Neither Dog

One of my favorite people asked me the other day what I thought of that situation in Ferguson.  I told her that while it's indisputable that one guy is dead, there's some gray area as to whether he had it coming.  "For me, though," I said, "there are two gangs out there that I do not care for.  If Ferguson was a ball-game, I wouldn't cheer for either of them."  And I said that what's happening there, now, will likely be spreading everywhere before long, because both gangs want things that are not theirs to take.

Herschel Smith seems to think much the same way:

There are no good guys in Ferguson. The liberty movement doesn’t have to side with anyone in order to maintain the position that criminals should be prosecuted and the police shouldn’t be militarized. It’s possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. Aligning with the criminals is a bad move not only from the perspective of optics, but also from the perspective of morals. I am not a criminal, and I have no sympathy for criminals.

There probably are good people in Ferguson.  Neither gang is likely to be of much use to you, if that's where you live and/or work.  Hunker down and defend yourself and your property, or get out.  Videotape everything.

 

That favorite person of mine also said, "Well, I guess we couldn't do without the Law (enforcement)."  I paused to let that simmer, and then told her that I'm becoming less and less convinced that absence of lawmen means absence of law.  I reinforced that point by asking her if she knew anyone (from her 80+ years on this earth) who would be a criminal if there was no opposing threat of getting caught.  Then, I said that even when there are such folks, there are at least as many folks like me who'd gladly eliminate them.

 

This is what's coming.  It's Rightful Liberty meets Individual Sovereignty.  Leave me and mine alone, or pay a dear price.  Matters not a whit which gang's colors you wear.

Currently...

Now listening to Radio Free Redoubt, 14-32 T-Rex Primer.

 

Now reading Victoria, by "Thomas Hobbes"

 

Now watching Sniper 101 by Tiborasaurus Rex.

 

Sustenance.  Gitcha some.

Neighbor Vern and the State

I'm going to tell y'all a true story.  It involves my neighbor, and we're going to call him "Vern".

Last week, in our neighborhood, a crew of some guys ostensibly doing some contract work for the state, showed up with a fleet of 3 or 4 tractors equipped with side-arm mowing attachments, like big bush-hogs on sideways-reaching backhoe booms.  These contraptions are safe for their operators, because they can drive along on the pavement and reach well afield to trim back banks and brush.  They are not safe, however, for people and property (as we shall see) beyond the business end of the bush-hog.

The safety factor deteriorates markedly when the operators run the bush-hogs in a vertical position, not to mow over the ground, but to mow back the limbs of trees from the road's "right-of-way."  I put "right-of-way" in quotation marks to illustrate scorn for how much "way" the State consistently expresses ownership rights thereof.  Anyways...in addition to the 3 or so tractors, the contractor had a crew-cab truck and a couple fellows acting as flagmen.

Vern could hear the activity slowly progressing down the road, I am sure: Rrrrr-urrr-rrrrr-urrr-GGGRRRINDDCHHHH!...Rrrr-urrr-rrrararr-urrrh-GGGGRRRRIND-GGGGRRUNCHHHH-CHUH-CHUH!...like a chain-saw some of the time, and a massive wood-chipper the rest of the time.  I didn't see Vern during most of this, and I suspect he was working inside his place.  At least, he wasn't immediately in the yard.  I was half-studying the work and its progress and half-studying some weeds in my garden, when the lead tractor pulled what we'll call "the exploding tree trick."  I watched that tree literally blow apart, sending chunks of limb and trunk 75' into the sky.  And, it was close enough to Vern's house, that many of those chunks (20 or more, perhaps...most of them about the size of an empty paper towel roll) found their way onto the top of one of Vern's outbuildings and into his front yard.  I have every reason to believe that Vern saw it, too.  He was outside in a matter of seconds and picked up a chunk the size of a Louisville Slugger from within 20' of his front porch.

I remember thinking immediately that if that slung chunk hit a fellow in the head, it might knock him out cold.  I bet Vern swinging that chunk upside a moron's head might effect the same result, and that possibility became readily apparent.  Vern strode deliberately around his outbuilding and into the road, shaking the stick at Mr. Tractor Guy.  Tractor Guy set his parking brake and stepped out of the cab, and it looked for just a second like he was thinking about coming on down the ladder.  But he didn't.  I heard the entire exchange.

Vern yelled at Tractor guy that he'd slung his debris all over the buildings and yard, and that if there'd been a child or small animal in the area, one of them could've gotten dead by the flying shrapnel.  And Vern shook the bat-sized stick of wood at Tractor Guy for emphasis, as he spoke.  Tractor Guy said, rather smarmily, that he didn't mean to, and that he was sorry.  But, Vern said "Sorry doesn't work here.  You're either doing something the right way, or the wrong way, and sorry doesn't fix or excuse the wrong way.  Don't do it again!"  And Vern turned away from the tractor and threw the stick in the ditch...about as hard as he could throw, but away from the tractor and Tractor Guy.  Again, I suppose, just for emphasis.

He pointed his finger at Tractor Guy and said "Be careful."  Tractor Guy didn't hear him (or pretended to not hear).  And Vern stepped closer again and shouted, "Be! Careful!"  And, he walked away with steam coming out his ears.  Nobody in his right mind would think about being anything but "careful" after that advice from Vern, especially given his rather imposing presence with or without a stick.

A few minutes later, with Vern gone back inside, the entire crew of tractors seemed to decide that that particular area of brush cutting was close enough for government work, I suppose, and rambled on down the road, around the bend and out of sight.

That certainly could have been the end of it, and should've been in my opinion.  Au contraire, mon frère...

Titty Tats & Truth

Good stuff from Josie Outlaw...

 

 

 

Hope the ink is the temporary/wash-off variety.  But that's just me.

 

Also referencing the Milgram experiments, this from Resources for Independent Thinking via WRSA: Not Everyone Obeys.

Jason Lewis Quits On Air?

H/T to NC Renegade-

 

I love it.

 

I've always liked Jason, even though I've disagreed with him a couple of times.  In a world of media folks (on our side) who fail to live up to their rhetoric, Jason proves willing to cast off his "brand" to the moochers in favor of his independence.  Let the parasites have it.  See how long they survive with the blood-flow cut off.  Good for him.

 

Go to the Jason Lewis Show website, and you'll be directed to Galt.IO, where you can join him.  There, you can also watch a 15min video about his decision to quit and about Galt.IO, which I won't embed immediately because I think he'd prefer you watch it there.  You don't have to join to watch the video.  Worth your 15 minutes and then some.

 

See you in the Gulch.

Crashed & Sinking: The Ship You're On

Or perhaps, the Oliphaunt...

 

Herschel Smith gets it:

The goal of the administration is for the local and state governments to demand federal dollars, but with federal dollars comes federal control. The ultimate aim of Obamacare wasn’t to work or function, it was to fail, thus driving America to a single-payer system. Unless one understand everything this administration does within the framework of Cloward-Piven, you cannot understand them at all.

And it's not just the "costs cascading down to the local level", as Herschel says, but also the very strategy.  The collectivists in your neighborhood and mine actively and passionately embrace the destruction of the traditional American way of life.

 

I know how bad it can be, because I am Whittaker Chambers, and I can't swing a dead cat without hitting an Alger Hiss.

 

************

And there's this from Ol' Remus and the Woodpile Report:

 

"You Can't Know Which Exit is the Last Exit"

Great line for those of you who think everything's probably going to be just fine.

The market isn't the economy, true enough, but a couple dozen trillion dollars isn't exactly budget-dust. The citizenry would see a yawning crater where their 401ks and IRAs used to be. They'd notice when their checking account is gone but their debt isn't, and when the ATM doesn't recognize their account number, or when their bank is an empty storefront and their car loan has been sold to Vinnie, or when their insurance company doesn't answer the phone. As always, people don't go nuclear until reality invites itself into their living room and defecates on the carpet. That's when things get interesting—when people notice, when they have to face what was formerly unthinkable and their only fallback is what good people they are. 

Those who drove the financial bus off a cliff know the controls still work fine—the brakes and accelerator and steering wheel, all of 'em, but when the rubber isn't on the road the effect just ain't the same. But all that "driving" stuff keeps the passengers from panicking. We've seen the grandest larceny in all history. Now, after we've been cleaned out, we know the wacko conspiracy guys were right. In fact we're worse than cleaned out, the place has been turned into a debtor's prison from sea to shining sea.

What might happen, if we get a stroke of luck and God sees fit to Bless us in this coming excitement?  We'll ride Leviathan's downward crash like Legolas on one of those battle-elephants, ripping arrow after arrow from our quivers and darting them into the eyeballs of every last Orc in sight...

 

"93, 94, ..."