The more things change…

Going asymmetrical

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Mike

In 1337 the “Hundred Years’ War” started. Great armies marched to meet each other in the fields of battle. They fought and 2.3 to 3.3 million men died.

In 1792 the French Revolutionary war started. It lasted 7 years and between 1.2 million and 1.4 million men died in the fields of battle.

In 1803 the Napoleonic wars started. Somewhere between 3.5 million and 7.0 million men died in the fields of battle and in the misery of being on campaign.

Between 1955 and 1975 somewhere between 0.9 million and 3.8 million people died in the Vietnam War. There were around 300 thousand soldiers killed in Vietnam, 58 thousand Americans and 254 thousand South Vietnam.

What was the significant change between the previous wars and Vietnam?

Asymmetrical Warfare.

During the 20 years of “The Troubles” in Ireland 8 to 10 thousand people were active members of the IRA. By the 1980’s it was believed that there were around 450 active members and 300 support members. Yet this small number of dedicated people were able to keep the British at bay.

This equates to around 9/100,000 at the low point and 10/100,000 at the high point. If there was this level of asymmetric warfare in the US that would be around 30,000 active participants every year. Even with people rotating in and out.

In 2021 there were 38.5 million hunting licenses issued. If we assume 12/100,000 this would be 4632 people with the right equipment in hand to take a deer sized target at 100 to 200 yards. Not to mention all the other firearm owners that don’t hunt but are proficient with their firearms.

So at a low end we would have somewhere around 5000 and at the high end about 50,000 actives in the such warfare in America.

All of these people look just like the people they are living with. We saw what this was like in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition there is a higher probability of members of the resistance existing unseen within the government/military complex.

We look at what people with minimal industrial knowledge were able to accomplish. Their ability to make hand crafted firearms, their ability to create IEDs. All of that knowledge from people that don’t have the same level of education as most of the people that read this blog.

Do not take counsel of your fears, do not despair, no matter what. As history tells us, even at the lowest ebb, when the situation looks bleak and all seems lost, hope endures.

Forbid it, Almighty God!

Posted on October 22, 2022October 22, 2022 by Mike

Ask a silly question.

But Will Elections Change Anything?

If they could, they’d be illegal.

It’s coming up in a fortnight. For many people, all their hopes rest on the outcome. I get it because these seem like very dark times. We cannot live without hope. But we also need realism. The problems are deep, pervasive, scandalously entrenched.

Many people won financially and in terms of power from lockdowns and have no intention either to apologize or give up their gains. What’s more, for that to have happened to this great country – and many great counties – indicates something far more pernicious than a policy error or an ideological mistake.

The fix is going to require vast change. Tragically, the elected politicians may be the least likely to push for such a change. This is due to what we call the “Deep State” but there ought to be another name. It is rather obvious now that we are dealing with a beast that includes media, technology, nonprofits, and multinational and international government agencies and all the groups they represent.

That said, let’s deal here with the most obvious problem: the administrative state.

The plot of every episode of Yes, Minister – a British sitcom that aired in the early 1980s – is pretty much the same. The appointed Minister of the Department of Administrative Affairs waltzes in with a grand and idealistic statement left over from his political campaigns. The permanent secretary who serves him responds affirmatively and then cautions that there might be other considerations to take into account.

The rest follows like clockwork. The other considerations unfold as inevitable or manufactured behind the scenes. For reasons mostly having to do with career concerns – staying out of trouble, advancing through the ranks or avoiding fall down them, pleasing some special interest, obeying the Prime Minister whom we never see, or coming across well in the media – he backs down and reverses his view. It ends as it begins: the permanent secretary gets his way.

The lesson one gains from this hilarious series is that the elected politicians are outnumbered and outwitted on all sides, only pretending to be in charge when in fact the actual affairs of state are managed by experienced professionals with permanent positions. They all know each other. They have mastered the game. They have all the institutional knowledge.

The politicians, on the other hand, are skilled at what they actually do, which is win elections and advance their careers. Their supposed principles are just the veneer put on to please the public.

What makes the series especially painful is that viewers can’t help but put themselves in the position of the Minister of the Department of Administrative Affairs. How would we have done things differently? And if we had, would we have survived? Those are hard questions because the answer is not obvious at all. It seems like the fix is in.

Now, to be sure, in this series all of the players have elements of charm. We laugh at the bureaucracy and their ways. We are delighted by the oddly emerging lack of scruples by the politician. In the end, however, the system seems to work more or less. Maybe this is just how things are supposed to be. It was ever thus and must always be.

Anyone can be forgiven for believing that just a few years ago. But then the last three years happened. The rule by the administrative bureaucracy in every country became highly personal when our churches were closed, the businesses were shut down, we could not travel, we could not go to gyms or theaters, and then they came after every arm insisting that we accept a shot we did not want and most people did not need.

The laughter of the sort Yes, Minister inspired is over. There is far more at stake. But just as the stakes are high, so too the problem of implementing a solution – representative democracy as a means to reobtain liberty itself – is also exceedingly difficult.

Not difficult, utterly impossible. Can there ever be a wrong or inappropriate time to remind ourselves once more of the deathless words of Patrick Henry? I think not.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.

And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace– but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Indeed. American liberty was won at the muzzle of the gun and the point of the sword. T’was ever thus; I can recall offhand not a single instance when corrupt and fraudulent “elections” such as ours have ever been sufficient to the task. The miserable curs of Our Side’s chattering class who preemptively abjure any resort to the very dear coin with which our Founding Fathers bought freedom for their posterity disgrace themselves by their pusillanimous break with true American history. They insult the bloody sacrifice made by our Founders even as they cheapen the very idea of liberty itself with their puling, girlish squee, squee, squee-ing. When Henry asks of them “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” they can but answer in the affirmative, if they have a shred of integrity left about them.

Not that I’m recommending anybody should rush to this last, most desperate resort, mind. But those who would rule it out forever—as if reclaiming our unique American heritage of freedom and individual self-determination could ever be accomplished as cheaply, easily, and painlessly as merely casting a ballot in yet another sham “election”—have effectively demonstrated for all to see just how little they really value those priceless things, whether they know it or not.

(Via WRSA)

Fascism For Dummies

Posted on October 6, 2022October 6, 2022 by Mike

Know thine Leftist enemy.

It blows my mind how little many of those on the political left know about the insults they hurl at their political opponents, but when you call people fascists or compare the “We’re Number One” sign one sees when their team wins a sporting event to the Nazi salute, you show your own stupidity.

Or you show your own dishonesty, which is just as bad.

Fascism was designed as a ‘middle road’ that recognized three flaws in Marx’s model:

1) Marx’s model provided no incentive system, relying instead on the selflessness of everyone,

2) Marx viewed the communist model as being global, and while a global system may SOUND nice, nothing is implemented at that level. As such, fascism was a national, and not a global, model, and

3) Fascism was not utopian in nature, recognizing governance as a permanent fixture of any system.

The guy who invented fascism (Giovanni Gentile) was not trying to make a brand new political or economic system so much as he was trying to fix Marxism by removing its fatal flaws – primarily the lack of any incentive for anyone to work.

Giovanni Gentile was trying to take Marxism and apply the profit system – tightly controlled by the government – on top of it.

The Nazis were fascists, but they differed from other fascists in one critical area – they defined a ‘nation’ based on ethnicity rather than based on national borders. In other words, it was a very racist form of fascism.

Fascism existed all over Europe and South America before, during, and after WWII. Spain remained fascist until Franco died in the 1980s. Other than Germany, none of the fascist nations had a racist sense of ‘nationalism.’ Other than Germany, they all viewed ‘nation’ as something geographic, and when we look at the primary thing fascism tries to do, which is to have the state take control of the means of production while still allowing a state-controlled profit incentive to incentivize work – riddle me this: what modern political party does that sound like?!?

Three guesses, first two don’t etc. And if you think that’s just some kind of crazy coincidence, you don’t know your Leftists well enough. Try as they might to deceptively label fascism as a phenomenon emanating strictly from the Right, it just ain’t so. The whole mess can be summed up in one insightful sentence.

Fascism does not and cannot come from the American right, as the American right believes in limited government, individual liberty, and free markets – which are the literal opposite of what fascism calls for.

Yep, that’s about the size of it, and tells you all you’ll ever need to know about the Left. Unlimited, all-powerful government; invidious constraints on true liberty and the individual’s right to self-determination; tightly-controlled markets entirely under the thumb of government—these are the foundations on which Left ideology sits. In keeping with the Opposite Rule, under which the very thing Leftists scream most vehemently about the Right doing is exactly what they themselves are ACTUALLY doing…well, as the Good Book tells us, by their fruits ye shall know them, dig?

Same old same old

Posted on September 12, 2022September 12, 2022 by Mike

I know it’s pointless, that there’s nothing worthwhile to be gained by responding to it. I just felt like I could have a little fun with it, that’s all.

The national media have spent the last several weeks insisting that after enduring months of record inflation, unaffordable gas and electric bills, plus a completely avoidable war costing taxpayers billions (and counting), the country is now feeling a new sense of affection for Biden. I’m sure. Now they’re hyping up the Democrat line about some “extreme MAGA ideology” (what?) and “authoritarian leaders” who “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Those are all quotes that Biden slurred his way through last week in Philadelphia, but the sentiment was just as sweetly captured the previous day in a New York Times column by Thomas Edsall. But instead of targeting the unnamed yet ever-so-fearsome “MAGA Republicans,” Edsall and a round of scholars went after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, aka God’s Chosen One.

“The fact that Ron DeSantis … is favored to win re-election is a clear warning to those worried about declining support for democratic institutions and values in the United States,” wrote Edsall.

Should DeSantis win reelection, he wrote, it would indicate that voters in a major swing state “will tolerate, if not actively embrace, the abuse of traditional political norms by domineering leaders.” It’s unclear what Edsall meant by “abuse of traditional political norms,” but he noted that the governor “has made no secret of his intent to use executive authority to the fullest extent.”

If an elected official’s use of authority “to the fullest extent” is “the abuse of traditional political norms,” it would be interesting to know what Edsall makes of Biden unilaterally spreading hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt among taxpayers, including many who never went to college and many who had already paid off their own. It would be interesting to know what he makes of Biden’s failed attempt at coercing millions of workers to inject themselves with an experimental drug.

Those weren’t an abuse of traditional political norms. Those were bold progressive actions!

Edsall went on to cite some of DeSantis’s more widely known achievements in office, including his crackdown on public schools that were teaching children that to be white is a problem; punitive measures he took against corporations that get tax breaks and then get mouthy about politics; and his removal of a state attorney general who openly said he would not adhere to a Supreme Court ruling.

That’s the real problem, see. DeSantis has actually accomplished things, running the Sunshine State less like your standard-issue Vichy GOPe collaborationist and more like a for-real, hand-to-God Goldwater conservative—governing as if the US Constitution was still extant; as if liberty and limited government really, truly matter; as if he believes the relationship between the sovereign States and FederalGovCo needs to be re-calibrated and brought back into the proper balance.

No wonder Leftard shitweasels like this guy hate him so fanatically.

This is where Edsall introduced his trusty gang of “experts” to make the case that despite DeSantis having broad appeal among the people who would have to hand him any higher office he has designs for — we call this an “election” — such a victory would mean certain doom for democracy.

T’is a consummation devoutly to be wished, seeing as how we AREN’T a “democracy,” never HAVE been, and were never INTENDED to be—democracy being a system cordially and correctly loathed by the Founders as “mob rule,” nothing more nor less than the prelude to national disaster.

And this is where the Opposite Rule—ie, whatever the Democrats are denouncing Republicans most hysterically for is exactly what they themselves are doing—kicks into full effect. For instance:

Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told Edsall that what would worry him about a “Trump Republican” like DeSantis in office is “the extreme politicization and abuse of federal government power, the targeting of political enemies and the mobilization and emboldening of the violent, well-armed, extremist fringe of Trump followers.”

Gee, none of THAT sounds at all familiar.

UCLA law professor Richard Hansen was then allowed by Edsall to dream up a scenario where former president Trump runs for a second term and “fails to win legitimately but finds a route to being installed as president,” which, according to Handsen, would mean the United States “ceases to be a democracy.”

Nope, nothing familiar there either.

The piece went on like this at length, with various scholars and professors consulting their dream diaries about what a future second term for Trump or first term for DeSantis would mean.

—“Certain groups would be more vulnerable. These include historically marginalized groups, who might find new restrictions on voting. Or members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community who are treated as second-class citizens.”

Actually, I’d gladly settle for not being forced to prostrate myself at their feet and worship them as if they were Morally Superior Beings anymore, myself. As for new restrictions on voting, we’re currently in most dire need of that.

—“One might imagine the [Republican Party] in power during unified government would seek to dramatically expand the number and size of the federal courts, then fill these new positions.”

Um, whut? Who and when the hell has anyone mentioned anything like that?

—“There could also be soft or harder controls over the media. There would be tremendous uncertainty over what a postdemocracy period would look like in the United States.”

Again: not a democracy, jackass. And since the media insists that we all agree to turn a blind eye to their transparently-partisan politicking for the shitlib agenda entire, yeah, I’d say they of right ought to be treated as the propagandists they in fact are. Which of necessity means harder controls on them, which as far as I’m concerned can’t be imposed fast enough.

Edsall concluded his piece by asserting that whether DeSantis wins a second term as governor, it will be “a referendum on democracy, and the odds do not look good.”

Eh, not so much. A referendum on DeSantis, absolutely. Heck, I’ll be big about this and call it a referendum on Democrats if you like. Whatevs, Poindexter.

That we got from Point A — DeSantis is an exceptionally skilled and popular policy executive — to Point B — DeSantis as president would turn America into an authoritarian hellscape — should leave everyone reading this with severe neck pain from straining to find the logic.

To call this talk “divisive” is to give it way too much credit. This is panicked.

It is no such thing. What it is, in truth, is a pep talk, of a piece with Biden’s historic Satanic Speech. They’re preaching to the choir, motivating, inciting, and inspiring their Leftist base to aspire to greater heights of derangement and blank-brained hate than ever before attained. This is how fascist dictators have always prepared their peoples for war, since the days of Hitler and Mussolini. Not that Our Side dares to take the explicit threats being made against us as unserious, without danger, or purely as a matter of rhetoric alone. The other way in which they’re a lot like their ideological forefathers: they’ll really fucking do it, and fully intend to.

Out and proud of totalitarian folly

Posted on August 17, 2022 by Mike

Don’t know when I’ve ever seen as concise and capacious a rundown of recent FederalGovCo criminality, abuse, and perfidy than in these first two ‘graphs.

The globalists’ programs for mass control of humanity have become glaringly obvious. They don’t even hide their intentions anymore behind veiled language, secret club meetings, or slanderous aspersions against their critics. They just say right out in the open, “Yep, we want to reduce the human population; control all energy used for commerce; regulate food production; censor all information antithetical to our goals; cynically divide humanity against itself by promoting meaningless wars, racial hostilities, and ludicrous social conflicts; and force the vast majority of the remaining humans in the future to survive as indentured servants who will own nothing and subsist on a diet of bugs.” That is an ugly, depressing, awful future to advertise. Yet so overconfident are the Great Resetters in their control over emerging artificial intelligence technologies, central bank digital currencies, biological warfare, and mass surveillance that they say exactly what they plan to do.

So confident is the permanent D.C. bureaucracy in its abilities to control all Americans that it no longer disguises its two-tiered “justice” system or pretends it cares a whit about hard fought American freedom. Raiding the personal residence of political “outsider” President Trump to intimidate other prospective adversaries to Washington’s corrupt Uniparty? Check. Murdering, hunting down, and imprisoning MAGA voters under the pretense of a bogus “insurrection” narrative supported by an equally corrupt news media and criminal “justice” system? Check. Hiring massive armies of IRS agents and other bureaucratic mercenaries to execute deadly force against American citizens while simultaneously cataloguing gun-owners in an ongoing effort to disarm the civilian population? Check. Using the “climate change” farce and fantasies of “systemic racism” to implement widespread political Marxism and economic redistribution of wealth indistinguishable from classic communism? Check. Intentionally subverting immigration law to flood American communities with drugs, human-trafficking, slave labor, and social disintegration? Check. Manipulating elections with fraudulent mail-in ballots and scant identification requirements? Check. Printing and spending U.S. dollars until inflation and inevitable currency collapse destroy Americans’ private wealth and leave them entirely dependent upon government-dispersed welfare? Check. Attacking religiously devout Christians as threats to the State? Check. Censorship of all dissenting opinion, confiscation of private property under the guise of tax and regulation authorities, Soviet show trials, and politically sanctioned professional demotions for anyone courageous enough to challenge the regime’s power? Check, check, check, and check!

Hubris. Absolute hubris. And we should love it. We couldn’t ask for a better drug to cloud the judgment of our enemies.They’re hooked, they can’t see clearly, and they will not change now or in the foreseeable future. What they possess with hollow overconfidence, they lack in sober wisdom. They’re drug addicts now, deluded in the supremacy of their own enduring power. These are dangerous people but people who are no longer grounded in any sense of reality. They think they control the quaking ground beneath their feet and believe that they alone will decide what stays in place. They see themselves as gods, and as with all false gods, their vanity will consume them.

Go back and find a time in history when hubris succeeded in subsuming the world to man’s will. What conqueror has ever succeeded in holding total power for long? When has overbearing authority not produced an equal and opposite human force of organic rebellion? When has the lust for total global dominion not fractured into a million tiny pieces from the uncontrollable energies of once inconsequential humans yearning to be free? When has the desire for One World Government — that seductive enticement that grips the minds of unscrupulous men, much like Tolkien’s “one ring to rule them all” — ever succeeded? Still waiting! The hunger for a global government where an aristocratic “elite” rules over everyone else has existed throughout human history, and just as with every misguided attempt to construct a perpetual motion machine or every alchemist effort to transform lead into gold, those who wish to rule humanity from the seat of an earthly throne always fail. They drown in the floods unleashed from their own magnificently destructive hubris. Show me a group of men who seek to rule the world, and I’ll tell you the tale of their ultimate annihilation. That is the story of man’s struggles in this life, and anyone too drunk with delusions of domination to know what’s coming will pay the price.

True enough that every tyrant carries the seed of his own eventual destruction within himself, but it’s of little if any comfort nevertheless. Nemesis can often be quite a long time a-coming, affording the despot an extended opportunity to inflict one hell of a lot of pain and misery on those unlucky souls anxiously awaiting her arrival.

Second look at the Bundy Ranch standoff?

Posted on August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Mike

The Bundy family’s take on our awful central government’s true nature was more accurate than they’ve ever been given credit for.

BUNKERVILLE, NEVADA—The Bundy Ranch roundup has understandably stirred thin-stretched emotions as the federal government seizes cattle belonging to the Bundy family. The family settled in the late 1800’s and has ranched in the area since. The federal government allowed Nevada ranchers to graze their cattle on federal tracts of land adjacent to their private properties for generations. The federal government later created the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to administer and “protect” the vast swaths of federal land—including the land the Bundy family’s livelihood was—and still is—dependent upon. The BLM began restricting ranchers’ usage of federal lands to protect various species, and the BLM decided to restrict the Bundy family’s usage of the federal land they historically grazed. The federal government told the Bundy family that a tortoise existed on the land and therefore the land’s usage for cattle would have to decrease—thus creating a scenario where the Bundy family could make fewer resources. A 20-year legal battle ensued.

There exist a number of elements to the story that inject shades of grey into the dominant media narrative. Perhaps hundreds of Bundy supporters have already shown up to the ranch area to “protect” the family and their land—which is federal land—but federal land such usage was promised to the family in the government’s efforts to get people to settle the West after Mexico ceded the land to the U.S. Court documents—discussed later in this article—reveal that the Bundy family decided at some point that the federal government was illegitimate and that they no longer had to give heed to the federal courts. The Bundy family patriarch has openly stated his willingness to use force against federal agents if they take his cattle off of the federal lands; the federal agents stand ready to use force against the family or their supporters if they interfere with the cattle removal. Both sides are armed, both sides are frustrated, and the rhetoric and hyperbole surrounding the entire matter has left many onlookers from around the world confused as to what is actually happening.

In the immediate aftermath of the infamous cattle roundup, Cliven Bundy granted a number of high profile media interviews continuing to deny—to the point of absolutely ignoring family history—what the federal courts have twice told him.

“I believe this is a sovereign state of Nevada,” Bundy recently told a radio reporter. “…I abide by all of Nevada state laws. But, I don’t recognize the United States Government as even existing.”

Oh, it exists right enough, I’m afraid. Cliven and several of his compatriots ended up finding that out the hard way. The thing I remember being struck by more forcefully than anything else at the time was the near-universal condemnation of the Bundys from the Right. Even folks whose ideological inclinations might be taken as suggestive of deep antipathy for FederalGovCo, its minions, and its nefarious works were suddenly tripping over themselves to join [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”hw7r99ujes” question=”Comments? Complaints? Thoughts?” opened=”0″]the mad rush to take the Almighty State’s side[/wpdiscuz-feedback] on this one.

“Resist, or be swept away”

Posted on July 6, 2022July 6, 2022 by Mike

No way I can improve on that perfect title. Although I have to say, regretfully, the author’s idea of what constitutes effective “resistance” has precious little in common with my own.

There is a great deal of consternation in liberal precincts regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. This is good. It is the right of every American to voice their grievances. Abortion is a contentious issue and worthy of debate. There are reasonable positions both sides may debate which will likely reverberate for years to come. Unfortunately, most of the noise from liberals isn’t discussion the issue deserves, but a whirring, whining cacophony reminiscent of a fit a child might throw if told he can’t do something he really…really…really wants to do.

Jill Filipovic joined the cacophony, writing in the Guardian, “[T]he US Supreme Court should officially be understood — a tool of minority rule over the majority, and as part of a far-right ideological and authoritarian takeover that must be snuffed out if we want American democracy to survive.” Consider Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s diatribe: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.” On June 22, a deranged man considered snuffing out Justice Kavanaugh and is awaiting trial for attempted murder. A near universal outcry from liberals contends that abortion is a “constitutional right.” It is hard to see how the republic overcomes such radical mindsets and notions.

No, it isn’t. On the contrary, it is simplicity itself; to overcome such mindless radicalism, all purveyors of insensate balderdash must be purged, by means of hard-handed violence if that’s what it takes for the Republic to rid itself of it, to preserve the culture and way of life of its citizens. The hard thing isn’t “seeing” that harsh reality, it’s accepting it, and then acting accordingly.

Liberals have convinced themselves that Republican presidents who win the electoral vote while losing the popular vote are illegitimate. Ms. Filipovic notes in her article that five of the conservative judges sitting on the Supreme Court were “appointed by Presidents who lost the popular vote.” America is a constitutional republic. Presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College. This is the only legal method of electing the president. A presidential election decided any other way would be illegitimate.

What liberals are really saying is that conservatism is illegitimate. Liberals consider conservatism a bastard ideology, conceived illegitimately, existing to unravel democratic institutions so conservatives may invoke a fascist state. Conservatism must be “snuffed out” so democracy survives. Any strategy or tactic that avails liberals the slightest advantage or damages conservatives is endorsed. Ethics, morality, and the well-being of the American people are irrelevant. The ends justify the means. This is the pathetic ethos of liberalism today.

Subscription to this ethos isn’t enough; the body politic must be purged of conservatism. Schumer’s threat is real. Conservatives have “released the whirlwind and…will pay the price.” To be “snuffed out” and “pay the price” is language of trepidation and violence. Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has determined that parents displaying raucous behavior at school board meetings are enemies of the state while senators and citizens that threaten and intimidate Supreme Court justices are patriotic Americans participating in democracy. Looting, arson, and anarchy are to liberal protesters what nirvana is to Buddhist monks.

Liberals dominate the Executive and Legislative Branches of the federal government and many states. The federal bureaucracy is a cudgel used to benefit the liberal elite. Liberals dominate popular and news media. Corporations, increasingly leery of the bureaucratic cudgel, toe the line for liberals. Educators propagandize the country’s youth with twisted liberal dogma. Conservatives are swimming upstream against a powerful liberal current to maintain their political, cultural, and commercial identity.

The Constitution is an island rising above this powerful stream. Americans must embrace the Constitution and the laws that underlie it because liberals won’t be bothered by the rule of law. When liberal elites consider judicial decisions illegitimate and remedy the undesirable decision by packing the court with friendly judges, the rule of law is meaningless.

All indubitably correct so far—grim, bleak, factual reality, offered full-strength with nary a flinch nor backfill. But you know what’s coming next, don’t you? Wait for it…wait for it…WAAAIIIT FOR IT…

Conservatives are the bulwark of the republic, the last line of defense against a treacherous liberal ideology that seeks to dominate the body politic while destroying anyone that resists. The American people must elect politicians that will compete with this dangerous ideology, returning government to the people before the nation is swept away in a current of chaotic liberalism.

Sorry, bub, but if you think electing politicians to “compete” can ever be sufficient to discourage, dissuade, and/or defeat remorseless, implacable, Hell-spawned Leftist fiends, you got some more thinking to do. Any fool knows that in wartime, one’s chosen weapon must have power adequate to dispense with the foeman one confronts. No stampeding rhino was ever brought down with a flyswatter and a spray-bottle of sugar water, after all. Any thinking person would scrupulously guard himself against the slightest implication that he might actually take such twaddle at all seriously, lest his reputation be forever ruined.

Either you believe these scoundrels and their ideology to be “dangerous” (HINT: they most assuredly are, in every imaginable sense of the word), or you do not. Having used the very word yourself, you undermine not only your own argument specifically but your overall credibility as well when you tout weak-tea, ineffectual countermeasures as a response in the same damned sentence.

Another opinion released

Posted on June 24, 2022June 24, 2022 by Mike

This one is sure to be of interest to everyone, since it comes from a renowned, widely-respected, and highly-regarded Constitutional law scholar and all. I mean, we’re talking here about a man whose words on the topic have for many years carried one hell of a lot of weight, and rightly so.

Joe Biden said he is “deeply disappointed” with the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to strike down a New York law that restricted access to concealed carry permits of handguns, saying in a statement that it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.”

Oh, shut the fuck up, you old fool. Like you have the vaguest clue about either one of those two things, or ever did have your whole squandered life long.

In a statement released hours after the Supreme Court released its decision, Biden expressed his deep disappointment in the ruling, and said it should “deeply trouble us all.”

The statement continues:

In the wake of the horrific attacks in Buffalo and Uvalde, as well as the daily acts of gun violence that do not make national headlines, we must do more as a society — not less — to protect our fellow Americans. I remain committed to doing everything in my power to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer. I have already taken more executive actions to reduce gun violence than any other President during their first year in office, and I will continue to do all that I can to protect Americans from gun violence.

I urge states to continue to enact and enforce commonsense laws to make their citizens and communities safer from gun violence. As the late Justice Scalia recognized, the Second Amendment is not absolute. For centuries, states have regulated who may purchase or possess weapons, the types of weapons they may use, and the places they may carry those weapons. And the courts have upheld these regulations.

I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, also condemned the ruling, calling it a “dark day” for New York that “is sending us backwards.

Hochul stated when the 2nd Amendment was written, U.S. citizens only had access to muskets and that she was “prepared to go back to muskets” through gun regulations.

Fuck you, liar. US citizens at that time had “access” to all and every type of weapon, exactly as the Founders intended, up to and including privately-owned artillery pieces. An interesting little tidbit you may not have known about until right this very minute:

Even in 1934, when Congress responded to media-hyped Prohibition and Depression-era outlaws such as the Dillenger gang by regulating machine guns, suppressors, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns under the National Firearms Act, they kept artillery pieces fully legal and free to own without Uncle Sam getting involved. Ironically this meant that for three decades you could buy a functional military surplus field gun, cash-and-carry, but had to pay a $200 tax and undergo a background check process to get a .22LR suppressor.

That “loophole” was eventually closed.

It was in 1968, that the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, introduced as H.R. 5037 by U.S. Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY) and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson (D), regulated most “destructive devices” with a bore over .50-caliber. This meant that modern artillery “such as bazookas, mortars, antitank guns, and so forth” were placed under ATF restrictions in a kind of retroactive addition to the NFA. Before that time, you could buy surplus hardware such as working Boys and Lahti anti-tank rifles at local outlets, cheap.

With all that being said, modern breechloading artillery is still available in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave,” provided it is registered with the federal government and properly taxed. Still, legacy artillery systems like muzzleloading black powder field guns, such as Hamilton and Madison would be familiar with, do not require tax stamps.

For now, anyway.

Honestly, I had no idea that a fella could legally buy himself a breech-loading field piece to this very day. Then again, familiar as I am with what the tax-and-fees bite amounts to for Class III (ie, full-auto) rifles and subguns—HELPFUL HINT: as high as balls on a giraffe, as Goose likes to say—I can just imagine what you’d have to shell out for FederalGovCo’s permission to park a breech-loader out on the front lawn. Be that as it may, it’s nice to know they’re still legally allowed, even if they’re priced well out of my personal reach.

Better yet is knowing how batshit-apoplectic the ongoing legal availability for private purchase of a nice Napoleon, Howitzer, or 24-pound siege gun would make Plugs Biden if he only knew. Which, you can be sure he doesn’t. Somebody oughta mention it to him over porridge one morning before the addle-pated old fart goes down for 9AM nappies. The grand mal flailing and flopping about as a result would surely be the most epic and hilarious to date, which is really saying something.

Ain’t it funny, though, how shitlibs from sea to shining sea have suddenly conjured in themselves this awed reverence for the sanctity of States’ Rights and the unchallengeable primacy of State over Federal Law after oh, about a century and a half or thereabouts of reflexively dismissing such notions as peurile claptrap, antiquated bosh of the purest ray serene. But hey, whatever gets you through the next fifteen minutes, eh, Proggy?

Headlines from a better world

Posted on June 24, 2022June 24, 2022 by Mike

The Bee checks out the news in an alternate universe, wherein Trump is serving his second term as President.

Nancy Pelosi announces 38th impeachment proceeding against President Trump.

Unemployment reaches 0% for first time in history, stock market gets so high they have to add another digit to the counter.

Trump holds ecumenical church council to unify all the denominations under the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

Ukraine invades Russia.

United States purchases Greenland in tremendous deal.

Americans save $1600 on July 4 BBQs.

American troops pulled from Afghanistan in careful, strategic, slow withdraw; 0 Americans stranded; utopia breaks out.

New York Times publishes article explaining why $1/gallon gas is bad and racist.

Naaaah, we’re MUCH better off staying here in Bizarro World with Grampy Gropey and his pinhead crew. I left a good few for y’all to click on through for, but even so there are two more I just can’t resist putting up.

President gives coherent speech.

Everyone who ever took their kids to a drag show arrested.

Heh. Yep, obviously not OUR universe, more’s the pity. Neither of those last two things could ever happen in this shitty timeline we’re all stuck in.

Democracy? NO

Posted on June 11, 2022June 11, 2022 by Mike

The senile fool Biden, in another of his characteristic rambling, incoherent speeches this week, repeatedly lauded “our democracy” as if that’s actually what this country is, the original system of government the Founders set up for their posterity. T’ain’t so, McGee; any poor sod with even the most niggardly dollop of historical literacy in his gift knows better than that. Eric Peters last year posted a collection of quotes condemning democracy in the most virulent terms from our blessed ancestors, which one of his handlers/wardens/keepers should consider reading to the stumblebum ***”president”*** sometime so as to enlighten his stupid ass. After the quotes, Eric provides some commentary of his own, interspersed with more historical context.

In light of the Founders’ view on the subject of republics and democracies, it is not surprising that the Constitution does not contain the word “democracy,” but does mandate: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”

These principles were once widely understood. In the 19th century, many of the great leaders, both in America and abroad, stood in agreement with the Founding Fathers. John Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1801 to 1835 echoed the sentiments of Fisher Ames. “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos,” he wrote. American poet James Russell Lowell warned that “democracy gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.” Lowell was joined in his disdain for democracy by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who remarked that “democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.” Across the Atlantic, British statesman Thomas Babington Macauly agreed with the Americans. “I have long been convinced,” he said, “that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.” Britons Benjamin Disraeli and Herbert Spencer would certainly agree with their countryman, Lord Acton, who wrote: “The one prevailing evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.”

By the 20th century, however, the falsehoods that democracy was the epitome of good government and that the Founding Fathers had established just such a government for the United States became increasingly widespread. This misinformation was fueled by President Woodrow Wilson’s famous 1916 appeal that our nation enter World War I “to make the world safe for democracy” — and by President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1940 exhortation that America “must be the great arsenal of democracy” by rushing to England’s aid during WWII.

Very few of us have probably thought it all the way through, but as it happens, this sudden drive to promote democracy over the true American ideal of government had a specific and most sinister purpose behind it.

On September 17 (Constitution Day), 1961, John Birch Society founder Robert Welch delivered an important speech, entitled “Republics and Democracies,” in which he proclaimed: “This is a Republic, not a Democracy. Let’s keep it that way!” The speech, which was later published and widely distributed in pamphlet form, amounted to a jolting wake-up call for many Americans. In his remarks, Welch not only presented the evidence to show that the Founding Fathers had established a republic and had condemned democracy, but he warned that the definitions had been distorted, and that powerful forces were at work to convert the American republic into a democracy, in order to bring about dictatorship.

Welch understood that democracy is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Eighteenth century historian Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, it is thought, argued that, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” And as British writer G.K. Chesterton put it in the 20th century: “You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.”

The push for democracy has only been possible because the Constitution is being ignored, violated, and circumvented. The Constitution defines and limits the powers of the federal government. Those powers, all of which are enumerated, do not include agricultural subsidy programs, housing programs, education assistance programs, food stamps, etc. Under the Constitution, Congress is not authorized to pass any law it chooses; it is only authorized to pass laws that are constitutional. Anybody who doubts the intent of the Founders to restrict federal powers, and thereby protect the rights of the individual, should review the language in the Bill of Rights, including the opening phrase of the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law…”).

As Welch explained in his 1961 speech:

…man has certain unalienable rights which do not derive from government at all…And those…rights cannot be abrogated by the vote of a majority any more than they can by the decree of a conqueror. The idea that the vote of a people, no matter how nearly unanimous, makes or creates or determines what is right or just becomes as absurd and unacceptable as the idea that right and justice are simply whatever a king says they are. Just as the early Greeks learned to try to have their rulers and themselves abide by the laws they had themselves established, so man has now been painfully learning that there are more permanent and lasting laws which cannot be changed by either sovereign kings or sovereign people, but which must be observed by both. And that government is merely a convenience, superimposed on Divine Commandments and on the natural laws that flow only from the Creator of man and man’s universe.

Such is the noble purpose of the constitutional republic we inherited from our Founding Fathers.

Amen. Can anyone be surprised that, as we have wandered ever deeper into the muck and mire of an artificially generated and wholly misguided infatuation with democracy, our national plight has steadily worsened in equal proportion? As I always say: The fault, dear Horatio, lies not in the principles of our Founders, but in ourselves. The farther we stray from the ideals and prescriptions of those great men, the more wretched the misery we create for ourselves becomes.

Don’t look now

Posted on May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 by Mike

Looks like somebody didn’t get the “Saddam had NO WMDs” memo.

Gulf War Syndrome mystery SOLVED: US scientists blame the condition on SARIN gas released into the air when Iraq’s chemical weapons cache was bombed

Quarter of veterans who served in Gulf War suffering unexplained symptoms

Scientists left flummoxed by the cause fatigue, memory problems and body pain

But now US study has found the usually fatal nerve gas sarin is to blame

UNPOSSIBLE, I SAY!!! I have been assured by All The Best People that Saddam had no WMDs, never did have them, and had no interest whatsoever in acquiring any. The whole thing was just a lie dreamed up by Chimperor Shrub II to provide an excuse for launching his Forever War against an entirely blameless nation for the sole reason that the damned drunken fool believed that Saddam was plotting to assassinate Daddy Shrub. All those truckloads of WMDs that were seen filing into Syria for safekeeping just before Operation Desert Shrub opened had no WMDs in them, either.

In fact, there’s NO SUCH THING AS WMDs, period. Even if there were, Moslem shitrapies in the Middle East would be the last place you’d be likely to find them, Pisslam being the Religion Of Peace™ and all that. Hey, did you know that the word “Islam” actually means “Peace” when translated into English? Because it does. I bet you didn’t know that at all, did ya, H8R? Well, you do now.

“The Insurgency Lesson of Michael Collins”

Posted on May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 by Mike

Turns out, he has much to teach us.

In 1916, while the Irish rebels were led to a near certain death after having been defeated during the Easter Rebellion, Michael Collins decided he would fight the world’s most powerful empire differently, if he ever got the chance. Michael Collins got that chance in 1918, and he fought differently. In fact, modern successful insurgencies are largely modeled on Collins’ strategic concept.

Collins recognized that the oppressive powers that had their boots on the necks of the Irish people enjoyed power over the economy, information (news papers at the time), police, military, and the courts. No one was going to fight the British and win using British strategies. The only way to win was to fight differently.

For the preceding six-plus decades, the Irish Republican Brotherhood built a parallel state within Ireland. This was necessary for two reasons: (1) if independence was achieved, an Irish managerial class and network needed to step in and manage Ireland; (2) in order for independence to be achieved, Irish rebels needed competent intelligence resources. Collins recognized the value of both and used them successfully. But how did Collins win Irish independence when sixteen prior attempts failed? The targeting of bureaucrats.

The Irish Flying Columns disrupted British rule in the countryside, but they never really landed a true killer blow. What they did achieve, however, was that each successful attack (A) shook confidence in British capacity among Irish locals and (B) invested the locals in asymmetric attrition warfare. Melting back into the farms was critical to Irish successes outside of Dublin. Meanwhile, simultaneously, Collins and his Squad (or Twelve Apostles) of hitmen targeted mid-level bureaucrats for assassination.

Collins, a former bureaucrat himself, understood that senior leaders in British bureaucracy were fairly useless political appointees – not unlike the United States today. Targeting them was useless. The middle managers were the true strength of the British Empire – collecting taxes, disseminating intelligence, feeding news sources, etc, etc. By killing them, Collins was eliminating functional British Rule.

More importantly, not only did each lost beaureaucrat take critical business continuity knowledge to the grave, junior bureaucrats feared promotion. Why accept the role of Deputy X, even with higher pay and prestige, if Deputy X keeps getting killed? This began to destroy British capacity in Ireland.

The insurgency lesson of Collins, therefore, was not to simply attack the teeth of the oppressor, but to dismantle the ability of the teeth to strike – by selectively targeting individual bureaucrats for elimination.

This is a pluperfect primer on how insurgents might remove the tyrant’s boot from off their necks, to which I have nothing to add.

(Via WRSA)

The nobility of losing

Posted on April 26, 2022April 26, 2022 by Mike

Taking the high road.

Times Square Billboard Exposes Taylor Lorenz for Doxxing Libs of TikTok

Starts off well enough, looks like. So are we finally about to see some real Back atcha!! action dealt out here, a little of the gander’s sauce spooned onto the goose’s plate? Or will our billboard renters stop well short of doing anything more than spending a crapton of their own money to make a supremely futile gesture which shitlibs will react to not with fear and horror, but with derisive laughter and mockery?

Three guesses. First two etc.

Two political commentators teamed up this week to rent a Times Square billboard exposing Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz for a report in which she revealed personal information about the Twitter user who runs the Libs of TikTok account.

Commentator and podcast host Tim Pool on Tuesday tweeted a video of the billboard, which reads, “Hey [Washington Post], democracy dies in darkness. That’s why we’re shining a light on you. Taylor Lorenz doxxed @libsoftiktok.”

The commentators disseminated their message in response to Lorenz’s controversial Washington Post report on Libs of TikTok, a conservative Twitter account that showcases teachers who attempt to indoctrinate their students and others who espouse radical left-wing ideology. Lorenz not only revealed the identity of the anonymous person who runs the account but also included a copy of the person’s real estate license, which showed her home address. The Post later removed the home address from the story, then lied about it, saying, “We did not publish or link to any details about her personal life.”

Lorenz, who has a history of taking offense at legitimate criticisms, called the billboard “so idiotic” and said “these campaigns have a much darker and more violent side.”

And then she went back to her home, confident that her address was and would remain private and secure, in marked contrast to how she had treated poor LoTT—WITH THE CONNIVANCE AND ACTIVE ASSISTANCE OF HER EMPLOYER, WHICH HAPPENS TO BE ONE OF THE BIGGEST AND MOST WELL KNOWN ESTABLISHMENT PROPAGANDA MANUFACTORIES IN THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD.

SO: for the barbarous crime of quoting the Left’s own words back to them without embellishment or exaggeration, LoTT will spend the next few years fielding entirely credible death threats; finding nasty notes taped to her front door or the tires on her car slashed day after day; being screamed at in random public spaces by wild-eyed, purple-faced moonbats; and just basically living in constant, eminently justified terror, never knowing where the next deranged assault, the next profane diatribe, the next chest-bumping, pushing-and-shoving denunciation might emerge from.

Lorenz, on the other hand, will get a raise, a bonus, and eventually a Pulitzer for her outstanding achievements in “journalism.” Neither harm nor even unpleasantness will befall her; nothing scary or embarrassing will happen to her. Nobody on our side will so much as give her a sniffy look in the restaurant or the movie-theater line.

Because, y’know, that’s not who we are.

Goin’ down

Posted on April 20, 2022April 20, 2022 by Mike

Robert Spencer asks a pertinent question.

Does the Western Lifestyle Put Societies on the Path to Extinction?

Apparently, yes. Yes, it does.

The rest of the world is noticing the West’s pronoun madness, trans madness, grooming madness, and other evils, and is drawing the obvious conclusions. The deputy commander-in-chief for coordination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, said in a recent interview on Iranian TV that Europeans were losing the sense of their own national identity, and that the Western lifestyle had placed European societies on the path to extinction. He could have said exactly the same thing about the United States of America.

The March 31 exchange on Iran’s Ofogh TV began when an interviewer asked Naghdi: “If I am not mistaken, you expressed an opinion about the French national soccer team. You said that out of the 23 team members, 15 were Africans, and that of the 12 members of their national basketball team, ten were Africans. You inferred that France has no national identity.” It was an interesting question, because if an interviewer had asked it in France or any other country in Europe, or in the U.S., he or she would have been excoriated as a “racist” and likely fired, simply for asking the question. When a topic, any topic, can be more freely discussed on Iranian TV than on American TV, you know there is something wrong.

Naghdi didn’t berate the interviewer for “bigotry.” Instead, he answered: “The West delineates a certain lifestyle for societies, and how we should live. What has this done to the West itself? It has caused negative population growth, which forces them to import population from abroad. European societies will reach a point, within several decades, where you will have to search for a single person of the European race in France or in England, for example.” Well, yes, and not just France or England. Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) recently conducted a “micro-census” that found that fully twenty-five percent of the people in the country have a “migrant background.” Given the low birth rates of native Europeans all across the continent, it isn’t hard to see where this is tending. As far back as 2005, the renowned historian Bernard Lewis said that Europe would be Islamic by the end of this century, “at the very latest.”

Naghdi continued: “In this situation, there is no more meaning to national identity. According to statistics, if you hold free elections in England in 2060, a Pakistani or an Indian will be the prime minister, and [British] Parliament will be filled with [immigrants] from Iraq, India, and so on. What will be the meaning of national identity there? There will be no such thing as the English people anymore. This will be a different nation and different society.” As if aware of what the Western establishment media would make of such talk, Naghdi added: “Some people might interpret what I say to be racial discrimination, but if you care about the value of preserving a nation’s identity and the continued existence of that nation, [know that] the path [the West] outlined for human society will ultimately be the annihilation of future generations.”

This Eye-ranian dude is one brainy cat, no doubt about it— perceptive, quite canny both historically and politically, and right on the beam. Which is NOT a sentence I ever imagined I’d have occasion write, much less actually mean.

“A Handgun Against an Army”

Posted on April 14, 2022April 14, 2022 by Mike

This deathless Mike Vanderboegh essay still pops back up now and again; I’ve linked to it three or four times since it first appeared myself, and almost certainly will again.

A friend of mine owns an instructive piece of history. It is a small, crude pistol [see the image at the top of this post], made out of sheet-metal stampings by the U.S. during World War II. While it fits in the palm of your hand and is a slowly-operated, single-shot arm, its powerful .45 caliber projectile will kill a man with brutal efficiency. With a short, smooth-bore barrel it can reliably kill only at point blank ranges, so its use requires the will (brave or foolhardy) to get in close before firing. It is less a soldier’s weapon than an assassin’s tool. The U.S. manufactured them by the millions during the war, not for our own forces but rather to be air-dropped behind German lines to resistance units in occupied Europe and Asia. They cost exactly two dollars and ten cents to make.

Crude and slow (the fired case had to be knocked out of the breech by means of a little wooden dowel, a fresh round procured from the storage area in the grip and then manually reloaded and cocked. It was so wildly inaccurate it couldn’t hit the broad side of a French barn at 50 meters, but to the Resistance man or woman who had no firearm it still looked pretty darn good.

The theory and practice of it was this: First, you approach a German sentry with your little pistol hidden in your coat pocket and, with Academy-award sincerity, ask him for a light for your cigarette (or the time the train leaves for Paris, or if he wants to buy some non-army-issue food or a half-hour with your “sister”). When he smiles and casts a nervous glance down the street to see where his Sergeant is, you blow his brains out with your first and only shot, then take his rifle and ammunition. Your next few minutes are occupied with “getting out of Dodge,” for such critters generally go around in packs. After that (assuming you evade your late benefactor’s friends) you keep the rifle and hand your little pistol to a fellow Resistance fighter so he can go get his own rifle.

Or, maybe, you then use your rifle to get a submachine gun from the Sergeant when he comes running. Perhaps you get very lucky and pick up a light machine gun, two boxes of ammunition and a haversack of hand grenades. With two of the grenades and the expenditure of a half-a-box of ammunition at a hasty roadblock the next night, you and your friends get a truck full of arms and ammunition. (Some of the cargo is sticky with “Boche” blood, but you don’t mind, not terribly.)

Pretty soon you’ve got the best armed little maquis unit in your part of France, all from that cheap little pistol and the guts to use it. (One wonders if the current political elite’s opposition to so-called “Saturday Night Specials” doesn’t come from some adopted racial memory of previous failed tyrants. For even cheap little pistols are a threat to oppressive regimes.)

They called the pistol the “Liberator.” Not a bad name, all in all.

It’s a perfect name, actually. If you haven’t yet read this important work, be sure you don’t fail to now. One of Mike’s most stirring, poignant passages:

The tyrant must be met at the door when he appears. At your door, or mine, wherever he shows his bloody appetite. He must be met by the pistol which can defeat an army. He must be met at every door, for in truth we outnumber him and his henchmen.

It matters not whether they call themselves Communists or Nazis or something else. It matters not what flag they fly, nor what uniform they wear. It matters not what excuses they give for stealing your liberty, your property or your life. “By their works ye shall know them.” The time is late. Those who once had trouble reading the hour on their watches have no trouble seeing by the glare of the fire at Waco. Few of us realized at the time that the Constitution was burning right along with the Davidians.

Now we know better.

We have had the advantage of that horrible illumination for more than fifteen years now — fifteen years in which the rule of law and the battered old parchment of our beloved Constitution have been smashed, shredded and besmirched by the Clintonistas. In this process they have been aided and abetted by the cowardly incompetence and venal avarice of the Republican party. They have forgotten Daniel Webster’s warning: “Miracles do not cluster. Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands — what has happened once in six thousand years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fail there will be anarchy throughout the world.”

Stirring, yes, although perhaps not in precisely the same way as when it was first published on Vanderboegh’s old site, Sipsey Street Irregulars, so many years ago; there’s a certain bitter flavor to it now as well, as we’ve been content to just sit idly back and watch so very much of what Mike warned us about come to pass, washing over us like the most dismal of tides. One final excerpt:

As a Christian, I cannot fear my own death, but rather I am commanded by my God to live in such a way as to make my death a homecoming. That this makes me incomprehensible and threatening to those who wish to be my masters is something I can do little about. I would suggest to them that they not poke their godless, tyrannical noses down my alley. As the coiled rattlesnake flag of the Revolution bluntly stated: “Don’t Tread on Me!” Or, as our state motto here in Alabama declares: “We Dare Defend Our Rights.”

But can a handgun defeat an army? Yes. It remains to be seen whether the struggle of our generation against the tyrants of our day in the first decade of the 21st Century will bring a restoration of liberty and the rule of law or a dark and bloody descent into chaos and slavery.

If it is to be the former, I will meet you at the new Yorktown.

If it is to be the latter, I will meet you at Masada.

But I will not be a slave.

Mike Vanderboegh died on his feet and not his knees—something that, as America That Was slips deeper into darkness and our time drip-drip-drips away, becomes more and more difficult to do. He was a skilled writer, and a passionate advocate for his nation, its proud history, and its Constitution. He was also a for-real, genuine Warrior, in all the best senses of the word. He left behind a mighty legacy for True Patriots and Freemen to profit from.

May you forever be at peace, my friend, bless your valiant soul.

(Via WRSA)

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