Meme of the millenium.

 

 There is nothing more to say.

Fourteen years of (expletive deleted) crickets.

Just as with when Kennedy was assassinated or when Armstrong walked on the moon, those of us who were around will remember where we were and what we were doing.

We'll also remember the deafening silence from the hundreds of millions of practicing Muslims over the cowardly attack.

Yes, there were a few lone voices from within the nation of islam (no typo in not capitalizing the religious name), but as we say around here, "They were like a fart in a Texas tornado."

We've had myriad attacks around the world by these goat-molesters in the years since.

To prove that half of Americans are insane, half of America elected one of these radical muslims to the Oval Office. Attacks on American soil have picked up--the Boston Marathon, the Garland (Texas) attack, et al.

And now the chief goat and child molesters, Al Qaeda, is spewing diarrhea from the mouth about doing more attacks.

We hear it all the time these days.

What we're still not hearing is widespread condemnation from the so-called peaceful purveyors of islam about the attacks on innocent lives from the rabid sect of their screwed up religion.

When the freakshow known as Westboro Baptist spews forth, Christians are quick to distance themselves. . . and what's more, show up to counter the vitriol spewed by these two-legged human sewage dwellers.

But today marks fourteen years since our World Trade Center towers were felled and the Pentagon attacked and Flight 93 crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside.

And still, no organized effort or voice by the alleged peaceful muslims in protest. If there are truly hundreds of millions of peaceful muslims and only a "minority" of the rabid ones, wouldn't you think the majority would put a stop to this? Or at least condemn it worldwide?

Peaceful my ass.

For those who wish to harm our police

We have a war going on here in America. On one side are thugs, criminals and societal sewage. They are armed, vicious, without conscience and exhibit a pack mentality.

On the other side are the police.

Some would say that the job of the police is to protect decent, law-abiding society from the lawless. Those who believe that are wrong. The job of law enforcement is primarily to investigate, arrest and hand over suspected and/or known criminals to our justice system where they are then tried and either acquitted or convicted for their misdeeds, then sentenced appropriately within the parameters and limits of the law.

Sadly, we're seeing little of any of that happening.

The police are still investigating and arresting, but our justice system is being overly selectively and short-sighted in how career criminals are being dealt with. The whole thing is rotting--from the head.

When President Obama visits a federal prison and tells convicted drug dealers, peddlers of poison to our kids and fellow citizens, that he thinks the law is overly harsh on those who knew what they were doing was wrong, a message is sent to every criminal in America.

When a three-hundred pound thug can strong-arm rob a convenience store, then fight a police officer and wrestle him for his gun and get fatally shot in the process and the president urges the looters and rioters to essentially continue standing up for what they believe in. . . exactly what are we to expect will happen? When this same idiot of a president calls police "stupid" because they arrested an Ivy League professor who by all appearances was breaking into a home (his own, by the way) and refused to show identification to the police, what attitude do we think street thugs and common ghetto criminals are going to have?

So here we have one group that advocates making war against the police. We've seen two weeks of almost daily killings of our nation's first line of defense. Some were ambushed, some were stalked and killed in their home. Others were confronted and killed.

Not a word from the offender-in-chief except to blame guns. Idiot.

So there is one group.

But there is another group almost as bad.

They are made up of guilty white people, mainly those living in crowded cities and suburbs. They are educated, often well above their capacity for common sense intelligence. They are soft on the inside with their wishy-washing feelings and equally soft on the outside. They make up the primary workforce in America and travel in great herds at predetermined times each day to and from their places of employment. Don't ask them about crime for they will give you a myriad of opinions depending upon who is around to hear them. Ask them in an environment filled with angry young black ghetto dwellers and this group will wail against the police and the unfair justice system. But let their home get broken into and they'll wail against the career criminals that commit such deeds.

They are apologists. In medical terms, an apologist is akin to being born without a spine. They need others of their own ilk to continuously prop them up and keep them upright.

And for the third group?

I give you the great essay from Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Dave Grossman. Where do you fall and where do you stand?

I'll stand with the police. I've been tough on them and more than once. I consider a peace officer to be a cut above, on a higher calling and as such, I hold them to higher standards. I do the same with our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. I've served in both capacities, military and law enforcement, and I still revere the Oath. When a cop or a soldier does wrong, they do not get a pass. They, above all others, know right from wrong. Weed out the bad, praise and reward the good.

And if you wage war on our good police, be prepared to have war waged back at you--and with a fury and might that you've never seen and could never imagine. For such is the way of the third group found in LTC Grossman's brilliant essay.

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman

By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing." 

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: 

"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.

Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. 

I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators. 

"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf." 

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.

But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.

The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours. 

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.

Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door.

Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.

Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. 

Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door. 

For example, many officers carry their weapons in church. They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs. Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.

I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"

Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.

Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"

It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.

Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.

Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.

And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...
"Baa."

This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

Lest there still be any doubt

There is no more denying it.

The liberals/progressives who are hellbent on steering America right off the tracks and into the junkyard shared by Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, the former Soviet Union and others have made their voices heard.

Ironically it was over the three-day weekend that celebrates workers and the opportunity for achievement.

In a poll this weekend, socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont took the lead over Hillary Clinton as the Democratic voters top choice in New Hampshire and that he was closing quickly in Iowa.

Of course, New Hampshire sits next to Vermont and most Americans still can't find Iowa on a map or without aid of a GPS. Both states share the same schizophrenia north of the Mason-Dixon line that South Carolina does for Dixie--namely that being that they are more confused politically than a cross dresser at a K-Mart blue light sale in the clothing department.

But the significant point here is that for years the Democrats have been denying their socialist goals and agenda for decades.

Until now.

Granted, the Hildabeast is no peach of a candidate and quite frankly, I've never thought she was electable as president. The only reason she won in New York as a senator was because of the Clinton political machine--cross it and you might end up in the Hudson River looking up at Captain Sully bringing his French made Airbus in for an unscheduled landing.

Yet, unable to put forth a better candidate (the Repubs have put up something like a baker's dozen-plus), the Dems figure it's time to go ahead and come out of the closet.

Not that most of America will notice, mind you. We're still too busy wondering where Bruce Jenner is going to show up next.

But much like his secret, the Dems' secret is out in the public now.

And it's every bit as ugly.

Oh how I wish I had written this.

This is a masterpiece.

Forget Van Gogh and Picasso for paintings, forget Twain and Dickens for literature. Forget Woodward and Bernstein for journalism.

The above mentioned and their works often required translation and interpretation. The piece that follows below needs no such nonsense. It is factual. It is hard-hitting. It is impactful. It is powerful.

But above all, it is inarguable.

So with that introduction for the writing of Bob Lonsberry, please read, enjoy and share.

This is a message that must get out if this nation we once knew and loved is to survive.

--AOA

TWO AMERICAS

The Democrats are right, there are two Americas. 

The America that works, and the America that doesn’t. The America that contributes, and the America that doesn’t.

It’s not the haves and the have nots, it’s the dos and the don’ts. Some people do their duty as Americans, to obey the law and support themselves and contribute to society, and others don’t.

That’s the divide in America. 

It’s not about income inequality, it’s about civic irresponsibility. It’s about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office. It’s about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. 

That’s not invective, that’s truth. 

And it’s about time someone said it. 

The politics of envy was on proud display last week as the president said he would pledge the rest of his term to fighting “income inequality.” He notes that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that’s not just. 

It was the rationale of thievery. 

The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat. 

It is the electoral philosophy that gave us Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America. And it conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense. It ends up not being a benefit to the people who support it, but a betrayal. The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them – in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victimhood and anger instead of ability and hope. 

The president’s premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful – seeks to ignore and cheat the law of choices and consequences. It seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.
Because, by and large, the variability in society is a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibly have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. 

And success and failure can manifest themselves in personal and family income. You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education. You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course, you have them in wedlock and life is apt to take another course. 

Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take. My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome. But, our lives also have had an inequality of effort. Whereas my doctor went to college and then gave the flower of his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant. He made a choice, I made a choice. And our choices led us to different outcomes.

His outcome pays a lot better than mine. 

Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men. And in a free society, free choices will lead to different outcomes. 

It is not inequality Barack Obama will take away, it is freedom. The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. And there is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.
The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy. 

Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. 

Even if the other guy made a lifetime’s worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions. 

Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort. The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, “The harder you work, the more you get.” 

The progressive movement would turn that upside down.

Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society. Entitlement has replaced effort as the key to upward mobility in American society. 

Or at least it has if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive and fosters equality through mediocrity.
He and his party speak of two Americas. And their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. 

America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts. And by the false philosophy that says one man’s success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man’s victimization. 

What the president offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, he pitted one set of Americans against another. 

For his own political benefit. 

That’s what progressives offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow. 

Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln’s maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

- by Bob Lonsberry © 2013

Bravo, Mr. Lonsberry, bravo!

If you'd like to read more of Mr. Lonsberry's musings, follow the link. I think you'll enjoy them.

Bob Lonsberry's web page.