On Tribes

"Americans are the Strongest Tribe"

"During the fierce battle for Fallujah, Bing West asked an Iraqi colonel why the archterrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled in women’s clothes. The colonel pointed to a Marine patrol walking by and said, 'Americans are the strongest tribe.'" -- Review of The Strongest Tribe at Small Wars Journal

There is no doubt that we liberty-loving Americans are bonded by something greater than simple nationalism. Yet everyday we see people -- nominal "Americans" -- who, like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers seem to resemble us, but are NOT us. The collectivist virus has taken over their brains and there is no reasoning with them. Their view of this country and its future are 180 degrees about from the Founders.

Yet this tribe of free Americans that we are is not based on genetics, matrilineal or any other. It is not a matter of race, creed, color or religion. (Although I would argue that we would not have a United States of America without the basis of Judeo-Christian ethics and English common law -- the faith of the Founders.)

Anyone can be a member of this tribe, but membership is not free. Anyone can rise, regardless of family background, to a position of leadership in this tribe, but he or she must be competent to lead. "Leadership" in our tribe is not synonymous with elected office. To lead citizens at any level calls for so very many more attributes than merely getting elected -- witness Barack Obama -- and principal among them is responsibility.

Yet the Body Snatchers eschew responsibility -- they run from it like the plague, for to them it is government which is the only repository of responsibility. It is the government which possesses a monopoly on good, an overabundance of munificence, the ultimate knowledge and competence, and yes, must possess the monopoly of force.

These are not Americans as the Founders would have accepted. They are human, to be sure. But THEY ARE NOT FREE MEN. They have elected, chosen, not to be free. Worse, they wish us not to be free.

They are of another tribe.

Read more of the wisdom of Mike Vanderboegh here