Mark Steyn, "Laws are for the Little People"

I tip my hat to John Derbyshire, who is one of my favorite writers, for tipping me to this article in his weekly "Radio Derb".  As he said, "If I could make every adult in the country read it, I would."  Having read it, I tend to agree.  The vast corruption of this country's political caste certainly does not begin and end with Hillary Clinton, but she sure as hell serves as the prime example of how it metastasizes within a society that has been not-so-gently prodded to ignore her malfeasance.  Please give this article a read: http://www.steynonline.com/7564/laws-are-for-the-little-people

Post coitum, omne animal triste, est.

 

 

Sebastian Junger at TED

 

A very compelling argument, and Mr. Junger gets almost all of it right, but for one thing: The answer to the questions, "Why would they want to go do that?" Or, "Why would they want to go back?"

 

The answer that Mr. Junger doesn't talk about, because he doesn't necessarily understand it, is this: Imagine an ER nurse, or an ER doctor, who trains to save trauma patients. They go to school, they learn a ton, they get their license. What if they were only able to work on computer simulators, but never able to save actual people? How compelled would they be, after years of such training, to actually work on a real, live patient? Imagine the frustration of training, and training, and training, but never being able to practice their art.

 

Now, ask yourself, "do they love the fact that people get hurt in a traumatic way? Do they revel in the carnage of day-to-day life?" Well, of course not.

 

Neither, in a similar way, do we hope to go and fight. We hope that it doesn't happen, as the ER Nurse prays everyone stays safe while she's on shift. But when it does happen, and we are sent to go and kill the enemies of this nation that have been identified to us, there is a satisfaction that is not unlike the Nurse's satisfaction...

 

We spent years preparing ourselves for this. We've trained ourselves in a harsh way to be ready for this. Today, when we come to grips with the enemy of our nation, we will be who we have always wished we could be. For that man to our left and to our right. Because, in our stunted little society, each of us would rather die than be found lacking in the eyes of those men... and the rest of the world be damned. In the end, there are two kinds of people: my people (the men to my left and right), and everybody else.

 

After the fight is over, as he mentions, there is a period where we all wish to go back and be that effective. It isn't that we want to go back and kill. Nor is it that we want to go back and die. We want to feel what we did then, and Aristotle was good enough to coin a phrase that captures it perfectly: POST COITUM, OMNE ANIMAL TRISTE, EST. [After sex, every animal is sad]

 

Aristotle was smart enough to recognize that copulation has many parallels. It is something big. As we say in the Marine Corps, it is a "significant emotional event". Those events are what characterizes each of us. Because war is so big, so terrible, and lasts for so long, those of us who prosecute it tend to allow that event to identify us, and we miss it. Because many of us feel, as we lay safe in our beds this night, that we were never more effective than when we practiced our art on those fields, and many of us spend the rest of our lives in an attempt to find that effectiveness again.

 

If Only...

 

-Unclean

Your Austrian Economics Public Service Announcement

 

 

Your quarterly Austrian Economic Public Service announcement: The link below will take you to the Mises Institute, and a page that highlights the contributions of a man named Friedrich A. Hayek. There is a .pdf file available on that page that is free, and that will download a condensed copy of Hayek's "Road to Serfdom". Dude won the Nobel, back when it meant something. Give it a read.

 

https://mises.org/library/road-serfdom-0#

Day 19,080...

 

 

 

Day 19,080: These people seem unable to understand that individual freedom, (defined as the ability of a man to do whatever he wants provided it does not intrude upon the freedom of some other) will result in the optimal state for all men. Despite my sincere attempts to explain this to many, I constantly argue against the idea that the Leviathan has some duty to decide our fate, that we owe the Leviathan some debt. I despair that the teachings of Locke will ever be accepted again. That the fact that the body of the Constitution contains a legitimate description of the duties of the Leviathan, and that the Amendments to the Constitution describe the tangible limits on the Leviathan, will ever be commonly understood. After 19,000 days, I’ve reached a point where I despair that this ship can be righted or that it’s people will demand that the Leviathan heel to the document that founded it.

 

I find these days, in this eye of madness and corruption, that my solace is only in the fact that I am readily equipped and trained for the defense of myself and my family. It saddens me that, with the exception of the extended family that has adopted me over the past twenty years spent in the Marine Corps, that there is a huge number of people who are clueless, or inexplicably accepting of the presence of the corruption, who are willing to go along with anything that might guarantee their “safety”, and who will sell the rest of us down the River to Hell. 

 

 

19,080 days on this earth has taught me what is important: My Cause, as it was exemplified in my Oath of Office. Make no mistake, despite my temperate conversations with you:

I remember my Oath. Every single word of it.

The Legacy That We Owe.

The Legacy That We Owe.

Larry Adams·Monday, March 14, 2016

I've seen it on Leno, I've seen it on the Daily Show, and I've seen it on Kimmel. You've seen it too. Camera crews, combing the nation, interviewing people who don't know who won the fucking War Between the States, who we fought during War 2, or (for fuck's sake) who WASHINGTON DC is named after. Afterwards, everyone clucks their tongue and shakes their head about "How Bad the Public Schools Are"...

People, please pay attention: the government is not going to teach your children anything other than how to grasp the handle and pull it. Their interests are completed by having done so. Your child will graduate their conditioning...err, um, I mean their CURRICULUM... knowing only how to obey, and how to assimilate, and how to follow orders. Public Schools don’t want, or appreciate free-thinkers. They don’t want anyone to upset the applecart of modern progressivism. They sure as hell don’t care about turning out anyone who can think for his or herself. If you are okay with that, then you need to re-evaluate your place in the universe because your children, in that condition. are nothing more than cattle, and without your attention, they will not be prepared for anything other than being fed by another and being beholden to that person for their very existence. In doing so, you are resigning them to be slaves.

So, realizing the propensity of the government to attempt to condition my children thusly, I’ve become involved in teaching my children “how to think” instead of allowing the government to train them “what to think”. Because, teaching them to think as an individual, the proper perception of the world around us, a work-ethic, and the place of government in the life of an individual is MY responsibility to teach MY children, and it’s your responsibility as well. Get off your ass, pay attention to the tripe that is being fed to them by the Leviathan, train your kids up right, and expect a lot out of them. It ain’t cruel, by God. It’s LIFE that you’re teaching them.

Terry McElwain put up an awesome post about “What is your why?”

 

Your “why”, when you have kids, is to teach them to be effective. To teach them our culture and our history. To understand why we weep when we watch The Alamo. To understand why Memorial Day is a difficult thing. To know which individuals put their life on the line to invent this country in the late 18th century, (and even to know that the fucking “18th century” is the same goddamn thing as “the 1700s”.) To understand that such a miracle had NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED in the 3000+ years of human history before it.   That the strife, action, and self-awareness of YOUR life was only a preamble to set the condition for THEIR strife, action, and self-awareness. And so on. Because that is the only way that we give back to the people who taught us...

Your “why”, if you have managed to procreate, is to train and educate your children in the ways of our people. To paraphrase a very good John Wayne line: Train them that they won’t be wronged, they won’t be insulted, and they won’t be laid a hand on; and that they won’t do these things to other people, and that they ought to require the same from everyone else they meet.  Your “why”, if you’re teaching the next generation, should focus on making your children self-sufficient, able to communicate clearly, and jealous of their individuality.

That mentorship is the debt that we owe to those from whom WE learned it. Pay it back.

-Unclean