III% Fan-art for the day

Be sure and give them a like too.

The Battle of Athens 70th Anniversary. August 1st and 2nd, 1946

Click here for the David Codrea JPFO publishing of the 1995's Guns and Ammo article that popularized the event.

And who better to tell the story of why the battle was important than Mike in his own words.

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

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 PERSONALbenefit.

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.

Not the First, First Lady Scandal

Trump's wife is now embroiled in a photo leak of some very NSFW pictures of her earlier days in modeling.  She is certainly not the first woman caught in the whirlwind of controversy that rocked a presidency.

Andrew Jackson's wife, Rachel, was not 100% divorced when she married Andrew.  The two were inseparable and, in point of fact, he would eventually fight a duel, (one of many for varying reasons) to silence a political opponent that levied charges of adultery against him.  Even though she had died just prior to Jackson taking office, the media used that fact to great benefit to try and discredit him. President Jackson would place the blame of her poor health at the feet of the media that used her to exploit the family for political gain.

On the other side of the coin, Coolidge's wife was alleged to have had a more than few notches in her belt at the expense of the Secret Service.

Presidents have also had plenty of time to involve themselves in public marriage disputes.

JFK was a famous womanizer, as was, of course, Slick Willy.  Fellow Ohioan Harding took sex at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to dizzying heights.  So much so that his wife was alleged to have conspired to kill his love interests.   Always in the shadow of his predecessor, LBJ also fancied himself a man comfortable with the fairer gender and once quipped that “I have had more women by accident than he [JFK] has had on purpose.”  He was also said to have wiped out his prodigious member on more than one occasion to seem to try and prove a point (pun maybe intended).

Eisenhower and FDR both had trysts with close companions.  Even Dubya had a couple allegations of his own.  Cleveland had a "struggle cuddle" with a female friend that produced an illegitimate child.

It should be noted that the alleged affair that Thomas Jefferson was supposed to have had with this half-black slave was completely debunked.  The DNA evidence that was used to prove the claim, came from another person.

And then, of course, most recently we have this one:

Advice from a C130 Pilot

Dear Sir,

My name is D.J. Baker and I would appreciate it if you could tell me what it takes to be an F-16 fighter pilot in the USAF. What classes should I take in high school to help the career I want to take later in life? What could I do to get into the Air Force Academy?

Sincerely,
DJ Baker

****************
From: Van Wickler, Kenneth, LtCol, HQ AETC :


Anybody in our outfit want to help this poor kid from Cyberspace? LTC Wickler

**********************************************

A worldly and jaded C130 pilot, Major Hunter Mills, rises to the task of answering the young man's letter.


**********************************************

Dear DJ,

Obviously, through no fault of your own, your young, impressionable brain has been poisoned by the superfluous, hyped-up, "Top Gun" media portrayal of fighter pilots.

Unfortunately, this portrayal could not be further from the truth. In my experience, I've found most fighter pilots pompous, backstabbing, momma's boys with inferiority complexes, as well as being extremely over-rated aeronautically. However, rather than dash your budding dreams of becoming a USAF pilot, I offer the following alternative:

What you really want to aspire to is the exciting, challenging and rewarding world of TACTICAL AIRLIFT. And this, young DJ, means one thing, the venerable workhorse, the C-130. I can guarantee no fighter pilot can brag that he has led a 12-ship formation down a valley at 300 feet above the ground, with the navigator leading the way and trying to interpret an alternate route to the drop zone, avoiding pop-up threats, and coordinating with AWACS, all while eating a box lunch with the engineer in the back relieving himself and the loadmaster puking in his trash can!

I tell you DJ, TAC Airlift is where it's at! Where else is it legal to throw tanks, HUMVs, and other crap out the back of an airplane, and not even worry about it when the chute doesn't open and it torpedoes the General's staff car.

Nowhere else can you land on a 3000 foot dirt strip, kick a bunch of ammo and stuff out on the ramp without stopping, then takeoff again before range control can call to tell you that you've landed on the wrong landing zone (LZ).

And talk about exotic travel; when C-130s go somewhere, they GO somewhere (usually for 3 months, unfortunately). This gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture long enough to give the locals a bad taste in their mouths regarding the USAF and Americans in general, not something those C-5 Galaxy pilots can do from their airport hotel rooms!

As far as recommendations for your course of study, I offer these:
1. Take a lot of math courses. You'll need all the advanced math skills you can muster to enable you to calculate per diem rates around the world, and when trying to split up the crew's bar tab so that the co-pilot really believes he owes 85% of the whole thing and the navigator believes he owes the other 20%.

2. Health sciences are important, too. You will need a thorough knowledge of biology to make those educated guesses of how much longer you can drink beer before the tremendous case of the G.I.s catches up to you from that meal you ate at the place that had the really good belly dancers in some God-forsaken foreign country whose name you can't even pronounce.

3. Social studies are also beneficial. It is important for a good TAC Airlifter to have the cultural knowledge to be able to ascertain the exact location of the nearest topless bar in any country in the world, then be able to convince the local authorities to release the loadmaster after he offends every sensibility of the local religion and culture.

4. A foreign language is helpful but not required. You will never be able to pronounce the names of the NAVAIDs in France, and it's much easier to ignore them and to go where you want to anyway. As a rule of thumb: waiters and bellhops in France are always called "Pierre", in Spain it's "Hey, Pedro" and in Italy, of course, it's "Mario". These terms of address also serve in other countries interchangeably, depending on the level of suaveness of the addressee.

5. A study of geography is paramount. You will need to know the basic location of all the places you've been when you get back from your temporary duty station (TDY) and are ready to stick those little pins in that huge world map you've got taped to your living room wall, right next to the giant wooden giraffe statue and beer stein collection.

Well, DJ, I hope this little note inspires you. And by the way, forget about the Academy thing. All TAC Airlifters know that there are waaaaay too few women and too little alcohol there to provide a well-balanced education. A nice, big state college or the Naval Academy would be a much better choice.

Hunter Mills,
Major USAF

The Napoleon of the Current Year

 

h/t to Daniel Almond for bringing this to my attention.

The New Nazis

I first came to live in Germany in January 2005.  As a Soldier, before you leave, other Non-Comms who had spent time there, would reminisce to no end about the crazy parties and the streets of beer. I did not really believe it, although as a freshly separated bachelor, I had entertained the idea.  Right after I landed in Rhein Main, I was introduced to bottle of kristallweizen, and the bartender, a gentleman that seemed to have been a consolation prize to the US Army after the war,  gave me the "facts-of-life" speech on living in Germany.  He did corroborate the stories of women that flowed like the beer, but he also gave me sage advice to never go at it alone and to stick to the main streets.  Turks, like wild dogs, travel in packs and hunt the weak or unaware.  I was incredulous.  It seemed odd to me that anyone would hate me on the sole basis of being American.  Furthermore, I just came back from fighting a country that hated Turkey.  I had not even seen a Turk much less had any reason to fear or dislike one.  I did not understand the radicalized mind then.  I know better now.

In Kaiserslautern of 2005, we had a rash of stabbings.  Always Turks.  Always single G.I.'s that would go down an alleyway as a shortcut and come out with a punctured lung or worse.  Eventually, the Air Force Security Police and the Army Military Police patrolled enough to push the gangs away, but it was easy enough find a fight elsewhere.  They had a particular dislike of black Soldiers, but to this day I still do not know why.  They had an affection for gangsta rap and embraced the thug identity in response to assimilation.  Violence and the inherent insulation of Islam would be the response to a world shifting below their feet.  Not much has changed for the better in the 10 years since.

I personally did not have a bad encounter with the Turks, but I have the Russians and the Old Man to thank for that.  When I started dating my wife, she had moonlighted as a bartender in a small pub outside of Saarbrucken.  The night we met, being obviously smitten, asked her if I could meet her again.  She said she had to work the next weekend but I could tag along and get some free beer.  Having a hot German chick pour beers for me all night sounded better than fine, so I took the train and met her in Saarbrucken.  Later in the evening, a group of about six or so Russians came in the bar, obviously already pretty tanked, and started harassing the locals.  They saw me, a lone guy flirting with the bartender at the end of the bar, and sized me up.  Having been pretty new to Germany and could not speak much of any German at the time, I asked the girl to translate, "if I have to get off of this bar stool, you will have to drink applesauce through a straw the rest of your life" to the biggest one.  I winked at him, pointed to myself and said, "Americana", and went back to drinking.  Neither I nor the locals were bothered the remainder of the night. 

I discovered to be true what my Old Man said to me a long time before that.  When dealing with hostile groups, you look at the biggest one like you are going to remove their testicles with something dull and they will usually back down.  However, if not, be mentally prepared to inflict wholesale violence.  I had to repeat this same look to groups of Turks in the proceeding years and have not had anything get out of hand.  I have been fortunate when many others I know have not.

Later in 2005, I did hear a story which I did not understand the "why" of it as I do now after having spent more time in both Europe and the Middle East.  Mein Kampf had been a run-away hit in Istanbul, and it made some small notice in some online publications.   According to the Daily Sabah, the book was banned in 2007 but has resurfaced this year.  As the last vestiges of a secular Turkey were removed with the recent failed coup, Atatürk's Turkey is no more.  Fascism, repackaged as Islamic Fascism, has once again come into favor.  It is not just the antisemitism that attracts them, but the idea that they belong to a great master race whose duty is to subjugate and rule the lesser species.  What was old is made new again. 

The current peace between the Muslim and westernized communities, (which includes the African and Eastern European neighborhoods), in Europe are tenuous and it is a breath away from blowing up.  For the first time in its history, Europe will be at war with foreign forces it placed within its own borders.  Fascism, whether it is the home grown or of the Islamic variety, is incompatible with Western culture and one will inevitably try to choke out the other.  It is its natural state.  For too long have Germans in particular, and the West in general, not looked at the oppression around them and told them very plainly that they will meet harm with overwhelming violence.  Perhaps it is past time that they could have done so and had any meaningful impact to the forces that conspire against them now.  I am sick to think that the beautiful cobbled streets and vaulted cathedrals of Berlin, Paris, or Vienna would see this kind of war again.

 History may not repeat itself, but it does sometimes rhyme.

Translated: Ottoman Germany

"Wir übernehmen das ganze Land."

"We will take over this whole land"

Happy Birthday Mike

Alex Jones vs. Young Hamas - Hilarity ensues

My disdain for Alex Jones may have reached at least a middle point with this one. Young Hamas doesn't know whether to defecate or go blind. The feminist white knights are particularly hilarious.

If more people got into these guys faces and challenged them directly, we would not have any of the problems we have today.

The Altercation:

Young Hamas Explanation:

Alex Jones Explanation:

I was quietly hating myself for doing nothing.

Reparations.me is a website by Seattleite Natasha Marin, that is dedicate to the pursuit of having affluent whites divest themselves of their 400 years of oppression by giving it (whatever that might be.  We'll get to that in a minute) to the needs of People of Color.  Or something.

Her bio/explanation:

Natasha Marin is a conceptual artist working across disciplines and media to collaborate with People to create opportunities for meaningful IRL and digital engagement.

Reparations began as a social media experiment on Facebook on July 15, 2016.

What if you actually did something meaningful for someone before the end of the year?

What if a stranger restored your belief in humanity, if only for a moment, by supporting you and allowing you to claim something you need in a material way?

I invite People of Color to ask for what we need to feel better, be happier, be more productive by posting in this space. These may be both material and immaterial requests.

I invite people who identify as White to offer services or contributions to People of Color in need of time, energy, substantive care, and support. 

I don't want to put limitations on this social experiment, but here's how I imagine it might work:

POC 1: I need a massage. This week.
White Person 1: [posts Groupon with code for redemption]

POC2: I need therapy. I can spend $10 a session.
White Person 2: [posts contact information to a therapist who they have made arrangements with.]

POC 3: I need groceries.
White Person 3: "I'll get them for you. PM me and I'll send an Amazon Fresh or Safeway delivery. You just pick out what you want. I have a $200 limit."

POC 4: I'm too upset to make dinner. I live in Seattle.
White Person 4: "Come over to my house for dinner, bring a friend if you like. PM me and I'll send you the address, or can I order delivery to you? What kind of food do you like?"

POC 5: I need a quiet place to work on _________.
White Person 5: "I have an office, spare room, house, that will be unoccupied on the following dates, would you like to use that space? I can send pictures ..."

POC 6: I want to scream and cuss at someone.
White Person 6: "I volunteer as tribute. How do we set this up?" 

POC 7: I want to escape this cruel world in a *Specific Videogame* but can't afford it on Steam right now. This is not a crisis, I just don't trust people easily and want to see if this works.
White Person 7: Thank you for giving me the chance to do something concrete and relatively easy. I was quietly hating myself for doing nothing.

And now while you are ruminating on how far out of touch with reality and history people are I offer this for the next installment of the world gone mad. Notice the progressive cops reaction to the scene. 

The New Language of the Left

In the past few days, I have been presented with two op ed pieces that are representative of a changing of the guard, so to speak, in terms of the leftist tone.  During the Bush administrations, the "Progressives" of the time, screeched at the top of their lungs that dissent was patriotic.  Under Obama, we were told that you must support your leaders.  You may remember being told by a certain opportunistically racist comedian that Obama is like your father and you should listen to him.  Even the Daily Kos was confused.  Such has been the tone of the socialists of last eight years.  But all of that ends with the RNC convention.  It is, after all, someone else's turn in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  That's how it works, right?

Now we have two puff pieces from two ends of the leftist political fourth estate.  These are by no means representative of the minds of the elites that are making the real moves towards their own ends, but it is a good indication as any into the mind of the rank-and-file.

From the Gawker, I present you "Who Will Win the Upcoming Civil War?" .  A note before you proceed: I will advise you  first to remove any beverages from around your electronics.  I come to know this from experience.  There is so much that is wrong with this article I can scarcely find the time to go into significant detail.  The presumptions that war is a "you have all of the green guys, and I have all of the blue" is as absurd as it is infantile.  I will not offer any additional commentary but if you want a real knee slapper, please do yourself a favor and read the comments.  I had originally given thought that this was satire.  No, gentle readers, it is truly the work of a true believer. 

The next one comes to us from the LA Times, If Trump wins, a coup isn't impossible here in the U.S.

It starts out: "Trump is the most brazenly authoritarian figure to secure the nomination of a major American political party. He expresses his support for all manner of strongmen, and his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has actually worked for one: former Ukrainian president and Vladimir Putin ally Viktor Yanukovich."

That's interesting.  I only wish their microscope had been a little more inward focused when we raised concerns that Obama's ear whisperers were filled with an assortment of advocates of the worst sort of communist, identity politics, and muslim expansionism this side of GITMO. 

"In [the case that Trump gives unlawful orders], our military men and women, who swear to uphold the Constitution and a civilian chain of command, would be forced to choose between obeying the law and serving the wishes of someone who has explicitly expressed his utter lack of respect for it."

The Oath of Enlistment states: "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that 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; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

"According to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice".  There is the onion in obeying unconstitutional orders.  Upon looking at it, I had not realized that you will not find the same verbiage in the Oath of Office that commissioned Officers must take.  I can assure you, however, that they are also under the same rules of UCMJ that everyone else must abide by. 

"But what about Katrina"?  I agree that the National Guard was completely wrong in what they did, however well meaning it may have been at the time.  Keep in mind that the military authority was under civilian direction.  They were an instrument of the terminally incompetent and corrupt state and local government.  It is not an excuse, but lessons were learned.  Education of what the Uniform Code of Military Justice is and how it relates to disregarding an enumerated right in the Constitution is why groups like the Oathkeepers are so important.  If no one is told it is wrong, how will they know?

And he concludes: "Trump is not only patently unfit to be president, but a danger to America and the world. Voters must stop him before the military has to."  Both salacious and thought provoking, but for me, it does not invoke terror given the present occupier-in-chief.  He expanded the Patriot Act to dizzying heights, bombed on behalf of Al Qaeda, and established ISIS which cascaded into flooding Europe with Jihadi terrorists.  Then there is all of the economic warfare he has waged with all of the expansion and creation of new government entitlements and power grabs.  I do not see how much more an administration can undermine the West, but we still have some months.

There is a common thread between the two articles.  The left has understood that they cannot win this by themselves.  As with any argument the left has produced, it always comes from a place of perpetual victimhood and weakness.  For their success they must have another group to do what they know they cannot, namely win against the American conservative gun owner in a stand up fight.  This should be of no surprise to anyone here.  If you want to know why they are after your semi-autos, this is it. 

"Now what we need to do is take away their guns..."

The American Irregular Sends

Go check out his FB page and give it a like too at The American Irregular.

We all have that one Ex...

It was brought to my attention that Mr. Kerodin and his one friend, (of whom I have been reasonably assured is not imaginary), have been obsessing/crushing on the Old Man and I again.  It is that or trying to get more popularity through negative attention.  Well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury in the court of public opinion, here it is.

See Exhibit A:

Wow.  Just look at all of those adjectives.  "Red Mikey is the Gold Standard for Intellectual Hypocrites?"  Oh my.  Sipsey in a blogger brownout?  Oy vey!  What to make of that?  Feeling better from better regulating meds is not a miracle cure.  Not wanting to jerk your readers around from being unable to have my full attention due to very temporary real world obligations is, to me, just responsible.  Had he a job and a family, this would be obvious.

His comment and many like them have given me the "I have seen this all before" deja vu.  It was from Mike's first public internet exposure with another former ward of the State, a Mr. Martin Lindstedt.

Exhibit B, SSI Post from May 8, 2011:

"You know, the first guy to attack me on the Internet as "'Red Mike' Vanderboegh" was Martin Lindstedt, a Missouri neo-Nazi, self-described "modern militiaman," claimed Identity "pastor" and, wait for it, convicted child molester. You ought to look up his screeds about me. They are legendary for rhetorical pus and vomit, so this is nothing new."

"Look, I am busy enough as it is. "Kerodin" will eventually self-implode -- probably as the result of over-reach*, discovery under oath in a court case or a FOIA request -- and in any case is a tertiary side-show of the main event. From the rumors, anybody could make him go away with a simple but thorough private investigator's background check, something I lack the funds to do. But when that happens, and it will happen, the deluded folks who embrace him will run from him like the amoral plague-carrier he is. However, just at the moment I have bigger fish to fry. If others want to defend me that is their business and I am grateful, but it is evident from the friends I have lost and the precious time and effort that has been wasted already that anything I do will be counterproductive."

I will not link to Lindstedt's posts as they are archived on whitenationalist.org.  I'll spare you the discomfort and condense it a bit here.  During the rise of the Militia Movement in the 90's in response to Waco and the AWB of 94, all assorted forms of weirdos and cockroaches came out of the woodwork to ride the wave.  Here you see the introduction of Alex Jones.  The benign John Birchers and LaRouchies took a break from their squabbling and took an interest.  And, of course, the Nazis and Kluxers took a pause in their mutual disgust of each other to see if they could breathe some new life into their organisations, fueled now by a militarized people with a new found government resentment.  For many decades and for obvious reasons, no one wanted what the white power movement was selling.  They did figure out though, if you could serve the message wrapped up in a "mutual protection and values" package, it is much more palatable to push the alienation of "it is only us vs. the world".  This should sound familiar to you by now.  This was the same sirens song behind the failed Citadel.

I will give Martin the credit that at least he had broken new ground in internet trolling.  At the time, no one had seen anything like that before.  It really was spectacular in its vitriol, persistence, and venom.  A little too over the top though.  Once he was exposed and the message was ruined, he retreated into the safety of the bowels of the religious arm of the white nationalist movement and was nary publicly heard from again until he was brought up on a few charges for things I cannot even mention in polite company.  Needless to say, he was not missed in the Militia Movement nor in its incarnations leading up to today's III%.  Since his incarceration, Mr. Lindstedt's sphere of influence is in an absolute train wreck of a youtube channel.  I really would feel embarrassed for him were it not for all of the bile he threw the Old Mans direction 20 years ago.  You can say whatever you want to about that horror of a human being, at least he had the good taste to take his hat and leave when asked.

Which brings us back to Mr. Kerodin.  He had tried to mirror the sentiments of the III% while using tactics and verbiage of a failed recycled christian identity/nazi platform.  He got predictable results.  His language was the same as Martins. but he was able to update the tactics a bit by introducing blogs and other social media as a social engineering vehicle.  It worked for a time. At least in that he had outpaced his predecessor.  By dominating the message, he was able to control it for a time in certain circles.  That is, of course, all over now.  As with all things that receive the antiseptic of light, once his tactics and intentions were made demonstrably obvious by his own actions, support for him quickly dissipated.  He may try to kick the III%(c) can down the road a little longer, but he will always be a shadow of his former self.  Eventually he will get the hint and, perhaps, seek real employment.

Many people have been mad at Mike for many reasons but that cannot deny that he was right about a great many things.  It is not that he was born with an unusual clarity and no angels were propped on his shoulder, whispering divine insight.  He got the ability to be able to smell a rat from a mile away by being at the ground level of the movement for decades.  Furthermore, he was uncompromising about it even when they told him he was wrong because he knew what was at stake.  He was 100% spot on with Uncle K and the guy will forever pout in his basement for it.  Just like Martin to this day (hint see the comments). That clarity will be sorely missed.

Will there be others like Kerodin that come in the future to try and co-opt the movement?  Oh, you bet they will come.  But you will also know them now by their tactics and their works.  If it does not fit into the litmus test of the catechism and the valediction, you can bet that you are being sold a bill of goods.

One final note:

Christian, we just aint that into you.  Just leave it alone. Okay man?

Updates

1. Mike is actually doing a bit better now.  Not that he is on the road to recovery, but they have been able to make better use of the meds and now he is better coping with its effects.  This does not mean that he will resume posting here but it is a definite improvement in his quality of life.

2.  I will be taking a brief hiatus from the blog. This does not mean that SSI will be shuddered permanently, but I will need to take a knee and put my energies elsewhere for the moment.  Thank you so much for your continued support and understanding.

A Recap of Recent Events

The past few days have been tumultuous to say the lease.  Allow me to recap with memes.

Tacticool Tuesday - Podcasts

I had a comment a few posts back as to what podcasts I would recommend.  I know this is a bit of a departure from the normal Tacticool, posts but not everything is bullets and band aids.  That misused grey matter in between your ears is the best thing you can spend time and money in developing.

Firearm/Prepper Podcasts:

• Pretty much anything on the Firearms Radio Network. Any subject you could want.  Reloading, Christian perspectives, historical arms, and yes, even the tacticool.  There is simply too much to listen to in one setting so you have to be a bit selective in what you listen to.  My favorites are Practically Tactical, the AR-15 Podcast, and the Precision Rifle Podcast.  Unfortunately the latter seems to be defunct. I hope it is temporary because they have some great stuff to put out.  Do check out the old episodes for some great pointers and reviews on guns and gear I could only dream of one day affording.
•  The Survival Podcast.  In my humble opinion the finest podcast in the "all around" category.  I enjoy the history portion and the quality of content is second to none.  I find his politics generally boring, (though the anarchist slant I am beginning to come around to), and he can be a tad heavy with the condescension.  He still has incredibly thought provoking discussions with the guests and the expert panel is a wonderful resource to boot.  I have never walked away thinking my time was not well spent.  
• In the Rabbit Hole:  How does it stand out from other survival podcats?  It does seem to have a more urban outlook but other than that it does the same great job of interviews and personal commentary that most others do.  Worth the listen if you can fit it in.
• The Shooting Bench is run by Cope Reynolds and covers a variety of topics od interest to the community.  I will confess that this is a very new one to me. So new, in fact, I did not show up on my radar in the original posting.  I believe I will enjoy digging into it some more.

Non-Tacticool Podcasts:

I am just finishing up business school but I have come to rely on a few podcasts to keep me up-to-date on the new developments in the business and tech world.  I have also found a wealth of knowledge in the interviews of the CEO's and entrepreneurs in regards to leadership.  Information to make us all better citizens can sometimes be found in unlikely places.  Learning why Matt Mullenweg picks up his own garbage or lessons in building a culture from Zappos is absolutely relevant to helping us build better communities.

Trigger warning:  Some of the information comes from the most limp wrist, milquetoast, man-bun and bearded, metrosexual, "Grande, Iced, Sugar-Free, Vanilla Latte With Soy Milk" guzzling, Nancy boys around.  You do not have to sit next to them on the bus and you do not have to let them date your daughter.  They do, on occasion, offer some very interesting perspectives that you would be foolish to dismiss.

• The Start Up Grind is a podcast relevant mainly for the tech start up entrepreneur.  They do have some great information on how to bootstrap businesses and create new markets.  Skip the SJW, womyns rights, crap.  Most everything else is pretty good.
• The Harvard Business Review Ideacast should be a mandatory podcast for all leaders and mentors, i.e. everyone.  They produce some incredible content related not only to business but how to improve interpersonal communication, build up the team, and project management.  Again, not everything will be relevent to you.  Download a few episodes that pique your interest and then go from there.
• The Art of Manliness: I put this on here knowing full well that I will catch some shit for following some self-help, obviously raised by women, podcast.  You do not have to get into the "how to pick up chicks" or "how to shave" episodes in order to appreciate putting more tools in your toolbox of social engineering.
• Gary Vaynerchuck's awesome Ask Gary V Show podcast.  I am an unabashed Gary V fan.  The guy just gets the blood pumping when it comes to motivating me to get my entrepreneurial butt in order.  He is not for everyone, but if you ever wanted to build your passion into something you can do for profit until you drop dead, you need to absorb this guy like a sponge.  
• Stuff you should know: Full disclosure, these guys were so milquetoast, latte guzzling, etc. etc. that I had to stop listening.  Be that as it may for the less squeamish, they do have some really interesting discussions on certain topics that will make you smarter.  It is just really hard to believe that these people had ancestors that killed saber tooth tigers and made fire with their bare hands.
• The Irish and Celtic Music podcast. Because you need this in your life.

Once upon a time there was a III Percent podcast, (not to be confused with these guys), but I have not been able to pull it back up.  It needed a little polishing but it definitely had potential to be a real voice in the community.  I would love to know who did it or if they, (or someone like them), would be willing to put it back out again.

Shared from Facebook - A Cops Perspective

As seen on Jay Stalien's facebook page.  There is some common ground here.  In the end , the only sides that we have are those that want to destroy this country and those that want to preserve it.

I have come to realize something that is still hard for me to understand to this day. The following may be a shock to some coming from an African American, but the mere fact that it may be shocking to some is prima facie evidence of the sad state of affairs that we are in as Humans.

I used to be so torn inside growing up. Here I am, a young African-American born and raised in Brooklyn, NY wanting to be a cop. I watched and lived through the crime that took place in the hood. My own black people killing others over nothing. Crack heads and heroin addicts lined the lobby of my building as I shuffled around them to make my way to our 1 bedroom apartment with 6 of us living inside. I used to be woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of gun fire, only to look outside and see that it was 2 African Americans shooting at each other.

It never sat right with me. I wanted to help my community and stop watching the blood of African Americans spilled on the street at the hands of a fellow black man. I became a cop because black lives in my community, along with ALL lives, mattered to me, and wanted to help stop the bloodshed.

As time went by in my law enforcement career, I quickly began to realize something. I remember the countless times I stood 2 inches from a young black man, around my age, laying on his back, gasping for air as blood filled his lungs. I remember them bleeding profusely with the unforgettable smell of deoxygenated dark red blood in the air, as it leaked from the bullet holes in his body on to the hot sidewalk on a summer day. I remember the countless family members who attacked me, spit on me, cursed me out, as I put up crime scene tape to cordon off the crime scene, yelling and screaming out of pain and anger at the sight of their loved ones taking their last breath. I never took it personally, I knew they were hurting. I remember the countless times I had to order new uniforms, because the ones I had on, were bloody from the blood of another black victim…of black on black crime. I remember the countless times I got back in my patrol car, distraught after having watched another black male die in front me, having to start my preliminary report something like this:

Suspect- Black/ Male, Victim-Black /Male.

I remember the countless times I canvassed the area afterwards, and asked everyone “did you see who did it”, and the popular response from the very same family members was always, “Fuck the Police, I ain't no snitch, Im gonna take care of this myself". This happened every single time, every single homicide, black on black, and then my realization became clearer.

I woke up every morning, put my freshly pressed uniform on, shined my badge, functioned checked my weapon, kissed my wife and kid, and waited for my wife to say the same thing she always does before I leave, “Make sure you come back home to us”. I always replied, “I will”, but the truth was I was never sure if I would. I almost lost my life on this job, and every call, every stop, every moment that I had this uniform on, was another possibility for me to almost lose my life again. I was a target in the very community I swore to protect, the very community I wanted to help. As a matter of fact, they hated my very presence. They called me “Uncle Tom”, and “wanna be white boy”, and I couldn’t understand why. My own fellow black men and women attacking me, wishing for my death, wishing for the death of my family. I was so confused, so torn, I couldn’t understand why my own black people would turn against me, when every time they called …I was there. Every time someone died….I was there. Every time they were going through one of the worst moments in their lives…I was there. So why was I the enemy? I dove deep into that question…Why was I the enemy? Then my realization became clearer.

I spoke to members of the community and listened to some of the complaints as to why they hated cops. I then did research on the facts. I also presented facts to these members of the community, and listened to their complaints in response. This is what I learned:

Complaint: Police always targeting us, they always messing with the black man.

Fact: A city where the majority of citizens are black (Baltimore for example) …will ALWAYS have a higher rate of black people getting arrested, it will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks getting stopped, and will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks getting killed, and the reason why is because a city with those characteristics will ALWAYS have a higher rate of blacks committing crime. The statistics will follow the same trend for Asians if you go to China, for Hispanics if you go to Puerto Rico, for whites if you go to Russia, and the list goes on. It’s called Demographics

Complaint: More black people get arrested than white boys.

Fact: Black People commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime. Data from the FBI shows that Nationwide, Blacks committed 5,173 homicides in 2014, whites committed 4,367. Chicago’s death toll is almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined. Chicago’s death toll from 2001–November, 26 2015 stands at 7,401. The combined total deaths during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2015: 4,815) and Operation Enduring Freedom/Afghanistan (2001-2015: 3,506), total 8,321.

Complaint: Blacks are the only ones getting killed by police, or they are killed more.

Fact: As of July 2016, the breakdown of the number of US Citizens killed by Police this year is, 238 White people killed, 123 Black people killed, 79 Hispanics, 69 other/or unknown race.

Fact: Black people kill more other blacks than Police do, and there are only protest and outrage when a cop kills a black man. University of Toledo criminologist Dr. Richard R. Johnson examined the latest crime data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and Centers for Disease Control and found that an average of 4,472 black men were killed by other black men annually between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2012. Professor Johnson’s research further concluded that 112 black men died from both justified and unjustified police-involved killings annually during this same period.

Complaint: Well we already doing a good job of killing ourselves, we don’t need the Police to do it. Besides they should know better.

The more I listened, the more I realized. The more I researched, the more I realized. I would ask questions, and would only get emotional responses & inferences based on no facts at all. The more killing I saw, the more tragedy, the more savagery, the more violence, the more loss of life of a black man at the hands of another black man….the more I realized.

I haven’t slept well in the past few nights. Heartbreak weighs me down, rage flows through my veins, and tears fills my eyes. I watched my fellow officers assassinated on live television, and the images of them laying on the ground are seared into my brain forever. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been me, a black man, a black cop, on TV, assassinated, laying on the ground dead,..would my friends and family still think black lives mattered? Would my life have mattered? Would they make t-shirts in remembrance of me? Would they go on tv and protest violence? Would they even make a Facebook post, or share a post in reference to my death?

All of my realizations came to this conclusion. Black Lives do not matter to most black people. Only the lives that make the national news matter to them. Only the lives that are taken at the hands of cops or white people, matter. The other thousands of lives lost, the other black souls that I along with every cop, have seen taken at the hands of other blacks, do not matter. Their deaths are unnoticed, accepted as the “norm”, and swept underneath the rug by the very people who claim and post “black lives matter”. I realized that this country is full of ignorance, where an educated individual will watch the ratings-driven news media, and watch a couple YouTube video clips, and then come to the conclusion that they have all the knowledge they need to have in order to know what it feels like to have a bullet proof vest as part of your office equipment, “Stay Alive” as part of your daily to do list, and having insurance for your health insurance because of the high rate of death in your profession. They watch a couple videos and then they magically know in 2 minutes 35 seconds, how you are supposed to handle a violent encounter, which took you 6 months of Academy training, 2 – 3 months of field training, and countless years of blood, sweat, tears and broken bones experiencing violent encounters and fine tuning your execution of the Use of Force Continuum. I realized that there are even cops, COPS, duly sworn law enforcement officers, who are supposed to be decent investigators, who will publicly go on the media and call other white cops racist and KKK, based on a video clip that they watched thousands of miles away, which was filmed after the fact, based on a case where the details aren’t even known yet and the investigation hasn’t even begun. I realized that most in the African American community refuse to look at solving the bigger problem that I see and deal with every day, which is black on black crime taking hundreds of innocent black lives each year, and instead focus on the 9 questionable deaths of black men, where some were in the act of committing crimes. I realized that they value the life of a Sex Offender and Convicted Felon, [who was in the act of committing multiple felonies: felon in possession of a firearm-FELONY, brandishing and threatening a homeless man with a gun-Aggravated Assault in Florida: FELONY, who resisted officers who first tried to taze him, and WAS NOT RESTRAINED, who can be clearly seen in one of the videos raising his right shoulder, then shooting it down towards the right side of his body exactly where the firearm was located and recovered] more than the lives of the innocent cops who were assassinated in Dallas protecting the very people that hated them the most. I realized that they refuse to believe that most cops acknowledge that there are Bad cops who should have never been given a badge & gun, who are chicken shit and will shoot a cockroach if it crawls at them too fast, who never worked in the hood and may be intimidated. That most cops dread the thought of having to shoot someone, and never see the turmoil and mental anguish that a cop goes through after having to kill someone to save his own life. Instead they believe that we are all blood thirsty killers, because the media says so, even though the numbers prove otherwise. I realize that they truly feel as if the death of cops will help people realize the false narrative that Black Lives Matter, when all it will do is take their movement two steps backwards and label them domestic terrorist. I realized that some of these people, who say Black Lives Matter, are full of hate and racism. Hate for cops, because of the false narrative that more black people are targeted and killed. Racism against white people, for a tragedy that began 100’s of years ago, when most of the white people today weren’t even born yet. I realized that some in the African American community’s idea of “Justice” is the prosecution of ANY and EVERY cop or white man that kills or is believed to have killed a black man, no matter what the circumstances are. I realized the African American community refuses to look within to solve its major issues, and instead makes excuses and looks outside for solutions. I realized that a lot of people in the African American community lead with hate, instead of love. Division instead of Unity. Turmoil and rioting, instead of Peace. I realized that they have become the very entity that they claim they are fighting against.

I realized that the very reasons I became a cop, are the very reasons my own people hate me, and now in this toxic hateful racially charged political climate, I am now more likely to die,... and it is still hard for me to understand…. to this day.

Cope Reynolds reads The Window War

If you are not catching podcasts in and around the firearm and survivalist communities, you really are missing out on a lot of great information that is being passed around.  The podcasts references the perennial favorite and groundbreaking article the Window War.

The reading and discussion begins at the 11:00 mark.  Please bear with a pause in the audio.  It starts at 35:15 and picks back up at 46:06.  Many, many thanks to Cope Reynolds at the The Shooting Bench for putting this on.

The Window War by Mike Vanderboegh

The Window War

by Mike Vanderboegh

Author's Note: The events related in this story are true. It is set in the real town of Hobbs, New Mexico, although some names have been changed to protect the guilty. It begins early in the morning, the day after tomorrow.

"And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had...and his sling was in his hand; and he drew near to the Philistines."-- 1 Samuel 17:40.

"We Americans have set dangerous precedents. We can rest assured that those pushing for gun control have no intention of stopping short of total gun confiscation. At some point, we who cherish liberty must summon the courage of our forefathers and tell America's tyrants, 'Give me liberty, or give me death!' The longer we wait, the greater the ultimate bloodshed." -- Walter E. Williams, Professor of Economics, George Mason University.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Stone stared at the ceiling in the darkness, the popcorn surface barely discernible in the soft glow of the porch light filtering through the bedroom curtains. He had come home angry-- just about as angry as he'd ever been-- and he knew that sleep would not come with his mind still clicking along at about ninety miles an hour. Better to try to walk it off, he thought, since I can't shoot anybody over it. At least not yet.

As he gently rose from the bed, his wife stirred. He froze, and soon her breathing resumed its regular pattern. No need to disturb her anymore than he already had tonight. The meeting had been stormy and had run on into the late evening. Afterwards, he and his friends had refought the arguments for almost an hour. And yet, when he got home, his wife was waiting up (the kids had long ago been put to bed for it was a school night). Amy was anxious to hear what had happened with the Congressman. Bob told her in clipped, furious sentences and her anger rose to meet his with the re-telling. A half-hour later they had turned in, but Bob was too tired and angry to sleep. As Bob collected his pants and shirt from the chair, the clock clicked over to 1:47.

Ten minutes later, he was walking toward downtown in the New Mexico spring night. It was chilly, as it usually is when the sun goes down in the desert, and he was wearing his work jacket. Like most folks in Hobbs, Bob made his money working in the "oil patch". Times had been pretty thin for a while, but now that the price of oil was up thanks to OPEC, things were picking up in the oil and gas business all over the Southwest. It wasn't anyone messing with his money that made Bob Stone mad this night. It was someone messing with his God-given liberty.

They were being sold out. That was the long and short of it. Oh, the Congressman put on a long face, and swore it wasn't any of HIS doing, but they were being sold out, no doubt about it. The Republicans had come up with their own gun control bill, trying to protect their left flank against Clinton-Gore in the upcoming Presidential race. From now on (and for the first time in American history), law-abiding private citizens were going to have to ask the federal government's permission to sell a firearm to another law-abiding private citizen. Not even King George the Third had been so grasping. In addition, there would be no more "high-capacity" rifle or pistol magazines imported. ("High-capacity" meant greater than ten rounds.) Domestic production had already been forbidden in the so-called "assault weapons ban." George "Dubya", the Congressman said, insisted upon it, and the Republican majority leaders in Congress were going to go along. The latest shooting of children by other children (read: "gang members") at the national Zoo in Washington, D.C. hadn't helped.

"But don't they realize that D.C. has the strictest gun control laws in the country?" someone behind Bob had shouted. "How will passing one more law help that?" It wasn't about reality, the Congressman sighed, it was about perceptions. And he didn't have to add that the antigun liberal media had the corner on perception-making.

Bob had listened quietly for over two hours. He'd had enough and now rose to his feet. "But WE put you Republican jerks in power!" he half-shouted. "WE made you a majority party in '94 because you told us you'd try to roll back the Clinton gun-control agenda. Even Clinton blamed the Brady and so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" laws for the Democrat's loss in '94. It was gunowners who put you in power, and kept you in power these past six years, and now you're selling us out! Why don't you look up how much money Lea County gunowners gave you and your Republican brothers over the past six years?"

The Congressman opened his mouth to reply, but Bob cut him off in a low, determined tone: "But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Republican Congressman, you'll never get another stinking dime out of me or my friends! We won't pay you for the privilege of pissing on our backs and telling us it's raining!" The room erupted into loud clapping and cheers.

Almost drowned out in the din, the Congressman cried: "But it's not MY fault!".

"Whose is it then?" three or four people shot back at him, almost in unison.

The Congressman had the look of a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He had come here prepared to talk about Social Security, but nearly every question had been about gun control. Reaching for an answer that wouldn't be a mistake in front of this hostile crowd, he came up with: "The Columbine killers. Everything changed after Columbine." Wrong answer.

The room erupted. Someone threw an empty coffee cup that landed well short of the Congressman. Bob was back up on his feet, shouting full-throat this time: "That's a load of crap and you know it! When your Republican bosses in the House came to you with this treason, did you tell them that passing it would violate your oath to uphold the Constitution and that you would be forced to resign from their party if they went ahead with it?!? Well, did you?!?"

The shouted question cut through the air and the crowd quieted, wanting to hear the answer. The Congressman was silent, looking down at the empty coffee cup on the floor.

Bob repeated the challenge: "Well, did you?"

The Congressman stirred from his appreciation of the trash on the floor to ask, "Did I what?"

"I think you heard me the first time, Congressman, but I'll repeat it so we can get an answer: When the House Republican leadership told you they intended to pass this treasonable bill, did you tell them that it would violate your oath to 'preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States' and that you would be forced to resign from their party if they went ahead with it?"

The Congressman hesitated, then answered: "Well, uh, no. Look, if I resigned my seat every time a vote didn't go my way..."

Bob cut him off: "I didn't say 'resign your seat', Congressman. I said, 'resign the party'. The people of this district sent you up there. You took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Your party is about to assist in the destruction of one important part of that Constitution. If you resign out of principle and become an Independent, I feel sure that the people of this district will return to your office when it comes time for re-election. So let me re-phrase the question: When you go back to Washington, will you seek out the House leadership and tell them that if they pass this bill, you intend to resign their party and become an independent because you refuse to be a party to treason?"

The Congressman's aide crossed over and, shielding the microphone, whispered something in the Congressman's ear. The Congressman nodded. The aide returned to the sidelines as Hobbs police officers began to filter into the room from the side and rear doors. The aide had summoned them on his portable phone the moment the coffee cup was thrown.

The Congressman leaned into the microphone, "Well, I'll have to think about it."

Bob wouldn't let it go. "What's to think about?" he shot back. "Either you have principles or you don't. If you don't, have the guts to say so now."

The Congressman shook his head. "I said I'll have to think about it. What you're asking is pretty extreme..."

"Extreme?!?" Bob countered. "Extreme?!?. Congressman, you ain't even close to seein' 'extreme' yet. Don't you realize that if you don't find the guts to stop these treasonable SOBs in Congress, and that if the judiciary doesn't have the guts to stop them in the courts, that someday soon gun-owners like the ones in this room are going to have to stop them in the streets with rifles in our hands? Congressman, you'd better pray you never see 'extreme', for if you do it'll take more than all the cops in Hobbs to protect you from the widows and orphans of the men who will die fighting to preserve the God-given liberty you didn't have the guts to risk your precious political career for!"

The room erupted once again, the cops moved to the front, and the Congressman departed out a side door, almost as fast as it takes to tell. And now, four hours later, Bob was still furious.

They don't roll up the sidewalks at sundown in Hobbs, but the streets were fairly deserted this time of night, or morning actually. Even the cops who usually patrolled every twenty minutes or so in the business district Bob was walking through were busy on drunk and disorderly patrol over on Del Paso or out on Bender Street (no pun intended). The bars close in New Mexico at 2:00 A.M. by state law, so between 2 and 3 is often the night shift patrolman's busiest time. As it turned out, that was a good thing for Bob.

To be truthful about it, Bob was still so mad he wasn't paying a whole lot of attention where he was walking. Later, he would attribute his arrival at the scene of the crime to either his subconscious mind or the hand of God. But all of sudden, without knowing why, he stopped and looked up from his thoughts. And there, smack in front of him, was 509 East Broadway. Now as it happens, 509 East Broadway, Hobbs, New Mexico, is a modest, well-kept building with sort-of old-fashioned windows flanking the entrance. It also happens to be the headquarters of the Lea County Republican Party.

Now Bob Stone was a church-going, law-abiding fellow. Oh, he'd done his share of tearing around violating traffic laws when he was young and stupid, but never anything serious. A Lea County boy born and bred, the only time he'd seen the inside of the local jail was when he'd bailed out Manny, his buddy from the gas plant, when Manny had been busted for driving drunk on Bender Street at 2:10 in the morning. But as Bob Stone looked up at the sign proclaiming 509 East Broadway as the Heaquarters of the Republican Party of Lea County, New Mexico, a snatch of conversation from earlier in the evening (yesterday?) came back to him like divine inspiration.

Bill Dodd, a hunting buddy of Bob's, was a bit of a history buff. They had been standing around after the meeting, trying to answer the question: "What do we do now?"

"Well, ah don't know about y'all," (Bill was originally from Alabama) "but when the Sons of Liberty wanted to make a point back durin' the Revolution they'd get a bunch o' folks together and go pay the local Tories a call. Usually they'd just bust their windows (Bill pronounced it 'winders') with rocks and tell 'em the next time it'd go harder with 'em. The Tories usually got the message and moved away or shut up about likin' the King. Glass bein' so expensive back then and Tories bein' mostly rich folk, it seemed the natch-rel thing for the Sons to do. An' it worked. Maybe we ought-ter do the same thing to these gun-control puke-politicians."

They all had laughed, and the conversation moved on, but Bill Dodd's words now came back to Bob loud and clear. He looked at the windows, he looked at the sign, and he looked up and down the street. Nobody. Nothing but the street lights going through their paces for traffic that wasn't there. But what to use for a rock?

The streets of Hobbs, New Mexico, are pretty well kept. On any other night, the plan that was forming in Bob Stone's angry mind would have failed for lack of ammunition. But as it so happened (and later Bob ascribed it to none other than divine intervention) there at the curbside was a piece of broken concrete which had dropped off the back of a demolition company's truck about ten o'clock the previous morning. Somebody, Bob decided, wants me to do this.

Bob Stone picked up the chunk of concrete. Smooth on one side, it had been part of the parking lot of an old greasy spoon south of town that had been demolished to make way for a new BP super-station. He hefted the chunk. Yep, he decided, just about right.

Even so, Bob hesitated. He wasn't a vandal by training or inclination, and if a car had come by just then, even as angry as he was, he'd have given the whole thing up. But in hesitating, another thought came to him: How would anyone know WHY he had thrown the stone through the Republicans' window? If he intended to make a political statement, the rock would have to be accompanied by a message lest the act be dismissed as ordinary juvenile hi-jinks. His hands went to his jacket pockets, finding (and instantly rejecting) his note pad. First of all, it had his company logo on each sheet (now wouldn't that be bright?), and secondly, he had no way of attaching it to the chunk of concrete. Tape and rubber bands were not items he routinely carried. But when his right hand found the felt-tip marker he always carried in his left breast pocket, he knew that the missile would be the message.

Moving a few steps to take advantage of the street light, Bob rotated the chunk so its flat side was up, and wrote across the top of the flat, "Second Amend." (he ran out of room). So he wrote underneath the first line in smaller letters: "Shall Not Be Infringed." He re-capped the marker, and placed the pen back in his jacket pocket.

His resolve had returned. He was going to do it now, even if a car came by. Even if a cop came by. He was going to send the Republicans an old-fashioned Sons-of-Liberty message. He didn't even check again to see if the street was clear, though it was. He positioned himself at what he judged was the proper distance and heaved the concrete telegram as hard as he could. With what seemed to him to be an atomic crash, the chunk sailed through the window easily. No alarm went off. Hobbs wasn't that kind of town. But Bob Stone began to run away.

He ran west down East Broadway, passing the Martin Boot Company, then crossing over to the other side of the street. He kept on running-- laughing, scared, and immensely proud of himself. He ran until he was winded, past where East Broadway turns into West Broadway. A thought occurred to him then that it was probably a stupid thing to be running down the streets of Hobbs at just past two in the morning. If anybody did drive by they'd rightfully conclude he'd been up to no good. And he didn't have the right shoes on to be able to convince a curious cop he'd been out jogging.

So when he caught his breath, he began to walk west on West Broadway at a normal pace. He passed Desert Guns, his favorite local gunstore, owned by one Mark Stone (no relation, unfortunately, for Bob wouldn't have minded a family discount). He wanted to put as much distance between 509 East Broadway and himself before he made the wide turn that would take him back east to home. So he continued a block or so past the Western Motor Company, when he realized with a start that his night's work was not yet done. For there in front of him was 604 West Broadway: The Democratic Party Headquarters of Lea County, New Mexico.

It was true that the Republicans had taken his money, his time, and his support only to sell him out. Bob supposed that that was why he was so angered at the Republican betrayal-- he expected more of them. You didn't expect your so-called friends to stab you in the back. But the Republicans in truth were only half the problem. It was the Clintonista Democrats who had brought the country to this state. And while it was true that Democrats could no more be blamed for stealing the rights, liberties and tax money of their fellow citizens than rattlesnakes could be blamed for biting (it was, after all, their declared mission in life), their windows deserved breaking nonetheless. Indeed, Bob reflected with a silent laugh that although he had killed many a rattlesnake in the desert around Hobbs he had not as yet killed a Democrat, although Democrats were an infinitely a greater threat to peace and the Republic. Well, there's a time and place for everything, Bob decided. Tonight, he would merely break their windows.

And as he stood contemplating the windows at 604 West Broadway, he noted to his satisfaction that they were nice big, expensive plate glass windows. It would cost the Democrats much more to replace these than it would the Republicans to fix their modest, old-fashioned window panes. This, Bob Stone thought, was more than fitting. But the breaking need a bit more preparation. Bigger rocks, perhaps. No, not bigger rocks, just more preparation. Bob fingered the automatic center punch in his work jacket pocket. Yeah, he decided, just the right instrument of destruction for these tempered-glass targets.

He went to the alley behind the building foraging for ammunition and found two new bricks pre-positioned there by what Bob Stone was now convinced was the hand of the Almighty. It could not have been by accident, of that he was certain. Bob pulled out his marker and wrote, lazy-dazy, winding the letters around the holes in the brick: "Second Amendment-- Shall Not Be Infringed."

Somewhat stealthier now, he checked the street before sidling up to the windows. To each he gave several preparatory hits with the automatic center punch. Spiderwebs of fractured glass appeared on each window. Then, checking the empty street one last time, he backed away from the windows and heaved the bricks one after the other with all the speed his overage pitching arm could muster. If the Republican window had sounded like an atomic bomb, these sounded like two hydrogen bombs, and Bob gave into his fear just long enough to run across the street. As the last shards of the windows were still falling, giving way to gravity and dropping with lesser explosions, Bob began to control his fear and slowed to a walk.

And so it was that he walked casually all the way home. As he passed one of the cross streets he noticed blue lights down toward East Broadway. He smiled, and walked just a bit faster. His wife stirred slightly when he eased himself back into bed, but Bob Stone had cured his angry insomnia and, happy now to be a criminal, he fell instantly asleep. Sleeping, he would later say to himself, the sleep of the just.

It all might have ended there had it not been for an editor at the local paper, the Hobbs News-Sun, who along with his college education had acquired a virulent liberal bias about things such as gun-control. Determined to show-case the "lawlessness" of gunowners, he assigned himself as the reporter on the story and also wrote the first of several (he thought stinging) editorials. The story was picked up by the state Associated Press, and eventually made its way to USA Today and the New York Times.

As if to prove that the Law of Unintended Consequences was alive and well, it was when the story went national that strange things began to happen. In Marion County, Ohio, somebody who read the USA Today story decided that breaking the windows of Democrats and Republicans was a pretty good idea. So did all his buddies at the Whirlpool plant.

As a matter of fact, it was about a baker's-dozen Buckeyes who first decoyed the cops, then smashed every window in both party headquarters the next night. Some were broken with nicely inscribed smooth stones that, like little David, they had fished out of a stream. On each was written the entire text of the Second Amendment to the Constitution. "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Windows too high, small or inconvenient to reach with stones were finished off with ball bearings fired from slingshots or baseball bats.

In lightning raids two nights later, the same crew smashed the windows of both party's' headquarters in three neighboring counties. It was bipartisan vandalism, and more news stories were generated. Fearing that the rock-throwers would come to his house, the chairman of the Marion County Republican Party resigned. When his Democrat counterpart did not, someone broke the windows in his house, too. One of the more thoughtful vandals taped the business card of a local glass company to his front door.

With "The Marion Incident", window-breaking on behalf of the Constitution began to spread. In about four weeks, 194 local headquarters of both parties were "ventilated" with rocks, bricks, concrete blocks, shotputs, lead weights, tire irons, antique civil war cannon balls and in the case of one Democratic party headquarters in Michigan, a twenty-pound brass jackass of unknown origin. Attached to, or written upon, each was the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Similar missiles found glass targets at the homes of no fewer than 56 politicians of both parties who had been prominent supporters of gun-control.

Rewards were offered-- none was collected. Only in a few cases were the perpetrators caught, and most of those were teenage sons of well-known gun owners. In one case in Texas, the windows were broken publicly by a citizen who sought arrest for his civil disobedience. In a jury trial, he was quickly acquitted.

"The Window War" became nightly fodder for the television talking heads. And with more publicity came more broken windows. Commentators on the left condemned "vigilante justice" and "lawlessness" and called for political window-breaking to be classified as a "hate crime." Commentators on the right spoke against lawlessness more softly, pointing out that it was the Clintonistas who had made a business of flouting the rule of law (most recently in the case of Elian Gonzalez), and that destroying windows was probably a lesser crime than destroying the Constitution. And everyone agreed with MSNBC's "Hardball" Chris Matthews, a life-long Democrat, when he observed: "These are all gun-owners breaking the law. I suppose we should be grateful they're using rocks."

The polls sent the politicians mixed signals about how the public felt about The Window War. Initially overwhelmingly disapproving of such vandalism, the numbers began to shift as the "War" went on, the issues that had prompted the window-breaking became better known and nothing but windows were being harmed. There was a natural sympathy streak in many Americans for those who fought city hall.

Exactly one month after Bob Stone broke his first window at 509 East Broadway, copy-cat incidents were happening ten or twenty times a night with no end in sight. After two buckets, one containing rocks and the other containing a mixture of tar and feathers, were delivered to the Mississippi home of Senator Trent Lott, the Majority Leader decided, (with the concurrence of "Dubya"), that the political price of Republican gun-control had grown too high. It wasn't the implied threat that got to Lott so much as the fact that the card which accompanied the buckets was signed by some of his campaign contributors, one of whom was a distant relative. With the help of several relieved Democrats, Lott killed the bill.

With the Window War threatening to muddy up his campaign for President, Candidate "Dubya" called Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America (it was widely recognized that the "rockers" were not listening to the National Rifle Association, which they regarded as a sell-out organization) and quietly promised that if he was elected he would sign a bill that rolled back all of the Clinton-era gun control laws if Pratt could just guarantee that no more windows would be broken. Since the window-breakers weren't under his control either, Pratt said he couldn't promise anything, but he would try.

Three days after Senator Lott killed the bill, the last "shot" was fired in the Window War by twenty members of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in New York who snuck up on the home of the Empire State's virulently anti-gun Attorney General while he was away and peppered it with Revolutionary War musket balls fired from Gamo "Wrist-Rocket" slingshots. Police responding to the alarm found a big folding sign-board blocking the driveway. It read: "Sue this!"

Across the country, the volunteer soldiers of The Window War read the papers, talked among themselves, and decided to await further developments with a truce. The only Americans who were sad to see the rocks stop flying were the owners of the nation's glass companies.

The howling of Clinton, Gore, Schumer, Feinstein and Company sounded like a banshee chorus but it could not resurrect the bill. Nor could they make it an effective campaign issue against Bush--he had condemned the vandalism in the strongest terms. After George "Dubya" Bush was elected President, and the Republicans retained control of the Congress, the tide of gun control receded. It wasn't that Dubya and his GOP colleagues had "discovered" any principles, they were simply smart enough to recognize that that particular political skunk was best left in the bucket. The reminder that political decisions sometimes have personal consequences acted like a tonic on Republicans and Democrats alike.

The Window War was won, and to the astonishment of many gun owners, no one had been killed. It had long been thought that bloodshed would be required to make the liberals understand that God-given rights are not compromisable. All it had taken was a few hundred rocks and other missiles and one brass jackass.

Many men and women would later claim to have been window-breakers, ten times as many as there probably were. But back in Hobbs, no one ever knew who broke the first window in the gun-control war, and that was just fine with Bob Stone. The only person he ever told was his wife, Amy. Together, they decided to keep Bob's foray into petty crime just between themselves. Neither of them was sure just how they could explain their Daddy's night of window-breaking to the kids.
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Author's Postscript: The story above is one possible future for this country. There are others far worse. As J.R. Nyquist recently wrote of the Elian Gonzalez federal kidnapping:

"Specific events, regardless of their actual importance to history, sometimes capture the human imagination. In doing this, they become rallying points for masses of people. They become pivotal to political careers. Such events can bring about the collapse of governments or determine the outcome of elections....Except for clueless and apathetic persons, America has been split into two hostile ideological camps. One is the anti-communist or anti-statist camp, which looks to traditional moral values, the Constitution, a strong family unit and the free market. The other camp is socialist or "progressive" in its outlook, globalist and environmentalist in its policies."

There is no reconciling the two futures these camps represent. One or the other will win in the end. The war up to now has been waged in the political and social arena. The time is fast approaching when this political and social "war" will spill over into armed conflict-- real civil war. If it does, it will happen mostly because everyone thinks it impossible. For sixty years, the liberals have used our respect for the law against us. Each time they moved the line of law to further their agenda, breaking off a bit of the Constitution, we, as law-abiding citizens have backed up grumbling but complying. And why should they stop pushing us back from our God-given liberties? We've never pushed back to stop them. We have been TOO law-abiding.

Remember one thing: Adolf Hitler was elected, and the Nazis passed laws justifying every horrible act they later committed. In such a country, law-breaking is not a crime but a virtue. Before we get too far down that road, perhaps a little window-breaking is in order. Waiting too late to oppose tyranny has always led to bloodshed. Let us avoid that if we can. But history holds such windows of opportunity open only so long, and ours is rapidly closing. Perhaps by breaking the window now, we can escape the horrible alternative. And if in the unlikely event my modest story should become fact, somewhere The Sons of Liberty will be smiling.