Militia or Murderers?

mi·li·tia, noun.
1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2. A military force that is not part of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3. The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.


Jeff Knox reports here in an article titled "Offensive Defense," about allegations of the murder of innocents by the Algiers Point militia by A.C. Thompson here.

Here is Knox's summary in full:

The repercussions from Hurricane Katrina continue to roll in like the tidal surge that flooded New Orleans. The latest storm takes aim at guns and gunowners. As news trickles out of a final resolution in the lawsuits filed over the government’s illegal confiscation of firearms during the days after the flood, new reports of unprovoked attacks on African-Americans by white, neighborhood militias during the storm’s aftermath are beginning to surface. In a feature article in the liberal magazine "The Nation," titled “Katrina’s Hidden Race War,” writer A. C. Thompson suggests that a group organized to provide security for the Algiers Point neighborhood actually engaged in open warfare against unarmed, innocent blacks trying to reach an evacuation point on the other side of the neighborhood. In the article, Thompson combines first-person accounts of the victims of one attack, the statements of members of the neighborhood security group, African-American residents of the Algiers Point neighborhood, records from area hospitals, the coroner’s office, and generous helpings of hearsay and speculation to suggest that members of the security group engaged in racially motivated murder.

If there is any truth in these accusations, the perpetrators should be rooted out and punished. The Second Amendment is about defense of person, community, and country, not sport-hunting of humans. Anyone who accepts the responsibility of carrying a gun also accepts the responsibility of using it wisely. Governor Bobby Jindal should immediately launch a full investigation to either condemn or exonerate the members of the Algiers Point Militia.

There is no question that some of the rules change when the system completely breaks down as it did in New Orleans after Katrina, but using crisis as an excuse for criminal activity – whether looting, rape, murder, or government confiscation of firearms – must not be tolerated. Accurately piecing together the truth from the chaos of post-Katrina New Orleans will not be an easy task, but it is a task which must be undertaken to send a loud and clear message that the basics of right and wrong don’t change just because the official system is temporarily unavailable.

It is clear that the reporter in this story was extremely thorough in his investigation, but it is also clear that he was prejudicial in his conclusions.

Throughout the article he paints a picture of Algiers Point as very racially divided and of the men who banded together to protect their neighborhood as racially motivated. He plays a complex game of connect the dots while intentionally skipping over some of the dots that obviously belong in the pattern. His innuendo paint with a broad brush and suggest that any group of Southern white men who formed security patrols in the wake of Katrina were trigger-happy bigots looking for the opportunity to shoot a black man. The clear suggestion is that people can’t be trusted to protect themselves and will, if given the opportunity, abuse their power by giving in to their worst instincts.

One critically important piece of information downplayed in the article was the description of the attackers provided by the victims. While the Algiers Point protective group was comprised primarily of middle-aged, blue-collar, white men, the victims interviewed described their attackers as young and heavily tattooed. When shown video clips of members of the Algiers Point group, the victims did not recognize any of them as having been involved in their attack. Of course this doesn’t prove that no one involved in the group was involved in the attack, but its minimal exposure does suggest some prejudice on the part of the author.

This article in “The Nation” is not the first suggestion that neighborhood patrols in the Katrina aftermath sometimes overreacted and used racial profiling, but this is the most thorough and specific such article to date and it is attracting attention. As that attention grows, it will doubtless be used to promote further restrictions on firearms.

Individuals have the right to defend themselves from criminal attack and they have the right – and the obligation – to band together to defend themselves and their communities in times of crisis when government authorities are unable or unwilling to do the job. This is a key purpose of the Second Amendment and has been effectively employed by resolute citizens since the founding of the nation.

Unfortunately, there have historically also been cases of individuals and groups claiming to be protecting their communities who were in reality engaging in criminal activity – acting as judge, jury, and executioner, or in some cases, persecuting innocents for no lawful reason.

Knee-jerk condemnation of the Algiers Point group – and knee-jerk defense of their activities are both equally wrong. Any judgment must be reserved until a more thorough investigation can be conducted. For this reason, and on behalf of justice, Governor Jindal should use every resource at his disposal to find real answers and clear this matter up as soon as possible. Only a thorough, independent investigation can determine once and for all whether the members of the Algiers Point Militia deserve praise or condemnation.

Permission to reprint or post this article in its entirety for non-commercial purposes is hereby granted provided this credit is included. Text is available at www.FirearmsCoalition.org. To receive The Firearms Coalition’s bi-monthly newsletter, The Hard Corps Report, write to PO Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108..


I concur with Jeff, especially his concerns about the bias and accuracy of the reporter, and the need for further investigation. But we need not wait for the results of such an investigation to draw some lessons from the allegations themselves.

Consider whether or not they would have even been made if the Algiers Point militia had not been some motley crew of volunteers put together on the spur of the moment. Consider, rather, what would have happened if they had been a unit of armed citizens who had trained and prepared for such a moment. What if they had been organized with simple CB communications, a chain of command, a roster and rules of engagement? What if, instead of viewing their black neighbors as potential threats, they had worked with them AHEAD OF TIME in a neighborhood watch? What if, instead of manning barricades and turning away everyone, they provided a little food and water and an armed escort guaranteeing their safety to the relief point? What if they had pledged to secure the safety of everyone in the quarter, standing up to the small bands of white racists that did appear? What then?

I can tell you. Then such incidents would never have occurred, and such allegations -- even if false -- would never have been made or, if made, would not have been believed. Indeed, had that been the case, the Algiers Point militia would have been one of the finest moments of the modern history of the American armed citizenry. In the aftermath, the testimony of the folks they assisted would have stood out above everything else. Instead, we will have an investigation to determine whether they merely acted as a cover for murder.

Let us have the investigation, certainly. But let the rest of us learn the lesson and put what we learn into practice. There is NO substitute for training and organization. There is no substitute in an uncertain situation for command and control, even if it is small group command and the internal control of an individual armed citizen firmly grounded in principle.

Let us also be clear that leadership is more than rounding up a bunch of guys with guns into a "militia." Militia is a generic term, meaning non-professional armed men operating in a group. The militias of the Balkans, Somalia, Rwanda, the Congo and other hellholes of recent history have besmirched the name. It is up to us, the armed citizenry of the United States, to retrieve the name from suspicion and condemnation. We do that by being "well regulated" in the 18th Century sense of that term. So let us do it.

Anecdotes from the Great Obama Gun Rush: "Not a good time to stand in front of a fan."

Fan meet Mr. Excrement. Excrement, meet Mr. Fan.

I received the following anecdote from Yancey. For those of you, like me, who are unfamiliar with the store chain described below, Yancey explains:

Sportsman's Warehouse is a large, chain-type sporting goods store that seems to be mostly west of the Rockies. . . One more thing. When I mentioned to the assembled clerks that they had never stocked a lot of EBRs one of them told me that people were picking them up off the ground in Gaza right now and that we probably would be doing the same in a few months.

This from a store that is owned by, operated by and benefits the "Fudds" of the west! Buckle up, it's going to be a rough ride!

Yancey's Trip to Sportsman's Warehouse.

There really aren't many good things about getting older but one of them has to be 'experience'. By the time someone has reached "my age" there isn't really very much that can surprise him. Today I was totally gobstopped.

I've been reading here and in other places about the run on guns and ammo all over the country. Since I wasn't in the market for a new AR or AK or even for the ammo to feed them I merely read the posts and nodded wisely to myself as if I could have predicted it all. Little did I know.

Today I took a walk through the local Sportsman's Warehouse to see what they might have to interest me. There was the usual display of shotguns and "hunting" rifles behind the counter. As is usual for this store, there weren't any EBRs to be seen. Then I looked the other direction and saw that the ammo shelves were all but bare. Mildly surprised, I walked down the aisle which heretofore had displayed brass for reloading. Again, all but bare with only a few bags of .217 or some other odd size. The aisle which had been stacked high with bullets from Speer, Hornady and Nosler looked as if a storm had blown through, taking all the merchandise with it.

I talked to one of the sales clerks. He said they had everything back ordered but they didn't know when or even if they'ed ever see any product. A couple of other clerks wandered over and one said that all the election of Obama had accomplished was to arm America. Since they didn't have anything to sell we all just stood around talking. They told about guys who came in to buy a specific size of brass but ended up with something else that could be resized to fit. There were even people buying any size of brass so later they could trade for what they wanted.

Mike, I don't think this would be a good time to stand in front of a fan.


NOTE: The Sipsey Street Irregulars welcome your own anecdotes of the Great Obama Gun Rush. Feel free to forward them to GeorgeMason1776@aol.com.

"Gittin' while the gittin' is good": Wanted by the FBI -- Cannon Fodder.

"I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God." -- The FBI Agent's Oath

The FBI, it seems, is about to launch a hiring extravaganza. See a Reuters story here and a CNN story here.

An excerpt from the CNN story:

Despite a bleak economic environment featuring wide-ranging layoffs and rising unemployment, the nation's premier law enforcement agency is touting "one of the largest hiring blitzes in our 100-year history."

The FBI posted openings for 850 special agents and more than 2,100 professional support personnel. Officials say it's the largest FBI job posting since immediately after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The FBI's unexpectedly large number of job openings results more from attrition and a wave of retirements than from growing government appropriations, Bureau officials told CNN.

The FBI currently has about 12,800 agents and 18,400 other employees. And, if we are to believe CNN, they are getting out in droves. Why?

You may recall an essay, Resolve, that I wrote right after Obama's election, found here which included this observation:

It is not only gunnies of various stripes who are panicked at the thought of an Obama presidency. An old friend of mine called me the other day to report that an FBI agent in the west had confessed his fears at church last Sunday. Obama, he worried aloud, was going to shove him and his agency where he did not wish to go. They were, he feared, "entering the grey zone." Now there is more than one way to interpret those words, but he made one thing explicit. He had zero interest in dying for the cause of gun confiscation. No doubt such thoughts are flickering through many minds in the federal law enforcement bureaucracy at this moment. This is something for us Three Percenters to keep in mind. He fears the scenario of my novel "Absolved."

The FBI is hiring agents precisely because the FBI is losing agents at a record rate. Now, the FBI's own policies do not encourage personnel retention. They have a mandatory retirement age of 57. But they have had that for decades. So how to explain "one of the largest hiring blitzes in our 100-year history"?

To use a phrase common in Blount County, Alabama, "they're gittin' while the gittin' is good." They apparently don't like the odds of retirement under the Obama regime.

It is just a thought, but shouldn't the FBI should be honest in their recruitment posters? They should read:

Wanted by the FBI

Cannon Fodder

No Experience Necessary

"Give me liberty. . ."

Go to Blogonomicon here for a great piece on a short film about Patrick Henry from 1936. Well done. An excerpt:

He does not do the entire speech as I have read it. There are bits left out, and a couple of specific words seem to have been flubbed, but this short is worth watching and watching again. Especially keep in mind how someone like Patrick Henry would be treated in the lazy and cynical world of today. Undoubtedly he would be judged unrealistic, his "...millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty..." scorned as nonsensical yet dangerous fanaticism. In my opinion, his words of warning ring through the ages.

And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on.

"Buy, Buy, Buy," Bye, Bye?

Michael Gaddy has some some thoughts on the Great Obama Gun Rush here at LewRockwell.com. These track more or less with my anecdote gathering at gunshows and gunstores recently. For example, today I ran into an upscale young couple out to buy their first weapon at Southeastern Guns in Trussville, Alabama.

What did they settle on? A Rock River M-4 semi-auto with a half dozen magazines and a thousand rounds of ammunition. Two grand, out the door. Great intro to the hobby, eh? Only it isn't "the hobby" they're interested in. From listening to their conversation, they believe its "The End of the World As We Know It."

I suggested they get some training on their evil black gun, before stashing it in the closet.

What seems certain is that whatever the reason folks are buying firearms, we are stocking up to levels not seen since the AWB rush. This has got to scare the Powers-That-Be, because as Clausewitz famously observed, "In military affairs, quantity has a quality all its own." The number of firearms in this country, spread out over our huge area, presents an insurmountable problem to the gun grabbers. Let's hope they understand that BEFORE they start.

Mike Vanderboegh
III

Buy, Buy, Buy

by Michael Gaddy

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.
~ Noah Webster

While we stumble along economically with bailouts, buyouts, and poor sales in almost all sectors, two products in America are seeing dramatic increases in sales: guns and ammo. People who never owned a gun before are buying; people are buying multiples of military style weapons and ammo is being bought by the case instead of by the box.

Many explain this away as folks simply worried that Obama will move to ban certain firearms, especially those referred to by the ignorant as "assault weapons," I believe the motivation to buy firearms and ammunition goes much deeper.

More and more Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the storm that is brewing on the horizon, a storm driven by the possibility of a complete economic collapse.

The more astute are reading the handwriting on the wall: military combat units being assigned for stateside duty to quell domestic disturbances, a militarization of law enforcement, and the fear of what will happen when the state is no longer able to provide monthly checks to the millions currently living on government handouts labeled as "entitlements."

A strong possibility exists, when the checks stop, those who no longer have will seek to forcibly take from those who do. The scenes from New Orleans after Katrina have not disappeared from the public memory.

Regardless, legislation has been pre-planned and is now in place to be implemented just as soon as we have another tragedy involving a criminal idiot with guns.
Most are unaware that Congressional representative, Carolyn McCarthy from New York, introduced H.R. 1022 in February 2007. This draconian, unconstitutional piece of socialist baloney would ban a multitude of firearms currently available, including the Ruger 10/22, one of the most popular .22 caliber rifles on the market. .22 caliber rifles are commonly used for small game hunting, plinking and target practice; none are in use either in the military or law enforcement as the caliber is considered too small and underpowered for use on targets larger than small game or predators; a fact that somehow escaped the intelligence of Ms. McCarthy. Proof positive that politicians don’t really care what type of weapon you have; it is the simple fact they do not want you to have any weapon at all.

Representative McCarthy’s husband Dennis was shot and killed by Colin Ferguson on the Long Island Railroad in December of 1993. Her son, Kevin, was also seriously injured.

The logic that has escaped Ms. McCarthy is: if her husband had possessed a weapon, he could have possibly saved his life and the lives of others that fateful day. Instead, those who were prohibited by the laws of the state from protecting themselves were hopelessly slaughtered and maimed by a madman who cared not about those laws, and thanks to the liberal laws of New York, is still breathing good air.

Ms. McCarthy won election to congress based on her anti-gun position. Ironic, is it not, that one can be elected to congress by proposing laws contrary to the constitution and then take an oath pledging to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic…"

McCarthy reportedly was inspired to run for congress because her predecessor, Congressman Dan Frisa, supported the Constitution and voted against an assault weapons bill. Leave it up to New Yorkers to defeat those who support the constitution and elect those who seek to destroy it.

Comrade McCarthy displayed her true colors when she filed a lawsuit against the Olin Corporation, makers of the ammunition used by Ferguson, but never filed suit against Ferguson himself. Obviously, McCarthy sought to profit from the death of her husband and the injuries to her son by accusing the manufacturers of an inanimate object of the crimes. Of course the company who manufactured this inanimate object had much "deeper pockets" than Mr. Ferguson, the person who actually loaded the ammunition into a firearm and pulled the trigger, killing six people and wounding nineteen. Thank goodness her frivolous lawsuit failed.

Americans are purchasing firearms and ammunition in record numbers, not because they believe 2009 will offer unusually good duck hunting, but because they fear the fallout from the coming economic storm and the state’s reaction to that fallout.

The larger question is: how many of those who have gone out and purchased firearms and ammo will actually use them? I believe a large number would bring those weapons to bear against criminals who would steal and threaten their families and property, but, how many would use them against the criminal state as it moves to seize their weapons, as was done in New Orleans, when the next "emergency" occurs, be it an economic meltdown or terrorist attack?

Rest assured, there will be a great majority who will not stand against tyranny. Those who have "gone along to get along" and those who have continually voted for the "lesser of two evils" will capitulate and surrender their weapons, as cowards normally do. They will rue the day they failed to support those who stood for liberty such as Ron Paul. Remember, they were offered liberty, but chose instead to support the status quo, because, in their eyes, liberty could not be elected.

Those among us who are afraid to be free will surrender their guns, their families, and their freedom to tyranny. Do not place your freedom or trust in their hands or depend on them to cover your six.

January 5, 2009

Michael Gaddy [send him mail], an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest.

Praxis: The Marines Lighten Up

Saw a fair amount of body armor and kevlar helmets being bought and and sold at the Birmingham gun show this weekend. VERRRRY Pricey. You'd think somebody was getting ready for a war. Along those lines, StrategyPage.com has this:

Marines Lighten Up On Protection

January 5, 2009: U.S. Marine Corps has ordered that it's standard MTV protective vests be made lighter and more flexible. This came after growing complaints from the troops, who have flooded message boards with bad-news stories of how their heavy and restrictive "flak jackets" have put them in danger during combat, A year ago, in an initial response to those complaints, the Marine Corps gave combat commanders the authority to allow their troops to go into action without some, or all, of their protective equipment. The marines tend to be more innovative, and use more initiative, in matters like this. Even so, senior marine officers had been putting off making this decision. That is a form of good news to the junior officers, who actually get shot at, because it meant the brass were finally willing to put their careers on the line, and give the combat commanders the authority to have troops shed armor when the situation calls for it.

Most of the problems came about when marines began receiving a new protective vest, the Scalable Plate Carrier (SPC), in 2007. This one was a little lighter, but a lot less bulky, one (MTV, or Modular Tactical vest) introduced in 2004. First it went to Afghanistan, where moving up and down hills is a lot more strenuous than the generally flat terrain of Iraq. But marines still complained about the 80,000 MTV vests that had been issued, which are considered too heavy and restrictive. Only about 5,000 SPC vests have been issued.

All this is the result of a six year old debate in the infantry community over how much body armor is actually needed. There are times when the troops have to move fast (as when chasing down a sniper). But the senior commanders are under a lot of pressure to keep friendly casualties down, so they tend to insist that the troops wear all their armor all the time. Despite this, some subordinate commanders look the other way when troops shed their armor, or parts of it, to temporarily to get some needed speed. Over the last few years, pressure from the media and politicians has caused several additional items to be added to the standard protective vest. This was welcomed by reservists doing a lot of convoy duty, but not by infantry running around after the enemy. The latest protective vests have a quick release feature, that makes it easier to get the vest off, and back on again.

Many soldiers and marines point out that the SOCOM operators (Special Forces and SEALs) will sometimes go into action without their protective vests. Again, that is done because completion of the mission is more important than covering your ass when a reporter goes after you for "unnecessary casualties."

Many of the troops are willing to take the risk, because they believe, for example, that taking down a sniper when you have the chance, is worth it. If you don't catch the guy, he will be back in action the next day, kill American troops. All this is another example of the fact that "victory" is defined differently, depending on what your rank is.

Time to Hammer Holder

Folks,

You may think you're seeing double, triple or quadruple because you're flipping from gun rights web site to gun rights web site and getting the same message. That's because we're all agreed that pulling out all the political stops to derail the nomination of the corrupt and dangerous Eric Holder as this nation's top law enforcement officer is absolutely vital. My thanks to Pete at Western Rifle Shooters Association for the heads up about Jeff Knx's piece that I have reproduced below.

Read and act.

Mike Vanderboegh
III



Block Holder - Act Today!

Just 2 items in this Alert:
1. Personal note and appeal from Jeff
2. Holder Confirmation Hearing scheduled for January 15!!
Happy New Year!!!

I hope you've enjoyed the holy days and gotten a bit of needed rest. As Mom commented yesterday when someone complained that their short vacation from work was not long enough: "Vacation? What's a vacation?" When you do the kind of work we do, it seems that there is no such thing as a day off. We did enjoy a nice family Christmas morning, (my 2-year old grandson really brought the Christmas spirit back to us this year) but by that afternoon she was busy processing mail from the last Hard Corps Report and trying to keep up with correspondence while I was working on new columns that were due and trying to build the coalition against the appointment of Eric Holder as Attorney General. It seems like there are always 5 or 6 other things that I need to be doing and I never can get around to all of them.

I want to thank those who have provided financial support recently. Your contributions are all that allow us to continue in the fight, and continuing in the fight is all we want to do – as long as we can do it effectively. Every dollar we receive from our friends and supporters makes a real difference to us and we appreciate each one. Unlike the Brady Bunch and the Violence Policy Center, The Firearms Coalition is solely supported by member contributions. We don't have billionaire sugar-daddies and don't receive grants from big "charitable" foundations. We rely on you. Contributors can rest assured that there are no exorbitant salaries being paid around here and no expensive junkets being taken. I'll just say that it's a good thing that I inherited my dad's Scottish penny-pincher gene or else it would be doubtful that we'd be able to keep going.

If you haven't made a contribution recently, now's a great time to do so; we've made special deals with some of our friends to allow us to offer your choice of the documentary DVD; In Search of the Second Amendment by Dave Hardy, the first book on the Heller decision; The Heller Case: Gun Rights Affirmed by Alan Korwin and David Kopel, or Steve Halbrooks latest book; The Founders' Second Amendment. With any contribution of $50 or more you can take your pick of the three titles. For a contribution of $120 or more you can have all three. Supplies are limited so don't wait. If we get a good response we will try to continue the offer, but there's no guarantee that we'll be able to so act now.

Sarah Brady is telling Congress and the new President that you don't care any more and that any gun control law at all is OK with you as long as it doesn't include an all out ban on possession of all guns. She even has a poll claiming to show that a majority of gunowners support stricter gun laws and she's using that to convince Congress to push forward with her restrictive wish list.

To battle this we need to pound Congress hard to let them know "We ain't dead yet!" That's why it's important that you act on the information below immediately!

Congress is planning to hit the ground running in a few days. The new Congress will be sworn in on January 6 and the Senate Judiciary Committee has set a date of January 15 for confirmation hearings on Barack Obama's pick for Attorney General, Eric Holder. Gunowners need to be pushing members of the committee very hard to delay and block the confirmation.

The Democrat members of the Judiciary Committee are all sworn enemies to the Second Amendment and are unlikely to be swayed at all by any firearms related arguments, but might hesitate to confirm based on Holders participation in the pardons of 16 Puerto Rican terrorists and billionaire financier and arms merchant Marc Rich. Any letters to Democrats should focus on those issues.

On the Republican side, Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the committee has never been a friend to gun rights, but he owes his reelection to NRA support and has expressed concern over the pardon issues. Among the other Republicans, most are relatively reliable votes, but only Coburn has routinely taken a leadership role on Second Amendment matters. All of them need to be pressed hard to do everything they can to block the appointment.

For more information about Eric Holder and why his appointment must be fought tooth and nail, go to our web site at www.FirearmsCoalition.org.

I would also encourage NRA members to send letters to Chris Cox at NRA urging him to fight the Holder appointment with everything he's got. Remind him that a good fight over Holder could preempt much of the anti gun legislation being planned and keep us from having to fight numerous other battles. Remember that Chris works for you just like the politicians do. It's up to you to keep him and NRA moving in the right direction. If you know any NRA Directors, it's a good idea to be lobbying them as well. This is the type of fight that NRA tends to choose not to fight because it's not a likely winner and they want to preserve political capitol for more urgent matters. That would be a mistake. A good fight now, even in a losing cause, sends the message that the gun lobby isn't dead yet and builds much more political capitol than it expends. If NRA refuses to take the lead in the fight to stop the Holder appointment, the fight will be a fizzle and the result will be to increase the impression that the gun lobby is impotent – emboldening our enemies and guaranteeing tougher battles in the future.

Here is the current roster for the Judiciary Committee:
Democrats:

Patrick J. Leahy
Chairman, D-Vermont

Edward M. Kennedy
D-Massachusetts
Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
D-Delaware
Herb Kohl
D-Wisconsin
Dianne Feinstein
D-California
Russell D. Feingold
D-Wisconsin
Charles E. Schumer
D-New York
Richard J. Durbin
D-Illinois
Benjamin L. Cardin
D-Maryland
Sheldon Whitehouse
D-Rhode Island
Republicans:

Arlen Specter
Ranking Member, R-Pennsylvania
Orrin G. Hatch
R-Utah
Charles E. Grassley
R-Iowa
Jon Kyl
R-Arizona
Jeff Sessions
R-Alabama
Lindsey Graham
R-South Carolina
John Cornyn
R-Texas
Sam Brownback
R-Kansas
Tom Coburn
R-Oklahoma

Keep in mind that Biden will not be serving and Kennedy says he is going to resign from the committee (after 46 years.) That means that there will be two new Democrats added to the committee and so far there has been no indication of who they might be.

Right now the first priority is to hit the members of the Judiciary Committee asking them to delay, side-track, or outright kill the Holder nomination. The secondary priority is to hit the rest of the Senate. Anyone can lobby any Committee member so don't hesitate to send a note to each member. Short and to the point is best and I suggest making your point in the Subject line if you're sending e-mail.

Below is a sample, for e-mail or snail-mail, appropriate for almost any Republican:



Subject: Reject Holder Nomination


Dear Senator Specter;

I am writing to urge you to oppose the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States. Please do everything in your power to block Holder's confirmation.

Mr. Holder has demonstrated extremely poor judgment, a lack of understanding of the Constitution, and a willingness to take questionable actions on behalf of the President. His appointment appears to be based more on political cronyism than on demonstrated skills and abilities.

As Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, Mr. Holder actively worked to suppress information about the Waco tragedy. Later he played a key roll in the Elian Gonzalez fiasco, not only acting as the administration spokesperson, but apparently participating in the decision-making process which resulted in a Federal SWAT team's pre-dawn raid to seize the child at gunpoint and forcibly return him to Castro's Cuba. Mr. Holder's actions in both of those cases demonstrated a serious lack of judgment, a willingness to engage in duplicitous and deceptive rhetoric, and disrespect for justice and the rule of law.

During his time in the AG's office and subsequently, Mr. Holder has consistently called for and endorsed stricter gun control laws and has espoused the theory that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right. This theory was rejected by all 9 Justices of the Supreme Court. Such a fundamental misconstruction of an enumerated constitutional right demonstrates a serious lack of understanding of the meaning and intent of the Constitution and the philosophy upon which this nation is founded. It also demonstrates an unhealthy distrust of his fellow citizens. The nomination of Eric Holder is an insult to every American gun owner and Senate confirmation would add real injury to the insult.

At the close of the Clinton administration, Holder was instrumental in facilitating the presidential pardons of Marc Rich and 16 FALN terrorists. Holder's lack of judgment in these cases and his willingness to do President Clinton's bidding in these matters demonstrates a critical lack of personal integrity and backbone. Those pardons could scarcely be justified at the time and have since been shown to have been motivated by financial and political gain.

Eric Holder has proven that he does not have the understanding, judgment, or personal integrity to responsibly manage the extensive authority of the Attorney General's office. Members of the Senate are tasked with overseeing the appointment of senior executives and ensuring that the positions are filled with the very best qualified candidates available. Mr. Holder does not meet this standard and should not be confirmed. Past AG nominees have been blocked for inadvertently using undocumented workers as domestic workers in their homes. Mr. Holder's failings far exceed such errors.

I ask that you demonstrate your commitment to positive changes in Washington and your stated support for Second Amendment rights by doing everything in your power to block the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General.

Please keep me apprised of your position and actions in this matter.

Sincerely,

Jeff Knox
PO Box 3313
Manassas, VA 20108

I wrote a column to appear in Shotgun News on the subject of the Holder appointment, but if the Judiciary committee sticks to their planned schedule and no one places a "hold" on the nomination, the appointment could be confirmed before the magazine hits the newsstands. That makes it even more critical that everyone reading this take action today.

The first thing to do is to forward this Alert to everyone in your e-mail address book.

Next, modify the letter to make it your own, or just replace my name with your own and send a copy to each Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Their contact information can be found by clicking on their names at the following address:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm

Lastly, send a similar note, but more personalized, to both of your Senators urging them to reject the Holder appointment. I would also encourage you to send a similar message to President-Elect Obama by using the web form available at this site:

http://change.gov/page/content/contact/

Please take action now and please do what you can to support our efforts financially. We can't do it without you.

Yours for the Second Amendment,

Jeff Knox
Director, The Firearms Coalition

Heinlein, National Borders, Liberty and the American Republic

Folks,

I received this reply to my post on Heinlein's "The Republic will always have need for heroes.":


Anonymous:

Heinlein didn't study the game theory on this one. Valuing a group of 30 of your own genetic kin more than yourself is 'behavior that tends towards survival'. Valuing a group of 300 million more than yourself does not have the same payoff in genetics or social networks. Not even close.

Please consider the "race baiting whigger" post and the Heinlein essay together, and see how they contradict one another. In these large group scenarios, what's the strategy difference between a "racial division" and a "national border"? Both are merely yard lines and jersey colors on a game field whose rules and goalposts are set by Socialists.

Truly liberty, true lack of "racism", means no national borders, no green cards, no immigration control. It also means none of this silly loyalty to the State's standing army that Heinlein is selling.

I'm being hammered right now by THE Deadline on Absolved, and so I sent this on to my intellectual brother for his comment and analysis. Here it is. I couldn't do better.

MBV
III


Mike:

It is an argument by false analogy. “…what's the strategy difference between a "racial division" and a "national border"?” Truly liberty, true lack of "racism", means no national borders, no green cards, no immigration control. It also means none of this silly loyalty to the State's standing army that Heinlein is selling.”

I think I understand the distinction the commenter is making, but the argument fails the test of history, as well as conflating different criteria.

Short answer: Just because you are not an advocate of racist group identity doesn’t mean that you are necessarily required to advocate or adhere to international socialist collectivism, such as the “no borders, no green cards, no immigration control” crowd would have you assume.

Long answer: First, Heinlein was an evolutionist and did not adhere to the Natural Law theory, so for him, “behavior that trends towards [group] survival” defines both ethics and normative behavior. That said, Heinlein was also a patriot – an adherent to American Exceptionalism. The key here is defining the group. In his day it was easier as he did not have to contend with the post-modernist destruction of Western civilization…. Heinlein was loyal to family, to community, and ultimately, to the United States of America, as the defining group worthy of [his] sacrifice to ensure [‘group’]survival – his normative ethical principle requiring action (think ‘duty’). Funny, although a non-believer, his normative ethic exactly comports to the very Christian ideas of duty and sacrifice. His loyalty and duty were not to a race, but to an idea. Heinlein was not a racist (so far as I can determine from reading his works – re: Farnham’s Freehold, specifically).

But the key is defining the ‘group.’ Whereas the millennial ideal may be a society wherein people aren’t affected by boundaries and there are no longer nation-states, the historical reality is different. The assumption that people’s focus of action should be global or international is deeply wrong. The reality is that human societies always display two characteristics: humans are tribal (or call it ‘particularism’), identifying with some cultural or ethnic group - of which they have something in common beyond mere ‘humanness’; and, second, mankind is flawed (selfish in a state of economic scarcity; sin-nature – both explain it), so even if the ideal would posit that there ought to be no nation-states or borders or different groups owning our loyalty and sacrifice – it doesn’t work out. Although I would agree that the current idea that humanity can get past nation-states is a “game field whose rules and goalposts are set by Socialists.” Of course that is true – it is the very essence of Marxism!

True liberty is resolved within a culture that adheres to the Natural Law. Western Civilization has codified that fairly well through the amalgam of British Constitutionalism, leavened by the Judeo-Christian ethic, the Saxon Common-law, and the Hebrew law code, with a smattering of Greco-Roman (mostly ‘how not to’) influence and a little bit of the Enlightenment. We cannot experience “true Liberty” while on this pre-millennial earth in either some anarchic state of ‘self’ or in some international, collectivist experiment in mass –leveling. The first leads to narcissistic debauchery, the second to serfdom, penury and slavery – in everything but name.

But let us get back to the phrase “some cultural or ethical group, of which they have something in common” beyond the mere fact that they are people… The important fact is that civilizations have a specific qualities, evidenced by the development of a recognizable, distinct culture. We naturally adhere to that culture. We do not have the same loyalty, and therefore the same sense of duty or obligation, to other cultures… particularly to any racist culture (la Raza, Black nationalism), or to any manifestation of statist collectivism, by whatever form. So when the internationalists, collectivists and statists argue that I am not ‘moral’ because I adhere to “language, border, and culture” as a defining characteristic to determine the outer bounds of my moral, self-sacrificing action, they are on the wrong-side of history. Some young, vibrant culture will rise up (militant Islam; xenophobic Chinese nationalism; even possibly revanchist Russian nationalism, …) and kick them in the teeth.

Western Civilization and, more specifically, traditional American Exceptionalism are worth identifying with and dying for. Like Heinlein, I am proud to offer up my unworthy efforts in their defense. Cultures based on brown, black, white or yellow racism are not; neither is the statist collectivist ideal.

The History Behind the Novel: The Epitaph of Winston County's Christopher Sheats

Folks,

Absolved is a novel built upon a foundation of reality. Part of that reality is the saga of Winston County in the War Between the States. You have already been introduced to Aunt Jenny Brooks in the chapters entitled Poor White Boys. I'd like to introduce you to someone even more important in the history of the mountain folks of North Alabama: Charles Christopher Sheats.


Charles Christopher Sheats (April 10, 1839 - May 27, 1904)

On Monday, January 7, 1861, one hundred men gathered at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama to determine whether or not Alabama would join other southern states in seceding from the Uniion, a process begun by South Carolina less than three weeks before.

One of those men was Charles Christopher Sheats, called "Chris," a 21 year old school teacher from Winston County. In the whirlwind of state conventions that followed Lincoln's election, Sheats, a staunch opponent of secession, had been elected on Chistmas Eve, 1860, by the yoemen farmers of Winston County, beating a local planter and slaveholder by a vote of 515 to 128.

Typical of the men who elected Sheats was James B. Bell, a farmer who owned no slaves. In a letter to his pro-confederate son in Mississippi on April 21, 1861, he wrote. "All they [slave holders] want is to git you pupt up and go fight for there infurnal negroes and after you do there fighting you may kiss there hine parts for o [all] they care." (See "History of the 1st Alabama Cavalry, U.S. Volunteers" by Dean Barber, here.)

Like Sheats, most of the delegates elected from the northern counties of Alabama were against secession and were labeled "Cooperationists" because of their loyalty to the United States. Yet of all of these, Sheats stood out as the bitterest opponent of the planters, labeling their bid for independence as a "rich man's war but a poor man's fight." During four days of debate, it was Sheats who repeatedly advanced the strongest objections in the most stirring language, emerging as a natural leader from among much older men. He rhetorically fought the planters at every turn and they were particularly outraged when Sheats quoted their own hero Andrew Jackson against them. Jackson had warned the South Carolinians on Dec. 10, 1832 during a previous secession crisis:

“Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will inevitably fall the evils of the conflict you force upon the Government of your country. It can not accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims.”

Labeled a "Tory" and worse by the planters who would brook no opposition, he was finally, brutally, knocked to the floor of the chamber of the Alabama House of Represntatives and thrown into the Montgomery City Jail until the vote was finalized. Without Sheats (and intimidated by the example that had been made of him), several "cooperationists" changed their votes and the secession ordinance finally passed by a vote of 61-39. Sheats refused to sign the ordinance, even though most of the delegates who had originally opposed it did so.

After the secession deed was done, Sheats was released from jail and returned to Winston County, where he was hailed as a hero for refusing to compromise his principles (and those of the Jacksonian Democrats who elected him) and bow to the planters.

Scant evidence exists of Sheats's actions between the end of the Secession Convention and early July 1861. On July 4, 1861, Sheats was the principal speaker at a well-attended public forum at Looney's Tavern in Winston County. No transcript remains of Sheats's remarks there, but a committee, of which Sheats was most likely a member, issued a declaration stating that Winston County demanded to be left out of the war. The committee stated that the county would not support the Confederacy or the Union. It also argued that if a state had the constitutional right to secede from the United States, then a county had the right to secede from a state. Winston County soon became infamously known as the Free State of Winston County. Unfortunately, the state of Alabama refused to acknowledge the county's declaration of neutrality; Alabama's civic and military leaders argued that Winston County's actions were unconstitutional.

In 1861, Winston citizens elected Sheats to the state legislature, but he would not attend the legislative session because all representatives had to swear an oath to support the Confederacy. As the war proceeded, he continued to be an ardent supporter of the Union, although such outspokenness increasingly caused consternation among state leaders and neighbors. Finally, Sheats fled his home and took refuge in the mountains of north Alabama, as did a large number of Unionists trying to evade conscription into the Confederate Army. In July 1862, Union soldiers led by Colonel Abel Streight came across Sheats while recruiting Unionists in the mountains. Sheats gave a speech to the Union soldiers and his fellow Unionists, stating that he would enlist and join the Union army. Sheats never got the chance to enlist. Shortly after Union soldiers moved out of north Alabama, he was arrested by Confederates for making treasonous comments such as urging Alabamians to enlist in the Union Army. His arrest prompted state legislators, by a vote of 69–4, to expel him from the legislature. Sheats stayed in Confederate custody for several months and at one point was sent to a prison in Salisbury, North Carolina. He was eventually returned to Madison County before being released. Sheats was rearrested in mid-1863 for stating that Alabama should seek peace and surrender to the Union. He remained a political prisoner until the Confederacy surrendered. -- The Encyclopedia of Alabama.

After the war, Chris Sheats came home to fight another, more insidious enemy. Carpetbag Republicans, especially as represented in the person of George Eliphaz Spencer, flooded into the state, gradually using corrupt and even violent means to shoulder aside Alabama-born Unionists like Sheats to facilitate their plundering of state contracts and coffers. (One of Spencer's minions even assassinated a friend and political ally of Sheats just before an election when it looked like he might win a seat in Congress that Spencer wanted for one of his own crooked partners.)

Fighting a war of many fronts for an honest government that represented all the people not just a powerful elite of one stripe or another, Sheats and his fellow Alabamans were destined to lose. Though he would be appointed U.S. Consul to Denmark, and elected to the 43rd Congress in 1873, his battle for the rights of the yoemen farmers of the hills to be free to decide their own destiny ended in bitter faulure.

Sheats did not marry until well into adulthood when on January 27, 1887, he wed the much younger Mary Anderson. Charles Christopher Sheats died on May 27, 1904, in Decatur, Alabama and was buried at nearby McKendree Cemetery.

If you visit his grave today, you will find this epitaph which he wrote himself.

"I love my country, my God and my kind.
I have served them all.
I want no praise of song or prose."

"There is a fight coming and race plays no role in it."

Fighting with the 2nd Infantry Division north of the Chongchon River, Sgt. 1st Class Major Cleveland, weapons squad leader, points out a North Korean position to his machine-gun crew Nov. 20, 1950.

This has always been one of my favorite photos of the Korean War. It is not just the image that impressed me, but the probability that all of these men were dead, wounded or captured in the Chinese counteroffensive that overwhelmed the Eighth Army five days later.

The clues in the photo are tantalizing, haunting. From the perspective of the photographer, it is obvious that no lead is flying. He would hardly be in front of the position if that were the case, although I suppose he might be in a fighting position dug lower down and off to the left flank of the team using a telephoto lens. The 2nd Infantry Division was fighting slowly north at this time, expecting to launch itself in one last offensive to victory against a broken, running North Korean enemy. Everyone expected the war would be over by Christmas.

As S.L.A. Marshall wrote in his history of the campaign, The River and the Gauntlet:

On Thanksgiving night, 1950, two armies confronted each other along the valley of the Chongchon River, a broad but shallow stream which flows southwestward to the Yellow sea through northwestern Korea. Both armies were poised to attack on the morrow. . . Here we look only at the unequal struggle along the Chongchon between one army which, though attacking, had no expectation that it would be strongly resisted, and a second host which, hidden, watched and waited the hour opportune to its own offensive design. One knew. The other didn't.

SFC Cleveland points at a target, and the 1919A6 gunner and assistant gunner are apparently following his directions. Their gazes parallel and each is serious. The gunner's brow is furrowed. The young white ammo bearer in the rear seems disinterested, unconnected with the scene, yet not even he is smiling. Indeed, he seems tired, unhappy. A staged photo? Probably, yet there are clues to the sort of noncom SFC Cleveland must have been.

For one thing, they all have their helmets. Again, here's Marshall talking about another company in their division:

For all its heaviness of spirit, Baker was remarkably light of foot on that particular morning. In fact, it was much too light. This was what the preceding days of relatively light action and the promises that the war was wearing to an end had done to the company. All but twelve men had thrown away their steel helmets; the pile cap was better insurance against frostbite and the steel helmet wouldn't fit over it.

Not so with SFC Cleveland's light machine gun team. They still have their helmets -- heavy, cold, unpopular M-1 steel pots. Yet they have them because someone has determined that they still need them, that the war is not over and they still must be prepared. Just by themselves, the presence of these helmets is proof that he commands. Even if the order originated above him, he has enforced it. Command, SFC Cleveland apparently knew, is not a popularity contest.

Then look over the business end of the Browning. The effects of prolonged firing are obvious on the flash hider. This weapon has been fired before in anger, and often. This is not a rear echelon unit. These men are a small component of the tip of the spear. And they, at least, are commanded by a black man. A very competent, confident, serious black man.

Harry Truman had only desegregated the army two years before. This was a new thing, for white men to be commanded by black men, and there were problems. But they were not insurmountable. Still, the photo captures just how much things had changed.

Just seven years before, in early June of 1943, 25,000 Packard plant workers in Detroit, who produced engines for bombers and PT boats, stopped work in protest of the promotion of three blacks. A handful of agitators whipped up animosity against the promotions. During the strike a voice outside the plant reportedly shouted, "I'd rather see Hitler and Hirohito win than work beside a nigger on the assembly line."

Said the Detroit News history of the incident:

Whites resentful over working next to blacks caused many stoppages and slowdowns. Harold Zeck, a former Packard defense worker, recalls the time when a group of women engine workers tried to get the men on the assembly line to walk off the job to protest black female workers using the white restrooms. "They think their fannies are as good as ours," screamed one woman.

Sounds goofy today, doesn't it? Yet this was in the middle of a war that everyone understood was for western civilization itself and which, in June 1943, no one was very confident that we would win. Our troops, airmen and sailors needed those engines. Everybody knew it. But that was less important than whether "their fannies are as good as ours."

Racism still exists today, of course, on both sides. Or I should say on many sides. From what I have observed watching events in LA from afar, black-hispanic racial conflict is far worse, and claims far more victims on a daily basis, than the Klan on its worst day.

Yet for all our faults, there is hope that one day we may finally bury all the collectivist-exploited hatreds in the ash heap of history. I present one small of evidence that this may yet be so in the form of an email I received in the wake of the "whigger" back-and-forth on KABA. Duane Owen is a certified NRA firearms instructor in Virginia, and this is what he sent me this morning:

I was born and raised in Indiana, a very racist state to this day.

(MBV Note: My Great Uncle Reynolds who was shot in the butt by a Jewish jewelry shop owner with a BAR in the mid-1920s while trying to light a cross on his lawn was a member in good standing of the Indiana Klan.)

The day to day life in Indy was and is still hard (but) I no longer live there. I have lived in VA for the past 20 years and find it to be a really nice place. The people are different and a lot friendlier. People think that the south is racist.... and in some places that is true, but not in most, people are just people.

I told people many years ago that Big Brother wants us to fight so he can keep doing what he is doing, the old divide and conquer, and it has worked well for them. But I think at this point in the game people are beginning to see that the government really only cares about itself and what it can do to us, how it can turn not just one class of people into slaves but all of us to follow it blindly into hell.

I am not stupid, I have never been a follower and as you can see below I am also a man of strong beliefs. There is a fight coming and race plays no role in it. The man standing beside me could be blue for all I care as long as we believe in the same goals, to get this country back on the right path, a government for the people, not a bunch of assholes trying to figure out how to line their pockets.

I don't want to get really started, I could go on for Hrs. When your book comes out send me an email.

And just so you know, there are a lot of Black men (like me) who think like I do, who know what's at stake and will fight.

Of that, I have no doubt. I keep flashing back to that moment in time in the photograph, and to the likely fate of the young men in it. When the Chinese rolled in and they went down fighting, as so many American soldiers did that awful Thanksgiving, I doubt the Chinese made any differentiation as to their race as they shot, bayoneted or clubbed them to death in their fighting position after they expended their last belt of ammo. The Chinese only saw American enemies, and gave them all the equality of their hatred and violence. In war, they were equal. Only in peacetime would they be considered unworthy because of the color of their skin.

And some, notably on KABA, consider them unworthy to this day. I can only say that if fighting beside such men as SFC Cleveland or Duane Owen defending our mutual liberty and the Republic makes me a "whigger," then I will proudly wear the slur.

Mike Vanderboegh
III

(Note: If you would like to contact Duane Owen directly, his email is
ghostmaker2@yahoo.com or duane@wolfpackprotection.com)

"Vanderdough the race baiting whigger.": An intellectual discussion of race over at KABA

My reply to the Reverend of Detroit's First Church of Gungrabbing (see below), has elicited the usual well-reasoned responses over at Keep and Bear Arms.

An example,

Comment by: Ø (1/1/2009)
More bilge from Vanderdough the race baiting whigger.

And another:

Comment by: mfs@alltel.net (1/2/2009)
What the h*** does this rant have to do with the NON-WHITE elected regime's plan to disarm WHITE VICTIMS OF CRIME?

The first anti-gun laws in America were enacted by the criminal Radical Republican regimes imposed at bayonet point in the South during Reconstruction...forbade former Confederates from possessing arms. Southerners were forced to take extreme measures to protect their families from criminals encouraged by the local "Loyal Leagues."

As for those who hate "haters," the SPLC wants you!


Now I shouldn't waste time responding to such elegant displays of intellect and logic, but there are many, many more folks who use KABA as their go-to summary of firearms rights news. They far outnumber the racists and antisemites who so prolifically post there. It is to them, rather than the dim-witted racial and religious tribalists, that I direct my responses. To wit,

Comment by: GeorgeMason1776@aol.com (1/2/2009)
"What the h*** does this rant have to do with the NON-WHITE elected regime's plan to disarm WHITE VICTIMS OF CRIME?"

To characterize the Obama administration as a "non-white regime" is a demonstrable falsehood. The problems with the degradation of liberty and law in this country are first and foremost those of a colorless collectivism which uses the races as pawns against each other. Portraying yourself as a "victim of crime" may make you feel sorry for yourself but is unlikely to sway others. I am not a victim, I am a citizen. An armed citizen. I have the means of both my personal defense and my liberty in my hands. I also have the head to know the difference between a pawn and an enemy.

Those who don't are themselves pawns.

"The first anti-gun laws in America were enacted by the criminal Radical Republican regimes imposed at bayonet point in the South during Reconstruction."

Again, a demonstrable falsehood. The first gun laws in this country were aimed at slaves and free blacks. This is incontrovertible. See Clayton Cramer's The Racist Roots of Gun Control, et al.

You remind me of the poor white sharecroppers (from whom on my mother's side I am descended) who allowed themselves to be manipulated by the former plantation owners into not only competing against their own self-interest with black sharecroppers, thus driving down the wages of all, but to be used as a blunt instrument against poor blacks when the landowner wanted to make a point.

One of the early memories I have of my Reynolds kin was somebody saying, "Well, we may be poor, but at least we ain't black." As if that meant anything. Did it put more food in their mouths? Help send their kids to college?

It was such a tried and true tactic that northern industrial owners used it for hundreds of years. Your Germans on strike? Bring in some Irishmen as strikebreakers. The Irish then go on strike? Bring in some Italians and Slavs. Got trouble building a railroad because the Irish want too much money? Bring in Chinese.

And all the time, exploit these divisions against them for your benefit. Only a moron, knowing these facts, would continue to allow himself to be manipulated.

Racists of all colors have always been tools in somebody else's hands, more often in those of a bloody collectivist than an unscrupulous capitalist. You remind me of Blazing Saddles, "Mongo just pawn in game of life."

At least Mongo had the sense to know he was being used. Racial tribalism -- black or white -- is still collectivism.

Ask yourself, "who do I serve?" If you don't serve a Higher Power -- Who is certainly more interested in the content of our character than the color of our skin -- at least have the sense to serve your own selfish interests.

If the right to KABA really interests you, you won't blow off any potential allies in that fight. Unless of course you want us all to lose. Again, who do you serve?

"The Republic will always have need for heroes."

Midshipman Heinlein, from the 1929 US Naval Academy yearbook

On 5 April, 1973, Robert Heinlein, noted science fiction author and graduate of the United States Naval Academy, delivered the James Forrestal Memorial Lecture to the Brigade of Midshipmen at his alma mater. At the request of the midshipmen, Heinlein took the first part of his speech to discuss freelance writing. After he satisfied their request, Heinlein told the midshipmen what he believed they needed to hear.

It was a time of turmoil and doubt. The Vietnam War was being "Vietnamized" and American soldiers were coming home from the second inconclusive, unpopular war in a generation. Midshipmen in Heinlein's time proudly wore their uniforms off post and were hailed as heroes-in-the-making and given free meals and, not infrequently, got their pick of the girls. By 1973, Naval and Marine officer candidates rarely wore their uniforms off post, for when they did, the girls would spit on them and call them "babykillers."

As for Heinlein, he had no doubts, and in his speech he tried to get across to the midshipmen that they should have none either.

I dedicate this reprint of his remarks to the men and women of the USNA Class of 2013 in the certainty that they too can benefit from Heinlein's wisdom.

Mike Vanderboegh
III


"I speak to the overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took. . . The Republic will always have need for heroes."

In this complex world, science, the scientific method, and the consequences of the scientific method are central to everything the human race is doing and to wherever we are going. If we blow ourselves up we will do it by the misapplication of science; if we manage to keep from blowing ourselves up, it will be through intelligent application of science. Science fiction is the only form of fiction which takes into account this central force in our lives and futures. Other sorts of fiction, if they notice science at all, simply deplore it - an attitude very chic in the anti-intellectual atmosphere today. But we will never get out of the mess we are in by wringing our hands. . .


(To the Brigade at large:)

Why are you here?

(To a plebe:)

Mister, why are YOU here?

Never mind, son; that's a rhetorical question. You are here to become a naval officer. That's why this Academy was founded. That is why all of you are here: to become naval officers. If that is NOT why YOU are here, you've made a bad mistake. But I speak to the overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took on becoming midshipmen and look forward to the day when they will renew that oath as commissioned officers.

But why would anyone want to become a naval officer? In the present dismal state of our culture there is little prestige attached to serving your country; recent public opinion polls place military service far down the list.

It can't be the pay. No one gets rich on the pay. Even a 4-star admiral is paid much less than top executives in other lines. As for lower ranks, the typical naval officer finds himself throughout his career just catching up from the unexpected expenses connected with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes a new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over and retires... but he can't really retire because he has two kids in college and one still to go. So he has to find a job... and discovers that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don't pay well.

Working conditions? You'll spend half your life away from your family. Your working hours? 'Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able; the seventh the same, and pound on the cable.' A forty-hour week is standard for civilians - but not for naval officers. You'll work that forty-hour week, but that's just a starter. You'll stand a night watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade your hours get longer - until at last you get a ship of your own and no longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a day... and you'll sign your night order book with: 'In case of doubt, do not hesitate to call me.'

I don't know the average week's work for a naval officer but it's closer to sixty than to forty. I'm speaking of peacetime, of course. Under war conditions it is whatever hours are necessary - and sleep you grab when you can.

Why would anyone elect a career which is unappreciated, overworked, and underpaid? It can't be just to wear a pretty uniform. There has to be a better reason.

As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him - which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon... but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard. The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him. Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.

Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled 'intellectuals' to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. 'Warmongers' - 'Imperialists' - 'Hired killers in uniform' - you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.

I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack. Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics. But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to talk about it - as if it were something shameful or an irrational weakness. But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor is it something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual. A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.

To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go back to fundamentals. Take any breed of animal - for example, tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.

Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?

We can answer part of that at once: Individually h. sapiens will NOT survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here would be 118 years old by then - if still alive.

Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a half - but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to die and get out of the way of younger people.

Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half of the question: Does homo sapiens AS A BREED have to die? The answer is: No, it is NOT unavoidable. We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or otherwise.

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define 'moral behavior' as 'behavior that tends toward survival.' I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word 'moral' to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define 'behavior that tends toward extinction' as being 'moral' without stretching the word 'moral' all out of shape.

We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest. The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish... but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college - and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child... and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.

The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger than the unit family - an extended family, a herd, a tribe - and take another look at that baboon on watch; he's at that moral level. I don't think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as 'morality' or 'duty' or 'loyalty' - but it is evident that baboons DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it 'instinct' if you like - but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.

But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don't have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons... but the leopard decides who graduates - and there is no appeal from his decision. We don't have to understand the details to observe the outcome; baboons behave morally - for baboons.

The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called 'patriotism.'
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will NEVER die. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But those astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut Corps are graduates of this our school. And let me add that James Forrestal was the FIRST high-ranking Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.

I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier... for they contend that THEIR actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel - and they'll tell you that to your face. I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.

Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war. Yes - and if pigs had wings, they could fly. I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the Far East - or Africa - or the Middle East - knows or certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In the past few years I have been around the world three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes. The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among the nations capable of waging total war - while endless lesser wars break out here and there. I won't belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not one place where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes - else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.

Patriotism - Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale's last words: 'I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.' Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, 'The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots'' A submarine skipper giving the order 'Take her DOWN!' while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, 'The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who can go out there and WIN!'
Patriotism - An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs you your life. Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract expression 'patriotism.' Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words 'Patriotism' reads 'Women and children first!'

And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on... as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.

I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and often have. I have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have on my side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain military service. My wife put in three years of active duty in World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud - very proud! - of her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in uniform; they are a shining example to us men.

Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on 'Women and children first' - and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to extinction.

Possibly extinction is the way we are headed. Great nations have died in the past; it can happen to us. Nor am I certain how good our chances are. To me it seems self-evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on the skids. Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a matter of time. I don't know how deeply the rot has penetrated - but it seems to me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty years. Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost its grip on a large percentage of our people. I hope I am wrong... because if my fears are well grounded, I would not bet two cents on this nation's chance of lasting even to the end of this century. But there is no way to force patriotism on anyone. Passing a law will not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so many billions of dollars. You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You are going to a school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by precept and example. It is not enough to know what Charlie Noble does for a living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice the main brace and why - nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation and ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These things are merely the working tools of your profession and could be learned elsewhere; they do not require 'four years together by the Bay where the Severn joins the tide.'

What you do have here is a tradition of service. Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: 'Don't Give Up the Ship.' If you feel nothing, you don't belong here. But if it gives you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the years... until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your own honored dead - classmates, shipmates, friends - read them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.

The time has come for me to stop. I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.

In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.

One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her. But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck.

Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them. The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed - and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself. The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.

THIS is how a man dies. This is how a MAN . . . lives!

'They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old;
age shall not wither them nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them''

- Tomb of the Scottish Unknown Soldier, Edinburgh


This essay was originally published in Expanded Universe (Ace Science Fiction Books, 1980). Robert Heinlein (1907-1988) was a retired naval officer and renowned sci-fi author.

A Letter of Appreciation from the Black Legion (currently burning in Hell)

Folks,

The Reverend Robert Smith, Jr. of the New Bethel Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan, has written an op-ed piece here titled "Ban All Guns." I was going to write a piece challenging the good reverend's idiocy, but it seems that mysterious destiny has turned the wheel first. Read below.

Mike
III

Here is the Reverend.




Here is the Reverend's original piece in full:

Ban All Guns

The Founding Fathers of our country made a mistake when they said we had the right to bear arms. They did not know we would be allies with the British and no longer have to worry about them coming over to oppress and colonize us. The British found greater spoils in Africa and India and never looked back on the United States after the Revolutionary War.

The right to bear arms is killing all of us. In 2005 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 3,006 children and teens killed by gunfire, most of them young, black men in inner-city neighborhoods. And CNN reported yesterday that black-on-black murder of young black men is up 40 percent from last year. The harder the times get, the higher these statistics will go.

The Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois gun killings took 32 lives, and the world was upset and every day 128 young people are shot to death in hard-pressed, poor communities across America and there is no outcry to change it, just report it on the local news. The reporting is so sensationalized that it makes stars of the infamous murderers in the poor black communities. Young men often tell their friends to watch the 6 o'clock news for their action.

We need to ensure that those we elect to public office are not so stuck on protecting us from another British invasion that they cannot enact legislation that will limit the number of guns in our country. It is time to end this culture of violence. We have become desensitized to the point that we play video games that glorify murder -- even cop murder.


Here is my email to the Reverend and his email from his many white racist fans in Hell.

TO: The Reverend Robert Smith, Jr.
New Bethel Baptist Church
8430 Linwood Street
(C. L. Franklin Blvd.)
Detroit, MI 48206
Via Email to: pastorsmith@nbbcdetroit.org

Cover Letter:
Dear Reverend Smith,

Last night I went to bed pondering your opinion piece, "Ban All Guns," posted on the Detroit News website.

This morning I awoke to find an email sent by one Colonel Harvey Davis, from a blind web address called "BlackLegionRoasting@beelzebub.org". Curious, I opened it to the sound of crackling flames and a pungent brimstone odor to find a rather long personal message addressed to you, and the following notation to me :

Dear Race Traitor Vanderboegh,

Reliable email being hard to come by here at the Lake of Fire Retirement Home (we don't even have WiFi), I tried to send this message to Reverend Smith directly but it bounced back (Satan has our filters set so tightly that no message addressed to a religious institution of any kind can get through). I was frustrated until your great uncle Reynolds who used to be a fellow member in the Indiana Klan in the Twenties (I was there when that Jewish businessman shot him in butt with the Browning Automatic Rifle -- the whole thing scared me out of my sheets, I can assure you), told me that you would probably be willing to forward it out of curiosity if nothing else. He said though you had strayed from the historical family opinions and had been an ardent opponent of the Ku Klux Klan and NeoNazis in your time, that you might send it on to the Reverend regardless of its source because it deals with a subject near and dear to your heart. We know you serve the Other Guy, but perhaps you could make an exception in this case? We only get a five minute break every third week (as you reckon time), the demons are very strict about that. Thanking you in advance, I am,

Sincerely,

Colonel Harvey Davis
Formerly of the Black Legion, Detroit Chapter and King Kleagle of the Indiana-Ohio Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Well, Reverend, Colonel Davis had me pegged. I AM intrigued by how you're going to answer this one. Here is his message to you below.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com


A Member of the Black Legion and a member of the Klan Meet and Greet -- "Hi, Mom!"



Reverend Smith,

Me and the boys of the Black Legion would like to thank you for your op-ed piece entitled "Ban All Guns." I have to tell you that it gave us the biggest laugh we've had in, I don't know, maybe ten years (ever since we saw Bill Clinton on the Condemned News Network saying, "I did not have sex with that woman. Ms. Lewinsky"). I must say you improved our morale immensely.

I doubt you remember us, since your historical amnesia seems nearly complete, but we of the Black Legion once rode through the Black Bottom neighborhood of Detroit in our flowing black robes with white skull and crossbones on our hats, terrorizing any of your race we could catch. (It was a pretty good deal for me. Every member had to buy a robe -- they cost seven dollars, which was a lot of money back then -- and I got a percentage.)

We founded the Black Legion in 1933 for the purposes of upholding "Americanism, Womenhood, and Protestantism." All the founding members were Kluxers, but we figured that we needed a new moniker and marketing plan. We'd get some poor credulous sod to take the oath that he'd join in our war against "Negroes, Communists, Jews, Catholics and aliens" and then we'd hold a revolver to his heart and make him swear to "be torn limb from limb and scattered to the carrion" if he betrayed the Legion's secrets. Best thing about it was he had to buy a gun from us and pay ten cents monthly dues. I got a cut of that too. It was great fun.

Why once on a nice spring night in 1935, we shot a Negro by the name of Silas Coleman just because I wanted to see what it felt like to kill a ni- (Oops, almost messed up there, the demon supervisors down here sure don't cotton to us using racial slurs, especially since they're all of African descent and we're all "narrow ass white boys" as my crew boss Elijah Muhammed says.) I MEANT to say, "I wanted to see what it felt like to kill a Negro." I shot first and all the other boys shot after. They said later he was some half-baked war hero of the Great War (that was before they started numbering them). Didn't mean a thing to me. Still doesn't. Once you get down here, your opportunity for forgiveness and atonement is long past.

Anyway, we would still be riding high if we hadn't screwed up and killed a white man for beating his wife. Only come to find out he hadn't been beating his wife, and plus he was a government bureaucrat from the WPA. They sure don't like it when you kill a government man. But I can't complain. We had a good three year run before they sent us all to prison for life. And Coleman wasn't the only black man I killed for sport. He was just the first.

So you're wondering why a big-deal racist cracker like me liked your editorial? That's easy. I like a black man that's disarmed, because he's easy prey. We Kluxers always have. Hell, uh, Reverend, the first gun control laws in this country were written by white men like me to keep black men like you from having guns. Then came Reconstruction, same thing. I want to tell you, the only thing us Kluxers ever feared was guns in the hands of black men who knew how to use them.

And here you are, preaching unilateral black disarmament. Me and all the Kluxers and the Black Legion boys down here just didn't live long enough. I mean, look at you. You're doing a better job of killing yourselves off than we ever dreamed of doing. Every time a young black girl goes to an abortionist, we grin. Every time one of your young men embraces the "gangsta" death culture and kills another of his own race, we giggle. And now you want to unilaterally disarm?

Have you never heard of Dr. Ossian Sweet? How about how in 1942 when the residents of the Sojourner Truth housing project defended their new homes with firearms after a white mob that numbered over a thousand (many of whom were armed) burned a cross in a nearby field and threw a cordon around the neighborhood vowing to keep out any black homeowners? Those incidents happened in your own city of Detroit, Reverend.


An armed black homeowner protects his property and family from roving white mobs near the Sojourner Truth neighborhood in Detroit, 1942.


How about Rosewood, Florida, or the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921? How about the Detroit Race Riots of 1863 and 1943? Does any of this ring a bell? We've been killing unarmed black folks for centuries and you want to disarm? Sweet.


Have you never heard of the Deacons for Defense and Justice? They were after my time, but sometimes I go to the acid baths with Byron de la Beckwith -- you know, the guy who killed Medgar Evers -- and just the very mention of them sets him in a tizzy. Black veterans with semi-automatic rifles. In between burnings and flayings, I never could figure out why all those advocates of Gandhian nonviolence during the Civil Rights movement in the South didn't get croaked right off by men in white regalia. Come to find out, it was because they were being guarded by Deacons. It may have been hypocritical of Martin Luther King, but he apparently never turned down their help. Hell, I wouldn't have either. Disarmament's for people who want to be lynched.

Which is why I want to thank you for your editorial. You just keep talking black folks into disarming. You ban all the guns you want. Give people groceries, color television sets and debit cards in return for their guns. You get them all nice and pacified. When you do, then the Klan can ride again. Because I'll tell you one thing Reverend, the Klan ain't never gonna disarm no matter how many laws you pass. If you think our time can't come round again, you're whistlin' past the graveyard of history. A lot those graves are filled by incautious or well-intentioned black men who thought just like you. And a lot more will be if people listen to you. So keep it up, Reverend. You have the best wishes and unqualified support of every member of the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Legion currently burning in Hell.

Colonel Harvey Davis

Formerly of the Black Legion, Detroit Chapter and King Kleagle of the Indiana-Ohio Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Current address, Lake of Fire Retirement Home, Fifth Level of Hell, Zip Code 666