These United States of America...

   I have been reading Doctor Ben Carson's book A More Perfect Union . A fine book with solid ideas, since it is based on the most successful Republic of modern times.

   I will liken the America I know with the man, the fat olde white one, I see in the mirror.  Because we suffer from the same foolishness.  We got fat, sure we told ourselves we were just doing more, getting stronger, buying the right clothes, getting the good stuff for the table and the home and the family... but we got fat, the teeth rotted and the hair fell out.  We got high blood pressure, which is a risk factor, and treated it and so lost lots of the glandular functions which make for new problems.  So maybe the government did something similar and it will hurt in the long run, won't it? We have two cars, four monitors for cable and computer, a cell phone and a regular phone and Skype.com can come in on the computers.  So too much information, and since I can reach out and contact people in foreign nations - I think that I am in control. Just like those government officials in the DC area, the ones that can't keep drugs from the streets and can't trust the population to be armed.

   Until someone decides that we go back to the smaller Federal Footprint on our necks, pays down and off the debt, and gets rid of the fat that makes us no longer fast and nimble... we are going to die.

   You want a fast growing economy, get the government out of it. Business and Capitalism work better than any other system.  Reports from Denmark are interesting, but Hamlet isn't a prince there, any more.  The original Republic worked well too, but then it got older and fat. Not the man, nor government they were meant to be.

So time changes and improvement becomes the new stupid...

  Playboy, magazine with the centerfold, is folding.. on to other things. Once the entire nation embraces naked women on Time Square and on my home computers - the idea of artful uncovering of the beautiful innocent girl next door - just can't get many takers.  Back from the Gulf War and in Germany I had a soldier ask if I had seen the latest Playboy since it had an interview with Rush Limbaugh.  I had laughed loudly, not remembering the last time I had opened one up.

   When I found Rush Limbaugh listening to some strange First Sergeant tell about only having fifteen bullets to jump into Haiti later, and Rush believing him, I stopped worrying about Rush.

  Media fed madfool disease, it is catching. If you tell the lie often enough and loudly enough it never becomes a truth, just another uninformed voter.  So the Emperor of the Empire state and his cronies pass the SAFE act, and it finally goes up before a court that can't read the Constitution, and the Court says something to the effect that the People don't have a right to keep and bare arms, because the Mafia and its cleaner followers are declaring it out of touch.  The good emperor did not disarm his police forces... to keep them equal before the law.  So New York is quickly becoming as safe as olde York in England. 

  It is good to be old and know the end is near, I am sure of my reward when I depart. For all those living under the stupids, it wasn't supposed to work that way.  But mankind has always found a way to make perfect the enemy of good.

I really want to write about how close we are to war.. a global one...

but I won't.  Since you don't have the required foresight.

  What I will discuss is the term Washington Redskins, a football team that some strange fools have decided is an offense against a group of folks that can't protect themselves. For my paragraph today, I offer an example of the baseball friendly New York Yankees as George Carlin once noticed baseball was a much nicer game than football. You will have to understand that to those that use yankee as a denegration and those that have no love lost with the term Yankee (ie, the South) that the same people that want to fool with the team name and logo should be working just as hard on Yankees, because with Yankee 

 you can go to the song Yankee Doodle Dandy which made fun of the colonials that the enlightened British could look down upon. How did the poor helpless because we didn't support royalty and foolishness fix it? Well, we adopted it as a title to be worn with pride, until it was smeared over everyone in the War Between the States. But y'all knew that.

I do think most of America, the people - all of the people do not understand...

  What made these United States of America great - was the people and the Liberty to grow fat and happy. What has been the problem is the idea that the people can't take care of themselves and their future. I do understand God being more intelligent than I, but I have trouble finding many in elected offices and government agencies that are smarter than I.  Not many of them are as nice as I am either.

  From the very beginnings there has always been a struggle to keep from making kings, nobility and grabbing power. Arron Burr and Alexander Hamilton come immediately to my mind, lucky that George Washington was a contented planter.  Over the last hundred and ten years or so, many fools have worked hard to ruin a simple idea - the people could be in charge of their own. There are lovely things like gun control in Mexico, and no one wants to proclaim that nation a paradise, although vacationing there still happens. Canada works pretty well, except you have to look under the hood sometimes. I liked them for storing gold when FDR went crazy, and storing anti-war folks when Johnson went crazy.


  I don't think there are enough all Americans that understand Liberty, the Constitution and such. If the USA is a republic, then a militia of concerned citizens is part of that mix. Armed and aware and not willing to be bought off to surrender their Liberty. Two things for the Federal Government, the militia was the States' and not the 'national' government's. Yes, fifty of them.

  I am almost certain, with education being what it is today, the people aren't prepared to take care of themselves. They have to have a court decide what a law means, because no one knows how to read nor write in English?   What I think and say isn't important enough to share, you would have figured it out yourselves if you are smarter than I, but don't expect the government - at any level - to think for you, to protect you, to understand you, to assist you, or make you fat and happy. But you have my blessings as you find your way in the world, just don't think to control anyone or anything - or you become part of the problem not part of the solution. If you have to send armed men to make it your way, you haven't got a good idea. Think it over again.

I give up, I will not participate in stupid....

   If I say something is not true, that means it is false. What seems to happen is that the person that has said something false will bring other false to the discussion and not prove anything except how stupid they are, how involved they are in proving they know what they believe has to be true, and how stupid they think you are for pointing out they just aren't telling the truth.  Are you worn out yet?

   Mathematics are so clean, if they didn't use all those Greek symbols I might have stay longer in class.

   I agree violence against people and property is illegal and should be illegal and we should try the people in the court of law, by a jury of their peers.

   I also know that gun control is holding your firearm on target, and putting it away when you aren't going to be in control on target.

   I will continue to be amazed at the number of politicians that think (or just say they do think) that they can protect the people by more laws.  They can't. 

   I guess for my life, what little I have remaining, I will have a prayer prepared for when I am startled by the stupid. They certainly need the LORD's help, and I do need to remain calm and in control -- not wanting my guns to go off and kill thousands when I am not watching.

Who you gonna call???

  I was doing shooting drills with another man, his drills, his range and targets. And I learned a lot, mainly about how much I don't know... so I have stuff to work on. Dry practice is your foundation, but do make sure you only practice the correct way.  I am positive, you being an intelligent human being, that you will invent a way to get it done or else die when overcome by events. Flooding like crazy in the Carolinas, crazy drivers, and unexpected rock slides and train wrecks. The younger folks may just pull out their phones and photograph and share, the more responsible may try to contact professional help, and then do their best.

  A very serious gun writer posted videos of shooting drills, and in less than ten seconds putting nine bullets into three targets, two to the chest, one to the head. Of all three, without a double tap. Faster than I ever draw my pistol, the conflict was settled before I could get into the fray.  Analyzing after, the shooter said she needed more drills to improve draw, reload and malfunction, clear, reload and engage..... practicing for Murphy's worst day, all good stuff.

   One of my first lessons in the gun drills, that the bullet in this man, will go on to the man behind, which is only great if they are both bad guys -- what if one had been just walking behind the threat?

  My wife attended the funeral of the lady she couldn't save with her CPR last weekend. And this morning she went back over how it all happened, what everyone did, and all the things she knows now about the woman and her health issues which may have had a large portion of her death than my wife knew at the time...

  That is always going to be the point. You can only work on what you see and know at the time of crisis. So before anything happens: plan for failure, plan to act, and pray it goes the way it should. Then PRACTICE the stuff correctly.  When playing the piano, bad practice only hurts tranquility and someone's ears, when skate boarding, bad practice may mean scrapes and bruises and busted bones, but you are always learning if you survive. You may figure out your own skill set, when and where you want to learn and master -- but that professional help you need, costs money to maintain, isn't in your back pocket with your credit card and is only minutes - very long minutes - away.

  'Be prepared' should be a watchword not just a Boy Scout goal. In crisis you will tire yourself more from the fear/fight/flee chemical wash than the real actions of blood and muscles, so get control, cool and calm and TAKE ACTIONS!  My favorite war story (remember nothing ever happened to me) was being awakened from a fine nap because of a rocket attack - and I was not affected by it, so I could grab the mike, ask calm questions and answer higher headquarters with real information since they wanted to share and help... the only totally sane thinker in the room, at that moment.

  They give Dr Ben Carson noise over his idea of rushing the threat... not I, I know he is right, get in the fight! Even if you want to hug the poor misunderstood terrorist/murderer, give him a good hug, lock it down and whisper sweet thoughts in his ear -- until those professionals arrive. My wife listened quietly to the critical comments about what she had done, by another woman that hadn't been there, and started to get riled (she is a master at being riled), I told her that she should 'thank the woman for her information, ask if she wants to schedule a practice where she can demonstrate and all may practice, and that she hopes that next time she would jump in and do it right.  But then 'she' wasn't there... which leads to my question about any situation... who are you going to call? How long can you wait, and shouldn't you already be preparing beyond watching Ninja movies and slick gun flicks? They have dialing 911 to a one touch push ---- answer the operator, and then give the phone to someone else and help out. Thank you for your attention, but keep participating in life, it is moving on.

   Instead of worrying and wondering about gun violence and gun safety - are you stepping up to inform, train and practice with your children about their lives and firearms, first aid, and good manners? We aren't talking sex, just living in Liberty so everyone can participate.

Good Morning, America...

  Big day today, hundreds of thousands of Americans are getting out their guns, checking them, checking the ammunition and leaving their homes and expect to shoot today.  Many are looking forward to it.  Some are going to be reluctant and cautious.  Depends on why and where they are carrying.  I expect most all of them will return home to put the guns up, cleaned, oiled and resting until the morrow. Yes, many rounds will have been fired on target, most - over 95 percent will be on target, all most all will never have harmed anyone. I pray it will be so, for sure it is my expectation.

  I enjoy watching dramas and such, but I can tell my life is not one of those fantasies. My life is mine and much better than Hollywood writes.  Oh, today I am one of those Americans that will be carrying guns and ammunition around, with the intention of shooting, if needed, on target cause only hits count.  All the proposals about training, identification, registration and what they call common sense gun control --- I will be right there, meeting all the artificial requirements, gosh if I could be trusted and expected to compute tactical nukes, and not betray my country... how do you think you would ever regulate me out of my very real gun control? My guns, I control them. Not the government, not the local drug lords, certainly not the Pastor, the policemen, the auto mechanic, the bikini barista, the little boy down the lane.... just me.

  I offered my brother a pistol and fifty rounds when he was complaining on Facebook about who was going to get these guns and ammunition for everyone being part of the militia of American citizens... but he didn't answer. Which is fine, no one should be required to own a weapon they don't want, just like no one should be required to drive a Prius. And being an American, I do understand resisting stupid ideas from people in government and power. Part of our nation's foundation, resisting bad ideas and behavior.  If registration were a fine idea, you could register people, DNA and fingerprints, photo id with bar codes to be read by machines, to allow citizens to carry a firearm anywhere they wanted to, and to vote.

   Not that the anti-gun goofs will read this far, but if you tie carrying arms to voting, as far as registration and photo ID, the Left will fold.  I watched one do that yesterday, I don't care but they seem to not understand that militia and citizen are the same human being. I have been carrying ID for a long time.

   I got a form letter from my credit card company, one that I owe money to, and since they have decided that I was late with my payment they would have to penalize me.  Ah, punish me! Beat me!  I sent a couple pieces of the offended card back to the fine folks, thanked them for all the years of working together and helping me break that habit of reaching for plastic to cure my temporary ills.  I have noticed that everyone wants you to have their card, giving you all kinds of perks, but just so they can drain your blood, you are a golden egg laying goose and they want you.  I am sure they talk to each other out there in the money lending world.  Didn't they notice the number of credit cards I have but don't use? The number of cards I once used but decided I didn't like their rates and closed? Hmm, not in their program, just like everyone expects I can't get along without a cellphone, iphone, smarter than I phone, but I do, thank you.

   Oh, yes, I could get by without any guns, or knives, or some little knowledge of martial arts and war.... but they aren't hurting me, my family, nor anyone else.  The problem is the people that don't love life, be they in Planned Parenthood or all the crazy murderers feeding the nightly news and the let's keep the people in fear so we can stay on top and in charge folks in government.