In 1984, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, President Ronald Reagan spoke of the sacrifices Americans made in the quest of freedom for the European continent. Now in 2009, we see that Europeans discarded much of the potential liberty won by the Allies. Europeans first compromised their personal liberties by instituting socialist policies. Today, they continue to relinquish their potential freedoms to the demands of a growing Euroarabia. Witness the judicial and bureaucratic persecution of Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders for his outspoken opposition to the violence associated with radical Islam. In the U.S., we call such speech “free speech,” a value of extreme importance.
Disgraceful as the European socialist path may be, the United States embarked on its own path of socialism with the establishment of the Social Security Administration and subsequent social programs. U.S. socialism is suddenly in fast forward with the election of a president in lock-step with the European cultural version of Russian Roulette.
The American people have no one to blame except themselves for electing governmental representatives and a president who willfully discards their personal freedoms in favor of a socialist form of government and a weak foreign policy that invites our enemies to do their will on our culture and society.
Pres. Barack Obama is bent on apologizing to the world for all sorts of things that the U.S. has or has not done. In the spirit of Obama, it would be appropriate on this historic anniversary to offer an apology to our European brethren for having killed European citizens in the quest to liberate them from Nazi fascism.
The liberation gave Europeans the opportunity to improve their level of personal liberties to match the American model. Europe did not choose to do so.
Disdainful as I am of the European model, I am reminded of the adage that “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” I am empathetic with freedom loving Europeans who watched impotently these many years as their governments pandered away the hard earned potential for personal liberty.
Sixty five years after the Allied troops waded ashore and bled on the beaches of Normandy for Europeans, the majority American electorate is eroding away its own hard earned liberties originally paid for with the blood of the American founders over two hundred years ago.
Our forefathers threw off the yoke of tyranny and struck out on a new adventure so well justified in the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 1
In the long run, the insidious relinquishment of liberty is no less dangerous than the boot heel of conquering tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson stated, "The tree of life must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
What will it take to reverse the deterioration of the United States of America? Our liberties certainly need to be refreshed.
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1. Declaration of Independence
Mama, take this badge off of me
I cant use it anymore.
Its gettin dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama, put my guns in the ground
I cant shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin down
I feel like Im knockin on heavens door.
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Bob Dylan sang these lyrics as mortally wounded Sheriff Colin Baker staggers toward a river once destined to float him away in retirement.
Carson City Marshal Walter J. Thibido needlessly worries about what will happen to his family should he be killed by former lawman and shootist John Bernard (J.B.) Books.
Two shotgun blasts in the back mortally wound J.B. Books. He nods in acknowledgement when Gilliom Rogers throws away the handgun he just used to kill Books’ assailant.
Failing to capture a serial killer, Sheriff Ed Tom Bell retires and he and his wife sit at the kitchen table while he recounts a dream he had about his deceased father, a Sheriff in his own right, leading Ed Bell into eternity.
All of this in three movies, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, The Shootist and No Country for Old Men, which examine the close of police careers steeped in violence.
One of my law enforcement brothers stated, “Previously, I was a hired gun. Now I am a member of a community.” He’s still a law enforcement officer, but he’s learned something.
Pat Garrett and Sheriff Baker both represented the “hired gun” theme. Garrett alternated between outlaw and lawman. Baker returned the “piece of gold” he required to assist Pat Garrett in hunting for Billy the Kid.
Books was seen by the public as a shootist, a gunman, and thus perhaps a character not dissimilar to the opportunist and morally bankrupt Pat Garrett. The original The Shootist screenplay called for J.B. Books to backshoot an adversary. But, John Wayne refused to play it that way explaining that he had never shot anyone in the back in any movie that he had ever done.
Further arguing in opposition to the characterization, Books embodied the ideals of self sufficiency and fairness in purpose and action. He stated, "I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." But, what he did not say is that he would not abide the same done to those who cannot defend themselves. And, that is the role of the moral law enforcement officer.
Real cop life does have an element of the “hired gun” in it because society empowers officers with the authority to use deadly force when necessary to protect life. Fortunately, the anti-heroic moral relativism showcased by the spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood is not representative of modern police work. Eastwood’s work virtually ended the idealized good guy vs. bad guy storyline of the prior Western genre of films.
Most officers don’t think of themselves as hired guns, and they are just trying to get through the day by doing the right thing and not getting killed. Marshal Thibido and Sheriff Bell were such characters.
Upon retirement, some cops, like Sheriff Bell, struggle to adjust to a civilian life style incongruent with the essence of their adult identity creating a new void in their lives.
A dear friend and retired career law enforcement warrior warned me that I am “too invested” in the political issues enveloping and suffocating the soul of career law enforcement officers. And, perhaps I am too invested for my own good. It’s not in the script for Baker, Books and Bell, but I have a passion that is reason enough for me, grandchildren.
When I am knocking on heaven’s door, I want to be able to know that I made my best effort to influence the system to protect my grandbabies from those who wish them harm. I want to impart something to my grandbabies that will help them cope with the world’s dimming prospects for liberty.
Until that door opens for me, I pray that I retain the mental capacity to wield my pen in warning. That’s one way to address a threat.
When it becomes my time to only carry a retired law enforcement badge, I will not lay down my guns discarding the duty I accepted all these years as a hired gun for the American people. By God, if I can carry a gun for strangers, I can certainly carry one for my kin. That’s a second way to address a threat.
I was in a public park the other day for a family gathering. There was a gun in my pocket. Nobody knew about it, but it was there if a Wolf needed neutralizing.
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." And, I won’t let anyone do it to my loved ones.
The honored badge will be in my wallet and the gun will still be in my hand when it is my turn to step through the door.
“Don’t tread on me” is definitely not the motto of Pres. Barack Obama. It is beginning to look like Obama’s is more comfortable as a “milk toast.”
The Somali pirates didn't suddenly appear over the last few years, they evolved over more than a decade of trial and error. A major assist with this is that the international anti-piracy patrol off Somalia is obsessed with avoiding violence, or punishment. The warships rarely fire on pirates, even when they catch the pirates in the act. When pirates are captured, they are usually released. When four armed pirates, and an American ship captain, were cornered recently, the president of the United States would not allow force to be used, until after first letting negotiations proceed for three days. Finally, on the fourth day, a local commander put his career on the line, and ordered the SEAL snipers to kill the recalcitrant pirates, and end the standoff. But that was the exception. 1
The President risked the life of Captain Phillips for three days? According to the quote above, it appears that the Naval Commander acted without the President’s concurrence.
I give the President the benefit of the doubt. In the future, perhaps the President can just be honest and say, “Baaa, Baaa.” The possibility that the President is far worse is too horrifying to contemplate.
“Uu-ah!” to the Naval Commander.
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1. The Silent Somali Piracy Pact
I dubbed the Twentieth Century the “Century of the Wolf.” A hundred years despoiled and drenched in blood by Wolves in the macro. Opening with German aggression and World War I, it continued: with World War II, courtesy of German, Italian, and Japanese fascism; and endured the ravages of Communism; and closed with the rise of Islamo-fascism.
Standing between the people and totalitarianism are SheepDogs. The U.S. Commander-in-Chief is supposed to be the top SheepDog because he is at the head of the Free World.
Let’s review: What is this SheepDog and Wolf imagery?
Most people in the world are Sheep, and they share that commonality regardless of whether they live in freedom or under the suppressive thumb of tyranny. Sheep are everyday people struggling down the path of life looking to provide for their families. The key characteristic of Sheep is that they do not prepare for nor actively engage in self-protection. The ostrich with his head stuck in the sand is a competing analogy.
Sheep are preyed upon by Wolves who include criminals, fascists (Islamo and otherwise), and Communist tyrants. Wolves come in micro and macro versions, individuals and political systems respectively.
Wolves and SheepDogs share common ground in that they are both predators, but 180 degrees apart on the moral compass. SheepDogs battle Wolves and protect the Sheep by running toward the Wolf’s gunfire; gunfire which sends Sheep stampeding in the opposite direction.
There are not enough SheepDogs to protect the people. Fortunately, under dire communal circumstances a portion of the Sheep rise to the occasion by responding to a SheepDog attribute hidden deep within their Sheep DNA. If it were not for this covert characteristic, society on a world-wide scale would degenerate into anarchy and despotism. On the flip side, another portion of the Sheep likewise responds to and facilitates the leadership of enslaving despots.
What are freedom loving people to do when the default leader of the Free World does not demonstrate a SheepDog persona, and he panders to and sucks up to the Wolf leaders of antagonist countries?
Pres. Barack Obama’s recent trips abroad don’t portend well for freedom loving people when he doesn’t see the necessity to underscore traditional American values, values that lead the world to freedom. Where was the President’s strong response when the Latin American Wolf pups nipped at his heels?
Latin American leaders railed against the U.S. during President Barack Obama’s first trip to the region, turning what was intended to mark a new direction in relations into a history lesson that chastised “Yankee troop” interventions and U.S.-dictated economic policies. 1
Instead the President cheerfully accepted a leftist book excoriating the United States and Europe. If the United States had not actively combated the spread of Communism, more Latin American countries would have endured the Communist slaughter visited upon Cuba.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chaves, who last month called Obama an "ignoramus” when it comes to Latin America, today gave Obama a Spanish-language copy of Uruguayan historian Eduardo Galeano’s book “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.” 1
The Twenty-first Century finds the Wolf alive and snarling. Too bad the world’s greatest hope for freedom is now led by a president who appears all too willing to suckle and take comfort at the tit of leftism, fascism, Communism and tyranny. The new President is actively dismantling the previously gutted intelligence and military apparatus that was reviving under the leadership of President George W. Bush.
Samuel Adams would roll over in his grave if he knew what the American public has done to his beloved country. Heed Adams’ words,
"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!"
With the backdrop of a morally bankrupt main stream media, a combination of Sheep passivism, leftist ideology, disdain for the arrogant Clintons, and American voter ignorance and shallowness came together and elected a slick talking, no credentialed, minor league Senator who had the good fortune to come along at a time when Americans are eager to demonstrate that they have moved beyond the corrosiveness of slavery and racial prejudice.
The survival of the Free World depends upon a SheepDog American president. A presidential Sheep or a possible Wolf in Sheep’s clothing is suicidal. We lived through the “Century of the Wolf,” but it looks as if the Wolves are breeding, and we are in for a rough Twenty-first Century.
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1. Obama Gets History Lesson From Latin American Leaders (Update1)
Update 4/21/09: After doing the research for this piece, I thought that the phrase “Century of the Wolf” was first created by me. Subsequently, I’ve found a reference showing that Osip Emil'evich Mandel'shtam (1891-1938?) used the phrase as the title of a poem.
Without making a judgment on the performance of our military at the site of the Somali pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage in the life raft, I wish that the military was in the position to cancel the tickets of the pirates when the Captain jumped overboard in his bid to escape. A Navy patrol boat could have laid down suppressive fire with the largest caliber weapons on board and not released the trigger until the lifeboat was reduced to flotsam. Then the Navy could have plucked the grinning Captain Phillips out of the water before the sharks began feasting upon the Somali pirate detritus.Update 4/12/09: Navy SEAL Snipers hit the pirates and the Navy rescued Cpt. Phillips. Uu-ah!
Is the March Madness insanity over? Oh well, it is college basketball and has some redeeming value. But, what can you say about those pompous, self-centered basketball pros who are worshiped by Americans without a life?
Get back to the real value of sports. Watch this video of a basketball story worth seeing.
