Seems that the mayor of Toledo, Ohio has a problem with the Marine Corps doing drills in his city, and has ordered them to leave.
The only appropriate response from the Marine Corps is: “Make us.”
Friday Kipling
This passage is taken from the story of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, from Kipling’s Jungle Book. In this passage, our hero meets evil in the form of Nag the cobra. He stares into the eyes of evil, and knows that it is his lot in life to fight it and defeat it. And he never backs down.
Here begins the lesson.
He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose’s business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.
Here is an excellent article I found this morning on The American Thinker.
In this article, US Army Major Greg Reeson responds to bleating screed written by supposed historian Howard Zinn. Among Mr. Zinn’s absurd notions are the silly suggestions that Switzerland lacks military power, that American Exceptionalism is a fallacy, and that we should be embarrassed both of our history and what we as a nation have become.
Major Reeson disagrees, and so do we. If Mr. Zinn has such a distaste for American Exceptionalism, we would like to take the opportunity to remind him there are plenty other places on this ball of mud to hang his hat. He needn’t salute the colors on his way out the door, but no amount of hand-wringing or bleating on his part cause me embarrassment when I do. Mr. Zinn’s hasty departure to greener pastures can only make the place better.
Major Reeson’s article is right on target. We are proud and blessed to be here, and we know that if we had been born anywhere else on this planet, we would have made it our business to come here.
Here is the money quote from the article:
A former commanding officer of mine summed it up beautifully when he said, “When we deploy our forces, one of two things happens: people either say ‘Thank God, they’re coming, or they say, ‘Oh shit, they’re coming.’” Both speak to the greatness of this nation.
A day that lives in infamy.
In a few hours time, December 7th 2006 will fall upon Pearl Harbor. 2471 Americans died in that attack, but America came to life. The Nips visited us with violence, and we returned it with a portion a good deal larger than they could enjoy. The attack was an act of war, and we responded with appropriate righteous fury. We take this time to remember and honor our grandfathers and great grandfathers who were slaughtered that day. We do not look back in mourning of our dead, but in anger at the cowardly act by our enemy.
It is interesting to note that during the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, Hawaii was not a US state, but was a US territory.
We call into contrast the reaction to the attack on the second USS Cole (DDG 67) in Aden, Yemen on October 12, 2000. 17 sailors were killed, and 39 others were injured. America sniffled, whimpered, then lost interest and got bored with the whole affair. President Clinton derided it as an “act of terrorism” when it was, in fact, an act of war. Neither the Clinton administration nor the Bush administration after it did much in the way of vengeance with respect to the Cole and her sailors.
This is emblematic of America’s current turmoil. The followers of the false prophet (may pieces of swine be cast unto him) have declared war on us. The Cole attack was an opening salvo of that war. Six years later, we are having debates about wether or not we are “just” to fight the enemy. Half of the country still believes that they have seen the enemy, and it is we.
Whilst we debate, our real enemies laugh and plot. The glittering monuments to colossal heathenism that laid the plan to destroy the USS Cole escaped a Yemeni prison in February of this year. They are still at large.
Our righteous fury and our desire to face and defeat the enemy have become flaccid with the fusillade of erectile disfunction advertisements in our electronic and print media.
The aphorism that “Old people know stuff” is true. Our grandfathers and great grandfathers knew how to fight. They knew when to fight. It is rumored that the Nips did not invade mainland America because they knew that there would be “a rifle behind every blade of grass.” This implied a skilled and committed man behind the trigger of each rifle.
The followers of the false prophet (may pieces of swine be cast unto him) follow the pattern of destroying the lives of uninvolved people to force political change. Their goal is nothing less than global sharia. If you think the NSA “warrantless wiretap” program is bad, you just wait.
As bad as it is now, I think that we still have time. We are only losing this war because it is boring and we are not interested in admitting that it exists. It is time to come alive. It may be a bad war, but hey, it is the only one we’ve got!
As for my blade of grass, it is currently covered by a 1944 Mosin Nagant M44 Carbine. This is an extremely unattractive piece, of Russian manufacture. It was built by slave labor in the Izhevsk Arsenal. It is powerful, reliable, accurate enough, and currently very cheap in the US market. Very good examples of this piece may be had for as little as $80, and surplus Soviet bloc ammunition for it is ridiculously cheap in bulk at less than 10 cents per round.
To my fellow citizens, I issue the challenge to regain that proud fighting spirit of our forefathers. In 2007, plant a flagpole in your yard. Fly “Old Glory” at the top, fly Gadsden’s Flag below, and let any follower of the false prophet (may pieces of swine be cast upon him) that your blade of grass is covered.
The new title…
Perhaps you will notice that I’ve changed the title of this web log from “My Spot for Venting About Stupid Things No One Cares About” to “The Daft Musings Hall.”
This is largely due to my extensive work with the French Resistance, and the fact that my Series 5 “Allo, Allo” discs have finally arrived… Not that it is hard for me to resist the French, you will understand.
That got me thinking again about the fine broadcasts performed by Mr. Crosby during WWII at the Kraft Music Hall. In deference to that, I’m happy to bring you “The Daft Musings Hall.”
Listening to these recordings makes one thing abundantly clear in my mind. Something has gone terribly wrong in this country over the last 60 years. We will always have struggles as a nation. Today, we fight the same fascist enemy with a different face. We didn’t want to fight then, as we don’t want to fight now. But then, we knew what we had to do, and we did it. And our countrymen, even the entertainers, WANTED us to win!
Today, we are engaged in battle. Many people in this country don’t understand why. Many have forgotten or ignored more than 30 years of attacks and aggression by people who hate us because we are free and successful. Many don’t even believe it is real. Many more people in this country think that we deserve it, or that we caused it, or that we had it coming… precisely because we are free and successful.
Perhaps the biggest failure of the greatest generation was that they were too successful at providing better lives for their children. We have become too soft. Baby-boomers grew up in a more comfortable world than their parents. The next generation grew up with less hardship, still. My generation, with even less. We demand air-conditioning, padded chairs, and perpetual entertainment from TV, iPods, computer games, and the internet. It has gotten to the point that we’re unable to discern right from wrong, because “right and wrong” are anachronistic abstract concepts that have long since been washed out of the common fabric of our nation.
We are being taught from our youngest years to “open” our minds. We are taught that the only true wrong that a person can commit is to be “judgmental.” Political Correctness is eroding our language, as Mr. Eric Blair predicted. Worse still, many people confuse simple crassitude with being Politically Incorrect… Another example of the erosion our language. Our institutions of higher learning are producing astounding numbers of people who think they are smarter than they actually are. I think that it is attributable to my proposition that once you’ve both removed high standards and made people feel guilty about judging anything, you’ve lost the ability to discern brilliance and the flicker of thought from banal platitudes.
I’m not going to pretend that I know how to solve these problems. I like my iPod and my air-conditioning. The only thing that I can do is to point-out the problems I see, and try to identify them explicitly. The first rule of trouble-shooting is that you identify the problem, then cut it in half. I’m not even sure how to do that in this case, but I will at least offer-up the following positive affirmations:
- It is good and acceptable to turn off your television. You probably won’t die from it.
- Read a book. You’ll increase your chances of stumbling upon an actual thought.
- It is good and acceptable to be critical of people who do the wrong things.
- It is good and acceptable to be proud of your country.
- It is good and acceptable to want your country to succeed.
- It is bad and unacceptable to feel guilty over being successful and free.
- Our way of life is good. Even if we are too soft. It deserves to be protected from those who would destroy it.
- Spreading success and freedom throughout the world is NOT fascist, nor is it imperialist. If you think that it is, you’ve been watching too much television.
