Recessionals, Swivel Eyed Loons, Tea Parties, and Summer Soldiers

The white man’s burden – The Journal, Detroit, 1898. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My friend, and Jessica’s co-author Chalcedon451 posted this morning in somber mood. I suspect I know the proximate cause, and have no reason to disagree. His post is titled Recessional? I find it a very good post, and suspect I understand the reason it appeared this morning. Nor do I disagree with him. He says that it is the first of a series, which I look forward to.

He quotes Kipling’s Recessional in his post

Far-called, our navies melt away;

   On dune and headland sinks the fire:   

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

   Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!   

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,   

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Nemesis lay here, as he saw it:

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose   

   Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,   

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

   Or lesser breeds without the Law—

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget—lest we forget!

It is of, course the reverse of the coin.

The obverse of which was the welcome we Americans received in The White Man’s Burden

And yet that is not the poem that comes to my mind. This one does.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

I think they are not far away, and approaching quickly.

But you know the Anglo-Saxon powers have been in dire straits before, if we were to look to 1588 for example, just a few days ago the Armada sailed on its Crusade. In 1942 today our countries were on the defensive around the world, the Pacific Fleet’s battleships in the mud of Pearl Harbor, the Repulse and the Prince of Wales sunk, Britain enduring the bombing of the air war, Doolittle had just made his ineffective but morale building raid. But in a couple of days the Imperial Japanese fleet will be stopped at the Coral Sea and soon the tide will turn at Midway, a battle won by taking long odds and playing to win. In less than three years Nazi Germany will be on the scrap heap of history, with Japan soon to join it.

And that may be the problem, those men (and women) were the generation that raised Chalcedon and I. When they said something you could take it to the bank, I have seen men go into very sketchy verbal agreements on million dollar deals. But we have become societies of chiselers, cheats and liars, and as long as we are we will accomplish little. If a man’s word is not his bond, he can never be trusted in any matter, great or small, and therefore he is useless, merely another mouth to feed without benefit.

But our folk wisdom insists that it is darkest before the dawn (so does experience) so maybe a different writer would be better.

After our election, on my post entitled Recessional, Representative Rebecca Hamilton, of Oklahoma said in my comments stream “Don’t be defeated. The fight has just begun.” And she is, of course, entirely correct, we are not defeated until we admit we are defeated. Which brings to mind as a guide for us all

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. [...]

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he.

And that is as good a guide as we are going to get, British or American as we attempt to salvage the good from our countries.

And lest you Americans think this is only for my Brit friends, you think maybe we got a problem when we’re sitting here looking at Chicago-on-the-Potomac wondering if there is an honest man in the city? Cause you know what? If there isn’t

It’s Nobody’s Fault but Ours.

Related articles

• “We are mad swivel eyed loons” confirm grassroots Tory Activists (newstoad.net)
• Recessional (A Victorian Ode) by Rudyard Kipling (soundwind.wordpress.com)

Tornadoes in Oklahoma, Craven Bureaucrats in DC

Moore, Oklahoma

There’s always something that bugs me, in these stories. It’s not real important maybe but, it goes to the heart of who we are as Americans. You see the actual “First Responders” here as always in our part of the country (for all I know it might be different in the big cities or something) are not the Police, Fire Department, and EMS people. That takes nothing away from their heroic response, they have to get there from wherever they are, and as we can see from that picture above, it’s not always easy.

The real first responders are your friends, your neighbors, and your relatives, skilled, unskilled, calm, panicked, as they may be, that’s who you are going to be depending on for a while after a catastrophe. And as we’ve always proved, you, and we, are in good hands. That’s always been one of the marks of Americans, we all work together when we have to, and we do it well.

In fact the very first thing I saw moving on the helicopter footage after the tornado was a tractor loader  backhoe (TLB), which looked like it had pulled off a construction site on one side and was rushing in to help as fast as it could. Plain Americans grabbing the biggest shovel they had handy and rushing in to help.

I want to add my condolences for the dead and wounded, and tell the Police, Fire, EMS, Guard, utility crews, highway departments, emergency management, and just plain folks that you did and are doing a great job. Well done so far, I, and you, know you have much work ahead, and we will be thinking of, and praying for you all.

And that was the other thing I noticed, when CNN said something to the Governor of Oklahoma about how supportive of her citizens the country was (I don’t remember the quote) the Governor looked at her and said, “Thank you for your prayers.” And that kind of thing is what makes us different in the world anymore. We say that without embarrassment, and we mean it from both sides.

In other news

The Infernal Internal Revenue Service

Today, Lois Lerner the IRS official who announced, and apologized for, the improper singling out of conservative-leaning organizations by IRS employees under her command, announced through her criminal defense lawyer that she will not testify as scheduled tomorrow before the House Oversight Committee. Rather, she will assert her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

That’s all well and good, and she can do that but it’s well to remember that the 5th Amendment that protects us all from self incrimination is only operative in criminal law, if she hasn’t committed criminal offenses there is no justification for using the fifth amendment, nor does Congress have to meet the rule of evidence (beyond all reasonable doubt) of a criminal trial. Could be a conspiracy starting to unravel here, or it could be somebody angling for a presidential pardon, or it could even be somebody overcautious. We’ll have to see, but it’s significant.

And This:

I want to present some excerpted thoughts to you from Rick writing in Let’s Get Political in Billerica. The entire article is well worth your time, it is here.

[...]

Good citizens recognize the need for protection from lawbreakers, thieves and murderers. Good citizens recognize that whenever one diminishes the rights of others to deal on a level playing field that an abuse of power has been committed.

When one chooses to use that tax code to punish individuals for their lawful choices to support one cause or another, it is clear that an abuse of power has been committed.

When one chooses to label a reporter a criminal for his diligence in seeking to lawfully gain information about government activity that may be illegal or unethical in order to stifle that reporter or to gain access to the reporters private telephone calls, e-mails, text messages, or through eves dropping techniques to capture live conversations, then an abuse of power has committed.

When an entire group of reporters has been targeted because one or two among them used their positions to gain access to information that the government has been acting illegally, immorally, improperly, or secretly to conspire against its own citizens, an abuse of power has been committed.

When the press whines that it has been abused or mistreated by the government when it has chosen for decades to look one way under one set of leaders and the opposite way under its preferred leadership contingent, it should be recognized that the press is only suffering such abuse because it has not been diligent in keeping government in check as is the duty of the fourth estate assigned to them through the first amendment to the United States Constitution. [...]

When four American patriots are left behind to die without a clear, transparent and minute by minute history of events leading up to such a tragic loss of lives to persons of such heroic stature, there has been and remains an abuse of power. All Americans should be dismayed that no answer has come forth and none appears to be on the horizon. [...]

The next time a crisis in leadership comes along in the form of a scandal or an abuse of power and you find yourself asking why it seems that no one in government can stand up and simply tell the truth, go look in the mirror and ask your reflection how much you know about those for whom you voted and pledged your support. You might come to the conclusion that “I have seen the enemy, and it is me.”

Related articles

• Paul Calls for Independent Investigation of IRS Scandal (freebeacon.com)
• Using federal muscle to punish political enemies (washingtontimes.com)
• IRS intimidation scandal proves Second Amendment needed to stop government tyranny… (redflagnews.com)
• A staggering abuse of power (ronpaulnews.net)
• Nationwide TEA PARTY PROTESTS Set For Tuesday At IRS Offices (patdollard.com)
• So…the IRS can lean on the 5th amendment, but the 2nd, and others, are fair game to mess with? (planet.infowars.com)
• THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FINALLY FINDS A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT IT CAN GET BEHIND: Top IRS offici… (pjmedia.com)
• West Volunteer Fire Department Gets Fire Engine Donation (dfw.cbslocal.com)
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• Governor: Tornado worse than Oklahoma City bombings (itv.com)

Gun Culture = American Culture

Deutsch: Georgische Reiter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is from Frank Miniter writing in Forbes read it all and then come back and we’ll talk some.

When Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) signed sweeping gun-control legislation into law last week he finished a mistake that is anti-business, that weakens an individual right and that attacks an iconic image of the self-made American, someone who stands for what was once called the “American way.”

O’Malley’s support for gun-control is certainly founded in politics in his very blue state, but it’s also based on a misunderstanding of America. First, the legislation Governor O’Malley signed will—after October 1—ban 45 specific types of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms, mandate the reporting of lost or stolen firearms and ban the sale, manufacture, purchase or transfer of magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition. The NRA says it will go to court to argue that portions of the law are unconstitutional.

Beretta Holding, which manufactures firearms in Accokeek, Maryland, put out a press release last week that says, “The question now facing the Beretta Holding companies in Maryland is this: What effect will the passage of this law—and the efforts of Maryland government officials to support its passage—have on our willingness to remain in this State?” Beretta then hints at an answer to this question: “Prior to introduction of this legislation the three Beretta Holding companies located in Maryland were experiencing growth in revenues and jobs and had begun expansion plans in factory and other operations. The idea now of investing additional funds in Maryland and thus rewarding a Government that has insulted our customers and our products is offensive to us so we will take steps to evaluate such investments in other States.”[...]

To understand this mistake, consider the Beretta man. He has a shotgun that’s a work of art. It might be an over/under with a grainy walnut stock, blued metal and engravings of a bird dog and maybe a pheasant on its receiver. Or it might be a semi-automatic Benelli (a Beretta-owned company) with a carbon-fiber stock and inertia-driven action. In either case, the Beretta man stands with his back straight and the shotgun in the crook of his arm. He is wearing a shooting vest and shooting glasses. He has class. He is how James Bond would look if he went skeet shooting. He’s sophisticated, but hardly a snob. He has what the Spanish call duende, a characteristic James Michener said is almost indefinable, as it means something with taste, refinement, beauty, perfection and elegance all in just the right proportion and with no showiness at all. He is what the Japanese mean when they use the word shibui, which is something a Samurai tried to embody, but only could manage in fleeting moments when life and art meet before again separating with a bad gesture or misstep.

Of course, he isn’t any more real than James Bond. But what archetype is? He’s an American icon men want to be. He’s an ideal never reached but, if you do everything right, might be you for just a manly moment when you shoot a perfect round and thereby master yourself. In that moment a Spaniard might proclaim, “Gracia.” This is another word that deals not with things but with the essence of things and so is fleeting in an empirical age that trusts science to answer everything for us while disdaining the effervescent quality of philosophy. Though now misunderstood by op-ed writers at The New York Times, even the fashion set is aware of the Beretta man. Beretta, after all, has stores in Milan, Paris, London and New York. Oh, there’s one in Dallas, too.

Of course, there is also a Beretta woman. Her lines of clothing are just as iconic. Though she doesn’t follow the modern protocol for what a woman should look like to be sexy, Beretta’s attire on a lady with an over/under shotgun can make the Beretta man forget himself more than any Kardashian ever could.

Beretta was founded in 1526, a year before Machiavelli died. Beretta is still family owned. Beretta saw Michelangelo, Casanova and Mussolini go. They actually have a castle, the Beretta Castle. They set a standard and hold onto it.

During a tour of its Maryland plant last winter Matteo Recanatini, web & social media manager for Beretta in the U.S., said to me, “The Beretta family approves every clothing design, every tweak to every firearm. They’re conscious that the Beretta image is iconic, an ideal. Everything has to perfectly fit that image and to function flawlessly.”

Matteo, an Italian, was acknowledging there is a different way of looking at guns and American gun culture than some blue-state politicians suggest. This image is what President Barack Obama tried to represent when the White House leaked a photo of him “shooting skeet” with a shotgun held too horizontal for skeet shooting and with a choke missing from the bottom barrel (it takes two for skeet)—clear signs the shot was a stunt. Instead of being the Beretta man, Obama became a laughable parody of something he doesn’t understand, but at least on some level he knows such an archetype exists.

What he doesn’t seem to grasp is that, to people who want to be a Beretta man, or a Winchester man, or a Colt man … guns aren’t a negative thing; they’re a manly a thing a real man knows how to use safely and well. And therein lies the political miscalculation of anti-gun-freedom politicians.

And that’s all true and very real but, there is more to it as well. The profile of the old Colt Single Action Army, or the Winchester lever action are iconic of the American cowboy and settler (and even Indian) all over the world. These were world-class weapons, heck they were the class of the world, anybody wanting the best arms for their people bought American, they still do. Nobody uses an AK if they can get an M-16. And in fact the Peacemaker and the Winchester were as good or better than what the Army was using at the time.

But they are icons of the America I remember, men who were real men, who did what needed doing (with a fair amount of b*tching) but never a whine. And you know what, what they had they earned, from the Stetson hat that cost a half a months pay, to the woman that they were loyal to (and was just as loyal to them). They got what they earned, good or bad, and they made of America a legend, that from Grand Duke Alexei of Russia hunting with Buffalo Bill to Kaiser Wilhelm dreaming of being a cowboy after being forced to abdicate after World War I, the movies showed it of course, with men like the Duke, but it goes back to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the 19th century. Before that it was the legend of men like Davy Crockett, Travis and company at the Alamo, and before that the men with Kentucky rifles who told the most powerful empire in the world to go pound sand. And made it stick. And it showed the world what it was to be that special thing, an American.

But guns are special, once they became reliable, they replaced the knife in America, even the legendary Bowie knife and we never looked back. There’s a couple of things about them. Cause there is something else that appeals, at least to me, and I’ll bet a host of others. It’s the elegance of fine engineering, when you handle that Benelli Shotgun, Winchester Rifle, Colt or Beretta handgun, you are handling a finely designed, and manufactured item. The fine fit of a gun is like few things mass-produced in the world, it fits and it works, without slop, every time. Almost every gun I’ve shot over the years would put a bullet within a 1/60th of a degree of where I aimed it. And I’ve fired rifles that would do much better, good enough to win multi-state marksmanship championships. I know they did because my uncle won, beating another one of my uncles to win it.

There’s nothing in a car like it, it would be like buying a Ferrari for the price of a Ford. That’s how good a standard American gun is. And if you can find anything manufactured more beautiful than blue steel mated to American walnut, well, I haven’t seen it. American guns are just plain working works of art, which is why traditionally one of the state presents given to foreign leaders by American presidents are American guns. Mostly specially engraved Colt revolvers and Winchester rifles.

They symbolize what we are better than anything else could, beautiful, mass-produced works of art designed for and by a free people.

Are there any more American manufacturing legends than Colonel Colt, Henry Winchester, Dr. Gatling, or John Moses Browning. Not that I know of except maybe Eli Whitney who pioneered interchangeable parts on the Springfield musket of 1795 and perfected it by the model of 1815.

Bob Owens wrote about this as well at Another journalist gets it: the gun culture is America’s soul « Bob Owens.

Even more than the eagle; guns, especially civilian arms, are the icon of the free American

No wonder they want to take them away from us.

Related articles

• Fed Up, Beretta Promises They Will Leave Maryland (thetruthaboutguns.com)
• Bye, Bye Beretta (powerlineblog.com)

Liberty Trail: A Resource

English: Norton Covert The Liberty Trail rises steeply up through Norton Covert. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I want to pass this along to you all because, well, because here and at many of our sites we are well off in the weeds, we tend to presume a knowledge of history and politics that many don’t have. I suspect many of the folks that wander in looking for information read a bit and go-what on earth is he talking about?

References to Henry II, and Burke, and Franklin, and Coolidge, and all. I just want to know what the darned government is doing to me NOW. Kathy does a great job of explaining it for them. We were all there sometime, last year, or last decade, or when we were kids; we all started sometime, and I’ll bet it was because somebody took the time to explain it to us.

Kathy does that, send them to her, or they’ll go back to sleep. I’ve tried to do it, and I wander off into the weeds all over again. Jess does it better here than I ever do but, she too assumes a certain level of knowledge. Liberty Trail doesn’t. It’s a valuable reference for us all

When I started writing this blog, my stated purpose was to reach out to a large sub-set of the group we have come to refer to (lovingly) as Low Information Voters.  These are Americans who realized a long time ago that their elected leaders were lying to them, the people who work for those leaders were lying to them and the media was lying to them.

These LIVs are good, decent people who love America and used to believe in the promise it offered to all of us.  But they have families to care for and bills to pay.  They have lives to live.  They don’t have the time or desire to watch every move made by every crooked politician.  Ask them what they think of the people running the country and most will tell you they are dirty, rotten scoundrels.

They certainly got that part right, didn’t they?

I talked to one of these people over the weekend – a dear friend who is not afraid to admit she falls into this group.  She told me that years ago she became so disenchanted with the lies and deceit that she simply tuned out.  She said it was just so hard to figure out who was representing her best interest and not their own.

Now, she says there are times when she would like to jump back in, but she feels that she’s so far behind that she doesn’t know how to catch up and where to turn for some truth.  And I don’t think she’s alone.  I think there are millions of Americans just like her.  I also believe that this is part of the grand plan – make it too difficult for the average citizen to follow their government and they will eventually give up.

Continue reading Changes At Liberty Trail.

This is where I send busy LIVs, you should too.

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Is the Past a Foreign Country?

Is the Past a Foreign Country? In many ways it is. One of the things that often is done is to project our beliefs onto our forebearers. In this country that’s often done by race-baiters in connection with slavery, and especially with Thomas Jefferson. It is, of course, hard to get beyond our own beliefs, but to understand history correctly, we must.

This came up because I was watching a TED talk the other day. You, most of you anyway, have probably heard of them. Short talks about all kinds of subjects by some of the leading people in the field. This one is an independent one, done at St. Paul’s School in England. It’s by Suzannah Lipscomb, who is a historian, and from what I gather a quite good one, specializing in Tudor England.

I found it quite interesting, and hope you do as well.

Tell me what you think, in comments, both about whether you want more of these, and her thesis.

Related articles

• Suzannah Lipscomb’s Oxford: My Kind of Town (telegraph.co.uk)
• Census figures show Christianity in sharp decline whilst belief in Islam dramatically increases (independent.co.uk)

 

Götterdämmerung

English: President Barack Obama’s signature on the health insurance reform bill at the White House, March 23, 2010. The President signed the bill with 22 different pens. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

OK, so the IRS lame duck was testifying yesterday. I didn’t watch the whole thing because, to be honest,I like keeping my blood pressure someplace near normal, and I knew I’d be able to catch up. What seems clear is that the IRS has played politics, either on their own, or under direction from Treasury and/or the White House. Either way it is very damaging to Americans trust in the government. The IRS is, of course, the governmental equivalent of the boogeyman, equally disliked by everyone. The targets appear to be Conservatives and Christians, which probably surprises nobody. Probably the best comment I’ve seen comes from Peggy Noonan, Hattip to HDR

PEGGY NOONAN: This Is No Ordinary Scandal: Political abuse of the IRS threatens the basic integrity of our government.

“Everyone involved in this abuse of power should pay a price, because if they don’t, the politicization of the IRS will continue—forever. If it is not stopped now, it will never stop. And if it isn’t stopped, no one will ever respect or have even minimal faith in the revenue-gathering arm of the U.S. government again.”

You all know that I’m one of those people who insists on personal responsibility, good and bad. The reason for that should be apparent now as you watch everybody in the executive departments running around making excuses and blaming each other. But you know, Rep. Mike Kelly (R, PA) doesn’t by it either. He is sort of an old-timer like me and had a pretty good life, champion fullback in western Pennsylvania high school football, good enough for a Notre Dame scholarship (till an injury ended his career), worked in his dad’s business till 1995 when he bought the business, and ended up in Congress. Just what the founders had in mind, a successful man serving the people towards the end of his career. He’s been a good Congressman too, and he had a few things to tell  IRS Commissioner Steven Miller today at the hearing, having to do with the situation. Watch

My takeaway from this is the difference between a man who has earned a living in the private sector where he had responsibility for his results, and I’d bet my last dollar that he was good at it, and a fourth grader who is totally unprepared, and trying to claim that the dog ate his homework. Frankly I would be just as horrified if they were targeting liberals, it doesn’t matter.

Executive departments and agencies must do their very best to be as objective as possible.

Actual competence would be a good thing also, of course, and the IG didn’t look too bad today. But the civil service and the politicians running the departments that are involved, or involved in shifting the blame around in this (and the other scandals running) are beneath contempt. In the poorest run company I’ve ever been involved with in the private sector they would be fired within in a week, as they should be.

And just to make everybody sleep better, they have decided that the woman who ran the witch hunt in the IRS would be the proper person to oversee the implementation of Obamacare in the IRS.

I suppose that’s what we get when we hire a chief executive who has never run anything as big as a lemonade stand before.

If this keeps up, it can only mean one thing…

Götterdämmerung, and no Valhalla, either

Related articles

• PEGGY NOONAN: This Is No Ordinary Scandal: Political abuse of the IRS threatens the basic integrit… (pjmedia.com)
• Noonan: This Is About Trust (drudge.com)