EXCLUSIVE: Give Them What They Want?

Give attackers what they want? What if, after you bare your throat and cede all decision-making to remorseless reptiles, you find out what they want is you? [More]

"Give Them What They Want?" is my latest "Rights Watch" column for GUNS Magazine.

IT CAME FROM PLANET ZARGON!

Radical "Animal Rights Activists" in New Jersey are putting "teaching materials" featuring aliens hunting humans into New Jersey schools grades 7-9 in order to indoctrinate children to their anti-hunting agenda.

Since March 14, 2020, life on Earth for us humans has never been the same. On that day, Earth was first invaded by explorers from the planet Zargon located thousands of light years away in the Andromeda galaxy...

Stop right there.

What they're telling us is these incompetent space navigators probably never got out of their own galaxy, estimated at over 200,000 light years across, and 2⅓ MILLION light years away...

These ignoramuses presume to teach middle-schoolers, who ought to be able to call them on this if the schools are doing their job--which they obviously aren't if allowing this foolishness in. Hey, we're talkin' New Jersey public education here, light years from anything that makes sense.

And don't you just love this typically idiotic cud-chewing class discussion pointer?

Is empathy the secret to finding a resolution?

Empathy. Give them what they want. Reason with them. Kumbayah.

Just what do they suppose the reaction of the wolf pack will be when the herbivore emissary approaches under a flag of truce to parley?

And notice how they assume (and try to stack the deck from the outset to prove) the Borg thesis that resistance (that is, self-defense) is futile.

Good grief. Whether you subscribe to the Darwinian or Biblical worldview, a species that will not defend itself or its young is, at best, on the fast track to extinction, at worst, damnable for the crime of self murder.

In either case, the proponents of defenselessness are irrational to the point of being raging headcases.

I wonder how the school would respond if a student argued an alternative plan, along the lines of:

You've established in your ground rules that these genocidal monsters can be killed, as can the animals they unleash on humans. Your main argument against resistance is that they are technologically superior and will respond with reprisals.

Yeah. War is hell. It's time to remind them of that.

So I propose we take our lead from insurgent movements we see here and conduct asymmetrical warfare via guerrilla campaigns. Don't be shy to use terror and torture--after all, they aren't human, and they're the ones attacking and killing us. Capture one or more of the alien bastards. Saw their heads off on video, and send them copies. Skin some alive. Eat others. Burn them. Make them scream in agony and terror as they die. And make all that known.

Take the weapons from those you capture or kill and use them against the invaders. Study the technology and make more.

Manufacture IEDs, and place them where Zargonians trade, recreate or travel. You've stipulated they have our physical needs so disrupt their supply routes. Poison their water and destroy their food supplies.

Booby-trap alien dead to kill or maim recovery teams.

"What's Zurg doing propped against a tree with his head in his lap? Let me just move thi...BOOM!

Remember what Clausewitz taught us about the importance of eroding popular support. Nothing quite does that like body bags and atrocities. Fill them, and then fill more.

Never give up. There is no negotiation, no compromise, no empathy. The only good Zargonian is a dead Zargonian. Rally under the uncompromising slogan: DEATH TO ZARGON!

Remember what is best, and teach it to your children. Make cutting off Zargoian antennae and wearing them on a necklace a rite and badge of adulthood and honor.

Live free or die. And kill as many as you can before you do. And then turn your attention to the species traitors who gave them aid and comfort.

Oh, and one more thing--you do realize this stupid scenario you farm animals have created will require those of us driven into hiding to actually do more hunting in order to sustain ourselves, right? Do you fools have any idea what purely subsistence hunting by starving bands can do to an ecosystem and the fluffy and doe-eyed little woodland critters therein? Ain't unintended consequences a bitch?

Just like those of you Marxist loons presenting this agenda-driven subversive lunatic drek as educational material.

So, do you think a student in the New Jersey school system proposing this fictional response to their fictional scenario (no worse, really, than the slasher films anti-gun liberals in Hollywood routinely and profitably present to the same demographic to the delight of mainstream stockholders) would get expelled, probably ordered into treatment for using these talking points instead of the approved ones?

Why not disseminate them and find out?

UPDATE: Thanks for reminding us about this, Mack!

Give Them What They Want

"There's not much you can do about it," he said...

"God protects me," he said...

"If they come in here, they come in. There's nothing I can do," he said...

"There's nothing you can do, really," he said...

One thing all clerks said they had been instructed to do in the event of a hold-up is to acquiesce to a robber's demands.

"Don't fight them," Smith said. "Give them what they want; let them be."

What if they want this...?

DQ: Something Different

Before the robber could grab any cash, police say the owner of the Dairy Queen took out a gun and opened fire. [More]

That is something different: Don't give them what they want, give them what they deserve.

After all, they've already demonstrated what they want is your life if you don't obey them, and maybe even if you do, and what more "cherished asset' do you have than that?

Ain't that right, Tony?

Activists Boycott Santa Barbara FONRA Over Brown

From Larry Rankin:

This is a letter I sent out and we used while calling many sponsors that donated to the Santa Barbara Friends of NRA last year. We are boycotting the dinner...the NRA needs to understand that when they hurt us, we can hurt them back. I am a life member of the NRA, I fostered and built the foundation for the very first Friends of NRA dinner in Santa Barbara and I realize many will say that the Friends of NRA is different than ILA...they need to understand that the NRA, is the NRA, is the NRA and that they are accountable for their actions, or lack of!

We are requesting that you do not donate or be a sponsor or attend the Friends of the NRA banquet this year. The reason is that the NRA helped get Sheriff Bill Brown elected. They knew that he was anti gun because I personally contacted them well before election day, as did David Codrea, who is a writer for, "The War on Guns." The NRA did not bother to return either one of our calls. We know that the reason is that they deliberately got him elected knowing that he wasn't the most pro- gun candidate.

Many people have called the NRA in Sacramento and Fairfax, VA, from Santa Barbara area about this issue and they have not returned anyone's calls. Sheriff Bill Brown has not renewed the majority of CCW holders in Santa Barbara County since becoming Sheriff. We want to make a statement with the NRA that the Santa Barbara community of gun owners and 2nd Amendment patriots can make a difference, with our votes and our dollars. If people go to the Friends of the NRA dinner, the NRA will feel that they do not have to be accountable.

We have stopped a very high percentage of sponsors and members from going to the NRA dinner by making these calls and letting them know the truth. They will see the lowest count, in Santa Barbara's NRA dinner history. We will give you a count after the dinner June 2nd, 2007.

Update: The dinner took place as scheduled on June 2nd, 2007. They had 90 people that paid to show up at the Friends of NRA fundraiser. Many called in to say they could not come or were no-shows. Seventy (70) people did show and a few came in and purchased tickets at the door. They had around 25 free tickets which they gave out and figured they had a total of around 100. The Elk's Club had a minimum of 125 dinners. They had no real bidding in the auction. Sam Neeley, the auctioneer, made a speech about the sheriff and how many were unhappy with what is was doing (not about the NRA helping cause the problem) and the people should support the NRA and not stay away from these events by boycotting them because it only hurts you. This of course is self-serving for him because he did not make much money on the auction.

The NRA had a check written to them at the end of the event for $2,800. Anyone that knows about fundraisers know that is like breaking even.

It was said that many were really ticked off at me for starting the boycott and because they found out we had called many past patriots of the function. I will say, I am proud of what I did and I understand many of them can not see out of the box. I will stand behind my action with my head up high! I will boycott the event next year if the NRA does not call and do what they should have done many months ago. That will not be, "I am sorry", it will be a lot more involved. Keeping that under hat for how. As of today, June 7, 2007, we have not been contacted by the NRA and we know they are well aware of what they have done to us. They even checked out the posting on "The War on Guns" website.

I want to thank each and every one of you that supported us on this very important issue!

With warmest appreciation,

Larry R. Rankin

Guest Editorial: Fear

by Mike Vanderboegh

11 February 2008

The fears of man are many. He fears the shadow of death and the closed doors of the future. He is afraid for his friends and for his sons and of the specter of tomorrow. All his life's journey he walks in the lonely corridors of his controlled fears, if he is a man. For only fools will strut, and only cowards dare cringe. -- James Warner Bellah, "Spanish Man's Grave" in Reveille, Curtis Publishing, 1947.

Sweet Home, Alabama

You know, I thank God every day that I am an Alabamian by choice. I love Alabama. I was born in Michigan on a stormy July night in 1952. At the tender age of 3 I was hijacked and removed against my will to Ohio where I was raised amongst the "Heathen Buckeye" as my Michigan relatives saw it (my father took a transfer with the Whirlpool Corporation to their Marion division). From 1955 to 1985, I lived in Ohio, first in Marion, then in Columbus. My son was born in University Hospital there in 1979. In 1985, I "refugeed" out of Ohio, fleeing my ex-wife, the faithless Wicked Witch of the North. I met and married an Arkansas girl who was working in Birmingham and I never went back. In time, Rosey presented me with two daughters, now teenagers. I would like to see them all grow to middle age before I pass over the River Jordan, but that is in God's hands. I am immensely proud of all three of my children. They are my finest accomplishments in life, though I must say that my wife Rosey probably bears more responsibility for that than I do. God has truly blessed me.

And it was here in Alabama where I found most of those blessings, along with a new home that I embraced. In time, the folks 'round here also embraced me but that was a far longer process, as any other "damyankee" can tell you. Right after I moved here, Rosey and I would spend our weekends just driving around, soaking up the geography and the history of the place. I loved the mountains of north Alabama, but I especially loved the people. By and large, the folks here are the best sort of folks you can find anywhere. They are generous, polite to a fault, tough, loyal to kith and kin, hard working, and God fearing. The race relations here are far better than can be found on Columbus' west side, to be sure. True, I came here long after the dogs, the firehoses and the nickname "Bombingham" became uncomfortable memories. But there is one side of Alabamians that I just love, and it is expressed in the state motto: "We Dare Defend Our Rights." I have found more truly free men in Alabama than anywhere else in the country that I have roamed.

From the rednecks of Winston County who still fight personal skirmishes that started back in the Civil War to the veterans of the Deacons for Defense and Justice who took up arms to guard Martin Luther King and other apostles of non-violent resistance from Klan attack, Alabamians exemplify that motto. I am lucky that my mother raised me to never know a stranger, for I've met and become friends with a lot of folks down here who cross all sorts of racial, ethnic, religious and socio-economic lines. Whenever I get a little peevish at the ways of the world and things seem a little foggy, I return to my friends, especially my Southern white boy friends, for a good mind-clearing dose of down home reality. I've just come back from a visit to the touchstone that represents the best of common sense Alabama, and I can't tell you how refreshed I feel.

You see, I was in a bit of a funk about the reaction to my last essay, "Awkward." Andrew Jackson, a natural born fighter and leader of men (and who more southern boys, white and black, were named after than any other until Robert E. Lee came along), once said "Never take counsel of your fears." Heck, that was all most folks seemed to take from "Awkward," and my earlier short story "Absolved." I couldn't believe it. All I have ever tried to do with my writing is to remind Americans that they once acted like free people and could again, if they but would. Some of my stuff, like "What Good Can a Handgun Do Against an Army?" or "Lessons of the 20th Century" have in the past gotten great responses, sometimes years afterward. But for the most part all I got this time was how terrible things are, and how irretrievable the situation is. As I responded on David Codrea's blog War on Guns:

Well, I'm gratified to see calmness, confidence and optimism breaking out all over in response to my essay. Why don't some of you guys just go ahead and slit your wrists and get it over with? Or better yet, throw some cold water on your faces, wake up and start acting like AMERICANS used to, fer cryin' out loud. No wonder the ATF thinks they can get away with what they do. If you'll stop worrying about what the enemy can do to you and start thinking about what you can do to them, you'll have made a start at winning the fight. Crap, you outnumber them a hundred to one, despite your fears. If you acted like you had the power that you actually have -- the power that your own timidity is stripping you of -- we wouldn't have to fight at all! Sheesh. Quit moaning, b...tching and "woe-is-me-ing" and start ACTING like free people. You're sure you wanted this blog and not the "surrender before inconvenience" one?

"Only Cowards Dare Cringe"

But you know, I messed up. I should have been reading my own stuff. For example, this from "You Can't Repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences" last April:

I have found over the years that modern day so-called liberals (who bear little resemblance intellectually to their claimed classical liberal ancestors)lack the courage of their convictions. There is no principle so dear that they are willing to personally suffer for, let alone die for. Government, blessed government, is their idol. If they are aggrieved, oppressed, or merely imagine that they are oppressed, it is to government that they turn. There hasn't been a liberal willing to die for his principles since the Civil Rights movement. They are more than willing to dispatch the men and women of government to die in their place, however. But, and I think this is more dangerous to the country, they also extrapolate from their own cowardice and believe that all people (even those who disagree with them) will, in the end, do what they're told by Government. (Emphasis supplied.)

Stupid me, I should have realized two things. First, it is not only liberals who can extrapolate from their own cowardice. And second, the folks who were responding to my writing negatively are not representative of the people I expect to "get" my stuff anyway. I use the medium at hand to broadcast my message, the Founders' message, forgetting that the folks who will best understand it are not tuned in. In a "blinding flash of the obvious" to use John Wesley Rawles' phrase, here is what I finally figured out: most rednecks (and most gunnies) are not keyboard commandos. They do not sit in the dark trying to make sense of the electron-borne winds of modern information (or disinformation). They are too busy with the exigencies of life to trade intellectualisms on the Net. The folks I'm talking about (and those I'm trying to reach) are rather more like the Kentuckians that Hank Messick described in the forward to his book King's Mountain: "One thing about the fellows back home -- when they say they're going to kill somebody, they kill him."

And so I went to talk to some friends, and some friends of friends, about the issues I'd raised in the last few pieces I'd written to see how despondent and discouraged they were about events. These were Alabama boys, rednecks (some of them) and the sons of rednecks -- gunnies all -- the great-great-grandsons of the yeoman farmers who followed Andrew Jackson in the Creek War and Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah. Most have lived lives of physical work and service -- to their God, their country and their families. Some are not particularly church-going men, but they live a faith that puts some pew-sitters in the shade. Whatever they've gotten in this life, they've had to work and sometimes fight for. Nobody gave it to them. They are men, in the best sense of that term. Like James Warner Bellah's cavalrymen, they understand what he meant by "only cowards dare cringe." These are folks who live by a code enunciated in Grantland Rice's poem, On Down the Road, (though I doubt some of them would ever admit to having read a poem):

Hold to the course, though the storms are about you;
Stick to the road where the banner still flies;
Fate and his legions are ready to rout you--
Give 'em both barrels--and aim for their eyes.

Life's not a rose bed, a dream or a bubble,
A living in clover beneath cloudless skies;
And Fate hates a fighter who's looking for trouble,
So give 'im both barrels--and shoot for the eyes.

Fame never comes to the loafers and sitters,
Life's full of knots in a shifting disguise;
Fate only picks on the cowards and quitters,
So give 'em both barrels--and aim for the eyes.

They are quiet fellows, mostly. But it is not the smartest thing in the world to make them mad, as British Colonel Patrick Ferguson found out when he called their ancestors in North Carolina "backwater men," "barbarians" and "mongrels" in 1780. He miscalculated his audience. The Scotch Irish pioneers came down out of the "backwaters," tracked Ferguson and his Tories to King's Mountain and killed him in a fight that proved THE turning point of the Revolution. One of my friends, a maintenance man at a local nursing home, a humble fellow who never went to college, a son of a coal miner and the descendant of men who fought Ferguson (and others who fought the Creeks, Abe Lincoln AND Jefferson Davis, and the Kaiser and Hitler and Hirohito) can tell you the story as if it happened yesterday with a comprehensive knowledge of the subject and an eye for detail that would put a professional historian to shame. One of the defeatist critics of Awkward headlined his piece "the revolution has been canceled." Try telling that to my friend. It lives within his soul. As another great Southerner once said, "The past isn't dead. It isn't even past."

I guess my sense of history is one thing that helped me make the transition from "damyankee" to full fledged Alabamian (with an asterisk, of course). Still, there may be another more mundane reason that I was embraced. As I was telling David Codrea the other day, I never considered myself a leader (and still don't consider myself a good leader) but it happened that during the early 90s when the predatory Clintonistas were roaming about seeking whom they would devour, I ended up leading one of our local constitutional militias. I didn't expect it or ask for it, it just happened. It was just that as I went along people followed me, even into situations where our lives were at risk. Knowing how suspicious and downright allergic the boys were about anything "Yankee" one day I made the mistake of asking, "Why did you fellows pick me?" And from the back of the room somebody said, "Hell, Mike, yer a Yankee. We put you out front and if you get it, we ain't lost much." Pretty funny -- funny AND smart.

"The Cutting Edge"

But southern boys like these -- call them hillbillies, call them rednecks -- have, as Hank Messick observed, always been "the cutting edge" in America's wars. Messick quotes the Georgia historian F.N. Boney: "There is no shortage of rednecks in the neat, quiet American military cemeteries which now dot the globe. However rejected in normal times, the redneck has always been welcomed when the nation went to war."

And "rejected in normal times" is no idle phrase. Is there any other class of people more lampooned and vilified than the Southern Christian poor white boy? Like the long-dead Ferguson, the elites of this country have always despised him. As Messick says, "Because he remains an individualist, he is a safe target." "Hillbillies," as Messick calls them, are "not interested in the fast buck. Wealth has never appealed to him as an end in itself. If he expects a reward for hard work, he assumes it will come in heaven. He still practices the Protestant Ethic, you see. More important to him than money is his personal freedom, the right to do something or nothing as he pleases." (Hank Messick, King's Mountain, Little Brown, 1976, pp. 10-11.

So like I said, I went and talked to my good old boy buddies. I talked about the situation we find ourselves in today, with Heller looming and the Olofson case outrages that demonstrated the rule of law no longer obtains. I read them, or let them read, some of what I had written. Finally, I read them passages from my defeatist critics' postings. All of their reactions, long and short, were summed up by one of them: "Heck, Mike, why are you worried about what a bunch of pissant Yankee wusses think? You still got us." And so I do, God bless 'em all. I've got "the cutting edge" with me. With that and God, I'll make my stand, as the song says, to live and die in Dixie.

"What is the opposite of fear?"

Although extraordinary valor was displayed by the entire corps of Spartans and Thespians, yet bravest of all was declared the Spartan Dienekes. It is said that on the eve of battle, he was told by a native of Trachis that the Persian archers were so numerous that, when they fired their volleys, the mass of arrows blocked out the sun. Dienekes, however, quite undaunted by this prospect, remarked with a laugh, "Good. Then we'll have our battle in the shade." -- Herodotus, The Histories.

And that brings me to my final point. Discouragement and defeatism come from isolation and the fear that it breeds. In "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield, the Spartan Dienekes says:

"All my life . . . one question has haunted me. What is the opposite of fear? . . .To call it aphobia, fearlessness, is without meaning. This is just a name, thesis expressed as antithesis. To call the opposite of fear fearlessness is to say nothing. I want to know its true obverse, as day of night and heaven of earth. . . How does one conquer fear of death, that most primordial of terrors, which resides in our very blood, as in all life, beasts as well as men? . . . Dogs in a pack find courage to take on a lion. Each hound knows his place. He fears the dog ranked above and feeds off the fear of the dog below. Fear conquers fear. This is how we Spartans do it, counterpoising to fear of death a greater fear: that of dishonor. Of exclusion from the pack. . . But is that courage? Is not acting out of fear of dishonor still, in essence, acting out of fear?" Alexandros asked (Dienekes) what he was seeking. "Something nobler. A higher form of the mystery. Pure. Infallible. . . You young men imagine that we veterans, with our long experience of war, have mastered fear. But we feel it as keenly as you. More keenly, for we have more intimate experience of it. Fear lives within us twenty-four hours a day, in our sinews and our bones. . . We cobble our courage together on the spot, of rags and remnants . . . I know all the tricks . . . I know how to close with my man, how to convince myself that his terror is greater than my own. Perhap it is. I employ care for the men-at-arms serving beneath me and seek to forget my own fear in concern for their survival. But it's always there. The closest I've come is to act despite terror. But that's not it either. Not the kind of courage I'm talking about. Nor is beast-like fury or panic-spawned self-preservation. These are katalepsis, possession. A rat owns as much of them as a man.". . . Ariston asked if this higher courage in fact existed. "It is no phantom," Dienekes declared with conviction. "I have seen it. . . Do you know who owns it, this pure form of courage, more than any other I have ever known?" No one around the fire answered. "My wife."

In Pressfield's novel, the answer to Dienekes' question was wrapped up in the secret of how the 300 were chosen for what all knew was certain death at Thermopylae. I will not ruin the ending of the book for you if you have not read it, but I think I can summarize and answer without danger: Love. Love is the opposite of fear. Love, faith, duty. If you take counsel of your fears, if you believe in something so little that you can be discouraged before even trying to defend it, then I say boldly that you do not love it enough. You do not have faith in what you profess to believe. For this lack of love, you shirk your duty -- to yourself, your family and your country. The wonder of it to me is that you feel comfortable in telling the world of your own failure to love, of your lack of faith and your pitiful excuses for why you cannot do your duty without apparent embarrassment.

The men and women of Alabama that I know and love, the despised rednecks, crackers and hillbillies, may not know everything in the wider world but they know what they love -- of God and mankind -- and are willing to die for it. They walk the corridors of their controlled fear, because they are men and women -- American men and women. They are Americans who the Founders would be proud to know, as I am proud to know them and count them friends. And what, I ask, does that make the cynics and defeatists among us who claim to believe in the Republic the Founders made while making excuses why they cannot fight for it? My good friend called them "a bunch of pissant Yankee wusses." I'm not going to argue the point.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

Give Them What They Want

 Hotel Manager Fully Complies With Armed Robber, But He Murders Her Anyway [More]

But...but...but Portland's armed "Only Ones" say:

It is important to remember two things: Robbers want one thing – your money or property ... Give the robber what he or she wants and do it quickly...

What if what they want is your life?

There are evil, power-driven, and protected elitists who say the solution is to make sure you're disarmed -- that there are others stupid enough to believe them and amplify their demands is something I'll never wrap my head around.

[Via  An Hour of Wolves]

The Bourne Ultimatum

A man carrying a semiautomatic handgun approached a group of San Francisco police officers Saturday afternoon and, with a smile, handed over the pistol in exchange for $150 in gift cards.

"I used to fire it at bottles or do some plinking in the woods," said the gun's owner, 48-year-old Bruce Bourne. "But I have a 6-year-old daughter now and my wife was uncomfortable with it being in the house."

So your wife is going to protect the family Bruce? Evidently, because this guy didn't have a gun, and look what happened. Ditto this guy. And you've just announced to the world that:

A. You're defenseless; and

B. You're so henpecked you can't even make a case for home defense with your own wife. How much stronger of a case do you think you'd be able to make with these guys? Or with these?

But you'd just give them what they want, right, Bruce, and hope you could reason with them, or convince them not to hurt you? What if what they want involves doing terrible things to you and to the people you profess to love?

If I were you, I'd strap 'em on and tell my wife--not "ask"--that I was going to acquire the means and the knowledge to safely keep a gun in the home to defend my family with. If she's "uncomfortable" with that, I'd want to find out if she'd really rather have a $150 gift certificate than a man.

[Via SameNoKami]

Principle Freaks Need Not Apply

It may surprise some of you to hear me admit this, but I believe questioning Mike Vanderboegh's letter to the editor is an entirely appropriate discussion to be having in the RKBA activist community. No, I'm not going soft--at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I believe Mike will agree with me.

But what happened the other day was uncalled for, hysterical and ugly. And it points to a greater issue that must be addressed and faced--the widening gulf between majority "pragmatists" and we happy few "principles freaks."

I personally would not have used Mike's approach with an edge-of-the-pool audience. My goal there would be to persuade them to stick their toes in, perhaps wade around a bit.

But Mike did not share goals with me in this instance, and that's fine, too. He wanted to introduce a concept most had never thought about: What happens if "they" keep pushing and "we" say "No"? What rule says all letters to the editor must be geared to "win hearts and minds"? By what authority does anyone presume that public warnings of dire consequences have no place? How about letters that inspire some of us, and let us know we're not alone, or letters that give those doing the pushing pause to consider there may be an "or else" with personal consequences attached to the "Stop it now"?

That's legitimate. It needs to be considered. And I really see no difference between the letter Mike wrote, which has received such reactionary disapproval, and Charlton Heston, whom the same people revere, holding up a gun and proclaiming "From my cold dead hands!"

They both presuppose an unjust attack by government precipitating forceful resistance. Just what the hell is the Second Amendment ultimately supposed to be about, if not this? Why is everybody acting like this is some kind of big secret to be kept from the public?

Instead, Mike's letter has been presented in a fundamentally dishonest way--that he is advocating initiating violent revolution, shooting government agents and cops, fomenting civil war. People claiming this are either intentional liars, or just plain ignorant as to the facts and irresponsibly willing to spread malicious information without verifying it.

The corollary to this is Mike's a coward--a loudmouth from the sidelines, a fool who has no clue as to the implications of mass insurrection, urging others to do his dirty work and shed blood while he stays safe. Since the first claim is untrue, this is a mere fabrication based on false assumptions. And hypocritical projections, when you consider how so many of those leveling the charge of cowardice post under aliases.

I also see arrogance and foolishness on the part of Mike's rude critics--their way is the only proven way, anything else is counterproductive. Their presentation is the only one (!) that works. Any other is a diversion of resources and "makes us all look bad."

That's a pretty historically unsubstantiated stance to take. It reminds me of nothing so much as military maneuvers of centuries past--everyone marching in rigid lines into a hail of enemy fire. There's no room for asymmetric guerrilla warfare--political, propaganda or otherwise--in this unimaginative worldview.

There are other niches to be filled than the political, you know, other tactics to be employed than marching in lock step. Of course there's a place for political activism--if that's where you want to direct your efforts. But ultimately, the way it's being practiced, everything depends on majority rule democracy. Which means anyone living in a major urban area or blue state is screwed. (Unless you file a lawsuit, which the pragmatic leaders initially did everything in their power to sabotage.)

I notice these same people are strangely silent on undeserved NRA ratings given to gun-grabbing politicians. I see them lining up to prove there is no betrayal they will not accept and reward with a "lesser of two evils" vote, as they level ridicule, contempt and blame at anyone who suggests voting on principle.

What I'm really seeing here is hatred--I'm seeing a hatred for those who advocate no compromise that is even fiercer than that which they direct at out-and-out gungrabbers. Wrap your head around that for a moment, and what it means. And this is illustrated by one comment poster on another blog who says he "would shoot the yahoo first," meaning a radical gun owner fighting the government. What's really telling is, not one "pragmatist" chastised him for it.

And it's a greedy hatred. The pragmatic political compromisers have the megaphone in this debate. They are the ones who have the loudest voices, the farthest reach, the most financial backing. The voices of men like Vanderboegh are mostly confined to echoes at wilderness outposts. Blogs like this one hardly make a dent except for a thousand or so daily readers. Most others where Mike's work appears get even fewer.

Yet, as I've said before, and as this latest example illustrates, there are those who begrudge us even this small portion. They demand nothing less than to silence us altogether. There is no room in the debate for men like Mike, men like me, and if you're one of the WoG regulars who believe as we do, men like you.

They want us to shut up. They want us to go away. Here's substantiation, from two gun blogs much more popular than this one:

Get on board, or get your f*cking shed in Montana and start living up to your words. If you aren’t ready to start storming the gates, so to speak, then deep down, you believe that something can be changed inside the system. Get to work now, or shut the hell up and get off the internet. You’re clogging the tubes for people who really want to organize.

and

It is important that law-abiding, patriotic, and SANE/RATIONAL gun owners silence these fools (giving them no platform), because they make us all look like we’re a bunch of paranoid delusionals.

Their way or the highway.

Sorry. I don't think I want to trust my freedom to such as these, so if they don't mind, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. And if they do mind, I'd say they have a problem.

Bad Advice, No Matter How You Slice It

Padova’s Pizza owner Robert Steven said that he has been robbed a number of times and said that he gives all his employees the same advice.

“My drivers are told to give them what they want and get out of there,” Steven said. [More]

To your credit, Mr. Steven, you didn't fire the guy like many would have, but I prefer the way your driver handled it.  That's because all too often, what they "want" can't be replaced.

Give 'em what they're asking for, instead.

Would you like hollow-points with that?

Holed Up in Fairfax and They Ain't Comin' Out

I said this morning I'd get around to addressing NRA's silence on the Holder nomination, and on Sebastian's defense of it.

He gives a list of pros and cons. I'm not going to address every one, but will comment on what I think are the most important points.

The gist of his first "risk" is that a vengeful Holder will cut off access to the DoJ. If he did, that would certainly be worth raising a ruckus over, but what makes them think this anti-gun zealot who hates NRA and everything they stand for is going to not make things as difficult for them as he legally can as a matter of course?

This reminds me of the NRA representatives' stated position when they arranged for the California DoJ to come tell their members that there was no individual right to keep and bear arms, and that they had to fill out registration cards for their lawfully-owned semi-autos. The NRA rep actually told us how lucky we were to have the DoJ come speak to us, and how they didn't have to--like we were being done a favor--arranged through NRA's vaunted access to the corridors of power--to have the enforcers come and personally dictate to us the terms of our surrender.

His second stated "risk" is that if we lose, we'll be seen as impotent.

That all depends.

A man very close to me told me a good thing that happened to him when he was a teenager at a Depression-era CCC camp was that he got beat up in a fight on the first day.

"Why was that a good thing?" I asked.

"Because it took the guy half-an-hour to do it. Everybody knew they might be able to beat me, but they wouldn't be able to do it without a lot of effort and getting hurt back."

This business of being afraid to engage because you might lose is precisely the excuse given when they tried to derail Heller, a decision they now can't take enough credit for. It is simply unworthy of any who would call themselves our leaders.

Talk about appearing impotent.

The third "risk" he lists, "distracting membership from bigger fights looming on the horizon" is simply not credible. He's not just saying we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, he's saying we can't walk now and chew gum at some undetermined time in the future.

If this is the capacity and commitment of grassroots gun rights activists for multitasking, it's difficult for me to fathom why the "pragmatists" (there, I said it) put so much faith in their way being the strongest and most reliable.

What--if I ask you to write a letter on Holder today, when I come back to you next year and say "Obama's trying to ban assault weapons," you're going to turn around and tell me "Sorry-- I'm burned out on all I did last time"...?

This is our last best hope?

And what if we win and we get someone just as bad? If we win, the new administraiton won't put up someone just as bad, because they'll realize why it was they lost and not want to repeat it. If we win, they'll be so rocked back on their heels, their momentum will have been broken and their confidence challenged.

If we win, they'll know the old lion still has some teeth left.

And if we lose, well, remember the CCC camp.

NRA needs to understand that a growing critical mass gun owners are fed up. They're like the dumb republicans--more worried about what their avowed enemies will say about them than keeping faith with their core constituency. They don't understand that guys like me want a strong and principled NRA--and their hiding when they should be leading disgusts and alienates activists sick of all the compromise. It guarantees they'll be weak with the people who count--gun owners with a fire in their bellies for freedom.

And the opinion that NRA can't afford to lose and have it's reputation tarnished, but other, smaller groups can is insulting. What, like we don't have any credibility and NRA does?

Let me share some NRA credibility. Or better yet, let Mr. Cox:

Your NRA-PVF does not just pick the easy battles. There are groups that endorse only “safe” candidates, but avoid the tough races completely...

And when we walk the halls of Congress to defend our rights, we need to know—and your lawmakers need to know—that you’re standing behind us all the way. United, we—and the Second Amendment—will prevail.

I haven't been this inspired since Mel Gibson yelled "FREE-DO-O-O-MM!!!"

Mr. Cox reveals something else very interesting:

[T]he NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF) endorsed 23 candidates for the U.S. Senate, of whom at least 14 were victorious...

OK, guys, we backed you. You're now in, thanks to us.

How about you now give us some return love, and EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU pledge to put a hold on Holder? How about we start with the biggest "risk" NRA backed out of the entire herd, the old bull elephant himself, John "End Private Sales/Free Political Speech" McCain?

How many millions did NRA sink in his campaign, and on promoting other Republicans?

It's simply not credible that an organization that screamed so loudly and relentlessly on Obama being "the most anti-gun president in American history" would remain hidden and mute on the ascendancy of the most anti-gun Attorney General in American history.

The only excuse I can make for them is that they could be quietly working behind the scenes to get a "hold" commitment. That's the only thing I can think of that's acceptable. And since I haven't heard it floated from their apologists, I don't have confidence that's anything more than my desperate wishful thinking.

One last thing and then I've said enough--for now. If I were the Bradys, or some smaller group trying to establish relevance, I'd be looking at this latest schism. How would I exploit it?

The antis are already crowing every chance they get about how NRA is now impotent and ineffectual. It doesn't matter that they're making much of that up, the bottom line is they're doing it, and the media is helping them amplify their voices.

Do our champions at Fairfax really want to be portrayed as not only too insecure to fight, but hiding in their fortress afraid to even speak out?

-------------

NRA may be unwilling to engage on the Holder confirmation. How about you?

The following links are from a four-part (and ongoing) series from Examiner.com explaining why Holder is so bad for gun owners, what reasons a non-gun owner would have to oppose Holder, what citizens can do to oppose his confirmation, and new information regarding his contempt for using the legal system to defend yourself.

This guy will be a disaster for our liberties. Please help me let people know that.


Holder" To-Be" or Not To Be


How to Hold Holder Without "Using Guns"


How You Can Help Hold Holder


Another Reason to Hold Holder

Another Child Gun Death

Again, we shouldn't give a damn if this feral little savage is a minor.  We should want to know what the dangers in our AOs are. [More]

Oh, and looky here:

The victim did not resist and complied with all demands, police said, but the gunman still opened fire.

Don't listen to Moms Demand Field Corn by giving them what they want. Give them what they deserve.

[Via William T]

Don't Resist...

...and just give them what they want.

What if what they want is your life...?

Evil is.

And everyone--everyone--who makes it easier for monsters to devour humans is guilty of aiding and abetting it--whether they realize it, or want to admit it, or not.

[Via William T]

♫ I Hope I Get My Raisins from Fresno ♫

 The FOX 8 I-Team learned another Amazon delivery driver was held up at gunpoint in Cleveland and his truck was stolen ... This week, the I-Team revealed two other Amazon drivers recently got robbed at gunpoint and had their trucks stolen. Both of those crimes happened last month in Cleveland’s Fairfax section. [More]

 Malcolm explains.

With Christmas increasing deliveries, I really just noticed last night how the local roads are crawling with Bezosmobiles and wondered how long it would take enterprising young highwaymen to start applying old ways to new. Nothing succeeds like success, so look for others to emulate.

You have to wonder at what point the victims will figure out nothing deters like real deterrents. My guess is they'll be deemed "acceptable losses" with insurance and thus shipping costs raised, and with the instruction to "just give them what they want," even if what they want turns out to be an unacceptable loss.

It's almost enough to make me want to order one of these off of Amazon.

‘Just Give Them What They Want’ Advice Leaves Key Question Unanswered

“There’s a natural inclination to want to defend yourself, but if you can get through a situation like this and not do anything, and simply give these people what they want, and get the police out there as quickly as possible, that the way to handle it,” the Mesquite Police spokesman advises. “Let us handle it.” [More]

Says the guy with the gun who is nowhere around when the action goes down...

New Examiner "Review" Criteria May Explain What Staff Refuses To

Long-time readers who have supported my work deserve an explanation, so here's an update for those of you who have been wondering what's going on with Gun Rights Examiner. Sorry it's so long -- there are many pieces to consider.

I've been writing for them since 2008, and never had a column pulled before. Now they've sunk two in a row, and have clammed up on their reason, to boot.

A full week after Examiner.com "unpublished" my Hastert column, and five days after they torpedoed my follow-up column about a media subscriber news service including that story in an alert to members, they still have not responded to multiple inquiries asking why. That's in spite of their instruction to "Contact support with any questions."

That they would  let a content provider spend hours researching, writing, publishing and publicizing an article, pull it, and then go into hiding, is indicative of the "leadership" routinely endured over the years, and leads to natural speculation as to what "offense" against "standards" could have possibly occurred this time. If tough to know what's allowable when anti-gun "progressives" are permitted to outright lie and call gun owners who believe in their rights "ammosexuals" (that's actually a keyword tag on the Examiner site).

It looks like that assumption was wrong -- albeit with no explanation followed by the silent treatment, it was an understandable conclusion to jump to. They just sent out an email to their list defining new criteria for both acceptability of an article as "newsworthy," as well as general editorial criteria for all articles.

Understand that Examiner does not submit all articles to the Google news feed. They have requirements, like the story must be under 48 hours old, you have to link to sources they consider credible, you can't reference other Examiner links, you can't use the first person, etc. That's been understood, even if it's self-defeating for those of us who actually dig out stories on our own, as opposed to linking to what someone else has uncovered and rewording it to take advantage of keyword and topic trending. In other words, those of us doing investigative journalism, where we are the ones breaking stories, and where we have nothing else to refer to as a source but our own prior work, are penalized for deviating from the content farm model.

They now appear to be extending that to all articles, not just the ones submitted to the news feeds. And it appears not complying with "review criteria" they just sent out today may be the reason behind "unpublishing" articles published a week ago.

Their criteria, incidentally, corroborate the valuing of search ranking manipulation over content. Case in point, from the Examiner Support Center "Basic Editorial Requirement writing Tips":

Please refrain from using one-sentence paragraphs, paragraphs consisting of only a few short sentences or paragraphs made up of incomplete sentences whenever possible. Google rejects pieces that are formatted that way.

Compare that to Purdue University's Online Writing Lab, teaching journalism students how to write:

Tips for Writing a Lead ... Brevity: Readers want to know why the story matters to them and they won’t wait long for the answer. Leads are often one sentence, sometimes two.

The "review criteria" also list some of the "sins" committed in my Hastert and follow-up articles:

Self-promotion: Not allowed in article content. No click-baiting or product marketing is permitted ... Third Person: Avoid first-person references ("I," "me," "my," etc.) The focus of the article should be on the story, not on the person writing it.

That depends on the meaning of the term "self-promotion." and the qualifications of  the person making that assessment. My columns never contain "click-baiting or product marketing." What they do contain are references to original work that no one else has uncovered, and if not called to reader attention, will remain unknown to everyone but me. We certainly know the "mainstream media" has no interest unless it's to take a story uncovered by small fry, bigfoot it, and claim it as their own.

Yes, my Hastert story contained a link to one of my articles from 16 years ago, an open letter I wrote to him (that was subsequently published in a Libertarian Party publication at the request of one of their officials), and that necessitated a first-person reference. It couldn't be helped.

Everybody and his brother are "reporting" on the Hastert scandal and charges the guy's got himself embroiled in. Not one writer was informing gun owners about his betrayal of their interests when he was Speaker, and how in spite of that, he was still given an "A" rating from NRA. That's legitimate information for a gun rights advocacy readership to be aware of. It's not my fault no one else knew about and was reporting that. I guess the Examiner solution for original and unique offerings is to "unpublish" and suppress them.

Using that criteria, that reference to self or to prior works of original investigative journalism is verboten, let's look at some of the other stuff, allowed in the past, but now evidently in violation of the new criteria:

My FOIA-based exposé on the fake Ceasefire "PSA" that yielded a permit saying “Actors are interviewed on camera in a fake gun store” comes immediately to mind. It included my email correspondence with the Mayor's Office and also linked to my piece at The Shooters' Log. Is that "self-promotion" or is that telling and expanding on a dimension of a national interest story no one else is? And for that matter, if they're going to be consistent why hasn't that article been "unpublished"?

How about my other stories resulting from FOIA requests I filed? Who is going to report on those if not me? We know the "partial response" I got from ATF proved a whistleblower had been called on the carpet for talking to the Senate. We also know the Senate was publicly pressured -- by me -- to interview and protect Gunwalker whistleblowers in the first place.

As a matter of fact, look at all the reporting Mike Vanderboegh and I did on this before anyone in major media said word one about Fast and Furious. By Examiner's "review criteria," this all needs to be pulled from the site. And future stories -- and Mike has arranged to share documentation with me on a huge one -- cannot, as a matter of their "rules," appear there.

So what else, just off the top of my head, must go?

It looks like I can't tell readers how ATF claimed -- to me -- an Administrative Procedures Act exemption from their recent ammo ban "framework" trial balloon. Nor can I tell them how -- after my reports -- the "real reporters" discovered the B. Todd Jones leaving ATF for NFL story, or the Armatix management split story, or how an anti-gun "filmmaker" broke the law regarding bringing imitation firearm onto school premises without permission, or...

Nor can I include links in future articles to information vital to understanding a complex and ongoing story that appears nowhere else, such as the series of reports I have done containing exclusive information on the Reese family case, John Shipley, ATF's Vince Cefalu and Jay Dobyns, the '68 GCA and other legal challenges, and those are just off the top of my  head as topics where I have to refer and link to earlier reports I posted in order to validate claims. And who knows what this will do to the innumerable source documents I alone have archived on Scribd? How is linking to my account there not "self-promotion"?

I guess I can forget about telling you things I'd like you to help be a force multiplier for. That's a major reason I do this, to provide information that no one else does or will, and to then rely on activist readers to help me bypass "legitimate media" gatekeepers. And sometimes, the action just happens to center on my activities. So if I interview Rand Paul, or appear on a television panel, or get interviewed on a network show, or help write lyrics to a song for a political video produced by a multiple-award winning filmmaker and premiering on a nationally-syndicated radio program, or give a speech in front of a state house, those are all things I'm evidently no longer allowed to tell regular readers about in my column -- a column I started and expanded to a national presence on the premise and promise that I could.

That's in spite of a pledge made to me by Examiner only three months ago after one of their reviewers had rejected my ATF ammo ban piece from news feed submission on the grounds that I did not link to a recognized news source.

"As for the main premise of my story having no link, what am I supposed to do when this is original investigative journalism based my telephone conversation held today with an ATF official identified as the point of contact on a new proposed rule?" I asked. "There IS no other source to link to, as no one else has this development but me. I repeat: What am I to do?"

This was the last official word received on the matter:

Click to enlarge

I guess the "welcome" has been pulled back, or at least my being able to identify myself as the one who made the story happen in the first place, and to reference and link to an exclusive in follow-up reports.

Several of you have reached out to me, asking if I want you to do anything, maybe write to Examiner. Thanks, but no. These conditions are intolerable. I'm probably going to need to post a bare minimum article once a month just to keep them from declaring my account inactive and not sharing page view revenues from past articles, but it looks like their rules will no longer allow me to do much of the original stuff that requires self-referencing and linking.

How this will play out and if I'll land anywhere else is anybody's guess, but it doesn't look promising. Ultimately, I have to admit the failure to figure a way out of the box is mine, as my stuff is unacceptable to big boy media as well as to "lobby groups." That's because I do this to say what I want to say.

I'll keep writing for the magazine as long as they want me, and also do occasional contract assignments that don't dictate information-stifling restrictions, but without a replacement gig, this is probably going to require stepping back and refocusing energies on something that values my efforts enough to actually pay the bills. For now, look for this blog and all of my social media activity to be limited to dreaded "self-promotion."

UPDATE: Well, that was quick. At least it shows they can move when motivated. They fired me, and warned me not to show anyone the termination notice because that would violate a confidentiality agreement.  I'll match their agreement violations over the years against mine if they want to pursue this, because I maintain this is definitely in the interests of pursuing a story about cheesy Examiner.com practices:

[Click to enlarge]

Give Them What They Want?

How about you give them what they need, instead? [More]

[Via bondmen]

Give Them What They Deserve

Refusing to be a victim, he fired and struck one of the assailants in the neck." [More]

I thought we were supposed to give them what they want...?

What’s 'In Store' for the Disarmed

Contrary to your assertion, Ed, there is a way to fight back, and your viewers would do well to know about it. Because while some will advise to just “give them what they want,” a fair question might be “What if what they want is to kill you after they have the money?”

Today's Gun Rights Examiner piece is up and running. Head on over and if you're so inclined, leave a comment and pass the link along.

Just Give Them What They Want

[W]hatever you do, comply with what the robbers want because whatever you have is not worth being shot over. [More]

How do you know what they want, Second District Police Commander Keith Sulzer?

Fun times in Cleveland today!

And again...