can only be improved by conditioning. This alone is worth the time and effort.

You are going to live longer, too.

Cheers.


Consider too this piece from a while back.

Now get out there and walk this weekend.

Beck: Tick-Tock, Ladies And Gentlemen

"Bill Beck says this and says that. (it’s all talk)
The time is for action."
Hey, Jake: I haven't even touched an income tax form since 1977, much less sign my name to one or actually send this government one thin dime of what I produce. Can you think why? It's because I saw all of this a long time ago. I don't work for thieves. I've wrecked my career over it (it's very difficult to find anyone who can pay me for what I do), I don't own anything worth their threatening me with prison over (which is probably good for them because in a cell I could finally give up trying to live and concentrate on an attempted American "Gulag Archipelago"), and I am just about universally known as a kook.

Everyone can think what they will, but I have done my best, my whole adult life, not to lend my hand to this monstrosity. Observe Mick Kraut: "Here is the fundamental problem. Obama and his ilk truly believe that my money is their’s and..." {whack}

"Obama". Look: I'm fifty-two years old and the United States government has "believ[ed]" that (so far as we can ascribe "belief" to an abstract conceptual entity without consciousness) for all my lifetime and a lot more. Please pay attention:

I very rarely cite Ayn Rand, for a couple of reasons. One is that the mention of her name is most often a bomb lofted into any discussion and just about guaranteed to blow things up. The other is that my own integrations of her concepts are good enough for my own words. However, there has never been a clearer way to put this:

"Political economy was, in effect, a science starting in midstream: it observed that men were producing and trading, it took for granted that they had always done so and always would -- it accepted this fact as the given, requiring no further consideration -- and it addressed itself to the problem of how to devise the best way for the 'community' to dispose of human effort."

("Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", 1966, New American Library, Part I, "Theory And History", ch. 1, "What Is Capitalism?", p. 4)

Anyone who cannot see this premise as far back as, say, Roosevelt, is simply not competent to attend this discussion.

We are where we are because Americans have not guarded their freedom, of which individual economic sovereignty is a necessarily implicit element. Only slaves produce under the threat of force, and that's what generations of people in this country have been doing.

There is no surprise in the facts of this ethics and politics coming to these straits.

And I beg you, sir: do not snipe at me about "action". I have lived the whole life.

To the rest of you: this will stop when you stop feeding it.

I know the trades requisite in the project. All I can tell you is that what you might give up today is nothing compared to what you will lose tomorrow if you don't stand up right now.

Repost: US FM 44-8 Chapter 5: Active Air Defense Measures

As posted last February, here is some essential reading on defending the z axis, courtesy of Uncle Sugar.

Audentes fortuna iuvat -- especially as the transition from theory into practice continues.

Feedback on "20 More Questions": Accomplices and Collaborators

Got a call from a friend who was offended by question #21 in our recent "20 More Questions" piece:

21) Do you understand that, with the millions upon millions of vulnerable, unarmed, government-paid collaborators and Quislings at the local, state, and Federal levels, let alone all of the government-owned property in every jurisdiction of this huge country just aching for traditional American political action, one of your biggest problems (after the initial decision and commitment, of course) will be in focusing your efforts so as to achieve maximum effect with minimal exposure to you?

At issue was the implication that every single employee -- armed and unarmed - of the combined local/state/Federal Leviathan was a legitimate recipient of political action, however each individual American defines that activity.

Here's the thing -- every last one of those government employees is subordinate to you, the individual American citizen -- at least according to one of our system's central articles of faith.

In cold reality, compared to private-sector workers and business owners (who, not coincidentally, pay the taxes that feed and house each government parasite's family), they are your betters -- more pay, better benefits, greater job security, shorter hours, more vacation, and much better retirement plans.

In short, all government workers know that you, the American taxpayer, are subordinate to each and every one of them -- from the newest-hired Motor Vehicles drone to the tenured government schoolteacher to the uniformed police officer who just pulled you over for a local revenue opportunity....uh, I guess they still call them "speeding tickets".

And before any readers get their knickers in a twist -- yes, there are dedicated government workers who go above and beyond the call of duty...

And still enjoy better benefits and better retirement perquisites, along with more vacation, than their private-sector peers in equivalent positions.

But that's not the real reason why all government employees should face the wrath of free Americans.

The real reason is much more simple: each civil servant is a cog in Leviathan's machine.

As Vanderboegh pointed out the other day, if you want to break a windmill -- simply throw a wooden shoe into its mechanism.

Ergo, if you want to hobble Leviathan, simply provide creative incentives for the cogs to absent themselves.

If a cog doesn't report to its proper place, the tyrant's infernal machine will grind on, but nearby cogs will notice the absence.

If several cogs no longer are in their assigned positions within the mechanism, the machinery will start creak and shudder.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

And make no mistake: each and every one of those cogs in every government agency chooses every single work day to climb into his or her cubicle and serve the omnivorous beast Government, because doing so is in each cog's best interests.

Engaging Government successfully therefore simply requires a new calculus of self-interest to be created and effectively disseminated to the governing hordes. As Solzhenitsyn said in the The Gulag Archipelago:

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!

So don't fret about Leviathan's civil service whores. They've already made their choices, and each has elected to make a career from leeching off the productivity of their former fellow citizens.

So be it.

It's now time for all freedom-lovers to make their choices.

Submission -- or action.

Your call.

Audentes fortuna iuvat.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Word From A Reader


Gentlemen,

I know that you have been pushing PT for a long time in both of your blogs, and who knows, I may be the only one this stupid. After back surgery in January, I was finally able to start jogging again at the end of April/beginning of May, and to date, have made good progress, being able to jog 2-4 miles straight, with an additional 2-4 miles of walking.

Today, I put my ALICE pack on for the first time in over a decade. I loaded it with about 20-30 lbs. After 3 miles, it had worn me out. Please try to drum it into people's heads that they won't be able to slap on 60+ lbs of gear (20 lbs if you just have a rifle, ammo, and water) and go easily, even if they have been jogging and exercising on a regular basis, if they haven't practiced carrying loads as well. Like I said, I may be the only one this stupid/arrogant enough to think that I could cover this distance easily, but somehow I think that there are others who are as dumb as I am.

On an unrelated subject, can you remind your readers to check the GM angles on their topographic maps and keep checking them every 6 months? The GM angle is shifting quickly and so most maps' GM angles are out of date.

Thanks again to both of you for having such useful sites.

Thanks,

A Reader

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Think Globally, Act Locally: 20 More Questions on "Let's Win"

Victor Davis Hanson lays out the overall tactical situation here. Sample section below, but do read the whole thing:

***
...Stimulus, Stimulus and Not a Drop…

A “stimulus” of nearly a trillion dollars was proposed, without which we were told, unemployment would skyrocket and credit would tighten further. Six months later — unemployment having risen even higher than the administration’s forecast would have been the case had their stimulus package not been implemented — now the same proponents of massive borrowing demand a second stimulus to accomplish what the first ’successful’ borrowing apparently did not. If you fail, then try the same thing to fail even bigger the second time — while calling for more success to follow the earlier success?

The Larger Agenda

Note here I mean something quite different from the accustomed notion of “accomplish.” You see, I think the point was never much to build more bike paths on borrowed money or just bail out GM, but rather more to reengineer the tax code, as part of a grander vision of creating a new equality of result in America.

Soon we will all end up after each April 15 about making the same, driving the same sort of cars and using the same sort of mass transit, living in about the same sorts of houses, and having about the same sorts of “”they will take care of it for me” philosophies — all overseen by brilliant, but highly ranked and exempt Platonic Guardians who suffer on our behalf as they jet and limo at breakneck speed ensuring our welfare.

Gorging “the Beast”

We are beginning to sense the debate is not about “stimulus” (politicians did not even read the various bills that they rammed through and care little about the fiscal impact from them). Rather, we are witnessing an inversion of Reagan’s sort of playing chicken, once called “starve the beast” (which I thought was a wrong notion), a philosophy of cutting taxes to cut revenue to starve the federal government’s excessive spending in the face of spiraling deficits.

Under Obama’s “gorge the beast” version, America will simply write so many bounced checks, run up such an enormous $10 trillion debt, that taxes will have to rise on “them” — and wasn’t this really the point of it all anyway: to “spread the wealth around” and “never let a crisis go to waste”? Since new programs never shrink, but, like Johnson grass, grow with impunity, and since Democrats, even more so than wasteful Republicans, don’t worry about deficits, taxes must escalate to avoid catastrophe.

The Bad Guys

Ponder a simple fact: The Obama administration is dispersing income lavishly to those who do not pay taxes and it will have to be paid for by those who do. For all the talk of that awful percentile who make over $200,000, this administration has not distinguished the hyper-rich 1% that make untold money (e.g., the Buffets, Soroses, Turners, Gateses, Kerrys, Gores, etc.), from the much more demonized, larger 5% of the population whose income does not come from investments and insider influence and deal-making, but rather from providing more tangible goods and services — the family doctor, the plumbing contractor, the small lumber company owner, the car dealer, the local family-held insurance company, the airline pilot, the car-leasing firm, the patent attorney, etc.

“Their Fair Share”

Last fall we heard that this percentile was unpatriotic, did not wish to spread the wealth around, and had made off like bandits under Bush. But the fact is, to quote Mayor Gavin Newsome’s ‘like it or not’, they are precisely those who decide most dynamically whether to hire, fire, expand, contract, buy/sell goods, etc.

And the results of the Obama war against them are threefold: 1) in major key states, the productive minority’s state income taxes will near or exceed 10%; their federal rates will go to 40%; the abolition of caps on FICA will ensure 15% plus of most their income will go for new Medicare and Social Security bites; and they may well be eligible for a newly proposed punitive health-care surcharge tax of 4-6%.

Add It Up

1) If one were to add all that up (forget rises in sales taxes, inheritance taxes, luxury taxes, etc.), then one can get to 70% of one’s income. So right this minute, the electrical contractor is thinking:

‘I made $412,000 last year due to Saturday jobs, overtime, risky bidding, gambles on new equipment, and new lines of credit, but under Obama I will pay maybe $50-80,000 more of my income to the government. In other words the cost of, say, hiring two more entry-level electricians, or the cost of outfitting an entire new van with boom and equipment, or what I cleared every Saturday last year — all that will go to the government.”

Ripples of Doubt


And that means rippling throughout this key sector of the economy — even before these taxes have been enacted — are hesitation, stasis, and ultimately constriction — at first for psychological reasons, soon confirmed by the actual facts of less money. In short, very bright people will be thinking how to hide income, how to barter, how to slow down and not produce goods and services, rather than blast full speed ahead and enrich angry others.

A Certain Paranoia

2) Do not discount again the psychological element. This putative electrical contractor also knows that after handing over his profits to the new government, and delaying or ending his plans for enlargement, he will not be praised, but continually demonized (I scanned CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and NBC the other evening, and all the stories had a common theme: the “rich” (yes, you see, ACME Electric is now about the equivalent to AIG and Citibank) will have to pay their “fair share” for all sorts of “overdue” necessities: cap-and-trade, nationalized health care, education grants and freebies, and new social programs.

You Owe Us

So our electrician senses that despite his newfound, sizable contribution to the public good, he will a) not be thanked but only further ridiculed; b) see his money diverted from his own wise use of it, to anonymous agencies’ liberal expenditures of it: the money will not be just lost, but invested in things that will make things worse, not better, through subsidies of failed programs and the destruction of incentives; c) see that the world under Obama is now unfair in Orwellian fashion: the Citibanks and AIGs, in Robert Rubin fashion, are so well connected to both parties that they will suffer little for their mistakes; the Ivy-League and Washington technocratic class that is to run all this is happy with its government perks and does not think new taxes and compliance apply to themselves (cf. Dodd, Rangel, Geithner, Daschle, Murtha, etc.).

You Never Needed All That Anyway

3) Finally the now chastised and ossified electrician will begin to see that his new truck, his boat, his vacation home, all these are somehow immoral in carbon, political, cultural, racial, and social terms. And he senses that others, who do not pay any income taxes (approaching 50% of the population), see themselves at war with him: the more he pays in taxes, the more others see that his compliance with such new burdens is proof of what he “really” owed all the time, and a sign that he can pay even more next round...
***


Vandam gives us the strategic outlook here; money graf:

***
...The great principle of America is that free people pursue their interests freely and the government attends only to the irreducible commonalities. That has already been eroded to the point where Americans, one way or another, stand in line in the government cafeteria. This presidency is adding bars to the windows even as it sucks the air out of the room. It’s going to be a dreadful experience. It will be everything that the most self-loathing of Americans have long wanted but didn’t have the initiative to emigrate to Cuba and get it straight up for themselves...
***


We also know what the price was to crack the national government's will in a much more virile America, circa 1968. By the end of that year, 36,152 American troops had been killed in the Vietnam conflict. That fact led to a change in the national government, which in turn sued its opponents for peace.

Goethe has supplied an operational concept.

So let's ask another "20 Questions", using the following assumptions:

- Two of the three branches of the Federal Government, along with most of their constituent agencies and bureaucracies, have been captured by totalitarian statists who routinely violate the limitations on their power expressly required by the US Constitution/Bill of Rights;

- The so-called "opposition party" is only marginally less statist than the incumbents, and in fact sponsored many of the most egregiously unconstitutional programs when they last held power;

- State and local governments are so financially dependent on Federal transfer payments that they are de facto mere departments of the national government, rather than the separate sovereigns envisioned by the Founding Fathers; and

- All rational prognoses are for the situation to grow worse with each passing quarter for the foreseeable future.

1) Do you know, if you deem such actions to be both moral and necessary, which targets in your area-- both materiel and otherwise -- you would select for political action?

2) Do you have the means (i.e., the tools and materials) needed to engage each of those targets successfully?

3) Do you have the skill sets and mindset needed to engage each of those targets successfully?

4) Do you have the operational support needed to engage each of those targets successfully?

5) Having engaged those targets in your area successfully, do you have the

- means,
- skill sets,
- mindset, and
- operational support

to evade investigation, capture, interrogation, and sentencing, so as to be capable of future missions against different targets in your area or elsewhere?

6) Do you have the means and skill sets to properly and safely exploit your successful missions for maximum propaganda value via YouTube and other media?

7) Do you have the resources to help others execute steps 1-6 in your area without compromising your own operational ability?

8) Do you have the ability to relocate successfully to other parts of the country as part of your post-mission exfiltration/recovery period?

9) Do you have the funds and personal items (essential medicines, etc.) that you would need if you suddenly had to relocate?

10) Do you have viable forms of alternate identification?

11) If you have alternative identification, do you know how reliable it is?

12) Do you have Spandoflage headwear as part of your mission kit?

13) Do you have viable gloves that will be usable in tactical situations yet unobtrusive during both your ingress and egress?

14) What steps -- in detail -- have you taken to avoid the standard crime scene rule that "everyone leaves evidence behind, while at the same time takes evidence away"?

15) Have you been dedicated in your physical training?

16) Have you considered the very-close-work operational utility of a snubnose .38 revolver with a dehorned hammer?

17) Have you considered the close-work operational utility of the rifled slug (12 or 20 gauge) fired from a short-barreled shotgun?

18) Have you considered all of the wonderful ways that modern statist technology is vulnerable to the creative application of force/friction/heat/cold/electrical current/water, both as a standalone event and as a triggering event for a subsequent response?

19) Are you morally squared-away for what you are about to do?

20) Have you practiced your tactics and skills so that you have a realistic assessment of your own strengths and weaknesses, and have your plans been modified in light of that assessment?

Special bonus question:

21) Do you understand that, with the millions upon millions of vulnerable, unarmed, government-paid collaborators and Quislings at the local, state, and Federal levels, let alone all of the government-owned property in every jurisdiction of this huge country just aching for traditional American political action, one of your biggest problems (after the initial decision and commitment, of course) will be in focusing your efforts so as to achieve maximum effect with minimal exposure to you?


Audentes fortuna iuvat.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Beck: First Lab on the Left

From Billy Beck:

Ricketyclick links an item that I saw the other day, and I thought, "That figures." Zombietime walks us down memory lane with Obama's Assistant for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. John Holdren was a compadre of the notorious kook Paul Ehrlich. Go have a glance at the book that they authored together in 1977. He is now ascended to the eminence of "czar".

Let's just suppose, ladies and gentlemen, that Holdren no longer subscribes the particular object of his view, stated thirty years ago, that "Individual rights must be balanced against the power of the government to control human reproduction". Somehow, this man has come to power in a political party which holds "reproductive rights" as one of its strident tenets, and really doesn't believe anymore in a "planetary regime" with the power of forced abortion and mass sterilization.

What I would like you to think about is the assertion of "balance", and consider the prospect that this man even now views your life -- you, yourself -- as anything more than an insect to be managed in his own personal laboratory. You can take that bet if you want to. In any case, just be reminded that he subsists on your productivity. More: he acts on your sanction. This person is one of myriad "delegations" to representative democracy that are taken for granted as implicit every other year in the national voting hysteria. Look at the explication, kids. If he now only believes one-tenth of what he did in 1977, he would still be enough to make an American's blood hot with defiance.

And there he sits. Would "take politics out of science" -- from the seat of a "czar". He has "wasted years" to make up -- at bringing America into line with slugs and poofters the world over who have still never produced on the general level that our forebears did. He's bringing "new regulations" that will prevent scientific advice from being influenced by politics -- in a culture of euphemasia: the murder of truth by dissociation of the language from reality. What you're seeing here is the assumption of science by politics. This is a wholesale expropriation of science by conceptual and linguistic perversion: the disclaimer of politics in a manifestly political arena arrives as a command to ignore the reality of politics as "scientific" motive.

You live because of science. The apprehensions of reality which are the task of science are applied now everywhere around you to scope and degree not dreamed of by giants only two centuries ago, and you live as you do because of fantastic efforts to bring these understandings to wide practical benefit on scales economically sufficient to make them possible.

All of that is now subject to the assertions of people like John Holdren and those who hired him stroked him into his commissariat. Do you understand? Never before has the essential intellectual dynamo that sustains human life been so comprehensively in the hands of collectivist ideology in America. They have a lot to tear down, these nicely-dressed savages who would dictate the terms and conditions of your life.

How can you wait until the next election while they're doing that?

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Death of a Civilization

As found at Kevin's Smallest Minority, here is a piece that resonates with special force as the Destroyers secure their supermajority in the Senate:

Death of a Civilization

by David Deming

Over the past several years we have learned that small groups of people can engage in mass suicide. In 1978, 918 members of the Peoples' Temple led by Jim Jones perished after drinking poisoned koolaid. In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult died after drugging themselves and tieing plastic bags around their heads. Unfortunately, history also demonstrates that it is possible for an entire civilization to commit suicide by intentionally destroying the means of its subsistence.

In the early nineteenth century, the British colonized Southeast Africa. The native Xhosa resisted, but suffered repeated and humiliating defeats at the hands of British military forces. The Xhosa lost their independence and their native land became an English colony. The British adopted a policy of westernizing the Xhosa. They were to be converted to Christianity, and their native culture and religion was to be wiped out. Under the stress of being confronted by a superior and irresistible technology, the Xhosa developed feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. In this climate, a prophet appeared.

In April of 1856, a fifteen-year-old girl named Nongqawuse heard a voice telling her that the Xhosa must kill all their cattle, stop cultivating their fields, and destroy their stores of grain and food. The voice insisted that the Xhosa must also get rid of their hoes, cooking pots, and every utensil necessary for the maintenance of life. Once these things were accomplished, a new day would magically dawn. Everything necessary for life would spring spontaneously from the earth. The dead would be resurrected. The blind would see and the old would have their youth restored. New food and livestock would appear in abundance, spontaneously sprouting from the earth. The British would be swept into the sea, and the Xhosa would be restored to their former glory. What was promised was nothing less than the establishment of paradise on earth.

Nongqawuse told this story to her guardian and uncle, Mhlakaza. At first, the uncle was skeptical. But he became a believer after accompanying his niece to the spot where she heard the voices. Although Mhlakaza heard nothing, he became convinced that Nongqawuse was hearing the voice of her dead father, and that the instructions must be obeyed. Mhlakaza became the chief prophet and leader of the cattle-killing movement.

News of the prophecy spread rapidly, and within a few weeks the Xhosa king, Sarhili, became a convert. He ordered the Xhosa to slaughter their cattle and, in a symbolic act, killed his favorite ox. As the hysteria widened, other Xhosa began to have visions. Some saw shadows of the resurrected dead arising from the sea, standing in rushes on the river bank, or even floating in the air. Everywhere that people looked, they found evidence to support what they desperately wanted to be true.

The believers began their work in earnest. Vast amounts of grain were taken out of storage and scattered on the ground to rot. Cattle were killed so quickly and on such an immense scale that vultures could not entirely devour the rotting flesh. The ultimate number of cattle that the Xhosa slaughtered was 400,000. After killing their livestock, the Xhosa built new, larger kraals to hold the marvelous new beasts that they anticipated would rise out of the earth. The impetus of the movement became irresistible.

The resurrection of the dead was predicted to occur on the full moon of June, 1856. Nothing happened. The chief prophet of the cattle-killing movement, Mhlakaza, moved the date to the full moon of August. But again the prophecy was not fulfilled.

The cattle-killing movement now began to enter a final, deadly phase, which its own internal logic dictated as inevitable. The failure of the prophecies was blamed on the fact that the cattle-killing had not been completed. Most believers had retained a few cattle, chiefly consisting of milk cows that provided an immediate and continuous food supply. Worse yet, there was a minority community of skeptical non-believers who refused to kill their livestock.

The fall planting season came and went. Believers threw their spades into the rivers and did not sow a single seed in the ground. By December of 1856, the Xhosa began to feel the pangs of hunger. They scoured the fields and woods for berries and roots, and attempted to eat bark stripped from trees. Mhlakaza set a new date of December 11 for the fulfillment of the prophecy. When the anticipated event did not occur, unbelievers were blamed.

The resurrection was rescheduled yet again for February 16, 1857, but the believers were again disappointed. Even this late, the average believer still had three or four head of livestock alive. The repeated failure of the prophecies could only mean that the Xhosa had failed to fulfill the necessary requirement of killing every last head of cattle. Now, they finally began to complete the killing process. Not only cattle were slaughtered, but also chickens and goats. Any viable means of sustenance had to be destroyed. Any cattle that might have escaped earlier killing were now slaughtered for food.

Serious famine began in late spring of 1857. All the food was gone. The starving population broke into stables and ate horse food. They gathered bones that had lay bleaching in the sun for years and tried to make soup. They ate grass. Maddened by hunger, some resorted to cannibalism. Weakened by starvation, family members often had to lay and watch dogs devour the corpses of their spouses and children. Those who did not die directly from hunger fell prey to disease. To the end, true believers never renounced their faith. They simply starved to death, blaming the failure of the prophecy on the doubts of non-believers.

By the end of 1858, the Xhosa population had dropped from 105,000 to 26,000. Forty to fifty-thousand people starved to death, and the rest migrated. With Xhosa civilization destroyed, the land was cleared for white settlement. The British found that those Xhosa who survived proved to be docile and useful servants. What the British Empire had been unable to accomplish in more than fifty years of aggressive colonialism, the Xhosa did to themselves in less than two years.

Western civilization now stands on the brink of repeating the experience of the Xhosa. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, Europe and North America have enjoyed the greatest prosperity ever known on earth. Life expectancy has doubled. In a little more than two hundred years, every objective measure of human welfare has increased more than in all of previous human history.

But Western Civilization is coasting on an impetus provided by our ancestors. There is scarcely anyone alive in Europe or America today who believes in the superiority of Western society. Guilt and shame hang around our necks like millstones, dragging our emasculated culture to the verge of self-immolation. Whatever faults the British Empire-builders may have had, they were certain of themselves.

Our forefathers built a technological civilization based on energy provided by carbon-based fossil fuels. Without the inexpensive and reliable energy provided by coal, oil, and gas, our civilization would quickly collapse. The prophets of global warming now want us to do precisely that.

Like the prophet Mhlakaza, Al Gore promises that if we stop using carbon-based energy, new energy technologies will magically appear. The laws of physics and chemistry will be repealed by political will power. We will achieve prosperity by destroying the very means by which prosperity is created.

While Western Civilization sits confused, crippled with self-doubt and guilt, the Chinese are rapidly building an energy-intensive technological civilization. They have 2,000 coal-fired power plants, and are currently constructing new ones at the rate of one a week. In China, more people believe in free-market economics than in the US. Our Asian friends are about to be nominated by history as the new torchbearers of human progress.

Beck: The Way Home

"Home becomes a foreign land."
Scott DeSalvo verges on The Shattering.

Before I invited them to throw me out of that place, I used to tell him, "You're going to come to me." This is part of what I had in mind. It involves realization of reality. I cannot imagine the mental anemia that must be required to countenance the run of politics fully toward the collective in this country, now. I do understand, however, what it takes to see it for what it is. Every American now finds himself an exile in this land: the principal necessary element of the definition is a reverence for freedom. It is again, as Thomas Paine observed in 1776, "hunted round the globe," and the heart of an American patriot is doubly wounded in realizing that this is where the fugitive was first taken in, with results that will ring through world history forever.

Nothing about this government is about freedom, now. That includes the biennial auto da fe at polls which is held out as the hope and duty of the dismal creatures who have fallen to this state of politics in this country. Just look at it: you get to wait two years before you're allowed to roll up your little prayer in a vote-bottle to be cast off on tides of insanity and treachery. Meanwhile, the tides rage. In six months, Obama has wreaked more havoc on freedom than whole generations in the future should have to bear, with every sign of intent to make the job as complete as possible. Have your say if you want: he is having his way. And the damage that he can do before the next prayer round-up is incalculable, and you know it, if you're capable of one moment's thought.

"Hope". The thing carries two sets of connotations: one suffused in florid tones ample to blotting out necessary facts, and the other actively cast in clear daylight apprehension of reality in order to look for "hope".

I'm not sure where it is, either, but I know it will not be found in subscription to the politics that have brought us to all this. Every single one of these worms now crawling through the American idea must be instantly fired: put on notice that they have no authority, and every responsibility for the holes in this once noble house. This only happens one heart and mind at a time, and if it is true, then that's the end of it. It is a radically -- drastically -- individualist proclamation to the whole world, even if no one ever hears it.

It lives alone, now.

When I told this man, several times, that he would "come to me", he finally called it "creepy", if I recall right. When he finds himself and sees that that's what I was talking about, then in the words attributed to Gen. George S. Patton, he will know what to do.