Report.

Had CAT scan at 10:00AM. Didn't get report from my doctor until after 5:30PM Central. Tumor is at least as big as a softball and "likely" benign but I will hear from the surgeon's office in the morning. Since we are up against a weekend, I will be surprised if the alien gets carved out before next week some time. God bless all of you for your continued prayers.

David Codrea: ‘Operation #EFAD’ using social media to send anti-tyranny message.

Excellent interview.

Medical morning.

Have a CT scan of my abdomen at 0800 this morning. Wouldn't be surprised if I'm not admitted to hospital shortly thereafter for removal of alien. If possible, I will post stuff later.

Gangster Government, and Sakharov's Immunity

From Matthew Bracken.

A Restatement of First Principles. Part Two: The armed citizenry as the credible deterrent to federal government tyranny.

A couple of days ago, I began this series with A Restatement of First Principles. Part One: What is the purpose of the armed citizenry? I wrote:

In practical terms, the armed citizenry is supposed to:

1. Provide security in life, liberty and property to each citizen in his home from depredation by common criminals;

2. Provide security in life, liberty and property to the community by assisting, when necessary, duly constituted authority in maintaining civil order; and

3. Provide security in life, liberty and property to the states and nation by being the credible countervailing power to would-be tyrannical government.

These three functions are provided for in the concept of a "well-regulated militia," -- which at the time meant well disciplined, well led, well trained, well armed, with weapons of common caliber -- bands of citizen soldiers operating in the common defense of life, liberty and property.

As I wrote then, Tasks One and Two are, even today, largely uncontroversial and even unpolitical (except in the minds of the most demanding hoplophobes, see, for a current example, Law professor dismisses reason for Second Amendment as 'historical trivia'). Task Three, on the other hand, is entirely political, for this was the principal purpose of the Founders in codifying it in the the Second Amendment.

As the quotes cited in Part One from various men of the Founders' generation show, they were suspicious of a standing army and even a "select" militia and counted on the general militia of all able-bodied citizens to restrain the standing army if it was directed for some tyrannical purpose by an American would-be dictator. It is important to remember that these suspicious Founders fully expected a future American Caesar to be elected by a majority of the citizens, using the tools of the demagogue, and representing the "tyranny of the mob." The Founders were as critical of unrestrained democracy as they were Caesarism or monarchy. This is why they crafted a constitutional republic of competing branches and ordered liberty.

The armed citizenry was key to the maintenance of their ideal. And though their concept was, according to the military and political realities of their time, sophisticated, its premise was simple: as long as the people had the means to kill a tyrant, the would-be tyrant would be restrained by that fear even if the rest of the system of checks and balances had failed in allowing his rise. (Ben Franklin's comment at the time of the Constitutional Convention arguments is instructive: "It is good that we have provided for impeachment for the alternative is assassination.")

The Founders also understood the common militia as a countervailing power to local tyranny, and would have celebrated the 1946 Battle of Athens as a perfect example of what they expected from the citizenry. Note that the Battle of Athens was made necessary by the prior complete failure of a corrupt local system to protect the people. The Founders expected that the political process would be exhausted, as indeed they had done, before the people exercised their right to defensive use of arms. The Founders were, first and foremost, cognizant of the moral components of both politics and war.

But we stand now in the opening decades of the 21st Century, following that most ghastly violent 20th, where dictators ruled, genocides flourished and simple resistance by even an armed populace against the ever more powerful tools of the modern state has become more and more difficult, at least as the Founders imagined it given the realities of the late 18th Century.

Does this negate their idea? Certainly not. Nor does it, actually, change their requirement for trained, equipped citizen soldiers -- "well regulated militias" -- familiar with light infantry arms and ready to maintain order as required by Tasks One and Two above. Indeed, the citizen soldier of today must be as ready to muster and maneuver according to need as the Minute Men of old. And they must be as familiar with the entire range of weaponry required by the 21st Century soldier, including the laptop, as was Capt. Parker's company with the Brown Bess or5 Morgan's Rifle Corps with the Kentucky rifle, the knife and the tomahawk.

What has changed is the character of successful modern warfare and how that applies to the credible deterrence of tyranny, and that means applying lessons as old as Sun Tzu but called today by the moniker of Fourth Generation Warfare to the uniquely American realities today. From Wikipedia:

Fourth generation warfare is normally characterized by a violent non-state actor (VNSA) fighting a state. This fighting can be physically done, such as by modern examples Hezbollah or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In this realm the VNSA uses all three levels of fourth generation warfare. These are the physical (actual combat; it is considered the least important), mental (the will to fight, belief in victory, etc.) and moral (the most important, this includes cultural norms, etc.) levels.

A 4GW enemy has the following characteristics: lacks hierarchal authority, lack of formal structure, (has) patience and flexibility, (Has the) ability to keep a low profile when needed, and small size. A 4GW adversary might use the tactics of an insurgent, terrorist, or guerrilla in order to wage war against a nation's infastructure. Fourth generation warfare takes place on all fronts: economical, political, the media, military, and civilian.

Resistance can also be below the physical level of violence. This is via non-violent means, such as Gandhi’s opposition to the British Empire or Martin Luther King’s marches. Both desired their factions to deescalate the conflict while the state escalates against them, the objective being to target the opponent on the moral and mental levels rather than the physical level. The state is then seen as a bully and loses support.

Another characteristic of fourth generation warfare is that as with third generation warfare, the VNSA’s forces are decentralized. With fourth generation warfare there may even be no single organisation and that smaller groups organize into impromptu alliances to target a bigger threat (that being the state armed forces or another faction). As a result these alliances are weak and if the state’s military leadership is smart enough they can split their enemy and cause them to fight amongst themselves.

Further, says Wikipedia, Fourth generation warfare goals are:

1 .Survival

Now, in the Founder's context, substitute "armed citizenry" for Violent Non-State Actor and delete any use of terror tactics, especially targeted against innocents. Governments think they can afford "collateral damage," the armed citizenry cannot. It is not just our survival that counts, but all of the people, even those who disagree with us but who are not combatants. But survival merely ensures you stay in the fight. It is the second goal that is primary:

2. To convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived benefit.

Read that again. I would like to make just one change. My version would read thusly:

2. To convince the enemy’s political decision makers that their goals are either unachievable or too costly for the perceived PERSONAL benefit.

Deterrence before any fight rests on this. Winning the fight after the tyrant begins his campaign of violence against the people cannot happen without it. The tyrant and his political decision makers must understand that they will pay a PERSONAL price for their depredations. If they fail to recognize before the fact then they must, like the Bugger Queens in Ender's Game, be taught by people who recognize that "the enemy's gate is down," and that whatever happens beforehand, the end will be when someone in the resistance comes straight for them, and not waste their efforts on the minions.

The metaphor only goes so far, of course, for we are talking about humans, not bugs. But if our tyrant-wannabes understand the credible threat of the cost up front, they will not go there, unless invited to do so by a belief that we are unready to meet them.

For their part, the Founders must be shaking their heads in dismay at our failure to use political means to restrain this unconstitutional imperial federal government as well as the disuse into which the militia system they gave us has fallen.

Only we can do anything about that, and time is short.

John Boehner, Teed Off

Praxis: 4th Generation Warfare texts.

Sun Tzu.

“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish . . . the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into something that is alien to its nature.” -- Carl von Clausewitz, On War

Someone will be fighting it. You'd better understand it -- from both sides.

Also, if you haven't read and internalized Sun Tzu's Art of War or Card's Ender's Game, do so. "The enemy's gate is down."

(A tip of the boonie hat to Irregular Stephen for the link.)

Eric Holder pouts, poor baby.

From Matthew Boyle at the Daily Caller: Holder loses cool during House hearing when asked about Fast and Furious

28 February 1993

ATF retreat from Mt. Carmel, carrying off their dead and wounded.

19 years ago today, the ATF attacked a church outside Waco, Texas. The shooting stopped when the ATF ran out of ammunition and asked to be able to withdraw. The Davidians consented. 5 Davidians were killed that day and four ATF agents, all in the name of federal gun control laws. And that was just the beginning of the massacre. Remember.

When Kerodins attack, they project.

You gotta laugh at a convicted, self-admitted and unrepentant extortionist federal felon who pretends to be a Three Percenter if this is the pathetic best he can do. One wonders, not for the first time, what Pete, AP and Company see in this piece of work.

LATER: And Bill Nye, who always has this strange persecution complex, also leaves me the love note below.

Hope you rot from the inside out you rat commie bastard. Your cancer is Karma. See you in hell you fat traitor. -- Bill Nye

You just gotta laugh.

Test results in, and it is what I thought it would be.

I have a tumor, stomach, outer lining, one each, with attendant ulceration, inner lining. Tissue samples taken, will know what it is Thursday. Further surgery certain. Will advise when I know more. Have been through ringer today, so I'm taking a few hours off. At least it's not an alien.

Kurt Hofmann: "East St. Louis police chief says Gun registration, punitive fees are 'great idea.'"

"You have the right to bear arms, but you have the right to bear them within your home, not on the streets, not in your cars, not inside stores."

David Codrea: NM gun case shows government treats citizens differently from its own.

Part Two.

They're going to stick one of these in me this morning.

From the top down. Fortunately they have to knock me out to do it. Better than the bottom up. I've had one of those too. More later, if I survive. ;-)

Darned clever, those Dutchmen.

(Click on image to read caption.)

Judging American marksmanship by the amount of urine on the floor in public restrooms, we're going to lose the next war. I can think of any number of targets I'd like to see in American urinals.

Trying to save lives and souls, one unthinking collectivist at a time.

Jenna wants to ban handguns and sneers "You lose, Gun Jockey!" My reply:

-----Original Message-----

From: georgemason1776

To: jennakarene

Sent: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 6:09 am

Subject: Regarding your apparently serious proposal for another civil war. We accept, as long as you understand where this is going.

"Tyrants have no problem dealing with people who are willing to die for their principles. They will happily kill them to achieve their goals. Where they fail is with the people who are not only willing to die for their principles but are willing to kill tyrants in righteous self defense of those principles, and their property, liberty and lives." -- Mike Vanderboegh

My dear Ms. Karvunidis,

Having read your column, "Ohio school shooting: Time to ban handguns, guys," I have two questions:

First, how do you propose to do that without initiating a bloody second American civil war?

Second, how much is such a tyranny worth to you, personally?

The answer to the first question is that you can't. Oh, you may be extrapolating from your own social isolation, cultural ignorance and moral cowardice to believe that just because the big bad government, state or federal, tells you to do something at the point of a government gun that YOU would certainly do it -- so consequently we will. You may even be so poorly educated as to believe that "democracy" -- unfettered majority rule -- trumps constitutional republicanism just because your side wins a vote. Whatever the cause of your ill-thought proposal, the result would be a ghastly civil war, for if you wish to get my handguns -- or any firearms -- you will have to kill me to get them. In addition, you will have to kill my brother, you will have to kill my son and daughters, you will have to kill all my friends. And if just three percent of American gun owners feel the way I do, you will have to kill upwards of 3 million people. And, not to be ugly, but we will not go gently into your collectivist good night peaceably and will take as many freedom-stealing sonsabitches your proposal sends our way, and we intend to make that more than a one-to-one ratio. So, where are we at now, mathematically, with your proposal? Stacks of bodies in the tens of millions certainly. It seems an odd way to prevent school shootings and promote "public safety."

I had to laugh, as well, at your Borg-like characterization, also apparently from absolute ignorance, that "Resistance is Futile!":

Well guess what? Now the government has nukes, automatic weapons and sniper rifles. If it just came down to a battle of arms between you and the government, you are not going to win that one. It would be like playing road chicken with a tank. You lose, Gun Jockey! If you really want things to be fair, why don't you lobby for the right to a nuke. That will totally happen.

Please, Jenna, really, you don't know much about the military, do you? Nor military history, obviously. Who do you think makes up the military these days? The sons and daughters of gun control advocates? The draft is long gone, and you wouldn't find a "progressive's" son caught dead within a kilometer of a recruiting station. Why it is OUR children who still believe in the old verities enough to sacrifice themselves to protect this country. It is our children who, if your tyrannical order is given by your Man-Child God-King Barry Soetero, will be in the command posts, tactical operations centers and in the barracks of the tip-of-the-spear combat formations. All of them took an oath to defend the Constitution against "ALL enemies, foreign and domestic." It was not a personal "Fuhrer oath" to Barrack Hussein Obama. Which way, when your order is given, do you suppose they will point those sophisticated and powerful weapons in the event of civil war over firearms liberty -- something codified in that Constitution they swore to uphold?

And as for the efficacy of determined guerrillas versus a powerful, sophisticated military, the history of such conflicts across the centuries suggests that putting your money on the guerrillas is a safer bet. A tank is of limited utility against nimble guerrillas using Fourth Generation Warfare techniques targeted against the politicians who command them. A nuke? Come, Jenna, think it through. Of what use is a nuke when your proposal would require it to be used on your own soil, against your own people? The political blowback of the use of nukes on American soil, even among other ignoramuses who would support your proposal, would instead blow Barry right out of the White House and bring down the entire Federal Leviathan nanny-state tyranny. Of course, they don't even teach the important lessons of the American Revolution in public schools anymore (and I'm assuming you went to government schools, for no private school or home school product would be so abysmally ignorant of her own history) so perhaps it is not your fault. But now that I have explained to you the facts of life and liberty I'm sure you'll see the folly of your proposal.

No?

Okay, how about Question Two?

How much is such a tyranny worth to you, personally?

In 1999, your previous man-child president Bill Clinton was upset at the Serbs. They were killing their ex-countrymen, the Muslim Kosovars and Bosnians, and wouldn't listen to reason. Exasperated, Clinton decided that the NATO bombing campaign would be expanded -- changing the rules of engagement by which our military operates -- to include the politicians who crafted the policies and (pay particular attention here, Jenna) the media and intellectuals who publicly supported the Serbian cause. To this end, Clinton ordered precision guided munitions sent in the middle of the night into the homes of such people, as well as the headquarters of Serbian radio and television.

It is, then, no small kindness I do you by pointing out that -- assuming you get your way -- if the previously law-abiding (but well-armed) folks whom your proposal makes criminals and guerrillas in their own country overnight decide to adopt Bill Clinton's Serbian Rules, you might want to relocate to Canada as a precaution.

Of course, all of this seems like calculated insanity to you, just as your proposal seems to us. Well, there are a lot of us who have been paying particular attention to the way the federal government really works ever since Waco in 1993. We don't live in your bubble. Waco taught us we couldn't afford to.

So, if you now concede that your proposal was unthinking, stupid and doomed to fail because of its unintended consequences and not worth the likely body count and agony to the country, I will consider this a letter well written and time well spent.

If on the other hand, you still deny inconvenient reality and stubbornly cling to your proposal, well, all I can say is, if you get your way and the government tries to enforce it, you'll find plenty of people who will take you up on it.

May God help us all.

Mike Vanderboegh

PO Box 926

Pinson, AL 35126

Some excellent posters by Will Profit: "Semi Literate Raconteur in Chief" at Capitalist Preservation.

Where his reason for existence is "Exposing the utter weightlessness of progressive logic."

Coming soon to a theater near you, starring Eric Holder as himself and the mainstream press as the principal cover-up artists:

Barry's Angels:

Classic.

Cardinal Richelieu, Prime Minister of France, 1585 - 1642

"If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him." — Cardinal Richelieu

Conjuring the ghost of Richelieu.

Details.

Man bites dog.

Buffett: Banks Victimized by Evicted Homeowners.