Occupy someone else's paycheck, please!

The "Occupy" movement grabs for a piece of the action

The Occupy movement claims to protest pork, but seeks to get in on the same deal.
I'll stick with the Tea Party Movement, thank you very much.

The World Still Needs Cowboys

This is the gun that I take with me everywhere I go:

S&W 642 w/ Simply Rugged/Crossbreed IWB

This is normal and rational, perfectly reasonable behavior.  Advocates of gun control will be quick to label me a delusional vigilante cowboy, but I am not the deluded one. The old west may have faded into history, but our world is still a wild place; 100 years of human development has done nothing to diminish the dangers we face every day. We have then a simple choice: To saddle up and face reality, or to bury our heads in the sands of false utopias based upon the denial of basic human nature.

Because there will always be monsters, gun control will always be inhumane. The well-intentioned delusions of anti-gunners would release declawed kittens into the wild. They would sacrifice innocents to the conceit of ideas, ideas which lead them to believe that they could fashion, as if by pure will, a new reality wherein all mankind is reborn into a being of pure ideology. Human nature, however, can never be tamed, it can never be homogenized into universal benevolence. To believe otherwise is vanity, the seduction of the god complex of social engineering. Because there will always be monsters, preventing innocents from possessing the means for self protection is cruel and twisted. Active self protection, however, is normal and natural.

Speaking plainly, advocates of gun control are so blinded by their ideology that they would force us to conform to it even at the cost of innocent lives. Take for example the foolhardy establishment of “Gun-Free Zones”. Here we see what happens when innocent people are forced to conform to reckless ideology. “Gun Free Zone” fantasies, by disarming the innocent, merely enable tragedies such as the Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, and Norway massacres. In every case, law abiding citizens were barred the right to armed self-defense. In every case madmen wrought destruction, utterly unopposed. In these terrible events we see the cost of combining overly restrictive gun laws with cultures severely lacking in personal responsibility for self protection and the protection of innocents. Horrors such as these are the inevitable result of such ideological fascism. The evil wrought by those monsters was sadly compounded by the failure of those adults who were present to be adequately prepared to protect the innocents with whom they were charged.

It is left to us to assert our right to self defense and our duty to actively protect the innocent. Armed self defense is a basic human requirement, and it always will be. To deny us this right is to deny us our full humanity. It is to deny us the ability to preserve our own lives. As Lassiter told the tragically altruistic Jane Withersteen in the masterpiece by Zane Grey, “Riders of the Purple Sage”:

“Take, for instance, that idea of yours last night when you wanted my guns. It was good an’ beautiful, an’ showed your heart – but – why, Jane it was crazy. Mind I’m assumin’ that life to me is as sweet as to any other man. An’ to preserve that life is each man’s first an’ closest thought. Where would any man be on this border without guns? Where, especially, would Lassiter be? Well, I’d be under the sage with thousands of other men now livin’ an’ sure better men than me. Gun-packin’ in the West since the Civil War has growed into a kind of moral law. An’ out here on this border it’s the difference between a man an’ somethin’ not a man.”

The world still needs cowboys. It seems to me that a few “delusional vigilantes” might’ve done those kids in Norway a lot of good. But first we must change more than just the laws which presently bind our hands. Good people must be allowed and encouraged to take on the great responsibility of bearing arms. Each and every one of us needs to instill in themselves a culture of self defense and the protection of innocents. Each and every one of us has the potential, if properly armed, to stop a rampaging madman. We must endeavor to never cower before evil, but always to strike back at it. Rule number 6 of Gene Autry’s Cowboy Code states that a cowboy must always help people in distress. To that end, we should never allow ourselves to be outgunned.

Yippee Ki-Yay…!

Happy Independence Day!

You gotta hand it to our founding fathers - they gave us a wonderful nation. Independence Day belongs to them and to those who preserve their ideas. It is in that spirit that I will be devouring this beautiful 1 pound ribeye steak, marinated in salt, black pepper, mustard powder, and Worcestershire sauce. Later on I'll put several hundred rounds of 230 grain .45 auto downrange with my beloved Springfield Armory Range Officer.

It's America's 235th birthday, and the 1911's centennial. God bless us, every one!

What so proudly we hailed...

Yesterday was Flag Day, when we commemorate the June 14, 1777 adoption of our nation’s standard. For me, the American Flag is a symbol of our highest aspirations of freedom and justice; life, liberty, and the rights to the fruits of our labors; and ultimately, our unquestionable equal worth as human beings created by God. When I proudly display the flag, these are the principles I am celebrating. Every morning my spirit is lifted a little higher out of the dull grogginess of sleep by the sight of the flag that flies, visible from my kitchen window, just across the road. Were I to set out into a new frontier, even to the furthest reaches of space, it would be the Stars and Stripes that I carried. In my eyes Old Glory represents the best aspirations of mankind; as a symbol, it is surpassed only by the old rugged cross.

The flag is not Obama’s insidious socialist hatred of America. It is not Bush’s foolhardy wars. It is not Clinton’s nepotism, nor any of the other failures of her people. Political usurpation, blind nationalistic destruction, the military-industrial complex, social engineering and violation of our individual rights, all of these things stand in stark contradiction to the very symbol of freedom which they hide behind. The American Flag is our symbol of an ideal society, just as Christ is the example of an ideal life. And while we can never live up to such lofty ideals, we can proudly hold them up and do our best.

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:

’Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,

A home and a country, should leave us no more?

Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust;”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

- - - - -

All poetry aside, the American Flag is bad-ass. I wear it with attitude. I'll go to my grave with it etched upon my skin, beer and gun in hand, with a shit eatin' grin on my face. And for no other reason than I really like it, here's a picture of Ke$ha, in all her glittery glory, expressing it for me:

God bless all who seek life.

God bless all who seek liberty.

God bless you, me, and Ke$ha.

God bless America.

HOPEYCHANGE MUST BE DECLARED AS INCOME

In the face of psychotically skyrocketing federal deficits and a Fed induced collapse of the dollar, Obama-rama-ding-dong has unveiled his latest scheme to squeeze yet more wealth from the economy: retroactive taxation of gratuities received by minimum wage food service employees for the last five years. Yep, you heard me right. The big O wants wants our change back.

What this means for an unlucky collection of cooks and waitresses is a last minute "corrected" W-2 with a roughly 30% larger taxable income than previously reported. Restaurant owners will be given the choice by IRS henchmen either to pay back taxes on estimated tips for up to five years previous, or to negotiate down the number of years of back taxes owed in return for "voluntarily" enrolling in the relatively new ATIP (Attributed Tip Income Program), which allows the IRS to estimate and automatically tax gratuities received by service employees. For most restaurant owners, this is an offer they can’t afford to refuse.

I imagine a scenario wherein a nefarious Obama, lit by a noxious green smoke, lurks in a darkened oval office and consults with a magic mirror about what to tax next.

"There seems to be a plethora of confusion surrounding the corporate income taxes of companies such as General Electric. Perhaps you take advantage of this by adding yet another tax to the burden of the public shareholders?" suggests the mirror.

"No, I need them to keep funding my elections," replies evil Obama, whilst stroking his goatee. "Besides, I play golf with the CEO."

After a thoughtful pause, the mirror offers another suggestion: "Well, then, how about the gratuities of all the poor sobs who voted for you? I’ve heard it’s common practice to not report waitressing tips to the IRS."

The green glow lights the growing grin of the evil one.

"Yes . . . YES . . . WE’LL TAKE THEIR TIPS! MWAAAH-HAAAAA-HAAAAAA"

HOPEYCHANGEY!

The Stupid Absurdity of Public Employee Unionization

What is the purpose of unions? A basic and exceedingly charitable answer would be to ensure that industry does not take undue advantage of its labor force, and that those workers have easier access to some of the wealth which they helped create. So what’s so absurd about the notion of public service employee unionization? Just that there’s no such freakin’ thing as industry or profits in the public sector, that’s what! As the name implies, these folks have chosen to work in service to the public. They ain’t workin’ for no freakin’ evil corporation, and their efforts ain’t generating no freakin’ profit, anywhere! Time was, in fact, when it was widely understood that public service was just that – a service performed for the benefit of society, often at the personal sacrifice of the public servant. If an individual desired to pursue personal gain, it could be readily found in the free market, where exchanges benefit both buyers and sellers. Public servants, by contrast, can only enrich themselves at a cost to the general public, via the mechanism government sanctioned theft, sometimes referred to as taxation. With servants like these, who needs masters?!

The absurdity is even more apparent when you remember that public employees work, not for private profiteering capitalists, but for public officials which they themselves had a hand in electing. So the whole idea that public employees need to seek union representation in order to negotiate with their already publicly elected representatives is just about the most idiotic redundancy since the first man wore both his belt AND his suspenders.

Beyond this absurdity, it must be acknowledged that there is a sinister tendency for union representatives to seek out and work in tandem with corrupt public representatives (but I repeat myself), an incestuous relationship which ought to be every bit as vilified as corporate-government entanglements.

Ultimately, no matter what their dubiously altruistic intent may have originally been, private sector unions in general tend to grow into parasitic bureaucracies which only serve to further tax and regulate their members. This is okay, so long as union membership is freely offered or rejected, without coercion. Public service employee unions, however, are downright evil, stupid, and absurd from the outset. They should not be tolerated by a free society.

And I managed to get all of that out without making the obvious comparison of unionism to socialism. Are you proud of me?

Medical Progress, R.I.P.

I just finished up assisting in a surgical excision of cancerous bone growth, in a child, no less, a child who will likely go on to live a full and wonderful life. The range of possibilities available to us for the treatment of cancer is a testament to the miracle of the free market. Seriously, you should see our radiation therapy facilities - fricking Star Wars. Last I checked, virtually none of our methods were developed by the British National Health Service. Pretty much entirely products of the American free market in medicine (R.I.P.).

I am proud to work at OHSU, one of the premier medical centers in the world. Amongst our many remarkable facilities is the "OHSU Knight Cancer Research Center". That's Knight, as in Phil Knight, of Nike. It's called that because in 2008 Mr. Knight donated $100 MILLION dollars to the OHSU Cancer Research Center to massively expand it's facilities. This monumental act of charity, coupled with the incredible folks I am honored to work with every day, will be nothing short of a miracle to countless more kids, for years to come. The world will literally be a better place because of them. Mr. Knight's philanthropy is in the tradition of other great capitalists such as Andrew Carnegie, and is a testament to the sorts of mature, community oriented individuals which a free society can produce. Michael Moore, by comparison, is a worthless piece of garbage, whose existence will have been to the benefit of no one but his financial investors, and it's high time he high-tailed it to Cuba, Venezuela, or Russia - but I digress...

Individuals like Phil Knight, combined with the innovations and motivations inherent to the free market, have born more fruits than all of the worlds "national health care systems" combined; that the credit seems to unerringly fail to fall where it is due is sickening.

The free market saves lives. If medical care had been turned over to the government 100 years ago, we'd still be using leeches and tinctures.