Jack Hinson: Confederate Sniper

Proverbs 18:19
A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city

Review by:

Robert B. Loring

“Jack Hinson’s One-Man War,” written by Lieutenant Colonel Tom C. McKenney, USMC (Ret), is the incredible story of a Southern civilian sniper operating during the American Civil War. Masterfully told, but difficult to research, LtCol McKenney has successfully brought to light this poignant tale of a grief-stricken man’s need for revenge.

Jack Hinson, who was approaching 60 years old, was a successful farmer near the Tennessee-Kentucky border and a devoted family man. He was known as one of that area’s leading citizens, until the “dogs of war” came calling. At first, and as did many farmers of that tumultuous period, Hinson attempted to stay neutral.

In early winter 1862, Ulysses S. Grant brought his gunboat-supported army to the walls of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. During the following battle Hinson road the lines and offered his eyewitness intelligence to both armies, and one to Grant himself. However, his slim-to-none hopes of staying neutral would abruptly change.

Like many other communities throughout the contested South, the times of regular combat quickly turned into irregular guerrilla warfare. Attracting semi-military forces and countless freebooters, the area residents witnessed innumerable acts of inhuman cruelty and injustice. Mayhem reigned upon the families living in this once peaceful and prosperous land.

On one horrific day a Union cavalry troop appeared at the Hinsons’ door. They had captured two of Jack’s boys. The boys, caught with hunting rifles, had been taken for suspected guerrillas and were summarily executed. Identified as Jack’s sons, the patrol’s lieutenant ordered his sergeant to impale the boys’ decapitated heads on the Hinsons’ front gateposts.

After the family buried their children’s remains, Hinson swiftly turned his attention to exacting terrible vengeance. Hinson freed his slaves, moved his family west, and carefully oversaw the manufacture of a specially crafted sniper rifle. Certain that his surviving family was safe, he initiated his highly personalized war of retribution. McKenney writes, “Whatever the details, the Federals had sown the wind, and for the rest of the war, they would reap the whirlwind.”
Hidden deep in Hinson’s Scottish heritage resided the impulse for blood and retribution. The first person Hinson hunted down was the hated Union lieutenant; his second kill was the sergeant who seemed to take delight in impaling the boys’ heads on the family’s gateposts.

Moving freely throughout the wooded hills, Hinson continued his unique brand of warfare. He set up a camp at the base of what is now known as “Jack’s Ridge,” overlooking the northern flowing Tennessee River. There, at a branch known as Towhead Chute, the Union boats plowed upstream against the current. There, presenting a near stationary target, Hinson shot the boats’ captains or other officers. As time passed and his killing reputation grew, he was hunted by the local army units and a combined Marine/Navy amphibious force.

In one truly remarkable moment in naval military history, the captain of a transport loaded with armed soldiers hove to and attempted to surrender. Thinking he’d been accosted by a swarm of Rebels, the captain beached his boat and rapidly struck his colors. Alone, with no infantry support, Hinson reluctantly passed on the offer and quietly faded into the countryside.

The author writes, “It was the only time in recorded history that a fully armed naval vessel with embarked combat troops ever surrendered to one man, and it was probably the shortest period of military confinement after being captured in combat.”

Late in the war, Jack acted as a guide for General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s operations in Tennessee and Kentucky. The author estimates that Hinson, who survived the war, had killed nearly 100 individuals, including some pro-Southern renegades who plagued his neighbor. After the war, Hinson presented his trusty sniper rifle to GEN Forrest. The reader will note that the rifle’s “chain of possession” is carefully recorded in the appendix of the book.

McKenney spent 15 years researching the legend surrounding Jack Hinson’s unique war experiences. His research was difficult because Hinson’s surviving family was, at first, afraid of reprisal, while later descendants wished not to be remem­bered as being related to a bushwhacker. The book is a joy to read; whether you’re an old military trained scout sniper, or a hard-charging Civil War enthusiast, you’ll be captivated at this skillfully crafted literary masterpiece.

Best book I've read in quite some time

I know we are all inundated with books giving reasons for why our society is swirling in the bowl, but this one is particularly good.

Book Review: Mark Steyn's After America: Get Ready For Armageddon

I’m reading Mark Steyn’s latest book: After America, Get Ready for Armageddon. If you’re unfamiliar with Steyn, know that his talent is twofold (in my opinion). First he can make complicated topics much more understandable. And second, he has a wonderfully witty style that makes even reading about the end of Western Civilization enjoyable.

I heartily recommend this book, as well as his America Alone: The End of The World As We Know It

Here’s an excerpt where Styen elaborates on a quote from Tom Wolf’s essay The Me Decade:

[Wolf] “Most people, historically, have not lived their lives as if thinking, “I have only one life to live.” Instead they have lived as if they are living their ancestors’ lives and their offspring’s lives and perhaps their neighbors' lives as well. They have seen themselves as inseparable from the great tide of chromosomes of which they are created and which they pass on. The mere fact that you were only going to be here a short time and would be dead soon enough did not give you the license to try to climb out of the stream and change the natural order of things.”

[Steyn] "Europe climbed out of the stream. You don’t need to make material sacrifices: the state takes care of all that. You don’t need to have children. And you certainly don’t need to die for king and country. But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for; it’s no longer a stream but a stagnant pool. How fair thou hast been – but only for the moment, and the moment is passing. Europe’s economic crisis is a mere symptom of its existential crisis: What is life for? What gives it meaning? Post-Christian, post-nationalist, post-modern Europe has no answer to this question, and so it has 30 year old students and 50 year old retirees, and wonders why the small band of workers in between them can’t make the math add up."

Book review

This wonderful book has been around for many years, but the advice it contains is absolutely outstanding. Some of us "action oriented" types might have difficulty with waiting for the "right time". Claire Wolf's book offers many different ways to channel that pent-up fury, making the "wait" more bearable.

Enjoy:



You can buy it here

Quote of the day

"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."

— C.S. Lewis

If you have not read something authored by CS Lewis, you are denying yourself a taste of real wisdom. And speaking for myself, I would take a thimbleful of wisdom over a boxcarful of knowledge - any day!

I heartily recommend:

THE GREAT DIVORCE
MERE CHRISTIANITY
THE SCEWTAPE LETTERS

My favorite film of all time - Cyrano de Bergerac

Oh to be able to speak like this! Jose Ferrer won the 1950 Academy Award for Best Actor (back when that actually MEANT something notable)with this magnificent performance.

Enjoy...

What I'm currently reading

Review by Thomas Sowell

Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss.

Those who value substance over words, however, will find in this book a wealth of challenging insights, backed up by thorough research and brilliant analysis.

This is the sort of book that challenges the fundamental assumptions of its time -- and which, for that reason, is likely to be shunned rather than criticized.

Because the word "fascist" is often thrown around loosely these days, as a general term of abuse, it is good that "Liberal Fascism" begins by discussing the real Fascism, introduced into Italy after the First World War by Benito Mussolini.

The Fascists were completely against individualism in general and especially against individualism in a free market economy. Their agenda included minimum wage laws, government restrictions on profit-making, progressive taxation of capital, and "rigidly secular" schools.

Unlike the Communists, the Fascists did not seek government ownership of the means of production. They just wanted the government to call the shots as to how businesses would be run.

They were for "industrial policy," long before liberals coined that phrase in the United States.

Indeed, the whole Fascist economic agenda bears a remarkable resemblance to what liberals would later advocate.

Moreover, during the 1920s "progressives" in the United States and Britain recognized the kinship of their ideas with those of Mussolini, who was widely lionized by the left.

Famed British novelist and prominent Fabian socialist H.G. Wells called for "Liberal Fascism," saying "the world is sick of parliamentary politics."

Another literary giant and Fabian socialist, George Bernard Shaw, also expressed his admiration for Mussolini -- as well as for Hitler and Stalin, because they "did things," instead of just talk. In Germany, the Nazis followed in the wake of the Italian Fascists, adding racism in general and anti-semitism in particular, neither of which was part of Fascism in Italy or in Franco's Spain.

Even the Nazi variant of Fascism found favor on the left when it was only a movement seeking power in the 1920s.

W.E.B. DuBois was so taken with the Nazi movement that he put swastikas on the cover of a magazine he edited, despite complaints from Jewish readers.

Even after Hitler achieved dictatorial power in Germany in 1933, DuBois declared that the Nazi dictatorship was "absolutely necessary in order to get the state in order."

As late as 1937 he said in a speech in Harlem that "there is today, in some respects, more democracy in Germany than there has been in years past."

In short, during the 1920s and the early 1930s, Fascism was not only looked on favorably by the left but recognized as having kindred ideas, agendas and assumptions.

Only after Hitler and Mussolini disgraced themselves, mainly by their brutal military aggressions in the 1930s, did the left distance themselves from these international pariahs.

Fascism, initially recognized as a kindred ideology of the left, has since come down to us defined as being on "the right" -- indeed, as representing the farthest right, supposedly further extensions of conservatism.

If by conservatism you mean belief in free markets, limited government, and traditional morality, including religious influences, then these are all things that the Fascists opposed just as much as the left does today.

The left may say that they are not racists or anti-semites, like Hitler, but neither was Mussolini or Franco. Hitler, incidentally, got some of his racist ideology from the writings of American "progressives" in the eugenics movement.

Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" is too rich a book to be summarized in a newspaper column. Get a copy and start re-thinking the received notions about who is on "the left" and who is on "the right." It is a book for people who want to think, rather than repeat rhetoric.

A movie review - Inglourious Basterds

I've long been a fan of action films, but don't let the hype suck you in on this one! It's a pure stinker in my opinion.

Remember the spaghetti westerns of the 60's? Specifically, do you remember the final gunfight scene of The Good Bad & The Ugly? Remember the LOOOOONG buildup to the shootout with the camera focused inordinately long on the antagonist's eyes and gun hands? Well Tarintino used that same gimmick about three times in IB. Once was plenty!

Also...forget ANY resemblence to reality whatsoever!

Hey I LOVE gratuitious violence in action films, but there MUST be a minimum degree of plausibility and realism for me to "make my escape" into the film. IB never comes close to achieving that minimum degree. Instead I kept checking my watch and wondering "How much longer must I endure this crap?"

Expelled: No intelligence allowed

I watched this documentary last night and found it to be fascinating. Ben Stein does an excellent job showing how free speech is an endangered species in American academic and scientific circles. Using the issue of Intelligent Design as the focal point, he interviews several accomplished and previously respected scientists in various fields who, upon revealing even an interest in ID, found their careers derailed with extreme prejudice. Stein is a hoot, and he uses a low key, very balanced approach in his extensive interviews with both sides of the issue.

One of the hardcore Darwinists Ben interviews is a fellow named Michael Ruse. I've been to a debate where Ruse defended his Darwinian views. I thought Ben Stein made Ruse look like a complete fool in this film. And he did so effortlessly!

Watch it and I believe you’ll find it both entertaining and educating.

Latest Book in the GunRights4US library

Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.

In examining these two events, Nagl—the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine cover story by Peter Maass—argues that organizational culture is key to the ability to learn from unanticipated conditions, a variable which explains why the British army successfully conducted counterinsurgency in Malaya but why the American army failed to do so in Vietnam, treating the war instead as a conventional conflict. Nagl concludes that the British army, because of its role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics created by its history and national culture, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency.

Here's Nagl's own article in the NYT.

Book Report

I know that economic topics are generally a cure for insomnia in most people. But with the current War on Capitalism that’s raging in our country, isn’t it time that more people informed themselves about the real causes of the Meltdown?

Here’s the best treatise on the subject that I’ve seen yet.

And “Yes” it’s all the fault of government intervention; and the same people who caused this mess are asking us to trust them to fix it! Isn’t that convenient?

Thomas Woods' book is very readable and easily understood, even by folks who aren’t graduates of an economics school. I strongly urge you to get your hands on this, read it, understand it, then tell someone about it and urge them to do the same.

Medical reference books as recommended by Ragnar Benson

I recently added each of these to my reference library

1. "CURRENT Medical Diagnosis and Treatment 2009 (LANGE CURRENT Series)"
Stephen McPhee; Paperback; $58.28

2. "The New American Medical Dictionary and Health Manual"
Robert E. Rothenberg; Paperback; $7.99

3. "The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Second Edition: The World's Most Widely Used Medical Reference - Now In Everyday Language"
Mark H. Beers; Hardcover; $28.50

4. "US Army Special Forces Medical Handbook"
Department of Army; Paperback; $19.95

5. "21st Century Emergency War Surgery and the Essential Collection of Military Medical Textbooks - Army Textbooks and Manuals (CD-ROM)"
Department of Defense; CD-ROM; $25.00

6. "Physicians' Desk Reference 2009 (PDR, 63rd Edition)"
Physicians' Desk Reference; Hardcover; $68.36

7. "The Ship's Medicine Chest and Medical Aid at Sea"
U S Public Health Service; Paperback; $39.95

8. "Ditch Medicine: Advanced Field Procedures For Emergencies"
Hugh Coffee; Paperback; $22.90

9. "Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (30th Edition)"
Carmine Clemente; Hardcover; $30.05

10. "Drugs (Nurse's reference library)"
Maryanne Wagner; Hardcover; $0.01

11. "A Barefoot Doctor's Manual: A Guide to Traditional Chinese and Modern Medicine, Revised by Professional Seminar Consultants, Inc."
The Revolutionary Health Committee of Hunan Province; Hardcover; $22.50

12. "Delmar's A - Z Nurse's Drug Reference '98 (Delmar's a-Z Ndr)"
George R., Ph.D. Spratto; Paperback; $15.98

13. "Physicians' Desk Reference for Nonprescription Drugs and Dietary Supplements"
Lori Murray; Hardcover; $3.00

Book Review

I have mixed feelings about the author, but I’ll save that for another time. He seems to have done his homework pretty thoroughly in preparation for Born Fighting. As the descendant of a Scotsman who migrated to South Carolina in the mid-eighteenth century, the subject matter of this book resonates with me a mighty way! Here’s Webb to summarize his main point better than I could:


"This people gave our country great things, including its most definitive culture. Its bloodlines have flowed in the veins of at least a dozen presidents, and in many of our greatest soldiers. It created and still perpetuates the most distinctly American form of music. It is imbued with a unique and unforgiving code of personal honor, less ritualized but every bit as powerful as the samurai code. Its legacy is broad, in many ways defining the attitudes and values of the military, of working class America, and even of the particularly populist form of American democracy itself. And yet its story has been lost under the weight of more recent immigrations, revisionist historians, and common ignorance."



I'm only a third of the way through it, but Born Fighting's proving to be a great read.

If you only get one thing from this blog EVER...

This is one of my all-time favorite books! Anyone who fancies themself a patriot, needs to get this and read it from cover to cover - all 800 pages!








Among other things it covers:

Rating the Battle Rifles
M1/M14 (M1A)
FAL
HK91
Rating the Battle Carbines
The AK74
Combat Rifle Optics
How To Become A Rifleman
Reloading, Zeroing, Shooting, Cleaning, & Caching

Javelin Press

Another excerpt from Nation of Cowards

By now it should be evident that the project of all laws that criminalize innocent conduct in order to prevent crime is: to so arrange the material conditions of life that those disposed to act upon their evil intentions will have no means of realizing their designs.

Matters must be so arranged that, though criminals will want to use guns, they just won’t be able to get them. People will want to use drugs; they just won’t be able to buy them. Crazy people will want to blow up buildings; they just won’t be able to. Thus will the world be made a safer place.

And now we come to the critical point, the self-destructive contradiction inherent in laws that criminalize innocent character to prevent crime before it occurs: their goal is to make responsibility irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if criminals want to commit murder with guns; we will arrange things so that they simply cannot. Pass Brady and a few other well-crafted laws, vigorously enforce them, and it won’t matter whether people act responsibly or not. Their irresponsible intentions will be rendered impotent and irrelevant.

Query: how does the law have the moral authority to hold people responsible for their behavior, if the law is engaged in a project whose operative presumption is that responsibility and irresponsibility can be made irrelevant, and are a matter of indifference? How do criminals, how does anyone learn that they are responsible for actions, if the law is engaged in a mighty project to render it irrelevant whether one does or does not want to act responsibly?

And if we think that laws designed to prevent crime can indeed make the world a safer place, we should ask ourselves this: How, exactly, is the world made a safer place by making self-control and responsibility irrelevant?

— Jeff Snyder, Nation of Cowards (2001), p.76-77

A Nation of Cowards - Jeffrey Snyder

This excellent article was first published in the Fall of 93, so some of the information is a bit dated. But conceptually - it's awesome!

Some excerpts:

One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of avoidance. Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence.

In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.

Our society suffers greatly from the beliefs that only official action is legitimate and that the state is the source of our earthly salvation. Both liberal and conservative prescriptions for violent crime suffer from the "not in my job description" school of thought regarding the responsibilities of the law-abiding citizen, and from an overestimation of the ability of the state to provide society's moral moorings. As long as law-abiding citizens assume no personal responsibility for combatting crime, liberal and conservative programs will fail to contain it.

The laws proscribing concealed-carry of firearms by honest, law-abiding citizens breed nothing but disrespect for the law. As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense is not itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.

Okay...now go read the whole article.

An excerpt from Attention Deficit Democracy

Introduction
by James Bovard

Delusions about democracy are subverting peace and freedom. The American system of government is collapsing thanks to ignorant citizens, lying politicians, and a government leashed neither by law nor Constitution. While presidents and pundits harp on democracy’s inevitable spread around the world, it is perishing at home.

Victorious politicians routinely invoke the "will of the people" to sanctify their power. But voters cannot countenance what they do not understand. The "will of the people" is often simply a measure of how many people fell for which lies, how many people were frightened by which advertisements, and which red herrings worked on which target audiences. Rather than the "will of the people," election results are often only a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions.

Many Americans have little or no idea how government works or who is holding the reins on their lives. The majority of American voters do not know the name of their congressman, the length of terms of House or Senate members, what the Bill of Rights guarantees, or what the government is actually doing in the vast majority of its interventions. A survey after the 2002 congressional election revealed that less than a third of Americans knew "that the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives prior to the election." Recent polls show that almost two-thirds of Americans could not name a single Supreme Court justice and that 58 percent of Americans could not name a single cabinet department in the federal government.

Americans are assured that they are free because rulers take power only with the people’s informed consent. What does "informed consent" mean these days? It means knowing the names of the president’s pets but not knowing his record on key issues. It means knowing the sexual orientation of family members of candidates for high office, but falling prey to their rewriting of history. It means recalling the phrases the government endlessly repeats, and screening out evidence of government atrocities.

The political ignorance of scores of millions of Americans prevents them from recognizing the consequences or dangers of government actions. The citizenry is increasingly on automatic pilot, paying less attention to each new war, each new power grab, each new dubious presidential assertion.

The rising gullibility of the American people may be the most important trend in U.S. democracy. With each passing decade, with each new presidency, it takes less and less to snooker Americans. And a candidate only has to fool enough people on one day to snare power over everyone for four years.

Attention Deficit Democracy begets a government that is nominally democratic – in which elections are boisterous events accompanied by torrents of deceptive ads and mass rallies. But after the election, the president returns to his pedestal. Attention Deficit Democracy lacks the most important check on the abuse of power: an informed citizenry resolutely defending their rights and liberties.

In 1693, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, wrote what could be the motto for modern American government. "Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed." Rulers endlessly assure people that they are in charge – while creating agency after agency, program after program that people can neither comprehend nor control. Americans’ political thinking is becoming akin to the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance – a series of bromides that sink into the mind and stifle independent, critical thought.

...And that's just a piece of it! Read the rest while you're at it!!

James Bovard, author of Lost Rights

Although I've always been cynical and suspicious of my Gubmint, it wasn't until I read Lost Rights that I really "woke up" to its abuses. Well it seems Mr Bovard has another book out, and I intend to get a copy as soon as practical. Here are some epigrams from Attention Deficit Democracy by James Bovard.

===========================================
Americans have devoted far more effort to spreading democracy than to understanding it.

Modern democracy is far more effective at unleashing government than at protecting individuals.

When people blindly assume that their leaders are trustworthy, the biggest liars win.

Rather than a democracy, we increasingly have an elective dictatorship. People are merely permitted to choose who will violate the laws and the Constitution.

Instead of revealing the “will of the people,” election results are often only a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions.

The biggest election frauds usually occur before the voting booths open.

A democratic government that respects no limits on its own power is a ticking time bomb, waiting to destroy the rights it was created to protect.

Leviathan is premised on government’s need to control the people. Democracy rests on people’s right to control the government. The conflict between these two principles generates much of the deceit that permeates contemporary politics.

Washington policy debates are often like a criminal trial in which all the evidence of the defendant’s past offenses is ruled inadmissible.

America is becoming a democracy of knocking knees, sweating foreheads, and folks who jump too high at any sound.

Bogus fears can produce real servitude.

With the Battered Citizen Syndrome, the more debacles government produces, the more tightly voters cling to their rulers.

The more fears government fans, the fewer people recall the danger of government itself.

Americans cannot expect to have good presidents if presidents are permitted to make themselves czars

Being crowned a winner by the Electoral College does not give one American the right to dispose of all other Americans’ lives and liberties.

As long as rulers are above the law, citizens have the same type of freedom that slaves had on days when their masters chose not to beat them.

As long as American presidents praise freedom, they are permitted to seize as much power as they please.

Democracy is merely a form of government. It is not a penicillin that cures all politically transmitted diseases.

Democracy unleashes the State in the name of the people.

The bigger government becomes, the more votes it can buy.

The more that democracy is assumed to be inevitable, the more likely it will self-destruct.

It is far easier to reduce politicians’ power than to raise their characters.

Are Americans free simply because they are permitted a perfunctory choice on who will molest their rights and liberties?

Attention Deficit Democracy produces the attitudes, ignorance, and arrogance that pave the way to political collapse.

Presently I’m reading...

The Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. The subtitle bills it as “An epic novel of the Spartans at Thermopylae”. The author has a real ability to describe events in such vivid detail that you almost feel a part of the action. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read to be sure.

The Spartans were an interesting people. They devoted their entire lives to training for war. In fact their whole culture was based on a warrior ethos that has never been duplicated before or since. I hear that the US Marines now have a recommended reading list for its officer and NCO corps - and Gates of Fire is on it. Methinks it’s a good idea to attempt to incalculate the warrior virtues into the men charged with “manning the wall”, but alas the warrior class will be no good to the nation if the nation has lost the will to defend itself.

We train our children in school to not fight back. And when one does, he’s expelled or suspended right along with the aggressor. We’ve vilified guns and gunowners in this country to the extent that they are almost a sub-class that it is perfectly okay to denigrate. The rights that our Constitution supposedly guarantees are under daily assault, and I believe it’s only a matter of time before they are stripped from us completely. I saw a news article about a man down on the US/Mexican border who is being sued by the very illegal aliens he was trying to prevent from crossing his land and destroying his property. These are all signs of a loss of national will. I voted for Bush twice but eventually became very cynical about the man. He ordered American servicemen halfway around the world to fight terrorism (which I’m perfectly fine with) but couldn’t muster the will to close the borders – even slightly!

Without the will to use it, no warrior and no weapon will be worth a bucket of warm spit. And that, my friends, is where America stands today.

A book that I know you'll love

There's a gentleman I know, Mr. Mike Vanderboegh, who is about to publish a book he's written. Much of it has already been posted on the internet, and I've eagerly devoured every word of it thus far. I envy Mike's talent, but even more so I enjoy the subject matter he's chosen to write about.

Just imagine there coming a point in time where Americans who remember their heritage as free men grow over weary of the depredations of an oppressive Nanny State.

If I've managed to pique your curiosity...well good! Go here and start reading.

Enjoy ABSOLVED by Mike Vanderboegh