"Once Upon a Time in Jamaica": A Must-Read from Gunrights4usall

Go here and read.

Self-inflicted Eunuchry: The Pragmatist at Home

I present for your edification and amusement one of Sebastian's posts over at Snowballs, er, Snowflakes here. It is, I think, indicative of a certain mindset. Tell me what you think.

Mike
III

The Endowment Member Gift

Apr 12th, 2009 |

It’s a lovely knife. It would be nice to put it on display. But it’s also a weapon, and I don’t particularly relish the idea of performing a Tueller Drill half asleep at three O’Clock in the morning because a home invader has decided to arm himself with my commemorative NRA Endowment knife. I don’t like to leave functional weapons laying around the house.

I figure I have two choices. Epoxy the knife to the display rack, so that it can’t be easily removed, or mount it on the wall in the bedroom. I don’t know if I honestly want a knife mounted in my bedroom. I liked the civil war bullet set I got for the Life membership. Unless a burglar brings along an 1861 Sprinfield, there’s not much that can be done with that.

Not that I don’t like the knife, but can you imagine the headline? So I would suggest to NRA gifts that are a bit more, shall we say, inert. How about an NRA commemorative deactivated 5 inch naval shell? I could put that right by the fireplace!

"Welcome to the party, pal!"

"Welcome to the party, pal!"

From an email by SJ:

RedState.com is starting to wake up to the reality we face:

http://www.redstate.com/josh_painter/2009/04/13/speaker-pelosi-wants-to-register-your-guns/

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/04/13/are-you-a-rightwing-extremist-too/

I can't do comments from behind the firewall here at the office but someone should post the John McClaine quote I use in my subject line and a link to Sipsey Street.

At the moment, ny home account is down because of power failure and I cannot post to the site because of firewalls at the computer I'm using. Any Threeper want to welcome Red State to the party, with our compliments?

Mike
III

"This is NOT a Tea Party. This is a Tea and Cakes Party." -- A Threeper leaflet for handing out at "Tea Parties."

Folks,

I have a leaflet suitable for Three Percenters to hand out at "Tea Parties." You may copy the picture and image below, or email me at GeorgeMason1776@aol.com for a Word document suitable for xeroxing. Feel free to hand it out, but make sure the tag line showing its provenance is on there. I want the guilty parties to know who to blame. Here is what it says:

This is NOT a Tea Party.

This is a Tea & Cakes Party.

THIS is a Tea Party:




The original Boston Tea Party was a calculated act of law-breaking designed to send the British Empire a message it could not fail to comprehend. Making long-winded speeches, thumping impassioned chests and denouncing a government made up of people who have already written you off as unimportant, impotent and no threat to their plans is a waste of time, energy and oxygen. As comfortable and deeply ingrained as they are in all Americans, the conventional political tactics of speech-making, letter-writing and electioneering have brought us to this precipice of defeat. The guttering flame of the Founders' Republic is within one stiff breeze of going out forever. Both political parties have conspired through malice or incompetence to bring us to this state, yet still people look in vain to the system of party politics for salvation. The Founders were not so stupid as to place all their hopes on a corrupt system. When the accepted channels of politics and remonstrance failed, they burned the King's tax stamps, dumped his tea, broke the windows of his tax collectors with rocks and bricks, smuggled forbidden goods, defied "his royal majesty" in hundreds of other ways and dared him to do anything about it. Liberty is not free, nor is it without risk.

All these tactics are still available to us today. Any inventive mind could think of many more effective in this modern era. It is not necessary to collect a crowd to do them, either. Defiance in action can be expressed individually in many ingenious ways. But let us not kid ourselves that standing around and listening to speeches that aren't worth the hot air generated thereby is an effective strategy for dealing with the hard-eyed, hard-nosed collectivist domestic enemies of the Founders' Republic in power today. You want to send a message that you intend to defend your liberty and not talk about defending it? Don't mail a tea bag. Think like the Founders, and ACT.

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

Have a Blessed Easter

No posting today. Tomorrow should be a bang-up day, however.

Praxis Request: Casting Bullets

Down here at the Shelby Ordnance Works (a wholly-owned subsidiary of NITMIL -- Necessity Is The Mother of Invention Laboratories) we have just secured a regular supply of used wheel weights at $25 for a five gallon bucket. Initial thoughts on calibers to be cast:

.38/.357
.45 ACP
.44 Mag
.30 Carbine
.30-30, .308, .30-06



Thoughts from Threepers solicited:
Best equipment for small-scale production?
Best equipment for medium-scale production?
Best equipment for large-scale production?
Best comprehensive reference for techniques and procedures?
Tips (per caliber) on casting, alloying, etc.?

Thanks in advance.

Tanking vs. anti-tanking: Another caption heard from.

Pete at WRSA suggests this caption. What's yours?

Fashion sense in the Era of Obama: What the well-dressed young lady will be wearing to the debutante ball in the Spring of 2010.

Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk. Panzerfaust courtesy of I.M.A. Daughter courtesy of my wife.

Obama and the Ring of Power

Pitchforks, Pistols and Pepto-Bismol: Introducing the New York Times to the Concept of the Three Percenter.

Folks,

I am indebted to David Codrea for bringing my attention to this editorial column from the New York Times. Once again we see the opposition is obsessed with things as they wish them to be, not things as they really are. I sent the author an email explaining these inconvenient truths, which you will find below the op-ed.

Mike
III

Pitchforks and Pistols

By CHARLES M. BLOW

New York Times, April 3, 2009

Lately I’ve been consuming as much conservative media as possible (interspersed with shots of Pepto-Bismol) to get a better sense of the mind and mood of the right. My read: They’re apocalyptic. They feel isolated, angry, betrayed and besieged. And some of their “leaders” seem to be trying to mold them into militias.

At first, it was entertaining — just harmless, hotheaded expostulation. Of course, there were the garbled facts, twisted logic and veiled hate speech. But what did I expect, fair and balanced? It was like walking through an ideological house of mirrors. The distortions can be mildly amusing at first, but if I stay too long it makes me sick.

But, it’s not all just harmless talk. For some, their disaffection has hardened into something more dark and dangerous. They’re talking about a revolution.

Some simply lace their unscrupulous screeds with loaded language about the fall of the Republic. We have to “rise up” and “take back our country.” Others have been much more explicit.

For example, Chuck Norris, the preeminent black belt and prospective Red Shirt, wrote earlier this month on the conservative blog WorldNetDaily: “How much more will Americans take? When will enough be enough? And, when that time comes, will our leaders finally listen or will history need to record a second American Revolution?”

Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, imagining herself as some sort of Delacroixian Liberty from the Land of the Lakes, urged her fellow Minnesotans to be “armed and dangerous,” ready to bust caps over cap-and-trade, I presume.

And between his tears, Glenn Beck, the self-professed “rodeo clown,” keeps warning of an impending insurrection by saying that he believes that we are heading for “depression” and “revolution” and then gaming out that revolution on his show last month. “Think the unthinkable” he said. Indeed.

All this talk of revolution is revolting, and it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

As the comedian Bill Maher pointed out, strong language can poison weak minds, as it did in the case of Timothy McVeigh. (We sometimes forget that not all dangerous men are trained by Al Qaeda.)

At the same time, the unrelenting meme being pushed by the right that Obama will mount an assault on the Second Amendment has helped fuel the panic buying of firearms.

According to the F.B.I., there have been 1.2 million more requests for background checks of potential gun buyers from November to February than there were in the same four months last year. That’s 5.5 million requests altogether over that period; more than the number of people living in Bachmann’s Minnesota.

Coincidence? Maybe. Just posturing? Hopefully. But it all gives me a really bad feeling. (Where’s that Pepto-Bismol?!)

"Cherish your enemies. They teach you the most valuable lessons." -- Ho Chi Minh

Dear Sir,

Chugging Pepto Bismol already and you haven't met a Three Percenter yet? Meet your ulcer:

From my blog, sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

What is a "Three Percenter"?

During the American Revolution, the active forces in the field against the King's tyranny never amounted to more than 3% of the colonists. They were in turn actively supported by perhaps 10% of the population. In addition to these revolutionaries were perhaps another 20% who favored their cause but did little or nothing to support it. Another one-third of the population sided with the King (by the end of the war there were actually more Americans fighting FOR the King than there were in the field against him) and the final third took no side, blew with the wind and took what came.

Three Percenters today do not claim that we represent 3% of the American people, although we might. That theory has not yet been tested. We DO claim that we represent at least 3% of American gun owners, which is still a healthy number somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 million people. History, for good or ill, is made by determined minorities. We are one such minority. So too are the current enemies of the Founders' Republic. What remains, then, is the test of will and skill to determine who shall shape the future of our nation.

The Three Percent today are gun owners who will not disarm, will not compromise and will no longer back up at the passage of the next gun control act. Three Percenters say quite explicitly that we will not obey any further circumscription of our traditional liberties and will defend ourselves if attacked. We intend to maintain our God-given natural rights to liberty and property, and that means most especially the right to keep and bear arms. Thus, we are committed to the restoration of the Founders' Republic, and are willing to fight, die and, if forced by any would-be oppressor, to kill in the defense of ourselves and the Constitution that we all took an oath to uphold against enemies foreign and domestic.

We are the people that the collectivists who now control the government should leave alone if they wish to continue unfettered oxygen consumption. We are the Three Percent. Attempt to further oppress us at your peril. To put it bluntly, leave us the hell alone. Or, if you feel froggy, go ahead AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.

Feel free to explore my blog, and read the new book by Dr. Robert Churchill, Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face (University of Michigan Press, 2009), or just google my name. I am proud to say I have been on the enemies list of three consecutive White Houses now. I am equally hated by the ATF, the FBI, the Klan, the neoNazis, Clintonistas, Obamanoids, Bushies, crooked politicians, drug dealers and various and sundry bad cops. If a man is known as much by his enemies as his friends, I am indeed rich.

Yet, with my experience of some sixteen years as an enemy of the various regimes of the unconstitutional state, I can tell you that blaming politicians or talk show hosts for the Great Obama Firearm and Ammo Rush is ludicrous. They reflect our anger dully, without truly understanding it themselves. You are playing blame the messenger, at least in part because this is a comfortable way for you to try to fit your unease at seeing something that frightens you and which you don't understand into a familiar meme. Baby want bottle? The politicians and talk show hosts are familiar whipping boys for you, but they are irrelevant to your present circumstances.

You are wrong in another respect. The current run on weapons and ammunition is not primarily about Obama's stated appetite for gun control. It may have started out that way, but it is much more about a perceived existential threat to public order and civilization posed by monetizing the debt (hyperinflation) and the schism in our politics which demonstrates that we are in fact two peoples inhabiting the same land and speaking the same language but divided by almost everything else political, cultural, and religious.

Partial proof of that is how many liberals are among those buying weapons for the first time. You might get an interesting column by asking THEM (with whom you surround yourself and thus validate your opinions like an echo chamber) why they're buying weapons and ammo like a big city gangbanger in a turf war. But here's another snippet from a recent column on something that happened just this weekend at the Knob Creek Kentucky Machine Gun Shoot:

A sustained and very intoxicating high: sitting at the Shotgun News table (in a chair with my cast-bound foot up) watching millions of rounds of ammunition move inexorably into the trunks and cargo spaces of waiting vehicles. . . That observation post near the choke point of the entrance allowed me to see, and even cheer, the folks struggling by with cases of ammo on their shoulders, rolling on two- and four-wheeled dollies, chugging past on mechanical mules and their trailers, even loaded out on exhibitor pickup trucks, beds full, chassis sagging, springs down on the axles. It was like watching a Ho Chi Minh trail for good guys.

You know, in every modern American war, when the enemy was getting pasted with a particularly effective artillery barrage or airstrike, it was the wont of GIs and Marines to holler out in approval: "Kaiser, count your 'children!'" or "Hitler, count your 'children!'" or "Tojo (Chairman Mao, Uncle Ho, Saddam), count your 'children!'"

At one point, a mule went slowly by, packed sky-high, hauling an equally burdened trailer and, delighted, I hollered out "Obama, count your 'children!'" People looked at me like I was nuts. Other people laughed and nodded.

But here's the thing: Clausewitz observed that in military affairs, "quantity has a quality all its own." As the Great Obama Firearm and Ammo Rush rolls on with no signs of abating, this transfer of defensive and offensive military power into the hands of the American people is a strategic military fact that is almost overwhelming to contemplate. Note well, Obama and your socialist butch minions -- you will NEVER be able to reclaim this by legislative fiat, you will NEVER be able to seize enough of it by force, you will NEVER get back the power that this transfer of military means represents. The American people have voted, are voting and will continue to vote with their wallets, and unless you are very, very circumspect, your own election to power hangs in the balance.

It boils down to this, Lightworker: if you continue to overstep your constitutional bounds (by the Founders' standards and not your own), the American people have the means to remove your regime should they be so inclined. Count your socialist 'children,' Obama. The American people are ready for them. And the Rush STILL goes on.

Factoid heard at the SGN table: There are in excess of 100,000 ARs on backorder at the various manufacturers.

You folks at NYT have spent years editorially clucking your tongues in anger at the GOP and the NRA, as if they were your real problem when it came to citizen disarmament. Silly little men. The way we look at it, THEY protected YOU. Now they have been swept away as a significant force. Politics no longer avails us. We must find other means to defend our liberty and property.

The Democrat majority and the "Chicago Way" can give you whatever you want, Constitution or not. You've got us surrounded, you poor bastards. Now you're going to have to deal with us. Directly, without political cover. I pity you folks. I really do. You'd just better pray that if the administration does decide to try to disarm us, we don't embrace Bill Clinton's rules of engagement that he used on the Serbs when he declared that the politicians, intelligentsia and news media of his enemies were legitimate targets of war and pumped precision guided munitions into the headquarters of Serbian radio and television. Under those rules, an American civil war would get very messy, very quickly, and perhaps for you, very personal. Unintended consequences are a bitch, aren't they?

One last thing. If you think the military will enforce unconstitutional orders for you, check out the blog Oath-Keepers. The military, pal, especially combat arms, is US. And they didn't swear an oath to the Lightworker. They swore it to the Constitution. Better get it out and read that document once again. Oh, yeah . . . and it wouldn't hurt to buy a firearm. You might need it. One other thing. They have operations for ulcers. Good luck on yours.

Mike Vanderboegh
Pinson, AL
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

Many thanks to International Military Antiques

for the loan of the Panzerfaust used in the cover photo shoot of Absolved at the Knob Creek Machine Gun shoot this weekend. The image of my determined daughter Zoe looking like she's about to kill a Brightfire armored HUMVEE with it will probably end up being used as an illustration for future boyfriends of the perils of breaking her heart.

Be sure to check out their website at: http://www.ima-usa.com/

Praxis: Multi-tools

Another short but important praxis from The Trainer:

Multi-Tools: One needs to be in or on your web gear. No exceptions. Too many applications for it not to be. For those who can't decide, understand this:

DO NOT buy a cheap knockoff! You get what you pay for, as with any other piece of gear you're betting your life on.

That said, here's a good site that will allow analysis of the various high quality multi-tools available today.

http://www.multitool.org/home/

Denninger: The Constitution Dies - To Thunderous Applause

The latest from Karl Denninger:

The Constitution Dies - To Thunderous Applause

Gee, you folks who thought Obama was the be-all and end-all to "solve" violations of The Constitution under President Bush:

A pair of bills introduced in the U.S. Senate would grant the White House sweeping new powers to access private online data, regulate the cybersecurity industry and even shut down Internet traffic during a declared "cyber emergency."

Senate bills No. 773 and 778, introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., are both part of what's being called the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would create a new Office of the National Cybersecurity Advisor, reportable directly to the president and charged with defending the country from cyber attack.

This sounds reasonable, at first blush.

But I've read the actual draft bill that allegedly was proffered, and while most of the time what is published on WND is about as diametrically opposed politically to my views, this isn't one of those times.

On page 21 and 22 it is established not only certification of "security professionals" in the computer field but mandatory licensing for anyone performing compute security services not only to the government but also to any "critical infrastructure system or network."

This would immediately make part of what I do - selling spam-interdiction software to state and local public safety organizations such as police departments - unlawful unless I went through whatever "process" the government sets forth.

Got that? As a guy who has been writing spam filtering software for more than a decade, as the guy who first offered it to his ISP customers back in the 1990s as part of our service to every user, what I did in the 1990s would be made illegal (since we had literally thousands of accounts billed to a government agency of one form or another) and my provision and support of that software ("Spamblock-Sys") would be unlawful going forward unless I submitted to whatever licensing criteria the government set forth in the future.

Might I be willing to submit to that? Maybe. Will it dramatically increase the cost of that software? Absolutely. Who's going to pay for it? You are, in higher taxes.

Second, page 40 has some truly frightening implications, among them granting The Department of Commerce plenary authority to invade networks and access the data therein irrespective of Constitutional or legal restrictions against that action.

Finally, there is a provision within this draft allowing The President to order disconnection of any "critically important" infrastructure - but it does not define what that is, once again, granting effective plenary authority to The President to silence communications irrespective of Constitutional protections regarding Free Speech.

First Amendment?

What First Amendment?

The First Amendment is first for a reason - without Freedom of The Press, which happens to fundamentally include the right to freely communicate between ourselves, there is no means by which corruption and evil can be effectively exposed.

The Second Amendment is second for a reason - if The First Amendment falls, you're going to need The Second Amendment, and fast.

I wonder if we'll defend the Second Amendment as citizens of The United States if we won't defend The First!

Knob Creek Vignettes: "Obama, count your 'children.'"

This is not going to be a complete, or perhaps even coherent, report on Knob Creek. A lot of things happened, I met a bunch of folks, and I had to cut short my visit and return home for reasons which I will explain at the end.

Liberty's photographer, Oleg Volk.

The principal reason I went to Knob Creek with Pete of WRSA and my daughter Zoe was to meet Oleg Volk and do a photo shoot for the book cover. In this we were, I think, very successful. Many thanks to all the volunteers who stepped forward to portray book characters:

Phil Gordon holding an M14 with an M76 rifle grenade launcher tipped with an M31 rifle grenade).

Will Shipman (Len Savage brandishing a silenced MAC-10).

A member of the Winston County militia with an M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle.

A younger member of the same formation with an M14 rifle (with M14E2 compensator) and bandoleers.

Kraut Mueller's daughter with an improvised Panzerfaust.

Other photos will be taken later of the ATF & Brightfire raid members facing off against Phil.

Oleg pronounced the results a great success and it looked like that to me too, especially since he was able to take the official "author's photo" of me without breaking his camera.

Another high point: meeting Sean (frequent poster here and elsewhere on the gun blogosphere) and his brothers -- great guys all.

And another: running into two of my son's 101st Airborne buddies from his time in Iraq.

A sustained and very intoxicating high: sitting at the Shotgun News table (in a chair with my cast-bound foot up) watching millions of rounds of ammunition move inexorably into the trunks and cargo spaces of waiting vehicles. The SGN guys were very gracious in allowing me to shelter there. (We were unable to wrangle a table ourselves. Note for the future -- proper planning prevents poor performance.) That observation post near the choke point of the entrance allowed me to see, and even cheer, the folks stuggling by with cases of ammo on their shoulders, rolling on two- and four-whelled dollies, chugging past on mechanical mules and their trailers, even loaded out on exhibitor pickup trucks, beds full, chassis sagging, springs down on the axles. It was like watching a Ho Chi Minh trail for good guys.

You know, in every modern American war, when the enemy was getting pasted with a particularly effective artillery barrage or airstrike, it was the wont of GIs and Marines to holler out in approval: "Kaiser, count your 'children!'" or "Hitler, count your 'children!'" or "Tojo (Chairman Mao, Uncle Ho, Saddam), count your 'children!'"

At one point, a mule went slowly by, packed sky-high, hauling an equally burdened trailer and , delighted, I hollered out "Obama, count your 'children!'" People looked at me like I was nuts. Other people laughed and nodded.

But here's the thing: Clausewitz observed that in military affairs, "quantity has a quality all its own." As the Great Obama Firearm and Ammo Rush rolls on with no signs of abating, this transfer of defensive and offensive military power into the hands of the American people is a strategic military fact that is almost overwhelming to contemplate. Note well, Obama and your socialist butch minions -- you will NEVER be able to reclaim this by legislative fiat, you will NEVER be able to seize enough of it by force, you will NEVER get back the power that this transfer of military means represents. The American people have voted, are voting and will continue to vote with their wallets, and unless you are very, very circumspect, your own election to power hangs in the balance.

It boils down to this, Lightworker: if you continue to overstep your constitutional bounds (by the Founders' standards and not your own), the American people have the means to remove your regime should they be so inclined. Count your socialist 'children,' Obama. The American people are ready for them. And the Rush
STILL goes on.

Factoid heard at the SGN table: There are in excess of 100,000 ARs on backorder at the various manufacturers.

What seemed to be the favorite tee shirt at the event: "The Fourth Reich" (above a Nazi eagle) and below, "Obama-Biden."

What seemed to be the favorite tee-shirt wearers: the "magazine girls" (if you saw them you know what I'm talking about). They were chiefly recognizable by the large numbers of drooling teenage boys who followed them about.

Dumbest quote: "I love the smell of burning tires in the afternoon. It smells like . . . victory." To which I commented, loud enough to hear: "It smells like wasted POL and ammo to me."

Most unappreciated guy at the shoot: the man who was snapping off aimed bursts at targets at the longest ranges. It contrasted sharply with orgasmic hosing most guys were doing.

Goofiest Looking Disinformation Artist: Mark Koernke, dressed up in Swiss Alpenflage uniform, handing out leaflets recruiting "Regimental Combat Teams of the Colonial Marines" to serve in America. Oooooh kaaay. You may go here to see where he's getting his material these days. Koernke, the moron who runs the oxymoronic "Intelligence Report," is a walking, talking contradiction in terms. As I walked by him on the way out one time, I introduced myself and clapped him on the shoulder, saying, "I'm still waiting to see your REAL DD-214." Like Rosie O'Donnell, he will not learn, he has no shame, he will not go away and he continues to daub discrediting excrement all over what principles he claims to uphold. A lesser ego would have shoved a Tokarev in his mouth and touched his thumb with his forefinger by now. Alas, like death and taxes, loony Mark from Michigan seems to go on forever.

Random thought: Just how did you get that deal after your henchling murdered that "snitch", Mark? You were just as responsible as the shithead who killed him. YOU set up the conditions, brewed the pot and then acted surprised when it turned into shit stew. You should still be under the jail. How is it you're out walking and talking and doing the same old disinformation shuck and jive? Inquiring minds want to know.

Best deals I scarfed up:

Thirty of these for ten bucks.

Distributed to friends, they will end up holding repacked 7.62x39 and 5.56 stripper clips and five-round boxes of 12 Gauge combat loads.

Twenty of these for $4.00 a pop.

These USGI, near new, MOLLE M16 magazine bandoleers hold 6 30-round mags. They will end up being distributed to newbies with the injunction "fight light." Before issue, they will be modified with an additional snap at the end of the flap so that they can also accomodate three AK47 or AK74 mags. It's a simple conversion that I do all the time on the IIFS LBV's as well.

Why I cut it short: Just before we were to head back to the Creek on Sunday, I learned that my father, Donald Warren Vanderboegh, had died that morning before an ambulance summoned to take him to the ER could arrive. Cause of death as yet unknown. He was 81. When I found out he was gone, I asked Pete to carry Zoe and me back to Alabama forthwith, which he did. Pete is one great American, in the classical sense of that word.

Thus ended my second Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.

I will speak later of my father, but not now. We are waiting to hear what the arrangements will be and then will head north. Keep us in your prayers.

Mike
III

No Surprise: Sebastian Pimps for Morris Dees

Pragmatic Pimp Daddy

Over at s-NO-ball's place here. NRA knight in shining armor Sebastian has followed Morris Dees' pattern by eliding the differences between the Pittsburgh neoNazi copkiller and Three Percenters.

Here

His allegation and my response posted on his website:

Snowflake sez: "He apparently also had a failed Internet Podcast. If you wonder why I’m so against the use of explicit threat of violence in defense of gun rights, this is the reason why. You don’t know what nutball out there’s going to take it seriously, and not get the subtle nuances of 'Fort Sumpters' and whatnot. I’m not saying this is anyone’s fault, and free speech is free specch, but there’s a danger in fanning the flames of some people’s paranoid delusions."

Uh, huh. Here's my take on it:

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/04/he-was-frigging-nazi-whats-so-hard.html

BTW, it's Sumter not Sumpter. He was a frigging NAZI, Snowball. He frequented Stormfront and believed in white supremacy and anti-semitism. And like the Southern Preposterous Lie Center, you DARE to deliberately elide the differences between such a piece of filth and us because it suits your agenda?

Typical. What makes you any different from Morris Dees? Hint: he gets paid money to do it and you do it for free.

Mike Vanderboegh
III

Later PS: Somebody slap an NRA sticker on that pimpmobile.

He's a frigging Nazi! What's so hard about that?

Richard Poplawski's photo from mySpace.


Meet Richard Poplawski, the new cat's paw of the blood-dancing disarmament crowd. The media (as evidenced below) is, according to the Southern Preposterous Lie Center's hoary MO, assiduously eliding the differences between what they are pleased to call "right-wing conspiracy theorists" and "gun nuts" and neoNazi terrorists.

Here is the Pittsburgh Post Gazette's initial take on the character of this typical Nazi terrorist wannabe -- who according to thge evidence contained within the story is another cowardly, inadequate white boy who dropped out of high school, couldn't hack Marine Basic and who couldn't get a date or keep a girl friend. I will comment on the article ad seriatim.

Suspect in officers' shooting was into conspiracy theories
Sunday, April 05, 2009
By Dennis B. Roddy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Richard Andrew Poplawski was a young man convinced the nation was secretly controlled by a cabal that would eradicate freedom of speech, take away his guns and use the military to enslave the citizenry.

His online profile suggests someone at once lonely and seething. He wrote of burning the backs of both of his hands, the first time with a cigarette, the second time for symmetry. He subscribed to conspiracy theories and, by January 2007, was posting photographs of his tattoos on white supremacist Web site Stormfront. Among his ambitions: "to accumulate enough 'I punched that [expletive] so hard' stories to match my old man."

"Crazy to me is going through the motions," he wrote on his MySpace profile three years ago. "Crazy to me is letting each day slip past you. Crazy is being insignificant. Crazy is being obscure, pointless."

No longer obscure, the 22-year-old is charged in the worst police shooting in the modern history of Pittsburgh. No one is calling his actions anything but pointless.

"He was really into politics and really into the First and Second Amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples' right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill," said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski's lifelong best friend.

Mr. Poplawski's view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.

(MBV: Note we have moved from being "really into the First and Second Amendment" to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in two paragraphs. How can you be "really" into the Constitution and not believe that its protections extend to everyone regardless of race, creed, color or religion? Stormfront is not merely a white supremacist site but an explicitly neo-Nazi one. Here we see more evidence, if any were needed, of the press' adoption of magical MIAC thinking.)

"We recently discovered that 30 states had declared sovereignty," said Mr. Perkovic, who lives in Lawrenceville. "One of his concerns was why were these major events in America not being reported to the public."

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

(MBV: The "extremist militia movement of the early 1990s"?!?!? Now I have never made a secret of my disdain for Alex Jones, whose appetite for unprovable disinformation is equal to Rosie O'Donnell's intake of pastry. For every story Jones does good work on -- the military incursion in Samson, Alabama comes first to mind -- there are ten puffed-up, mouth breathing, kernel-of-truth-wrapped-in-a-horseapple ones that serve to discredit his entire body of work. This is the payback for uncritical, throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks thinking. You end up subject to the eyes-rolling of rational people who otherwise might be predisposed to be allies if you hadn't embraced the excrement of loons. But note well that once again we have the journalist drawing a line between neoNazi terrorist and the militia movement, just like when "that militiaman Tim McVeigh" blew up the OKC federal building. Right.)

Around the same time, he joined Florida-based Stormfront, which has long been a clearinghouse Web site for far-right groups.

(MBV: "Far-right groups"?!?!? How frigging deliberately imprecise can you be? As I said before, IT IS A NEO-NAZI WEB SITE. You know, as in NATIONAL SOCIALIST? As in collectivist? What is so hard about saying that, flat-out?)

He posted photographs of his tattoo, an eagle spread across his chest.

"I was considering gettin' life runes on the outside of my calfs," he wrote. Life runes are a common symbol among white supremacists, notably followers of The National Alliance, a neo-Nazi group linked to an array of violent organizations.

(MBV: OK, now we're getting close. But then . . .)

"For some time now there has been a pretty good connection between being sucked into this conspiracy world and propagating violence," said Heidi Beirich, director of research at the Southern Poverty Law Center and an expert on political extremists. She called Mr. Poplawski's act, "a classic example of what happens when you start buying all this conspiracy stuff."

(MBV: "Sucked into this conspiracy world." Uh, huh. And here is where the Alex Joneses and the Mark Koernekes of the world do the enemy's work for them. If everything that is not according to the left-wing world view is a "conspiracy theory," and all conspiracy theories being discreditable and all conspiracists alike in all things, then the rest of us may be gratuitously dismissed because we are ALL loons. Now, I am not saying that the collectivist press wouldn't do this anyway. What I am saying is that people who repeat obvious idiocy as fact help them make their point. In what way is incompetence and factual imprecision desirable or patriotic?)

Mr. Perkovic said Mr. Poplawski's parents had split when he was young.
"His dad's totally out of the picture," said Mr. Perkovic.

According to his MySpace profile online, Mr. Poplawski lived in Stanton Heights, was an avid Penguins fan, considered Mario Lemieux his hero, and held his grandmother, Catherine Poplawski, whom he called "Cukie," in warm esteem.

(MBV: Note that Poplawski's crimes are not attributed to the violent sport of hockey. Why not? Isn't one wild, leap-of-logic theory as valid as another?)

Mr. Perkovic said his friend essentially dropped out of North Catholic High School. Officials there would only say he was asked to leave.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks -- a day before Mr. Poplawski's birthday -- he decided to join the military, stopped going to classes and pursued a general educational development certificate.

"In boot camp he had missed his girlfriend so he had to make a decision ... he got himself dishonorably discharged so he could come back," Mr. Perkovic said.

According to Mr. Perkovic, Mr. Poplawski tossed a lunch tray at a drill instructor.
The relationship with his girlfriend, Melissa Gladish, went sour after Mr. Poplawski returned to Pittsburgh.

Court records show that on Sept. 14, 2005, Mr. Poplawski attacked Miss Gladish outside 1016 Fairfield St., the same address at which he would later be accused of killing the three police officers.

Miss Gladish said she had gone to Mr. Poplawski's house "and he began to argue with me and call me names. When I argued back he grabbed me by my hair and said, 'Do you think I'm going to let you talk to me like that? I don't let anyone talk to me like that."'

He threatened to kill her, the records show. In a form asking Miss Gladish to list all weapons Mr. Poplawski had used, she listed "gun that the defendant says is buried in the park near his house."

Less than a month later, police sought Mr. Poplawski for violating a protection-from-abuse order after he went to Miss Gladish's workplace, a King's Restaurant, and asked her to marry him. He then moved to the West Palm Beach, Fla., area. Mr. Perkovic said he worked there as a glazier for two years.

Two years later, back in Pittsburgh, Mr. Poplawski wrote on MySpace of the episode: "She's lucky I didn't kill that broad myself. Hahaha."


Dennis Roddy can be reached at droddy@post-gazette.com.

I am copying this post to the "reporter," Dennis Roddy to his email address. Should he respond, I will let you know.

Mike
III

"Something they won't learn in school": An anecdote on the importance of unsupervised play in childhood development.

From Bob K., a current-serving member of the United States armed forces, we have this reminiscence via email of an early improvised munitions lesson.

Around age 10 my dad got me one of those little badass compound bow beginner kits. Of course, the first month I went around our place sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by an arrow. Did you know that a 1955 40 horse Farmall tractor will take 6 rounds before it goes down? Tough sumbitch.

That got boring, so being the 10 yr. old Dukes of Hazzard fan that I was, I quickly advanced to taking strips of cut up T-shirt doused in chainsaw gas tied around the end and was sending flaming arrows all over the place. Keep in mind this was 99.999% humidity swampland, so there really wasn't any fire danger. Ill put it this way - a set of post hole diggers and a 3ft. hole and you had yourself a well.

Anyway, one summer afternoon, I was shooting flaming arrows into a large rotten oak stump in our backyard. I look over under the carport and see a shiny brand new can of starting fluid (ether). The light bulb went off. I grabbed the can and set it on the stump. I thought it would probably just spray out in a disappointing manner. Let’s face it, to a 10 yr. old mouth-breather like myself ether really doesn't "sound" flammable. So, I went back into the house and got a 1 pound can of Pyrodex (black powder for muzzle loader rifles) to add to the excitement.

At this point, I set the can of ether on the stump and opened up the can of black powder. My intentions were to sprinkle a little bit around the ether can, but it all sorta dumped out on me. No biggie. A pound of Pyrodex and 16ounces of ether should make a loud pop, kinda like a firecracker, you know? You know what? Screw that. I'm going back in the house for the other can. Yes, I got a second can of Pyrodex and dumped it on, too. Now we're cookin'.

I stepped back about 15ft and lit the two-stroke arrow. I drew the nock to my cheek and took aim. As I released I heard a clunk as the arrow launched from my bow. In a slow motion time frame, I turned to see my dad getting out of the truck... OH SHIT! He just got home from work. So help me God, it took 10 minutes for that arrow to go from my bow to the can. My dad was walking towards me in slow motion with a WTF look in his eyes. I turned back towards my target just in time to see the arrow pierce the starting fluid can right at the bottom. Right through the main pile of Pyrodex and into the can. Oh, shit!

When the shock wave hit, it knocked me off my feet. I don't know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just reflex jerk back from 235 fucking decibels of sound. I caught a half a millisecond glimpse of the violence during the initial explosion; and I will tell you there was dust, grass, and bugs all hovering 1ft above the ground as far as I could see. It was like a little low to the ground layer of dust fog full of grasshoppers, spiders, and a crawfish or two. The daylight turned purple. Let me repeat this...THE DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE! There was a big sweetgum tree out by the gate going into the pasture. Notice I said "was". That mother got up and ran off.

So here I am, on the ground blown completely out of my shoes with my Thundercats T-shirt shredded, my dad is on the other side of the carport having what I can only assume is a Vietnam flashback – ECHO BRAVO CHARLIE YOUR BRINGIN' EM IN TOO CLOSE!! CEASE FIRE DAMMIT CEASE FIRE!!!!! His hat has blown off and is 30 ft. behind him in the driveway. All windows on the north side of the house are blown out and there is a slow rolling mushroom cloud about 2000ft over our backyard. There is a Honda 185s 3 wheeler parked on the other side of the yard, and the fenders are drooped down and are now touching the tires.

I wish I knew what I said to my dad at this moment. I don't know. I know I said something. I couldn't hear. I couldn't hear inside my own head. I don't think he heard me either... not that it would really matter. I don't remember much from this point on. I said something, felt a sharp pain, and then woke up later. I felt a sharp pain, blacked out, woke later.... repeat this process for an hour or so, and you get the idea. I remember at one point my mom had to give me CPR so dad could beat me some more. Bring him back to life so dad can kill him again... Thanks, Mom.

One thing is for sure... I never had to mow around that stump again. Mom had been bitching about that thing for years, and dad never did anything about it. I stepped up to the plate and handled business.

Dad sold his muzzleloaders a week or so later. And I still have some sort of bone growth abnormality either from the blast or the beating. Or both..

I guess what I'm trying to say is, get your kids into archery. It’s good discipline and will teach them skills they can use later on in life. Something they won’t learn in school.

Next Stop, Knob Creek

I'm off to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my brother Second Amendment wizards at Knob Creek, sporting an even newer, clunkier leg cast acquired this very morning. What a bite. Keep me in your prayers.

Mike
III

Praxis: Dog Killers

A dog is a man’s best friend. A dog is more faithful than most other animals—and more faithful than many people. -- The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.

We have from J.D. Tuccille at the Civil Liberties Eaminer here the all-too-common tale of law enforcement raid parties killing dogs. As his headline reads:

Police shootings of dogs may reveal their attitudes toward the public.

A snippet:

The apparent police vendetta against dogs continues. This time, officers in Buffalo, New York, stormed into a home during the course of a search for drugs, gunned the dogs down in front of the family, and then left without making any arrests.

Tuccille then quotes Randall Lockwood of the Humane Society of the United States:

"Most instances in which police shoot dogs are avoidable. These incidents often underscore other problems, whether in policies, procedures, communication or training."

You know, I don't think this is about communication or training. I'm with Tuccille, this is attitudinal, ingrained. This is what predatory raiders do. The first shots at Waco, you may recall, were those fired by the ATF killing the Davidians' dogs, which led in typical ill-trained ATF fashion to a fusillade while Koresh was still standing in the open doorway. The agents of the ATF have always been hell on dogs, when they're not stomping kittens to death as in the Harry Lamplugh raid.

You see, Tuccille's story struck a deeper chord with me, for I have been studying for some months the question of what John Robb's "resilient communities" might look like in the wake of an economic collapse. I have come to the conclusion that they could very much look like the pioneer "stations" of our early frontier. Take Freeland's Station, for example.



The site of Freeland's Station is marked today by a historical marker stuck in the median of Nashville's on 8th Avenue North (U.S. 41). It reads:

On this site stood one of the principal stations of the Cumberland Settlements. Felix Robertson, son of Col. James Robertson and the first white child born in the Settlement, was born here, Jan. 11, 1781. On Jan. 15 the fort was heavily attacked by Indians, who were repulsed and driven westward.

One of the buck-apiece library discard sale books I picked up the other day is a first edition copy of Harriette Simpson Arnow's marvelously well documented history of Middle Tennessee's early years entitled Seedtime on the Cumberland (MacMillan, 1960). She presents a vivid picture of the men and women of pioneer Tennessee and their struggles. Dogs, Arnow notes, were an integral part of frontier life.

The man of the west was not much given to jewelry of any form. Whatever love of ornamment he had was reserved for "her," meaning his gun, not his wife, for by 1775 there were a few rifle stocks inlaid with silver or even gold. Dieverbaugh's feat in the Illinois of seven years before would have been considered but "indifferent marksmanship": and a proffered target of a barrelhead at one hundred paces an insult. A seven-inch target at 250 paces was not uncommon in the Revolution.

Following the custom of the border, "all male inhabitants carried their rifle-barreled firelocks wherever they went." She was still much like the earlier rifle with full stock amd hexagonal barrel, though some by now had set- or double-trigger guns, as these began to be used about 1770.

Seen through today's eyes many of the . . . white men would look small and scrawny. . . Many were no more than an inch or so above five feet, most were less than five six, and rare indeed were the six-footers. Small, many no doubt were, but tough, the way groundhog hide or hickory is tough, and not in the present meaning of the word.

At the heels of many were from one to half a dozen dogs of all shapes and sizes and varieties, feists and coon dogs and big rough bear dogs, but all able to do in a pinch most any thing any other dog could do, and mongrels all. -- p.187

Here is Arnow's description, compressed, of the fight at Freeland's Station:

In the bright moonlight and to the Indians creeping through the shadows, the place, small and unfinished, with no blockhouse, only cabins at the corners, looked peaceful and defenseless as any farm. So did all the forts in the nackwoods look, for they had "neither ramparts, nor ditch, nor parapet, no outpost, nor out sentry." Freeland's Station had even less of a warlike air than most. . . -- p. 284

There is no record of what tribe or tribes -- for by now many Indian towns held mixtures, not only of Indians but of white men -- were represented by the braves who ringed Freeland's Station. The barking of the dogs, sounding first here and then there as they ran round and round (inside) the walls, must have reached a wild crescendo as one Indian, standing on the shoulders of another, sprang over the high gate, swiftly unbarred it, so that more Indians, soundless and swift as water over a smooth rock, could rush in and sieze horses. Charlotte once again asked James to go see why the dogs barked so. This time he got out of bed, opened the nearby door, looked into the fort enclosure, and in the moonlight saw Imdians trying to get horses through the gate. His yell of "Indians" rang through all the cabins. -- p. 289

The Cumberlander always yelled in battle; his war whoop was his drum, fife, uniform and flag; it not only gave him heart but it sometimes tricked the Indian, for many yells betokened many men, and so they must have yelled that night, at least the men; women and children would have kept silent as quail in cover. . . the women would have had little time or mind for anything save the loading of the guns; working quick and certain in the dark, a timid one maybe wondering if the heat of the gun, almost too hot to handle, would explode the powder as she rammed the bullet down, but most concerned only with making certain the pinch of priming hit the pan and the touchable was open and the flint sharp. . .

Robertson, Zachariah White, George Freeland, Jonathan, and Mark at last got the Indians out of the station and the gate latched; but this was only the first round. The battle went on for four or five hours, the tumult unabating; the Indians "howled like wolves," and tried to fire the station. They never succeeded. Many accounts are given of women putting out fires on blazing roofs while their men manned portholes below. . . They were happy when dawn came, just looking at each other and finding all but two alive. . . Up the hill at French Lick there must have been a deal of unrest during the night with men by portholes and women fingering powder chargers in the dark, for next morning as soon as it was light, and in spite of lurking Indians, men came from there. It was decided to abandon Freeland's, at least temporarily. -- p 291-292

The survivors of Freeland's Station fled up the hill to the better-defended, yet still unfinished stockade at French Lick and over the next couple of months tried to pull their lives back together, haunted always by the prospect of starvation attendant to the destruction of crops and livestock that the Indian raids always brought. Arnow continues,

Fighting the Indian was never on the Cumberland an end in itself. The supreme goal of all endeavor was to get on with the business of living, and this in the summer of 1781 was not easy. The first job was to strengthen the stations. George Freeland and a few other men held Freeland's. while Robertson and his family continued at Buchanan's (Station) at French Lick. . .

It is doubtful if many of the settlers at French Lick had, at sunrise on April 1, 1781, eaten breakfast, but all were busy; men out hunting, women at the milking, and Zachariah White in the schoolhouse hearing his scholars recite their lessons . . . when the Indians attacked. . . The battle was brief. The Indians appeared to have contented themselves with the usual stealing of what horses were outside the fort walls. . . It looked as if the whites had won a victory. -- p. 293-294

All the men save the mortally wounded schoolteacher, Zachariah White, went in pursuit of the small party on horseback. However, Arnow writes,

The quick disappearance of the Indians had been a decoy, not a retreat; the creek bluff swarmed with Indians; some say as many as five hundred. They were roughly divided into two parties; one up near the fort walls waiting to seize the station, the other hidden in the brush and cedars "down by the branch." It was these who first attacked the little army. At the first scalp cry of the Indians, the white men sprang from their saddles, "took tree," fired, and then tried to reload with Indians firing at them from every direction. Up at the fort the watching women and the whining dogs, shut up when the men rode away, could only listen to the shots, the white man's yell, and the Indian's whoop. Some may have reloaded the swivel, and some may have stood by the portholes with loaded guns. . .

The battle down by the branch in the cedars and cane was . . . the bloody hand to hand encounters of men too hard pressed to reload, and so forced to fight with hatchets, clubbed guns, and nmore rarely knives. Unlike the British soldier, the American never whittled the handle of his big sheath knife to fit his gun barrel so it could be used as a bayonet. A hatchet was better; a bayonet wouldn't split a skull; if it went through bone at all it was inclined to stick; the stuck man might run away, the knife going with him, or worse yet he might use his own knife or hatchet while the other was trying to free his. A man with string teeth and long thumbs with fingernails hardened in candle flames was not helpless, even without any weapon. He could in an instant gouge out a man's eyeballs with his thumnails, meanwhile ripping off ears with his forefingers and taking off the nose with his teeth.

The white men down by the branch got help from unexpected quarters; the dogs, "hearing the shouting made their way to it, being trained to fight Indians." Tradition credits Mrs. Robertson with having turned them loose; they are honored with the credit for having saved the fort and possibly Middle Tennessee. The Indians, once their guns were empty, were hard put to reload with dogs chewing them to pieces. These dogs were the fierce general-purpose, bear-baiting, Indian-trailing-hunting dogs kept by most settlers. some families, even as late as 1800, had between twelve and fifteen. . . The white men were, with the help of the dogs, able in a few minutes to begin a gradual movement back to the fort. -- pp. 294-296

So you see, raiders, whether cops or Indians, have always hated dogs. It comes with the job description. As our law enforcement agencies get further down the path of serving the predatory governments of man, not law, the more like Indian raiders they will appear. Unlike the Chickasaws and Cherokees of Middle Tennesse however, today's and tomorrow's raiding parties, especially those of the federal police, do not have the excuse of fighting for ancestral lands. They'll just be dog killing for a paycheck.

A prudent man, living in an era and a territory prone to raiders, would get a dog. Several dogs, in fact. As for myself, I have three. Two outside and one inside.

How about you?

Barack Obama admits he's not a citizen, says he will resign Presidency!

Haunted by the ghosts of Iraq war dead, John Murtha commits suicide!

Hillary Clinton to enter nunnery!

"Waco Jim" Cavanaugh and ATF Agent Jody Keeku caught in secret love triangle with Barney Frank! Frank calls foul -- "I thought Keeku was a guy, she's so MANLY!"

Bill Clinton announces with remorse that subsequent to his long struggle with a host of STD's, his johnson has fallen off!

April fool, from Sipsey Street.