Cowboy Confessional

Any male who has walked through a rough neighborhood will attest that a display of strength is critical to preserving life (and we cowboys have an odd advantage in big cities — wearing pointed boots, a Stetson and an expression that says “I castrate yearlings like you, boy” will win you a bye almost everywhere outside of Texas).

It is therefore unsurprising that after the appearance of power evaporated in the Untied States, the bloodshed in Iraq exploded, with more than 700 people perishing in the past weekend (that’s 350 people a day for folks at the New York Times).  An elected Democrat majority to both houses (right or wrong) showed a lack of faith in the commander of the U.S. military, and thus a display of weakness.  Jihadist thugs then felt free to take full advantage of innocent bystanders given that the cops had been reined.

History may one day write that Iraq was lost by Bush, or that it was lost by the Democrats.  Truthfully, Iraq may be lost by a poor decision of the voters based primarily on a single scandal.

I was tracking Election Projection – an outfit that called the 2004 presidential race spooky close — through this last election.  Right up until the Mark Foley scandal broke, the GOP had a thin yet serviceable lead in the polls, and stood a good chance to retain both houses.  The week after Foley was flayed, Republican chances in the polls fell and never recovered.

I cannot blame anyone for detesting Foley, who may well have motivated Satan to dig a new and lower ring of Hell for Mark’s comfort.  But for voters to dismiss the GOP based on a knee jerk reaction to a single member pedophile would be as absurd as accusing all Democrats of being perverts just because Bill Clinton could find no better place to store his cigars than inside interns. 

The net effect though appears that either Iraq will be lost to terrorist (state sponsored or otherwise) or that the U.S. will have to commit a massive increase of troops, and by that increase American bloodshed.  Either alternative stinks.

Bookmark to:

According to theology, in the beginning there was void and from the void, God created the universe.

According to scientists, in the beginning there was void, and from the void the universe created itself.

Looks like God is up by one point at half time.

Bookmark to:

Watching a loved one sink into the abyss of madness rends the strongest of hearts.  They descend a twin spiral of dementia and self-destructive behavior, each reinforcing the other.  Their judgments become perpetually suspect, and we wait, wondering if and when we should intervene for their own safety.

Such is the reaction across the country as we watch our brothers and sisters in Massachusetts elect themselves into the self-destructive madness known as Deval Patrick. 

Frankly, America had long debated Massachusetts’ collective sanity as the Bay State perpetually reelected public drunks to the Senate, and voluntarily donned legislative straightjackets that ranged from the merely expensive forms of juvenile socialism to inordinately dangerous and equally unworkable gun control schemes.  Yet not until this election was intervention considered necessary.

Those of us who hold dear the quaint notion that freedom is paramount are transfixed by the coming demise of Massachusetts.  Boston graveyards are littered with the bones of  people who ordained the principles that government was at best a substandard servant to The People, and if unleashed would always be a dangerous foe.  Our forefathers learned from preceding generations that anointing ruthless men to seats of power was a collective psychosis and the early signs of a civilization in peril.

Electing Deval Patrick is such a sign.

We libertarian types can recite two Patrick sins rivaled only by the likes of Judas, or his incarnate half brother Chuck Schumer.  Patrick has with forethought and malice to the general public sought to deny free speech, and to promote the government as a lethal master bound by no law.  Precious few are the steps that follow subjugation of the freedom to speak one’s mind coupled with jurisdictional slayings, and before a people are enslaved.  Patrick’s appointment to the highest of state offices has drawn the good people of Massachusetts closer to whipping post.

Patrick is perhaps most infamous for using the unmatchable power of government to suppress peaceful dissent.  Acting on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Patrick equated the exercise of public protest via political leaflets to wielding a baseball bat, remarking that bats “are perfectly legal too. But if you wield one to keep people out of the neighborhood, we are going to use the bat as evidence of your intent to violate the civil rights laws.”  Lost somewhere in what substitutes for Patrick’s soul was the concept that peaceful political speech is not only a civil right and a natural right, but the very foundation of our republic.  Without the ability to address grievance against the government, there is no recourse save violent overthrow of the same, a task we all hope to avoid repeating.

More obscure in Patrick’s malevolent resume is the episode of Ruby Ridge, where one of our own federales shot and killed an unarmed woman holding her infant daughter.  Despite obvious inequities in the marshal’s testimony, Deval Patrick declined to charge the badged assassin, despite common sense or 542 pages of post-apocalypse analysis by the Justice Department that recommended criminal prosecutions.  Ironic and erratic behaviors indeed from someone then holding the title of “assistant attorney general for civil rights.”

A head of government who strives to prevent the exercise of civil rights and who equally defends field executions of its citizens presents a danger that has not darkened Bunker Hill for 230 years.  In election night gloating, Patrick said “This was a victory for hope.”

Let us pray that this “hope” is based in the temporal nature of holding office.

Bookmark to:

There has never been any love lost between myself and any of the slithery ilk who crave the autocratic power of government (and in my unique world view that lumps together fascists, theocrats, and nuvo liberals).  So when Michael Moore, the patron saint of propagandists rises his head from his velvet feeding bag long enough to trumpet, I have to take notice of danger renewed.

Thus it was my grim duty to ingest fresh effluvium by the Fascist from Flint posted in that bastion of journalist jiz, the L.A. Times.  In several wasted column inches, Moore makes certain taunts to the political right (who, quite frankly have launched some unsavory assaults on liberty themselves, but who at least know how to spell c-o-n-s-t-i-t-u-t-i-o-n without emphasizing “con”), making promises on behalf of liberals everywhere.

(Yes, Virgina.  His ego is as wide as his girth. Call your liberal friends and ask if Moore speaks for them … you will hear nothing on the other end of the phone aside from panicked shrieks.)

Aside from paternalistic promises to balance our checkbooks for us (call me Mike … I’ll send my bank account number so you can make a direct deposit), one-size-fits-all health insurance, and a miraculous sudden end to global warming (a process that Mother Nature has been working on for about 20,000 years now), he makes the disingenuous pledge that liberals will ” … not take away your hunting guns.  If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren’t much of a hunter …”

Michael, after the new dosage takes effect, let’s get you back up to speed on the debate.  I realize your mind remains clouded after spinning some might strange tales in your films, but few citizens are very worried that you or any other liberal are immediately targeting hunting gear.  And since you live under the irrational notion that hunters use machine guns (which is what an automatic firearm is), or that they don’t use handguns (which many hunters do because it is more difficult) your detachment from reality merely scares small children.

Understand Michael, that many powerful and well known liberals have threatened banning firearms more numerous and of practical value than hunting rifles.  Surely even your alleged fact checkers have made friends with the likes of:

Bill Clinton: “Only the police should have handguns.”

Dianne Feinstein: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them: ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,’ I would have done it.”

Pete Stark: “If a bill to ban handguns came to the house floor, I would vote for it.”

V.I. Lenin: “One man with a gun can control 100 without one. … Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms,”

Michael, the issue has never been about hunting rifles.  It is about a woman huddled in her home, ready to confront the alcoholic estranged husband breaking down the back door.  It is about the poor black family struggling to stay alive and keep their children safe in a neighborhood where thugs roam free unrestrained by government.  It is the Iraqi immigrant standing strong against a Klan cavalcade.

Most importantly Michael, it is me ready to defend all civil rights against the likes of you.  Tell me which guns you want to ban Michael, and I’ll tell you how many rounds with which I have to defend my right to keep those guns when you come for them.

That is my promise.

Bookmark to:

Life is simple, but for life to be entertaining requires complexity.

Bookmark to: