Don't bring a gun to a knife fight.

Or, if you do, make sure you know how to use the gun.

This guy evidently did not.

An armed robber is hospitalized after employees at a West Virginia pizzeria stabbed him several times.

Hat tip: Don Surber.

Congress ! America

A Congress That Has No Use for America:

For example, even the Speaker of the House can't tell a Canadian uniform from an American one.

Another example: Congressional staffers hate Americans, whether those who dare to tour the capital, or those who oppose their favored policies.

That crisis point is getting close. The political class deserves what is coming. The rest of us must prepare, that what follows the crisis upholds the values and traditions of our great American way.

The Collapse

The Collapse:

Almost a year ago, I wrote a long piece called "Time for a Change." Cassandra spent a week responding to it (starting here). It began:

I was talking to my dear friend Sovay tonight, and as always, talking with her helped to shake things loose that I haven't been able to put into words before. We were talking about the Foley situation, and I heard myself saying something I realize I believe: I have lost all confidence in the Federal institutions governing our country, with the sole exception of the military.

Today, America has arrived to the same place:

Consider the latest Gallup Poll, which finds only 14 percent of the American people have "a great deal of" confidence in Congress or "quite a lot," compared to 19 percent a year ago. That is lowest confidence rating Gallup has ever recorded for Congress since the survey firm began measuring public confidence in major American institutions in 1973.

Congress is far from alone in suffering plummeting confidence ratings. The presidency dropped from 33 percent to 25 percent and the Supreme Court from 40 percent to 34 percent. The "fourth branch" of government, the mainstream media, also has declining public confidence ratings. Television news dropped from 31 percent to 23 percent, while newspapers were down to 22 percent, compared to 30 percent a year ago.

The highest confidence levels were for the military at 69 percent[.]

Last year, I said I thought we needed a Constitutional convention. I still think we do. It might be worth reviewing the old piece, though, to see if a year's thinking yields additional ideas. If anyone would like to discuss it, so would I.

Rodeo Song

Rodeo Song:

Cause you were World Saddle Bronc Champion
Back in Nineteen and Forty-Six
Pass the Hat, boys... he's gone.

We gonna carve him a marker
With classic spur links
So they'll know, here lies the great
Jerry Ambler.

From "Jerry Ambler," by Ian Tyson with Gord Maxwell and Gord Matthews.

Bloodspite remembers a childhood hero. Here lies the great Jim Shoulders, "The Babe Ruth of Rodeo," cowboy and minister.

Racism

More on Racism:

Today I was looking at the Georgia tourist board page, and noticed something odd: there appear to be no photos of black people, even in the photos of south and central Georgia, which are heavily black in their populations. The sole exception I've found is the page on Civil Rights history; otherwise, not one page I've looked at, whether it shows single people or group shots, includes any blacks at all.

Not even the photo from Underground Atlanta. I mean, this isn't an accident. That must have taken some doing.

I presume this is a marketing decision, as I was telling Cassandra earlier today, because there are also no photos of fat or unattractive people (which would also take some doing at Underground). I presume they think that means that most people with money to spend on a vacation in America won't want to see any black (or fat) people.

That says something about the continuing relevance of "unconscious racism," lest the last post be taken as dismissing the concept. Of course it exists; it just seems to me that a man ought to be judged by his actions, not his desires.

Racism

Tyranny, Racism, and Anti-Racism:

An interesting point from Reflecting Light, on the dangers posed by anti-racism when it becomes an overriding concern. Without endorsing the evils of racism, freedom demands a certain amount of just leaving people alone -- even when they are wrong; or even when they're right, but only because they take time to think about it:

Candidates are asked to put images of black and white faces into categories of "good/positive" and "bad/negative" using arrow keys on the keyboard. By getting them to respond to prompts as quickly as possible, the test aims to side-step what is known as "cognitive control" - the brief, but significant time lapse needed to give an "acceptable" answer rather than an instinctive or "honest" one. The programme then automatically calculates a "response-index" that indicates a level of racial bias.

The test is being developed at London Metropolitan University and is aimed at the public sector and multinational companies. Its developers say it is harder to deceive than many of the psychometric tests used to gauge personality type. The test was condemned last night as a potential "Kafkaesque nightmare" where individuals are penalised for thoughts in their deep subconscious.

The blogger notes that the test is designed to be made available to employers. "In other words," he says, "you can be rejected for employment because of ideas you've never expressed, and that you don't even know you have." But isn't it the keenest expression of virtue to do right in spite of having a drive to do wrong?

Robert Conquest, the great historian of the incalculable damage inflicted on humanity by the Communist and Nazi regimes, has pointed out that these disasters arose not primarily from inherent social problems, but from solutions — solutions that hardened into ideologies, then one-party states based on those ideologies, then into tyranny.

This is something that ought to be considered carefully. Someone who has chosen consciously to do the right thing ought not to be punished, for some deep but unacted-upon impulse. This should be true for racism, for alcoholism, or for a drive to spend the rent on gambling. If what you do is right, that ought to be more than enough.

H/t: Roach.

DBB

The Dangerous Book for Boys:

Glenn Reynolds was recently taken to task by someone or other for having referenced The Dangerous Book for Boys 'a disturbing 17 times.' I found a copy at a bookstore down in Atlanta today, and picked it up to look it over.

I bought it. Anybody who thinks it is 'disturbing' to talk a lot about this book either hasn't seen it, or doesn't have any idea what a boy needs to know to become a good young man.

Enthusiasm isn't my usual thing, so let me just say: this book is the best book for boys that I've ever read, and better than I thought any such book could be. It has very nearly everything: how to make a paper airplane. How to talk to girls. Short descriptions of several of the world's greatest battles, with illustrations of unit positions. How to identify common insects. The Declaration of Independence, with a proper reference to the Declaration of Arbroath and a history of Robert the Bruce. How to build a treehouse. Three sections on proper grammar (the introduction to the first reads, quite rightly, 'It is suprising how satisfying it can be to know right from wrong'). "A Short History of Artillery." An introduction to Shakespeare.

How to build a bow an arrow from scratch; how to hunt, kill, clean and cook a rabbit; and how to tan its hide.

Scipio Africanus. Land Navigation. How to play poker, and calculate the odds.

Seventeen times? A hundred times would not be too often.

UPDATE: Miss Ladybug has another book for younger boys.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day:

It hasn't been a great one here; but that is part of fatherhood, too.

Dad29 links to a unpopular speaker, quoting another -- apparently the only person ever thrown off the Oprah show. Here's what he said:

There is only one force in this world that is capable of controlling a teenage male: his father. Women, you can either let black men rule their households as husbands and fathers or hide in your homes with doors locked as they rule the streets in roving gangs.

OK, that's explosive. It manages to link the two most dangerous topics in America -- race and sex -- in a way that both endorses an unpopular viewpoint, and asserts that there is no other good alternative.

Let me repost, in honor of Father's Day and in the hope of relocating the discussion to firmer ground, an old post called "Social Harmony."

I was reading an article the other day, in the local newspaper, about an elderly Korean gentleman who has moved into town and opened a martial arts studio. He chastened the reporter who had come to interview him not to suggest that the martial arts were 'all about fighting.' "No!" he said. "The purpose is social harmony."

That is exactly right. The secret of social harmony is simple: Old men must be dangerous.

Very nearly all the violence that plagues, rather than protects, society is the work of young males between the ages of fourteen and thirty. A substantial amount of the violence that protects rather than plagues society is performed by other members of the same group. The reasons for this predisposition are generally rooted in biology, which is to say that they are not going anywhere, in spite of the current fashion that suggests doping half the young with Ritalin.

The question is how to move these young men from the first group (violent and predatory) into the second (violent, but protective). This is to ask: what is the difference between a street gang and the Marine Corps, or a thug and a policeman? In every case, we see that the good youths are guided and disciplined by old men. This is half the answer to the problem.

But do we not try to discipline and guide the others? If we catch them at their menace, don't we put them into prisons or programs where they are monitored, disciplined, and exposed to "rehabilitation"? The rates of recidivism are such that we can't say that these programs are successful at all, unless the person being "rehabilitated" wants and chooses to be. And this is the other half of the answer: the discipline and guidance must be voluntarily accepted. The Marine enlists; the criminal must likewise choose to accept what is offered.

The Eastern martial arts provide an experience very much like that of Boot Camp. The Master, like the Drill Instructor, is a disciplined man of great personal prowess. He is an exemplar. He asks nothing of you he can't, or won't, do himself--and there are very many things he can and will do that are beyond you, though you have all the help of youth and strength. It is on this ground that acceptance of discipline is won. It is the ground of admiration, and what wins the admiration of these young men is martial prowess.

Everyone who was once a young man will understand what I mean. Who could look forward, at the age of sixteen or eighteen, to a life of obedience, dressed in suits or uniforms, sitting or standing behind a desk? How were you to respect or care about the laws, or the wishes, of men who had accepted such a life? The difficulty is compounded in poor communities, where the jobs undertaken are often menial. How can you respect your father if your father is a servant? Would you not be accepting a place twice as low as his? Would you not rather take up the sword, and cut yourself a new place? Meekness in the old men of the community unmakes the social order: it encourages rebellion from the young.

The traditional martial arts tend to teach young men to undertake flashy and impressive, but not terribly effective, fighting techniques. Only as you grow older do the masters of the art teach you the real secrets--the subtle, quick, physically simple ways in which the human body can be destroyed. In this way, the old retain their power over the young--although they lack the speed and strength, they have in discipline in training more than enough to maintain the order. Social harmony is maintained in the dojo: the young revere the old, and seek to emulate them. Your father may be a servant, but he is still a warrior--and a more dangerous one than you. The father, being past that age in which biology makes us vicious, guides the son or neighbor to protect society rather than to rend it. It is not particularly different in the military.

If we would have a stable society, we must have dangerous old men. This means that, if you are yourself on your way to becoming an old man, you have a duty to society to begin your preparations. The martial arts are not the only road--my own grandfather did it through a simple combination of physical strength, personal discipline, and an accustomed habit of going armed about his business. There was never a more impressive figure--or, at least, there was never a boy more impressed than was I.

The martial virtues are exactly the ones needed. By a happy coincidence, having a society whose members adhere to and encourage those virtues makes us freer as well--we need fewer police, fewer courts, fewer prisons, fewer laws, and fewer lawyers. This is what Aristotle meant when he said that the virtues of the man are reflected in the society. Politics and ethics are naturally joined.

Happy Father's Day.

Bring Pain

Bring the Pain:

I want to hear these Marines grunt. Help make it happen.

Not Dead Yet

Not Dead Yet:

Well, the immigration bill is back. The fact that like 70% of Americans across the electorate hate it? That means nothing to those elected to, er, represent Americans.

BloodSpite, who has been leading a charge against the bill, has a new post on the subject. I'll just say this: I can't support any bill of this sort. I can see why we might want to allow Mexican immigration to continue at roughly the same levels we've seen -- we can't afford a failed Mexican state, and US cash is propping up its economy. Even by the lowest estimates, we're talking billions of dollars.

It's enough money, and enough of an influence, that former President Fox regularly referred to the same people we call "illegal immigrants" as "heroes."

The problem is that these amnesty bills don't recognize that our real reason for allowing this isn't a desire for immigrants, but a desire not to see Mexico collapse and have to deal with the fallout. As a result, any bill dealing with the issue needs to address that reality:

1) We need strong border controls. This is partially to ensure that we do have control of the border, which is the duty of a sovereign state. It is also a hedge against the possibility that Mexico fails in spite of our efforts to float them; and to deal with the criminal gangs already flourishing because of Mexican government weakness.

2) We need any "Z" type visa to permanently forbid the holder from ever pursuing US citizenship.

The reason for this is that we're allowing essentially unrestricted movement, in order to protect Mexico from collapse. In return for allowing them to export their poorest to us, and receive large sums of hard currency in return, we should be able to recognize that what we are doing is not "immigration as usual" but an emergency aid program.

That's fine -- I don't really hold it against anyone that they snuck across the border for work to feed his family, any more than I would hold stealing bread against a poor man. Somewhat less, in fact, since the guy is ready to work and work hard for the bread.

However, we're accepting them at a speed and level that we can't assimilate. In return for being allowed to come here and get the work they want and need, they should be willing to declare that their alliegiance remains to Mexico, and forgo voting in US elections. We should also change the law addressing citizenship to undo "birthright" citizenship, and instead do what almost all other nations do, and restrict citizenship to the children of citizens, plus those who lawfully nationalize.

If we do that, the immigration problem becomes a lot more tractable. We can start to address the real issues underlying the problem, without the fear and worry that makes up so much of the debate. Americans are worried, quite understandably, that their nation is being overrun, and will be deeply changed at the ballot box by people who came here in violation of the law. They don't want new citizens who felt no obligation to obey the law and the social contract from the start.

That seems reasonable to me. Make those changes -- seriously secure the border, and remove the path to citizenship -- and the rest we can talk about.

In praise of geeks

In Praise of Geeks:

I don't pay attention to what Sock Puppet says either, but since it made InstaPundit:

Glenn Greenwald gets around, eventually, to making two points, One is that I'm a geek, whose interest in Western culture's retreat from traditional ideas of masculinity is thus silly:

Glenn Reynolds -- who, by his own daily admission, devotes his life to attending convention center conferences on space and playing around with new, cool gadgets in the fun room in his house, like a sheltered adolescent in his secret treehouse club -- to fret: "Are we turning into a nation of wimps?"

But, see, that's the point. I'm a geek. I I notice it, it's probably real. It would be like Greenwald complaining that the country was going overboard in hatred of Bush.

I've got two things to say about that. First, Sock Puppet is an "any stick" kind of guy. If you complain about it, it's silly because you're a geek, and he thinks geeks aren't manly. If I complain about it, he'd say, "But Grim is a gun-toting right-winger who actually wears a cowboy hat. Of course he thinks the country is going too soft."

Second, maybe SP needs to meet another Geek I know. Could be he's not operating with all the necessary information.

mmm

Mmmm...

Ground hog burgers. Sounds great to me too, Huck.

And what do you mean, man, that you were 'awoken' at noon? Even my wife is out of bed by eleven. :)

USMC MA

Marine Corps Martial Arts:

There's obviously been a change in focus since I last looked into military martial arts. I mean, who ever expected to hear a Marine sergeant say something like this:

I am proud to be part of a program that teaches people of all ages and backgrounds how to protect themselves in a non-lethal way from the enemy.

Nonlethal? I thought that meant you were doing it wrong.

It's not just the Marines -- the army has switched to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as its martial arts form, in order to cut down on training injuries. The reason it cuts down on training injuries is that it's a form of jujitsu that was redesigned for tournament fighting. It is, in other words, safe -- for your opponent as well as yourself.

There might be reasons, of course, why you'd want to take someone alive -- particularly in COIN warfare. I understand that.

Still...

Master Ken Caton, formerly USMC Sergeant Ken Caton, was my teacher of jujitsu; he studied under Wally Jay, who turns 90 this year. I remember clearly something he told his students, who eventually became my students:

"What we're doing here is shorthand," he would say. "We can't do everything in the dojo that you need to do in real life. This art was designed by samurai, though, who never intended to leave an enemy alive.

"If you're ever out there and you get someone in an armbar lock, break their arm. If you get them in a wrist lock, break the wrist. That won't be enough, though -- it's just to buy a second to finish them. Break the arm, then go for their throat, for here or here. And remember: everything striking technique we do with the hands was originally designed to be done with a knife or a sword. If you have one, use one."

There is a philosophy underlying this, a moral ethic. You should not fight except to kill, because you should never fight except when killing is justified. If it is not, you should not fight at all.

If it is, if it truly is, fall on like a thunderbolt.

Samarra

Samarra Bombing:

I just spoke with BGen Bergner about today's bombing in Samarra.

Outbreak

"Outbreak"?

You probably saw this on Drudge, but... Reuters says that "U.S. voters may face outbreak of campaign fatigue."

Next week's headline: "U.S., Europe face outbreak of low infant mortality."

Campaigns are not meant to go on forever. It's unhealthy if they do. For one thing, politicians always in campaign mode never stop thinking about the political angles of their every word and action. A politician not in campaign mode might, just occasionally, do something because it was right rather than because it resonated with this-or-that constituency.

Ladies and gentlemen of the political class, let's have our campaigns in 2008. For the rest of 2007, why don't you just try to do what's right for the country -- not for your political futures.

Iranians in Iraq -- On Our Side:

An interesting report from PJM begins:

From his secret base Abdullah Mohtadi commands a small armed force inside Iraq and a vast clandestine network inside Iran.

“I didn’t believe in the so-called critical dialogue with Iran. We are for regime change, no matter what the Europeans or even the United States says,” Mohtadi tells me.

You might wish to read it.

Cap Contest

Caption Contest:

For Marine wife Sly, who sent me the photo:

"The warning label said I shouldn't drink beer while I was in the hot tub, so I figured -- 'If I'm going to break the rules, why not break 'em all at once?'"

Waverly

Waverley:

From Sir Walter Scott's classic:

[O]ur hero set forth with a fowling-piece in his hand, accompanied by his new friend Evan Dhu, and followed by the gamekeeper aforesaid, and by two Wild Highlanders, the attendants of Evan, one of whom had upon his shoulder a hatchet at the end of a pole, called a Lochaber-axe,38 and the other a long ducking-gun. Evan, upon Edward’s inquiry, gave him to understand that this martial escort was by no means necessary as a guard, but merely, as he said, drawing up and adjusting his plaid with an air of dignity, that he might appear decently at Tully-Veolan, and as Vich Ian Vohr’s foster-brother ought to do. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘if you Saxon duinhe-wassel (English gentleman) saw but the Chief with his tail on!’

‘With his tail on?’ echoed Edward in some surprise.

‘Yes — that is, with all his usual followers, when he visits those of the same rank. There is,’ he continued, stopping and drawing himself proudly up, while he counted upon his fingers the several officers of his chief’s retinue; ‘there is his hanchman, or right-hand man; then his bard, or poet; then his bladier, or orator, to make harangues to the great folks whom he visits; then his gilly-more, or armour-bearer, to carry his sword and target, and his gun; then his gilly-casfliuch, who carries him on his back through the sikes and brooks; then his gilly-comstrian, to lead his horse by the bridle in steep and difficult paths; then his gilly-trushharnish, to carry his knapsack; and the piper and the piper’s man[.]

We've spent the weekend at the Blairsville Scottish Highland Games, attending to the distress of an old friend. In spite of the which, it's been a fine weekend. Most of the old "Wild Highlanders" are bikers from way back, which is to say dangerous men of the gun-and-blade type.

It's good to have friends, brothers and sisters. It's a bad world, as my old friend John Ryan of Freemantle, Australia used to say. It hasn't gotten any better; so perhaps we should get a bit worse.

Choosers

"Choosers of the Slain"

A poem, by a young lady who has reason to know.

Choosers of the Slain

Wagner got it wrong, you know.
There are no winged horses,
no gleaming breast plates
no long blonde braids flying
over a pristine battlefield.

The Valkyrie doesn’t gleam
Sticky carbon residue
from years of burnt jet fuel
paints her metal raven dark.
Red dyed hydraulic fluid
pumps through her veins
instead of oxygen enriched blood.
Though, truth be told, her cabin has been washed in both.

This dual bladed, semi-rigid, underslung raven
slows. Her circling wings beat the air staccato.
She and her crew of wolves,
have followed the concussive silences,
the stench of fear and sulfur,
here.
To where men lie in ragged pieces
or crumpled around themselves
their body fluids leaking onto the ground.

Even during the battle’s rage
through the smoke
and the bullets pinging on her fuselage
the raven and her wolves choose:
slain, unslain.

The Valkyrie lifts the ones she’s chosen
and carries them to her hall of healing,
guarded by her wolves from further harm
until next time.

How can you tell blood from hydraulic fluid?
Blood dries tacky.
Hydraulic fluid makes you slip.

© 2007 by Kacey GrannisHer mother sent that along, and at my request obtained permission to reprint it here.

One of the more interesting books I've read recently is John Grigsby's Beowulf & Grendel, which takes a comparative mythology and archelogical approach to reconstructing ancient Indo-European religions. Or, I should almost say, "'the' ancient Indo-European religion," as it appears to have had strong resemblances in every place practiced -- much in the same way that philologists can speak of a single Indo-European language, which lies behind Greek and English and many other tongues.

The Valkyries have strong parallels in the Keres of ancient Greece, and the Morrigan of the Irish stories, and many others. Grigsby devoted a chapter to the subject of how these various goddesses were seen across Europe, and how they had both bright and dark sides. Like a human woman, who can be the sweetest thing in the world, and the source of the greatest pain in life, these goddesses were loving and murderous, even to the same man.

It makes for interesting reading, should any of you be curious about the topic.

Some Posts

Some Posts at BlackFive:

Sorry I haven't been around much this week. I did make a few posts at BlackFive, which may interest some of you:

An interview with Brigadier Gen. Holmes, DDO CENTCOM. We spoke primarily about information operations and operations other than war in CENTCOM.

Another, with Brigadier General Phillips and Iraqi chief of police Khalaf. We talked about the improvements of the Iraqi police and justice system, especially the new police academy.

A comparison of Bill Roggio and Doc Russia, who are saying the same thing each in his own way.