16 July 12

“Chance favors the prepared. Fortune, the bold. Providence, the audacious!”

We’re going in the wrong direction:

Wars can’t be successfully propagated exclusively with cantankerous, grumbling, Metamucil-swigging, easily-irritated codgers, so, as noted, we have to inject our years of experience directly into the blood of our current generation of heroic, young firebrands.

“Readiness” is the mantra for units. For individuals, it means being physically able to deploy and do one’s job. For units, it means every single box, on endless checklists, is checked-off. Whether the unit, and its individuals, are really “ready” is immaterial, so long as all paperwork is complete.

Stars don’t care about individual troopers. They care about “deployability.” Good results and low casualties are, of course, desired, but “bad-press” is an automatic career-ender, and everyone knows it!

An example of “bad-press” is one of our troopers boldly, skillfully using his pistol to shoot and kill several mugging suspects who are attempting to kidnap and ultimately murder him. Far better, for the sake of scheduled promotions, that he be kidnaped and murdered. It will generate schmaltzy news in the popular press, and everyone will be promoted on time, particularly when they’re filmed, with solemn expressions, at the hapless trooper’s requiem “memorial ceremony.”
Conversely, bullet-riddled bodies of assorted local thugs will be made to look bad in news stories, especially as CNN conducts interminable tear-jerking interviews with “bereaved” relatives.

Imagine it!

We are specifically authorized, as sovereign citizens, to make lethal-force decisions, seeking approval from no higher authority than our own summery command and judgement.

No other civilization in human history does, nor has ever, acknowledged that degree of personal freedom. We audaciously contend that our individual rights as sovereign citizens are not, by any means, “granted” by any species of “government.” They are endowed directly by our Creator, and our Creator neither sought, nor required, approval from any politician, past nor present!

“Rights” are always individual. Only Communists talk about “collective” rights.
Our greatest individual right is the right to be “wrong,” and our greatest freedom is the freedom to fail. Government’s only legitimate role is to protect those rights.

Effective long-range, personal rifles encourage bold, individual initiative, poison to proponents of the “collective” agenda. So, Small Caliber High Velocity (SCHV) individual rifle projectiles have been with us since the middle of the last century. The idea behind the concept is that our individual troopers are not capable of effective, accurate fire, nor should they ever be allowed to attempt it. So, the SCHV projectile, our current 5.56×45 round, saw the light of day in the 1960s, and the notion that an individual war-fighter cannot be trained to deliver effective, accurate fire upon individual enemy soldiers remains to this day.

In fact, our entire society is trending toward the mantra that individuals can’t do anything, should never try, and should never be allowed to try. Just yesterday, the current occupant of the White House told us all that we are all nothing, indeed less than nothing, without being part of some collective. As individuals, we should properly think of ourselves only as lemmings. Heroes are not welcome.

It’s no wonder our troops are not encouraged to be, as individuals, always armed and ready. The “Governing Class” doesn’t consider the individual citizen/soldier even worthy of recognition, much less self-protection. After all, lemmings are, if nothing else, expendable!

That pernicious philosophy has trickled down into every corner of our culture, even, as noted above, expressing itself in our current military cartridge, and our current suicidal “rules of engagement.”

This philosophy is evil, and any civilization that adopts it is doomed! We are, each of us, a magnificent being, responsible for our own lives, capable of great individual accomplishment, and worth protecting. Accordingly, we must, each of us, audaciously claim our own magnificence. That is the beginning of wisdom!

We have to be heroes. We have to train heroes. This is the philosophical battle we must win!

“Little Boxes,” written by Malvina Reynolds in 1962. The most famous rendition was Pete Seeger’s, in 1963:

Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside
Little boxes all the same

There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there’s doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school

And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

There’s a pink one and a green one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same

/John