Samuel Butler said, "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt to the world to him -- therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."
As a columnist and radio talk show host, I am in the commentary business. I am often critical of politicians, issues and other pundits. I am also subject to being the target of significant criticism from a broad spectrum of divergent venues. Despite (or maybe because) I often focus on news "outside the mainstream," various special interest groups who find an ally in a media type who actually articulates their view often become as harsh in their criticism as those with whom I have strong philosophic differences.
As a broadcaster, my job is to build and maintain an audience. I have enjoyed some success doing that by addressing an eclectic collection with issues normally ignored by the mainstream. I have spent considerable time shining my light into the shadows. I have routinely succeeded in staying ahead of the conventional news cycles:
Supporters claim they like my work because I present more substance than form. Yeah, for good or ill, I do. However, if I were ever to permit myself and my forums to be exploited for one single issue, I soon would not have a forum to be exploited.
I came close to that tragic flaw years ago during the NAFTA debate. I was and remain very anti-NAFTA. Unlike most of the legislators who voted on that insidiously disingenuous piece of legislative excrement, I actually read the entire document. I became obsessed with the myriad problems and tried to force feed it to my audience. It was, and is, an important issue. However, it is not the only issue that needs attention.
I have also been criticized for spending way too much time on Second Amendment issues while contemporaneously being criticized for not spending enough time on Second Amendment issues. Notwithstanding the critics, and despite the supporters, this column will close on guns.
Your right to own a gun is inalienable. You have a God-given right to protect and defend yourself, your family and your property. Any and all other legislative masturbation to the contrary, designed to erode, undermine or attrite that right is invalid, immoral and an invitation to massive non-compliance. The Second Amendment was not intended to guarantee my bird hunting, or for states to maintain militias. The Second Amendment was and is intended to guarantee an individual's right to protect his God-given rights from abuse of power under the color of authority. Governments that disarm their citizens do so to control them with force. Governments, like criminals, do not want armed victims questioning power.
In the wake of the alleged end of the Cold War, several CIA types were informally meeting several of their KGB counterparts. Eventually the question was asked, "So Ivan, did you guys actually have plans for invading CONUS (Continental United States)?" Reportedly the KGB officer laughed, "Hell no!" "Why not?" asked a CIA suit. "Your people have too many guns."
The "gun culture" which has been marginalized, demonized and vilified by liberal sycophants has been the foundation of maintaining the Republic kinda, sorta the way the framers intended. American soldiers' competence with guns has been a significant factor in every war in which shots have been fired. That competence and familiarity was grounded in sport shooting, marksmanship programs in schools, Boy Scouts and Boys Club and YMCA. That foundation is being destroyed in ways both subtle and overt.
The United States Army Reserve is the first military organization to cancel competitive marksmanship activities. Each of the teams, Pistol, Rifle and Combat, has been ordered to turn in equipment. They are history.
The source of this official pronouncement is Helmut J. Hein Lynn Belcher, assistant branch chief, Individual Training Branch, U.S. Army Reserve Command.
Meanwhile, as the Clinton/Gore regime continues to eviscerate the military, under a recent decree by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian schoolboys age 15 and older will be given mandatory military training classes to "better prepare them for eventual service in the armed forces." Putin has been pushing for a tougher Russian military. In February, he spoke on Russian television and reminded his audience that Russia has always had a citizen-based army and "that it was people rather than the army who fought." Putin gets it! Meanwhile Clinton/Gore have turned our military into a U.N. subsidiary "meals on wheels."
Oddly, it was Clinton's idol, President John F. Kennedy, who said, "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
Those "Minutemen" Kennedy longed for, that Putin recognizes are the bone and sinew of a country's strength and Clinton would abolish, do exist. Notwithstanding the unbridled efforts of Clinton, Gore, Janet Reno, Sarah Brady, Chuck Schumer et al, at least so far, there remain tens of millions of Americans who would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
There are tens of thousands of grass-roots organizations representing tens of millions of Americans who cling to the Constitution and Bill of Rights with a religious fervor. The good news is they exist, and they are serious as a heart attack. Some of them actually long for the next government precipitated atrocity to spark the inevitable call for confiscation that will result in massive non-compliance and eventual bloodshed.
The reach of the gun grabbers exceeds their grasp. Oddly, it will not be the camo-clad weekend paintballers and wannabe militia types who will refuse to comply with confiscation. Resistance will come from the remaining former military that still believe in the sacred oath of their youth. It will be the blue-hair grandmothers who protect their family and their heritage that would rather die martyrs than live as slaves.
However, the bad news is time is on the side of the enemy. Those who would destroy our country are incrementally winning. They continue to erode the combat effectiveness of our military. They continue to propagandize the masses with the cancer of "political correctness." They continue to successfully indoctrinate our children to prepare them to be good obedient sheep.
Allegedly,
Henry Kissinger in an address to the Bilderberg organization at a meeting
in Evian, France, May 21, 1991, said, "Today Americans would be outraged
if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will
be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside
threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very
existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world
leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is
the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will
be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted
to them by their world government." I hope and pray Henry is wrong.