...you can't take the sky from me.

“Storm’s getting worse,” said River.

“We’ll pass through it soon enough,” the captain replied.

It’s a tough time to be a freedom loving individual, thanks to the goings-on in government, but in both bad times and good we need to remind ourselves what we stand for, and from where we derive our faith.  Our happiness doesn’t come from D.C.; America is not found in its government.  Our reason for living is in God, family, and friends; never in politics. That's for the dirty damn Marxists, for whom everything’s political.  The modern leftist seems to think every encroachment of government upon the individual which reflects their own personal convictions is a victory.  Might still doesn’t make right, though.  Politics can never be better than a sordid compromise, and at its worst, tyranny.  Leftists can hang all their hopes on politics, and force government into every facet of our lives, but this only turns them into the fascists they claim to hate, and they will be ultimately disappointed – just witness the aging leftist nihilist.  They’ve sold themselves to the government, and for them will there only ever be a whore’s reward.  All the political victories in the world will never be enough.

“You’re fighting a war you’ve already lost,” reasoned the operative.

“Yeah, well, I’m known for that,” Mal replied.

For us, though, is Life and Liberty.  Freedom.  Maybe it’s not selling so well this year.  Maybe it’s flat out getting its butt kicked.  Doesn’t mean it ain’t the best show on earth.

“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one,” said Captain Reynolds.

Hell’s to the yeah!

Remember, kids, in real life, sometimes even the good guys lose.  That’s when you pick yourself up, dust yourselves off, and get right back to living the good life.  Grab yer guns and Bibles and all those books on freedom.  Jefferson, Mises, Popper, Rothbard, Heinlein, Locke, Rand, Hayek, and Bastiat – everything’s on the table.  We’re gonna need a lot of good reading material to get us past this dark night, but just remember what Bill Whittle says – you only get to be Churchill when the times are dark.

“You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages... Half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you're harboring known fugitives,” Simon observed.

“Well, we're still flying,” answered Mal.

“That's not much,” said Simon.

“It's enough”.

Oh, and to all my fellow Right-Wingers who think this is the time to throw a pity party, just ask yourselves:  WWGPAJWACKD*?

Probably something awesome, that’s what.  So cheer the hell up, and get back to doing what we do best: God, family, and friends.



And, just so’s we all leave here today with the right attitude:





*What Would General Patton And John Wayne And Captain Kirk Do?

(h/t to Jonah Goldberg for posting that Deadwood clip on his blog within minutes of the bad presidential election news, and thus snapping me out of a potentially embarrassing sad panda parade)

Gun Control Works About As Good As Marihuana Control

Giving criminals exclusive access to drugs is a fairly benign act, IF you're okay with the whole part where it denies individuals the basic right to choose what they do with their own bodies.  Giving criminals exclusive access to guns, though - are you freakin' kiddin' me?  Seriously, what sort of evil sadist does that?

Next time you start whining about how "society" somehow lets bad people do bad things, think about how much better it would've felt - not to mention how much more productive - to have been there on that terrible night in that Colorado theater and to have put a bullet through that sick psycho's idiotic gas mask.

If you wanna help humanity out, how's about spreading the philosophy of individual empowerment?  Or of self reliance and the active defense of the innocents around you?

How's about spreading the philosophy of liberty?

ACT OF VALOR

I finally went to the movies to see "Act of Valor".  I seldom go to the movies, preferring instead to wait for them to come to Turner Classics.  In this particular case, I shouldn't have waited so long.  It was absolutely phenomenal.  By snubbing the cocktail commies and snob socialists of elitist Hollywood, opting instead to cast actual active duty Navy SEALs, the filmmakers achieved a realism that I personally have never experienced in a war movie - and I love war movies.  Real life heroes of the highest order portraying heroes on film.  It has been done before - Audie Murphy, may God bless him, portrayed himself in "To Hell and Back"; Harold Russell turned in a staggeringly moving performance in "The Best Years of Our Lives".  "Act of Valor", however, has heroes in spades.  I've seen a few mainstream reviews describing the performances as thin and wooden.  To those big-shot big-city movie critics, I would recommend they spend some time in real America, with real Americans.  I would also recommend they get real jobs.

There is yet another element to the appeal of "Act of Valor".  War films too seldom include the reasons why we fight, often opting instead for cheap sexual interludes thinly veiled as romance.  I'll put 10 to your 5 that "Pearl Harbor" illustrates the point nicely, though I haven't bothered to watch it.  "Black Hawk Down", "Saving Private Ryan", "Band of Brothers", and "The Pacific", all great modern war movies, but all fail in what I feel to be the critical element of a Great American War Movie.  It is here that "Act of Valor" doubles down on pure awesomeness.  The soldiers are fighting for their country and their families and for the flag that symbolizes the greatest freedom and prosperity the world has ever known.  Period.  "Act of Valor" is a stunning tribute to the members of our beloved armed forces who have been willing to lay down their lives so that the innocent folks back home wouldn't have to.

I do not have the honor of signing off here with the Navy SEAL motto, so I will instead think back to the Sailor's Creed, as we recited it way back in basic training:

I am a United States Sailor.

I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and I will obey the orders of my superiors.

I represent the fighting spirit of the Navy and all who have gone before me to defend freedom and democracy around the world.

I proudly serve my country's Navy combat team with Honor, Commitment, and Courage.

I am committed to excellence and the fair treatment of all.

- - - - - - -

I would be remiss if I did not give a hat tip to Bill Whittle and his PJTV video "Han Shot First!", for bringing my attention to this movie.  I don't keep up with new movies, and might've missed this one entirely.  Check out his film production project, "Declaration Entertainment", and support his efforts to bring meaningful non-Hollywood films to the big screen.

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.