FLATWOODS AND LIGHTERKNOTS

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claims they are opposed to terrorism, yet they vehemently condemn any non-Muslim who even hints that Islamic terrorism might be a bad thing.  With hypocritical, insincere, and inaccurate defense of Islamic terrorism, they cite America’s history of slavery, massacre of American Indians, and the Vietnam War.  A few facts regarding CAIR are in order. 

CAIR is an off-shoot of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a front group for Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group.  Ghassan Elashi, a board member of CAIR, was convicted of funneling money to Mousa Abu Marzook, the deputy chief of Hamas’ political bureau in Syria.  Marzook founded the Texas based IAP and was deported in 1997.  CAIR’s Randall Todd “Ismail” Royer was convicted of organizing a holy war against the United States after the attacks on 9/11.  CAIR’s Bassem Khafagi was convicted of fraud and terrorism charges.  CAIR’s chairman of the board, Omar Ahmad, is on record for declaring that Islam is not in America to be equal but to be America’s highest and dominant authority. 

In 1529, the Muslim army of Sultan Suleiman II, after penetrating Central Europe, was repulsed at the Battle of the Moles during the First Siege of Vienna.  For the next 150 years western civilization moved forward while the Islamic hordes licked their wounds.  In 1683, under Kara Mustafa, Muslims again returned to Europe only to be decimated at the Second Siege of Vienna by a coalition of Poles, Austrians, and Germans.  In both wars, the invaders were fanatical Muslims sworn to kill anything not Muslim and their tactic of choice was terrorism.  Today, the descendents of those invaders are Muslims sworn to kill anything not Muslim and their tactic of choice is still terrorism.

All cultures and religions had their bad times.  Western cultures brought much death and destruction to the world, most of it under the guise of Christianity.  Eastern countries murdered, tortured, and enslaved millions at the behest of maniacal emperors and dictators.  Today, most Western cultures and religions are at least attempting to reconcile their differences.  But the followers of Islam are persistent in demonstrating that they don’t want to be part of that process.  Their problem is a fanatical devotion to a religion that is dominated by despotic leaders who desire power for the sake of power and sanction raping their own women.  While Christians, Jews, and most Eastern religions generally accept other religions, Muslims remain stuck in a seventh century religion that preaches peace yet tolerates, condones, and even denies the terrorist antics of their brethren. 

            The subject of abortion simmers on the back burners of public apathy until election time when more fuel is tossed on it.  Abortionists then line up behind their “Freedom of Choice” banner and anti-abortionists hold high their “Right to Life” banner.  Each time the embers of abortion politics are fanned by the hot winds of public discord, I recall a few precautionary words spoken to me years ago in a place far removed from the social problems of today. 

            My reconnaissance team was taking turns swinging a machete in front of my team as we hacked our way through dense jungle vegetation.  Progress was abruptly halted when my point man suddenly realized he was moving more quickly vertically than horizontally.  “Sir, we best stop n’ figger things out ‘cause we ain’t gittin’ whar’ we orta’ be a gittin’ too,” were his words just before disappearing from sight.  While slashing through the thick tropical growth we had managed to bore our way into a spongy mass of bramble jutting out over a hidden cliff.  The tangled growth was supported only by its ability to cling to a vertical rock face that dropped hundreds of feet below us. 

The advice of my point man is just as sound today as our society tangles with the issue of abortion.  It would do us all good to stop the emotional rhetoric and think more about our immediate situation, one that is debasing the character of our humanity and threatening to fracture the innate and historical bond of trust between men and women and mothers and their babies. 

            When people talk about abortion, their discussion usually begins within the realm of one of three arenas: religion, politics, or intellectual scientific examination.  Debates on issues that reside on the fringes of human emotion can be rational when confined within the margins of intellectual discipline.  But discussions on social issues that involve moral right and wrong usually degenerate into irrational verbal conflict where logic is quickly lost in the muddy confluence of the emotions of religion, politics, and radical ideology.  Reason seldom prevails when the forces of religious absolutism, political hedonism, and liberal socialism occupy the same habitat.  Sensible debates then quickly fall victim to the emotional and inaccurate weapons of vague absolutism. 

The principal religion in America is Christianity, which is based upon faith (more accurately defined as a wishful but unsubstantiated belief in the existence of some unseen god who, through some chain of miraculous events, provided the universe with his dictates for the conduct of all forms of life and matter).  However, this theological supposition is in absolute denial of every observable law of physics.  That is not a criticism of religion but a statement of unalterable fact.  It is impossible, within the confines of ill-defined religious dogma, to make an accurate determination as to whether or not the voluntary aborting of an unborn child, at any stage of development, is a sin against the sanctity of life, an act of compassion, or simply society’s cowardly manner of dealing with the carelessness of females and arrogance of males whose sexual recklessness result in the creation of unwanted children.  The latter should be suspected but either might be acceptable in a solely pragmatic world.  But we do not live in a pragmatic world.  Our world is filled with varying degrees of differences and multiple opposites in absolutes.  Intelligent people understand that and recognize the necessity for society to have a system of laws tempered with the coolness of reason. 

            The uninformed masses and those who draw their power from them prefer that they not be challenged with the kind of absolutes that require people to hold themselves accountable for individual decisions and actions.  In the world of effete liberal socialists, abortion represents a means for people to avoid the responsibilities inherent in indulging in base pleasures and risky personal behaviors.  This provides irresponsible people with an added benefit; other people pay for the pleasures and mistakes of the careless and foolish while the indulgers don’t have to accept any responsibility or suffer financial loss.  That is the very principal of socialism as espoused by the French socialist, Jean Claude Roseau.  In the world of the ignorant masses, such thinking has made abortion a convenient alternative to abandoning ill-conceived human offspring at church steps, public rest rooms, and back alley dumpsters.  Such hedonistic antics can prompt intelligent people to justifiably consider mandatory sterilization for certain members of society, if for nothing else but as an act of compassion for future generations. 

The commonly voiced assertion that abortion is a woman’s personal choice ignores two salient facts.  The kind of woman who would choose to abort her pregnancy, except in instances of forcible rape and extraordinary medical reason, made her choice weeks earlier when she voluntarily spread her legs in joyous reception or dutiful submission to the advances of some irresponsible male.  And it’s males of such corrupt character who are the co-conspirators in those self-indulging moments of lust over logic.  Their apologists are the elitist liberal socialists who always come down on the side of people who prefer to avoid responsibility for their personal conduct.  That is the power that neo-liberal politics so effectively wields over the uneducated, poor, and stupid.  The second salient fact is the nonsensical feminist notion that a woman should have sole domain over her reproductive system, an assumption that ignores the obvious involvement of a male.  There is little logic in the feminist’s contention that a woman has a right to dispose of her mistakes of lust while the male she chose to be involved should have nothing to say about it.  There is even less logic in the contention that a woman can choose to have an illegitimate child and then force the male to pay for rearing and educating the child without him having any legal standing to object or otherwise participate in the parenting process. 

People of lesser intellect and personal initiative, along with their liberal socialist leadership, have become a political force in a nation that is dying from an overdose of its own creation, democracy.  The logical extension of unbridled democracy is ballot-box terrorism.  The founding fathers of this nation designed our government be a republic, but it has degenerated into what they feared even more than the absolute power of dictators and kings, the absolute power of the ignorant masses. 

            When the subject of abortion is raised in the political arena, politicians or some special interest group usually initiates the topic solely for purposes of pushing the public’s emotional button and gaining attention to their personal agendas.  Such tactics indicate that the only considerations of any importance to politicians are those that serve the objectives of their political parties, appease and manipulate special interest groups, or display their political adeptness at avoiding commitment on any sensitive topic that might become an embarrassing cleavage issue. 

As much as politicians at the national level talk about abortion, there is simply no constitutional authority for them to enact laws that either regulate or prohibit abortions.  Nevertheless, for the sake of television face-time and political posturing, they exploit the issue by artfully manipulating people’s emotions in different areas of the country where voters agree with them, and they do it while preaching tolerance and diversity.  Nothing significant is accomplished other than the bartering of votes in the interest of short-term personal and political gain. 

In a Republic, which by law this country is, elected representatives have the duty to consider and promulgate laws that equitably govern the conduct of society yet protects individual liberties.  But the Constitution reserves most regulatory powers to the people and their legislators in the various states.  Other than a few specified powers, the Constitution assigns little authority to the federal government to exercise power over individual citizens.  In fact, it prohibits the federal government from assuming any powers on its own.  For the federal government to have any authority that isn’t specifically delegated to it by the Constitution, the people must voluntarily relinquish and specify each power they wish to delegate to government.  Nevertheless, Congress is in daily violation of that provision, which places them in the trade of operating a criminal enterprise in violation of the very RICO laws that they enacted. 

The primary question concerning abortion has to do with whether or not the intentional aborting of an unborn child, at some point between conception and before the moment of birth, should be permitted or prohibited.  Putting aside the emotions involved in religion and politics, there are no other issues for consideration.  Abortion, therefore, is a legal issue that should never be decided on religious, political, or emotional grounds. 

The American criminal justice system is based upon the same constitutional provision that prohibits, at least by original intent, Congress from making laws that affect issues not specifically delegated to it by the people of the several states.  The ninth and tenth amendments reserve to the people and each sovereign state the right and responsibility to develop their own criminal codes (laws that prohibit an act), define the severity of infractions of such codes (misdemeanors or felonies), and determine levels of punishment (fines and jail or prison terms) for violating those laws.  The Constitution is just as clear regarding the authority of the federal government to enact criminal laws.  The prescribed role of the federal government, via the federal court system and ultimately the United States Supreme Court, is to make judicial determinations as to the constitutionality of state and federal laws and ensure that the application of those laws are consistent with the equal protection provision of the Constitution.  It is within this framework of jurisprudence where abortion belongs.  It is not a matter to be decided by church deacons, pilfering politicians, or feminist demons. 

            Homicide is the killing of a human being.  Murder, as embodied in common law and defined in the criminal codes of the several states, is the intentional and unlawful killing of another human being.  Therefore, any killing of a human by another human is homicide, but not all homicides are murder.  For a homicide to be murder there must be a law that defines the act, prohibits the act, and prescribes a specific punishment for its commission.  Subsequently, murder is a punishable crime in all states because they have codified the elements of proof for the act.  These elements satisfy the legal requirements to prove that an accused person actually intended (mens rea) to kill another human being; that the dead human was in fact alive prior to the killing act; and that the dead human died as a result of the prohibited act (actus reus). 

            Prior to modern advances in medical technology it was thought to be relatively easy to determine when someone was alive or dead.  A cool mirror was placed under the nose of an apparently lifeless person.  If no vapors of breath were detected there was no life.  The old standards used to determine the existence of life, when it ceased, and degrees of culpability for unlawfully taking life were sufficient for the times.  Medical science did not know any better, abortion was not yet an efficient, safe, or socially accepted procedure, and most people were busy trying to keep their babies alive; even those conceived by “accident.”  However, modern medical science has made abortion a physically safe, convenient, and efficient alternative to facing the inherent responsibilities in caring for new and unwanted life.  This failure of humanity to deal, socially, with technological advances is a curse of our own making. 

            Today, we are faced with out-dated provisions of state laws pertaining to the crime of murder.  This obsolescence has led to state laws failing to define, in a legal sense and within the reality of current medical technology, when life begins and ends.  This information is essential for any society to establish guideposts for determining when the taking of a human life, lawfully or unlawfully, has occurred.  Without such societal channel markers, the definitions of life and death become obscure, and people of lesser constitution begin making decisions based upon their emotional states of the moment, which always seems to satisfy some contrived personal convenience.  That is a prescription for social chaos. 

            The challenge for society is to redefine the crime of murder and make a legal determination, in concert with the current state of medical science, as to what human physical condition tells us when physical life begins and when it ends.  It might even be necessary for such determination to include a psychological assessment as to when conscious life begins and ends.  This can only be accomplished by those charged with creating and modifying state laws in accordance with the levels of authority and responsibility conferred upon them by the people of the respective states.  There is no reason for the subject of abortion to be addressed.  All that is necessary is to reconsider and re-establish state laws defining and punishing the crime of murder.  It will not be an easy task in face of the vocalized intractability of religious absolutists, betrayals of career-happy politicians, and vehement threats from effete liberal elitists who do nothing but confound the issue.  Nevertheless, it is a task that must be assumed and accomplished before we, the people of the United States of American, can justly refer to ourselves as a civilized society. 

            Religious absolutists claim life begins at conception and, therefore, it is murder to abort even a fertilized human egg.  Effete liberals and their radical feminist cheerleaders support the opposite extreme by claiming human life doesn’t begin until a woman says so and, since it involves her body, she has the right to terminate her unborn child any time and in any fashion she chooses.  Either position might be correct.  But, when considering matters of life and death, correctness must be defined within the law.  In that respect, individual state legislators, abetted by trial lawyers, are the ones who are avoiding their duty.  Elected officials and state attorneys are getting a free pass by transferring their responsibilities to the federal government where abortion has been emotionalized into a state of national hysteria. 

            Officials elected to serve their respective states do not have one legitimate excuse for not taking action to resolve the abortion issue.  Today, medical science knows better and our Constitution prohibits laws respecting the establishment of any religion.  The First Amendment requires our legislators, while in the performance of their duties, to give no consideration to the demands of any religious organization.  Therefore, state legislatures must be compelled to do their duty in spite of the weeping and wailing of religious absolutists and the incessant nattering of liberal feminists and their castrated male apologists.  The crime that state lawmakers are guilty of is one of official malfeasance, and every moment they avoid their duty is a continuing offense against the dignity of humanity and violation of the inherent obligations of their offices. 

          Meanwhile, the emotional demands of religious zealots, hedonistic manipulations of opportunistic politicians, and screams of radical neo-liberals are snuffing out the silent cries of unnamed angels.

            Congress and, sadly, George Bush gave us what they call Campaign Finance Reform.  What a misnomer.  Smart people are calling it the Incumbent Protection Act.  That makes sense.  Why leave a job where you can make laws that you can ignore but everyone else must obey?  Political fraud and monopolies are synonymous: they both benefit a few at the expense of many.  This is how they do it. 

Once upon a time there was an oil company whose owners wanted it to be the biggest company in the world.  But competition from other oil companies was a problem.  The CEOs understood the natural laws of supply and demand but didn’t like the idea of natural forces determining their prices.  So, they decided to change the law of supply and demand.  They purchased large shares of oil reserves, cut retail prices in areas where they had competition, and made up their losses by inflating oil prices in areas where there was no competition.  They were creating a monopoly. 

Lesser companies joined together, made donations to politicians and registered their complaints with Congress.  It wasn’t long before a law was enacted and Standard Oil was investigated by the United States Department of Justice, but not for the benefit of small business.  They did it for themselves.  With that law, Congress became the de facto CEO of every corporation in America and signaled to them that Congress would forever more be on their payroll.  Corporations could pay now or pay later, but both major political parties would still have their money or control of it.  Politicians know that controlling money is the same as having it.  Lesson learned; never ask government to solve a business problem. 

The same happened to a computer software company that failed to pay dues to the political parties.  The company was subsequently declared a monopoly and in violation of federal law.  They were threatened with fines, mandated divestment, and accused of unfair competition with companies that were failing to compete.  Microsoft paid dearly for their mistake. 

A monopoly is the exercise of economic leverage by a business in a manner that denies customers free exercise of choice, thereby forcing people to purchase products or services at higher prices from a single source.  Such centralization of market resources enables a supplier to arbitrarily place higher prices on their products and reap higher profits.  However, simply being big does not make a company a monopoly.  There must be a conscious and deliberate effort to eliminate competition from other suppliers.  Microsoft did not do that. They merely competed in an open market and were more successful than other computer software companies.  Anyone could purchase and operate the Netscape Internet Browser on any computer, even those that used the Miscosoft Windows operating system.  At the same time, the Justice Department entered into a conspiratorial agreement with Smith & Wesson to give that weapons manufacturer a monopolistic advantage over other firearms makers.  Attorney General Janet Reno went so far as to direct federal law enforcement agencies to purchase firearms from Smith & Wesson and exclude other firearms manufacturers.  That is official bid rigging.  She even tried to coerce local and state police agencies into purchasing Smith & Wesson firearms by threatening to withhold federal grants; a perfect example of monopoly by governmental fiat.  However, no government agency ever investigated the Clinton administration, Janet Reno, or Smith & Wesson.  

The federal government sponsors a similar monopoly in collusion with the two dominant political parties.  For any candidate to be placed on an official ballot, other than Democrat or Republican, they must meet regulations jointly imposed by those two parties.  This effectively denies the people of America that which is the very essence of a representative government, to be able to freely choose among a field of candidates.  In keeping with the best examples of totalitarianism, Congress recently passed a law that guarantees no candidate, other than their chosen, will ever be elected to Congress.  Does anyone believe the Justice Department will investigate the Republican or Democrat parties for that? 

In another scenario, John Smith opens a business where he believes it will grow and prosper.  After complying with local zoning and tax laws, OSHA regulations, handicap requirements, equal opportunity mandates, inspected by numerous regulatory agencies, and going into life-long debt, he begins selling his products at prices that pay his costs yet provide a modest profit.  John’s customers were pleased with his products and service.  In spite of the expense and inconveniences of government red tape, John’s business prospered.  His competitors noticed his excellent service, personal attention, and financial success.  They quickly became competitive and improved their products and services.  After paying federal, state, and local taxes, permit fees, and paper-work expenses, most of John’s remaining capital was invested in his community where it supported local banks, other businesses, churches, and charities.  The residents were pleased that people were employed, more successful, and contributing to the local economy.  The community was competing in a free market environment where everyone shared in the rewards that come when local businesses are responsive to their customers.  What John didn’t know was that the local government was about to determine which businesses in the community would prosper. 

After John’s business was established but before his employees achieved tenure or their retirement accounts matured enough to provide a return, a large multi-national discount retail corporation made a deal with the local government.  Based upon promises of fabulous employment opportunities, the local government granted the corporation special exemptions from taxes and zoning restrictions.  In return for these and other favors, not extended to local businesses, the corporation promised to locate a retail discount facility in the county, just outside city limits.  Giant oak trees that had provided cover for wildlife and beauty and sustenance for hundreds of years were cut down to make way for acres of flat roof buildings surrounded by an asphalt parking lot that radiated the summer heat and spilled its oily run-off into local streams. 

The discount store raised prices on products in their other stores in other parts of the country while slashing prices on products sold by John and his fellow businessmen.  Customers slowly but surely abandoned John’s business, the local tire store, hardware store, and sporting goods store.  They couldn’t compete with the chain store’s low but temporary low prices, stacks of loss-leader items piled high at the entrance, and racks of impulse displays blocking isles to twenty-seven checkout registers, registers that remained open only until local competition was destroyed.  Then, not more than two or three registers ever operated again.  They even had the gall to call a few of the check-out lanes express lanes. 

The discount store added a super market, eye clinic, automotive service center, combination barber/beauty shop, and other concessions, all beneath one giant roof.  John and other local businessmen were forced to close their doors and watch their employees go to lower paying jobs at the new store, which soon became the largest employer in the community, second only to government.  Old buildings, once busy with customers, were abandoned and new housing developments were cut from old properties once owned by people who now couldn’t afford the high property taxes levied to make up for the utilities and infrastructure demanded by the chain store. 

John, the local pharmacist who knew each of his customers by their first names and provided personal services like delivering drugs to homebound senior citizens gave up and retired.  He could no longer compete with a business subsidized by out-of-state stores and local government.  The new pharmacy at the chain store hired, fresh out of school, troops of young perky pharmacists with little knowledge of the side effects of the medications they were selling.  Blank-faced stares confronted customers when they asked about possible reactions one medicine might have if taken with another.  These neophyte pharmacists worked three-day weeks on half-day schedules at hourly wages and no fringe benefits.  “I’m just working to build up a little nest egg before I start a family.  It sure will be neat when I can work my schedule around Day Care, weekends, and my husband’s schedule.” 

This scenario is occurring in every community in America, and local governments are even encouraging it.  In violation of our Constitution, they use eminent domain to take private property for private purposes.  No federal agency is investigating and no federal court is finding anyone in violation of monopoly laws or the Constitutional provision that eminent domain is for taking private property only for public use. 

In another scenario, a private citizen writes three letters, one to each of his US Senators and House of Representatives member.  All he asks is that his voice to be heard in support or condemnation of some political issue or legislative initiative.  He would even like to enclose a small donation but there are too many elected officials and aspiring politicians for his donation to be significant enough to affect any opinion or change a vote on any issue.  Nevertheless, he writes his letters so he can participate in the political process more than just going to the polls every few years. 

Meanwhile, dozens of corporations that own resorts in places like Aspen, Swiss Alps, Costa Rica, and Jamaica are providing politicians free trips to their swank holdings.  Politicians and their political party bosses, accompanied by an entourage of cute but nameless females, snickeringly referred to as administrative aides, are provided every pleasure and convenience.  They justify their trips by having dumbed-down seminars on subjects that aren’t time-consuming, don’t require mental effort, or necessitate unpleasant physical exertion.  The so-called training sessions have little to do with improving government but a lot to do with funneling money to politicians while they frolic with their well-heeled sponsors by day and conduct comparative analyses of the sexual habits of the indigenous population by night. 

When the frequency and lavishness of the trips raised questions from a shrinking minority of astute journalists, the two major political parties switched to throwing their bashes in Washington, DC.  Specially invited corporate CEOs, union bosses, friendly journalists, and an array of special interest groups are invited to come and spend a little quality time with the prostituted candidate of their choice.  At public expense and in the privacy of swanky hotel suites, more cash is dispensed directly into the personal coffers of favored political hacks, money that is routed through multiple layered and hidden bank accounts of both political parties. 

Trade unions, National Education Association, Trial Lawyers Association and other special interest groups are doing the same with dues coerced from their members.  Politicians and journalists never expresses concern over the fact that dollars spent in such fashion rob private citizens of their right to participate in the business of their government, a government that no longer serves people but has become their master. 

In the cases of Standard Oil and Microsoft, both corporations were declared monopolistic but were managed by federal courts to benefit the mega-corporations and political parties.  They simply coerced them into making soft money contributions to the coffers of both parties.  As long as the cash keeps flowing the corporations get favored treatment in business dealings and mergers, and candidates of the party-faithful continue receiving money for their campaigns.  Everyone benefits and everyone is happy.  The only conflict is over which party will be in power and therefore receive the most cash to award to their favorite candidates.  The people can go to hell no matter what party they support.  Regardless of the disclaimer on the campaign contribution block of the IRS 1040 tax form, every time a taxpayer checks the ‘yes’ block it costs them money.  That is just one slick way politicians extract money from the ignorant to support the purchasing of the liberties from their constituents (sheep). 

The scenario about John Smith is an example of a monopoly similar to the one described in the scenarios about Standard Oil and Wal-Mart.  The Democrat and Republican Parties are getting mega-buck contributions from oil companies, Wal-Mart, and other corporations in return for special treatment that private citizens such as John don’t receive.  Monopoly laws no longer break-up monopolies or create better business environments for small businesses; they are used to force companies to get in line at the political donation door. 

Understanding the problems that Standard Oil and other companies had with the American two-party system (government officials) explains why there is no further need to bring the heavy ax of the Justice Department down on the heads of corporations.  The few that fail to pay their dues are dealt with in a way that eventually extracts appropriate amounts of cash through court ordered fines or out-of-court settlements that extort voluntary soft money to the major political parties.  The only reason tobacco companies were kept on the hook was that politicians found a way to extract more money from them than through taxation or forced donations.  Besides, the public can live with higher prices and taxes on tobacco but not cheap imports from Mexico, Taiwan, and Communist China. 

It is often said that money is symbolic speech and a right that cannot to be trifled upon.  If that is true, we all have the right to gamble or sell ourselves into prostitution.  If money is speech we should exercise our right to withhold our “freedom of speech money” in protest of the abuses suffered at the hands of a tyrannical government. 

Speech is speech and money is money.  They are not the same.  Money is property, an inanimate object with no rights of its own.  Money can be likened to speech only in that owning it is a human right just as owning other property is a right.  Free speech is a thing that people have a right to exercise and happens to be one of the rights enumerated in the Constitution, which clearly states that people have a right to own property.  But money (profit) is property, a thing that must be earned, and nothing earned has any rights of its own.  Only individuals, the core of Constitutional Republicanism, have rights.  Speech doesn’t have to be earned; it is an unalienable right that comes with no cost until abused.  And that is why the fight for campaign finance reform is a legitimate fight.  But there are people, like talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who claim to be conservative while advocating that corporate entities have a right to silence individual speech.  As a supporter of corporate donations to political parties, Limbaugh attempts to make the case that it is proper for corporations to rob individual citizens of the effectiveness of their vote by collectively out biding them.  He forgets that the Constitution was designed to protect individual rights, and specifically addresses individual rights without making any mention of corporate rights, other than the right of people to incorporate.  Rush needs to change horses; his is drowning in the middle of the stream. 

While our Constitution acknowledges individual rights and permits individuals to incorporate as a group entity, it limits the power of such unions by giving Congress (the people’s representatives) the responsibility to regulate interstate commerce.  The right of the people to incorporate or the right of Congress to regulate commerce does not mean that either has a right to establish and operate a government-sponsored conspiracy or monopoly.  The individual rights that the people retained when the Constitution was established are enumerated in the first ten amendments and enacted into law in accordance with provisions contained in the body of that document.  Individual rights are the most precious rights of all, and they take precedence over any assumed rights of corporations, political parties, special interest groups, or any group.  In fact, not only does the Constitution make no reference corporate rights it makes no mention of political parties.  Political parties are creations of the people under their right to incorporate.  Government and politicians are entities created by the same people.  Therefore, the rights of the people come first.  What people have a right to create they have a right to destroy and rebuild in their own fashion.  But people can neither create nor destroy government if they fail to reserve to themselves the ability to do either.  Therefore, we, the people, retained the individual right to keep and bear arms.  Nevertheless, in defiance of its charter, government continues to broaden its monopolistic powers over individual citizens while conspiring with foreign oil producing nations to aid and abet their monopolistic practices over the world oil trade and private business practices. 

If domestic oil companies were to do what the foreign oil cartel is doing, the government would declare them a monopoly, force them to break up, and fine them.  But our government will never consider raising the issue.  Money funneled through foreign accounts and into the coffers of the major political parties can only be described as bribery and hush money.  They are covertly telling the American people to go to hell. 

There is a very serious and criminal problem with the way political campaigns are financed at all levels of government, which includes money from foreign governments.  There is just no possible way for American citizens to compete with their government when it operates in violation of its own anti-racketeering statutes.  Furthermore, the two major political parties will never be convinced, through accepted democratic means, to change the way campaigns are financed or conduct affairs they prefer to keep secret from the people.  That would be like asking a fat pig to pull away from a full trough.  The only solutions are to empty the trough or kill the pig.  But American voters cannot be counted on to change anything.  They are too busy sucking on the fat pig’s teats.  And don’t count on the working middle classes to change anything.  They are too busy enjoying a sheep’s life of abundance with no responsibilities; the life they dreamed of when they were children of the sixties, the now generation.  It appears that the only crimes a protected and sedated people care about are the ones they perceive as threats to their economic security.  The sheep of America feel secure while enjoying economic security and politicians of both major parties revel in the knowledge of how easy it is to buy off the dependent classes at the expense of the producing classes; at least for now. 

The only Constitutional solution to the problem of campaign financing (bribery) is to prohibit any public organization, corporation, or special interest group from making contributions to any political candidate or political party.  Any legal citizen of the United States should be permitted to contribute any amount of their personal money to any candidate or special interest group, but each contribution should be itemized separately on their individual tax return as a non-deductible contribution.  But no person should be allowed to contribute to any person who is not a candidate in an election in which the contributing individual is not qualified to vote.  Any candidate accepting any contribution not authorized by such law should be disqualified from holding public office, including the office in which he is the incumbent.  Any individual, corporate CEO, or officer of any special interest group who violates that law should be fined a hundred times their total contribution and imprisoned not less than the time equal to the term of the office violated. 

Until Americans decide to do away with corporate vote buying, they will continue paying for crimes committed by politicians and those who control them (PAC rats and foreign political and financial interests).  Nevertheless, like all bad debts, the balloon payment will eventually come due.  When that day comes, most people will be unwilling to pay and internal revolution or external conquest is likely to engulf a nation that failed to heed the thundering sound of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  History is my witness, and I hear distant hoofs.

Openly advocating armed revolution as a means for forcing government to change is and always has been a risky thing to do.  Such activity is likely to provoke government officials into committing a little violence of their own, especially from those officials who have the most to lose.  

The usual manner in which oppressive governments react to envisioned threats to their national security (political power) is to send forth squads of agents trained to blindly enforce, with robotic repetition and little concern for legal issues, the edits of their political bosses.  They have also demonstrated a propensity for crashing in doors in the middle of the night, shouting vulgarities, and brandishing short barreled automatic firearms.  It should be noted that the firearms they wave in the air are the same firearms that the general population is prohibited from owning.  Nevertheless, identifying a few salient causes for revolution, describing its inception and manner of prosecution, and commenting on its eventual resolution can only be viewed as a public service and an exercise in free speech. 

Recent attacks on the bodies and personal liberties of American citizens at the hands of their government has apparently been insufficient reason to incite Americans to the point they are willing, at least for now, to participate in any organized resistance.  They are yet to raise even a bristle every time their government goes so far as to sanction the terrorist acts of their hired agents.  Yes, you read it correctly; terrorism is not limited only to violent acts committed by foreign agents or domestic malfeasants. 

It was evident that very few Americans understood the constitutional ramifications involved as they watched agents of their country lay siege to the homes of their fellow Americans who had never been charged or convicted of a single capital offense.  With their senses dulled from watching decades of televised violence and fantasy, most Americans showed little emotion or concern when government agents, supported by the military, surrounded the home of a group of American citizens in Waco, Texas and held them prisoner with tanks, machine guns, chemical agents, and flame throwers.  After subjecting their captives to several days of psycho-electronic warfare, they watched their trapped targets of human flesh burn to death in their own home. 

Halfway across the country, another gang of federal agents armed with sniper’s rifles gunned down innocent members of an American family who were doing nothing more than seeking refuge in their home.  A man and his family was assaulted because some ATF agent, in violation of a citizen’s right to bear arms, goaded him into cutting off the barrel of one shotgun, a shotgun that after being shortened was still longer than any legal pistol or revolver.  “I was just following orders.”  How many times have we heard that excuse, and why was John Magraw, the then Director of the ATF and the one who sanctioned those orders, conveniently assigned to the Department of Transportation where he became chief of the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and began formulating anti-terrorism policies for America? 

Americans sat in their homes for eight years during the Clinton administration enjoying but not understanding the effects of a growing economy that had its roots watered during the Reagan years but was being drained by Clinton’s socialist policies.  Reveling in ignorance and ravishing in unearned government benefits, Americans gave little thought to the extortion rackets being operated by the Clintons.  As long as intrusion into the liberties of others had no adverse affect on their personal little lives, most Americans showed little concern for the clandestine and criminal acts of the Clintons.  They never noticed or seemed to care when Clinton dismantled America’s foreign intelligence gathering capability while using his office to spy on Americans.  They pretended not to notice when he ignored the representative process established by our Forefathers and used the Justice Department to extort money from makers of legal products like Smith and Wesson Arms.  Then, like a textbook psychotic, he issued executive orders and employed character assassination plots to punish those who complained. 

All Americans, whether they are government agents or private citizens, are governed by the same rule of self-defense when in situations that might cause them to consider taking the life of another human being.  Deadly force is permitted only after all reasonable means to escape the imminent and deadly advances from another have been exhausted.  Judicial courts of reason have put it very bluntly; you must have your back to the wall and no reasonable means for escaping before you can kill any person who is in the process of attacking you.  Even then you must be able to articulate your fears and reasonable belief that the attacker had the ability to kill you and was in the process of demonstrating those intentions to you or to another innocent person. 

This concept of self-defense and protection of innocent life is one of the prime justifications for revolution.  It was the sentiment expressed by the authors of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution and the same sentiment issued earlier when they published the Declaration of Independence, which advocates a people’s right to forcefully separate from a tyrannical government.  When a people’s backs are to the wall and they are faced with assaults upon their liberties by their own government, they are free to act in self-defense, collectively if possible but singularly if necessary.  Judging from their most notable performances, the FBI and ATF are no longer provided instruction in constitutional law and laws of self-defense at their training centers in Quantico, Virginia and Brunswick, Georgia.  Conduct demonstrated by federal police agencies has always been a precursor to similar conduct by state and local police agencies.  When government agencies allow their agents to relax the rules of self-defense, the people are inclined to do so as well.  Monkey sees; monkey does. 

There can be little doubt as to what the people of this newly freed nation would have done had their new government turned out to be as deceitful and treacherous after their revolution as our government has become over two centuries later.  They would have re-commissioned George Washington to lead another army.  This time it would be to cross the Potomac and attack the traitors of their own government in the same fashion as he did when he crossed the Delaware and attacked the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton.  However, Americans of today have become blissfully ignorant of the fact that our government is more oppressive than our Forefathers experienced at the hands of the British.  Even the serfs of medieval feudalism were drained of a lesser percentage of their product in tribute to their lords than Americans of today are forced to give to their city, county, state, and federal government.  Americans have become stagnated in a comfortable existence made possible by their Founding Fathers and solidified by Americans who chose to fight and die in the trenches of freedom rather than forfeit their hard-earned liberties. 

There is a growing national nonchalance about the personal sacrifices made by our Forefathers.  It is an indifference further exacerbated by an immigration policy that denigrates the values upon which our country was founded.  Our government now encourages an influx of illegal aliens who expect personal benefits, financial handouts, and soft lives filled with conveniences without expenditure of personal effort.  This policy is conducive to and encourages agents of terrorist organizations to transport their evil to the very people our government was instituted to protect.  Such invaders speak of a desire for freedom but rarely demonstrate any knowledge or appreciation for the sacrifices made by people who secured the kind of freedom they expect to enjoy without cost.  They seem to believe that freedom means personal convenience and material possessions rather than an earned reward for eternal vigilance.  Those who feast from the horn of plenty but fail to contribute to its bounty have no incentive to refill the horn.  They are parasites who suck blood from the tree of liberty. 

The signers of the Declaration of Independence were not common men who had nothing to risk by their actions and words.  They were our most educated and wealthy who really did risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for one principle; that government is subordinate to the people.  After fighting the revolution to a successful conclusion, many never recovered from their commitment to that honorable cause.  Some were captured and imprisoned by the British or died without ever having an opportunity to taste the fruits of the tree of liberty that they helped plant.  Many lost their fortunes to the ravages of a vengeful King who burned and plundered their homes and imprisoned or executed their kin who were unlucky to still be in England.  Today, how many politicians can we count on to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor?  And shame on us for allowing our education system to graduate people who are unable to recall the name of the American who first shouted the words, “Give me liberty or give me death!” 

It appears that the price of liberty is no longer eternal vigilance but has been reduced to somewhere between the prices of welfare checks or servile jobs with enslaving enticements that our government deceitfully refers to as “benefits.”  Government terrorism is much like arsenic in that its effects are cumulative.  As government increases the scope and intensity of its oppressive tactics, the pain eventually becomes unbearable for those who, more than any segment of society, are forced to pay the bills and make the greatest adjustment in their lives; the nation’s productive middle class.  Although they usually prefer tolerance over violence, they have always been the people who finally resort to revolution as an acceptable and reasonable antidote to a government that has turned on the very people who instituted it. 

Political leaders of a revolution and those who conduct the subsequent and necessary military operations are not usually fortunate enough to enjoy the luxury of having a majority of the masses support their efforts.  The American Revolution was won with little support from most of the colonists.  It was won by about twenty-five percent of a patriot populous who were opposed by another twenty-five percent who were loyal to the King of England.  The other fifty percent didn’t care.  Nevertheless, the sorely outnumbered patriots won a revolution against the largest army ever raised by England.  We still don’t need the reluctance of the masses to win another revolution; we need only the resolve to risk our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.  The uncaring masses will always be there watching in ignorant wonderment, eating from the scraps of luxury in good times, begging for scraps in tough times, and waiting for another leader to drag their nameless bodies through the pages of history. 

It was a strong indictment of American national leadership, competence, and sense of justice when a tyrant like Saddam Hussein refused inspection of his weapons sites while our president and foreign diplomats were reduced to hesitation, quibbling, feeble attempts at negotiation, and finally into complete capitulation.  When American citizens refuse governmental inspection and control of their personal lives, homes, and weapons, they are killed.  Given those facts, it is much safer to be a subject of a third world dictatorship than it is to be an American citizen.  It’s an even greater testament to our government’s criminal insanity when it makes every effort to take firearms from private citizens while simultaneously and clandestinely selling the most destructive weapons that our technology has ever devised to rogue nations like Communist China. 

There has been only token resistance, even at the ballot box, to the actions of an out of control federal monopolistic conglomerate that has created so many enforcement and regulatory agencies that it is impossible to keep track of each of their statutory and geographic jurisdictions, much less their separate and self-assumed clandestine activities.  Most of these agencies have evolved into nothing more than employment havens for incompetent nincompoops and pools of patronage for obedient political lackeys and their friends and relatives.  The job of removing the arrogant guardians of government who abuse the powers entrusted to them is one that must be addressed by the President of the United States.  If not, it will be addressed not to far in the future as we begin a new charge down that old familiar but unconventional path of revolution. 

The original thirteen American colonies were finally prodded into revolution after over two hundred years of abuse from absentee European monarchs who were siphoning off the productivity of the colonies in tribute to the greed and power of the crowns of England, France, and Spain.  After gaining dominance over French and Spanish interests in that part of the new world destined to become the United States of America, the King of England added insult and injury to his arrogance by sending his agents to the homes and businesses of the more productive colonists.  They came under armed military escort collecting taxes that were levied upon the colonist’s bodies, properties, commodities, and services.  It took only a few years under the oppressive rule of that king for first blood to be drawn after he sent his troops marching upon Lexington.  The king’s soldiers were coming for the sole purpose of seizing an armory of firearms; firearms they knew would be used by the patriots to defend their homes and families. 

Today, career politicians and their appointed administrators of various agencies, according to their personal choices of bureaucratic procedure and convenience, selectively abide by some provisions of the Constitution, ignore others, and cowardly hide behind others.  Our government no longer sends armed tax collectors to our front doors; not because it would be an obvious violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from acting as a police force against American citizens.  Nor are they concerned about the Third Amendment, which prohibits the quartering of soldiers in private homes.  They don’t even give a thought to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.  What we have now is an army of Internal Revenue Service agents who have been given executive authority to summarily order any citizen to gather their personal papers and come kneel before a one-man tribunal.  Any citizen who fails to appear is arrested, dragged before an agent of government, forced to testify against himself, and directed to suffer the edicts of an appointed government employee who hasn’t been elected by the people and isn’t required to be a member of the judiciary. 

The Department of Justice sends out agents that have been given special protection from citizens who would like to exercise their constitutional right to remain silent.  If a citizen fails to respond to a question in a way the agent likes, the citizen can be arrested for lying to a government agent.  Even that little incident at Waco failed to disturb anyone at the Justice Department, and no one at the White House batted an eye.  The Justice Department had just violated the law of the land and did so with full knowledge and consent of the President of the United States who was acting in direct consultation with his Attorney General, Janet Reno.  It was a clear conspiracy to deprive American citizens of their civil rights, the same offense that government agents charge individual citizens with when they want to interject federal power into the business of sovereign states and private citizens.  Should we wonder what constitutional protections are being abridged by using taxpayer funds to station federally funded National Guard soldiers in airports so that over-staffed state police and local police agencies can continue writing traffic tickets to bolster their coffers?  And when the Department of Homeland Security took over all airports in the country, what happened to the local taxes that were being collected for the operation of those airports?  No, there were no tax reductions at the local level. 

In the name of governmental convenience and public safety, representatives of our federal government in both political parties have trashed the Constitution and are getting away with it.  They are getting away with it because members of Congress are more concerned with being re-elected, protecting their automatic pay raises, and consolidating their personal powers.  This same congress is failing to oversee and regulate the conduct of the numerous agencies they created, supposedly to administer laws they enacted in the name of “We, the people of the United States of America.”  Laws are supposed to serve the people, not the pleasure of political incumbents or arrogance of their appointed minions. 

Congress recently participated in one of their gorilla-like chest-beating exercises over testimony having to do with reports that the IRS was harassing private citizens.  They followed that well publicized farce by enacting an even more complex tax code and making promises that the IRS will be more polite as they rip through people’s savings accounts and wallets.  This same Congress sheds crocodile tears as the people, from whom their salaries come, are subjected to searches and seizures without service of a warrant that is valid on its face, supported by an “Oath of probable cause,” and issued by a fair and impartial magistrate.  Are we missing something here or have revenue agents and social workers been exempted from compliance with the Bill of Rights by some provision of the Constitution that we, the people, have not yet been made aware? 

Honest and intelligent men wrote the Constitution in a way that honest and simple people could understand it without help from politicians and government agents whose salaries are attached to their ability to harass citizens who pay those salaries.  There is very little in the Constitution that requires interpretation; not by constitutional attorneys or the highest court in the land.  There is certainly nothing in it that needs interpretation by government agents whose jobs are to enforce laws and not interpret them so as to meet their personal and political agendas.  A group of people who shared an honorable and common purpose wrote the Constitution, but people who share a dishonorable common purpose, abetted by a disinterested public, are the ones who are destroying it. 

The protracted contriving and chronic incompetence of our federal government is sufficient reason to provoke the ire of people who desire and deserve relief from the meddling obtrusiveness of government during their short life spans here on earth.  Encroaching and entangling laws enacted by an out of touch congress, not to mention executive orders issued at the whim of narcissist and psychotic presidents, are placing more and more controls on more and more people.  Only recently the government announced their intention to expand their already illegitimate regulation of the traditional workplace to the homes of private citizens, all under the guise of providing a safe workplace.  This obsessive compulsion for controlling people is fueling anger in people who require the least amount of control.  The intentional abuse, over taxation, and contempt for the rights of the most productive members of society, by taking from the producers and giving to the non-producers, is the match that is lighting an old fuse, a fuse that is burning slowly but inevitably towards a new American Revolution. 

The increasing frustration and desperation of an oppressed people will eventually cause them to respond by committing small acts of resistance.  The natural response from government is to react with two of its most available and effective weapons, power and propaganda.  Unfortunately, the most ignorant and emotional members of society are usually the ones who commit the first few violent acts of insurgency.  These pathetic people commit indiscriminate acts of violence directed at targets they perceive are symbols of their resentment.  Such people are usually members of small, poorly organized, and undisciplined groups, or are loners who envision themselves as somehow being the personal avengers of Lady Justice.  Such foolish and premature acts are usually poorly planned and executed against inappropriate targets, and they do more to alienate people than to accomplish any tactical or strategic purpose.  This was demonstrated in Oklahoma City and the Olympic games in Atlanta.  Such senseless acts compromises and taints the integrity, valid purpose, and just goals of true revolutions, and they provide the offending government with an excuse to be even more offensive and oppressive as they accelerate their campaign of propaganda and initiate additional constraints upon the liberties of all citizens.  The perpetrators of such acts don’t represent any legitimate revolutionary movement but are common criminals whose actions prolong the misery of those who are suffering at the hands of the real object of just revolutions, rogue governments.  

We have already witnessed the legitimate use of free speech over the public airwaves being characterized as “hate radio” and the right of people to assemble demonized as “terrorist militia groups.”  In 1998, the Justice Department gave America an example of this when they released a report detailing what they described as an increase in “credible bomb threats.”  Janet Reno never bothered to explain her definition of a credible bomb threat.  Government officials often use the word ‘credible’ when they want to lend credibility to their dishonest manipulation of statistics.  The media then parrots the same word to make their slanted reporting seem plausible.  The Justice Department conveniently included in their total number of bomb threats all reports that were remotely related to bombs.  They even included repeat calls from people they knew had a history of making false bomb threats.  Any instance that could be remotely related to a bomb made their list.  They never mentioned that bomb threats are almost always false reports made by disgruntled employees or warped little juveniles.  They claimed that they must consider all bombs threats as credible because, “it’s always better to err on the side of caution” or because the information came from a “confidential” source, which of course is always credible when an agenda is afoot.  That is but only one way government spreads fear of terrorism among its citizens and justifies singling out individuals or special groups they have decided to label “a danger to society.” 

In order to prepare people to be more acceptable to increased government control, it is necessary for an oppressive government to create fear and uncertainty.  More control always comes under the guise of improving public safety or protecting people from the threat of terrorism, and it usually comes after some highly publicized incident or after publishing federal crime statistics that are rigged for such purposes.  This kind of fear mongering by government is terrorism just as real as any terrorism that comes from abroad.  How far would the American Revolution have progressed had the British been able to use television to characterize Nathan hale, Francis Marion, Robert’s Rangers, or the Green Mountain Boys as common criminals or domestic militia terrorists that were dangerous threats to the safety and security of the American colonists?  Modern communications technology is as much a tool for the oppressor as it is a means for enlightenment. 

Oppressive governments always move from less clandestine to more overt methods as they become more successful in eradicating the people’s ability to resist or change their government through means that were once available, either legitimate or illegitimate.  Such oppressive acts of paranoid and desperate governments should be a call to arms that awakens the more intelligent and productive people to the fact that it is time to take corrective measures outside the normal confines of the ballot box.  When the ballot box fails to relieve the pain of abuse suffered at the ands of government, a moral justification for revolution is born.  And when the pains of oppression go beyond what the producers and thinkers of society can tolerate, from them will come the leadership that makes revolutions successful. 

This Constitutional Republic of America wasn’t instituted with any powers to bless or damn the people.  It is the people who possess the inalienable right to bless or damn their government.  When the elected and appointed guardians of a republic presume for themselves such rights and powers and take measures to enforce their self-assumed authority by co-opting and preempting liberties that the people chose to reserve to themselves, it becomes the duty of the people, individually or collectively, to dispose of their government in any fashion they may devise.  Only one question remains; how do we determine when the prerequisites for revolution are met?  The answer is simple; they are met as they have always been met. 

The seeds of revolution begin to germinate with a gradual increase in an unofficial but popular consensus that government has become corrupt and its laws are more restrictive and reactive than helpful.  The people begin to disrespect their body of laws and instances of spontaneous and organized demonstrations grow more widespread and organized.  An organized but clandestine provisional government soon emerges to encourage a popular movement of resistance.  More frequent and better planned incidents of covert and overt rebuttal to the offending government become more commonplace and intense.  Protracted guerrilla warfare is initiated after the public begins to openly condemn their government as illegal and its institutions as instruments of oppression.  The agitated government will demonstrate its desperation by responding with attempts at consolidating its power.  It soon nationalizes all means of public and private communications and transportation, rations selected products, and places controls on other key support activities and services. 

Although many people might remain somewhat sympathetic to their old government, they soon grow less fearful of the emerging government than of their old government.  Such easily molded people have always been the harmless masses that serve as cannon fodder for war.  They are the same people who, during the American Revolution, were the majority who sat aside and watched their country being born right before their very eyes, and they are the people who have always been the sheep of the land whose bleats attract both predators and protectors that war over which side will own the most sheep. 

The final step into a state of violent revolution begins when the guardians of the offending government refuse to recant, resign, or initiate rectifying actions in accordance with a consensus of the organized revolutionary leadership.  It isn't perfect and it isn't pretty, but that is the direction history takes when government and their rogue agents take it upon themselves to extend their powers beyond those delegated to them by a social contract that the people initiated and established between themselves and their government in accordance with their free will and for their collective good.  What a free people institute, an oppressed people may rightfully destroy. 

It is a simple matter of a very special trust and confidence.  The productive and intelligent people of a country, collectively and voluntarily, relinquish certain innate and enumerated powers that are possessed only by them as individual human beings in a civilized society.  They relinquish those powers, in the form of a loan, to a body of people whom they select from their own kind.  They do this for very few but necessary reasons so as to permit them the freedom to carry on their personal affairs in a manner most suited to their individual fashions.  Our republican form of government was designed with a built-in system of checks and balances to ensure those powers that the people loaned to their government will be the only powers exercised by government.  If the guardians of government believe they need additional powers to carry out their delegated functions, they are required to come before the people in an open forum and formally ask for them.  This is the purpose of our representative legislative process where laws are supposed to be proposed in an open session of Congress, subjected to examination by opposing representatives, passed or rejected under scrutiny of public debate, and the process made a matter of public and permanent record.  The constitutional powers delegated to Congress were never meant to be construed to give certain legislators the power to single-handily determine which bills will come before the Senate and which ones will be hidden from public view. 

People establish governments for the primary purposes of guaranteeing their collective protection from the criminal acts of others, to protect them from foreign invasion, and to establish procedures to guard against oppression from their own government.  They further establish governments to protect the sovereignty of their freely chosen political subdivisions and to reduce confusion in public activities and private business dealings by providing for a common system of monetary exchange.  The people then place specified levels of authority in their chosen representative so as to allow them to exercise only those powers delegated to them.  In so doing, the people bestow upon their representatives a sacred trust and confidence that they will serve with integrity, honor, and devotion to duty.  When the representatives fail to serve in accordance with the dictates of their charters, and they create more confusion and ill will than they reduce, the contract has been violated and the people may dispense with the contract in any fashion they choose.  And if they find it necessary and choose to do so, they may even execute the offenders. 

When that special trust and confidence that the people, reluctantly yet trustingly, placed in their government is habitually violated, that old but natural gap of suspicion between people and their sovereign quickly widens.  Eventually, the productive members of society begin to realize that they are the ones who are being disenfranchised at the ballot box.  The buds of revolution then soon begin to blossom on the old tree of liberty, the same tree that Thomas Jefferson warned us that must occasionally be watered with the blood of both patriots and tyrants.  First blood in the battle for American liberty was drawn over two hundred years ago on the road to Lexington at a bridge called Concord.  Who will draw the next first blood and from whom and where will it be drawn, or has it already been drawn at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and on the border between the United States and Mexico? 

Terrorism, whether delivered as bullets to the body or socialism to the mind, is most effective when employed against people who are dependent upon government for their sustenance and protection.  The police and military, the only instruments of legitimate force with which a state is empowered, are only marginally effective without voluntary support from the civilian population.  Their efforts are even less successful when people lose respect for the police agencies that enforce those laws that further restrict personal liberties and the people’s ability to possess the tools of self-preservation.  When a government strips its private citizens of their ability to protect themselves from common street criminals and rogue actions of their own government, that is sufficient evidence to the fact that those who govern no longer trust the governed.  That is a breach of human trust and a flagrant violation of the greatest written contract ever produced between a people and their government, The Constitution of the United States of America.  Close examination of the Bible or Qur’an fail to reveal greater words of guidance for man’s conduct during his short stay on earth.  Even absent those writings, such assaults upon the dignity of all humanity and individual liberties would still be an affront to the natural laws of self-preservation.  Any person proposing to take another man’s ultimate means of self-defense is a tyrant, and any person who permits another to do so is a slave.  Therefore, slavery is and has always been voluntary. 

It is mendacious treachery when government officials attempt to convince Americans that certain well-publicized crimes were terrorist acts committed by “marginalized” people with no valid political goals, or that militias are “misguided” terrorist organizations filled with stupid rednecks.  Redneck seems to be a liberal code word for anyone who lives in the backwoods of America and owns a firearm.  They are talking about Mr. and Mrs. Farmer, Rancher, and Average American citizen.  It is mass stupidity when Americans allow themselves to be duped into believing that such rubbish is fact.  Too many people seem to forget that it was a group of marginalized American patriots who dumped the King’s tea in the Boston harbor.  It was also a couple of patriots like Alvin York and Audie Murphy who were called American heroes after they both learned how to shoot straight while growing up in the backwoods of America. 

Jesse James robbed trains, John Dillinger robbed banks, Ted Kryzinski used letter bombs to maim and kill, and Timothy McVey blew up a building and killed scores of people.  But, not one of those criminal acts was terrorism.  Those crimes were very frightening and deadly, but they were only examples of serial crimes and mass murders of the kind that have always been committed by ordinary criminals throughout the history of mankind.  Nevertheless, politicians and their handlers have discovered how the speed of modern communications technology can make it easy for them to blame evil conspiracies and selected crimes on competing ideological groups, thereby gaining public support for their hidden agendas.  They have found this tactic very useful when the perpetrators of serious crimes cannot be immediately identified or when they want to shift blame to meet some political agenda.  The more dastardly the deed the easier it is to shift blame to some contrived enemy of the state, rival group, or some inanimate object, like a firearm.  The goal of all politics is power over people, and that is a sorry indictment of mankind’s inability to learn from his mistakes.  We never seem to learn that, eventually, all governments become the aggressor.  We should heed the wise words of George Washington; “In proportion as the structure of government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”  I wonder how many victims of our socialist dominated school system have ever read those words. 

The seriousness of some act or the degree of its violence isn’t what determines whether or not an act should or shouldn’t be classified as terrorism.  It’s the nature of the sociological motives, political purposes, ideological goals, and the organizational structure of the actors and sponsors of violence that determines whether or not an act of violence can properly be labeled terrorism.  Terrorism is the use or threatened use of force, violence, or deceit that is designed to coerce or intimidate people for the purpose of gaining political power.  Terrorism is conducted, sponsored, and sanctioned by governments against their own people, by governments against other governments, and by dissident groups whose intentions are to alter some established government or society.  There is nothing sinister about terrorism.  It is only a means through which to prepare a society for political manipulation when other more traditional methods of persuasion are unavailable or would be unsuccessful.  And when terrorism begins to show signs of being effective, it is a precursor to armed invasion, establishment of a police state, or internal revolution. 

Terrorism is employed for ideological or political purposes and falls into two categories, tactical and strategic.  Tactical terrorism includes physical attacks and/or direct psychological assaults upon a society or class of people.  It is designed to create sufficient fear as to enable its perpetrators to channel the collective actions of the targeted people toward some political or ideological goal.  The objectives are to promote uncertainty, spread irrational fear, and weaken people’s confidence in their government.  Governments and domestic dissident groups employ tactical terrorism against their own people just as foreign governments and international dissident groups employ it against people of other countries.  Government sponsored tactical terrorism is usually employed as a means to gain control over a country after the will of the people to resist has been eliminated, but in can just as well be employed after control has been gained as a means to continue physical domination over the populace. 

Strategic terrorism is much more clandestine.  It encompasses those activities employed by governments in efforts to retain or expand control over their citizens.  Such activity is government sponsored and characterized by deceit, staged media events, manipulation of existing laws, enactment of more restrictive laws after some heavily publicized crime, issuing executive decrees, promulgation of emergency laws that never go away, and usurpation of the sovereignty of local governments through regulation and selective distribution of federal funds.  These activities, when directed against a society by their own government, are always beyond the scope of any social contract that might have been in existence between that society and their government. 

The bombing of Pan Am flight 103, the bombing in the basement of the World Trade Center, and the attack from the air on the World Trade Center by foreign agents are examples of tactical terrorism.  The attacks upon American citizens at Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the assault upon the Bill of Rights from our own government are examples of domestic strategic terrorism.  Although our government may deny sponsorship of domestic terrorism and even give lip service in condemnation of all terrorism, such claims aren’t valid.  If our representatives really opposed such activity they would direct more attention to organizations like the socialist National Education Association that is terrorizing our school system.  And, they would do it as vehemently as they attack the National Rifle Association that supports the Bill of Rights.  Domestic strategic terrorism is designed to make people worry, and worry leads to fear, which leads to a people being willing to accept more government control over their daily lives. 

England has been plagued for centuries with foreign invasions, colonial revolts, and domestic revolutionary activity.  Only in recent years have political spin artists characterized the contestants in the age old and continuing Irish Revolution as terrorists.  The English will always be targets of opportunity in their own land until they get the message that political issues involving geographic boundaries and regional sovereignties never resolve themselves until the deep seated religious and ethnic issues are resolved at the local level.  They have been so inadequate at solving such problems that they are now faced with a Muslim problem that is purely religious and without geographic borders. 

Assimilation simply doesn’t work when religious fanatics are involved.  This applies also to the recent American sponsored NATO involvement in Yugoslavia.  Localized conflicts are ugly but are usually quickly resolved without outside interference.  How the winners later present themselves to the international brotherhood of sovereign nations is a matter that can be dealt with when the time comes.  Just keep them within their borders where they can only hurt people of their own kind.  If they cross their borders and present a threat to civilized nations, they can be dealt with just as we dealt with Adolph Hitler.  When they transport their fanaticism to other countries, like the Islamic terrorist are doing, we can make sure they don’t have a country to return to. 

The Founding Fathers of this nation understood the benefits of federal encouragement without active interference in the natural progression of local sovereignties.  The territories of America progressed slowly, surely, and voluntarily to statehood, and did it independent of uninvited federal involvement or direct intervention by union troops under conditions of martial law.  That is the lesson that NATO, the UN, European states, Middle Eastern desert kingdoms, and African tribes have failed to learn.  Just why is it that the United States of America progressed to become such a great nation while the rest of the world floundered and still flounders with monarchies, socialism, dictatorships, and religion dominated nut case states?  What has Allah accomplished in the last thirteen hundred years except pain and suffering by the descendants of his original followers? 

The religious and political issues of Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia, and the Middle Eastern Sheikdoms will never be resolved as long as foreign troops remain in those lands.  The different political factions in occupied countries always perceive foreign troops on their soil as unwelcome intruders and human symbols of an occupying government that neither faction respects.  However, abstaining from meddling in the business of other nations has never been the nature of the English, and it is quickly becoming an American habit.  The British Crown has never demonstrated that it understands or respects the concept of self-determination for other people.  That is a characteristic of socialism and other despotic forms of government, and it explains why the British attempt at world colonialism failed.  America’s failure to heed the mistakes of the English and remember and practice the wisdom of our Forefathers explains why our military intervention in Yugoslavia, Haiti, and Somalia failed.  It also explains why British intervention in Ireland will fail.  Absent any direct threat to the individual liberties of a nation’s people, all such interventions have always been doomed to failure.  The only exceptions in history have been total conquest followed by complete annihilation of the conquered people’s culture. 

England is no longer a constitutional monarchy.  It has become a representative socialist aristocracy hiding behind the skirts of a neutered royal icon.  As the House of Lords and Commons chop away at the last remaining liberties of the English people, the royal family rests easy in their knowledge that they will continue their life of privilege without purpose.  Still, the simple masses of Britain continue to lap at the skirts of their Queen and go to bed each night dreaming about a senseless princess who died trying to be significant in a world that was demanding that she be like the commoners who admired her only for her senselessness.  The ancestral home of American liberalism is England, and the unearned arrogance so characteristic of modern-day effete liberal socialism was conceived in royal nepotism and nurtured by generations of aristocratic idleness. 

Although the guerrilla warfare tactics employed in Ireland have always been associated with revolutions, they are now labeled terrorism in the interest of demonizing the opponents of English neo-colonialism in Ireland and aristocratic socialism in England.  If anyone believes that English aristocrats don’t keep pistols in their homes in spite of their own laws banning all firearms, they don’t know much about the British elite.  Liberals, whether English, American, or whomever, always exempt themselves from the restraints they so eagerly force upon others.  More people will die in Belfast, London, and Jerusalem, and even more are doomed to die in the old Slavic states of Europe.  Americans sat silently in comfortable belief that their shores were safe until horror struck in New York and Washington.  Silence is not golden; it is suicide. 

The religious, ethnic, and political problems of Ireland would have been solved years ago had gun control not been an issue in Great Britain.  Similarly, had the people of Yugoslavia been permitted to define their own destinies, there never would have been any bombs over Belgrade.  There is an enormous tendency for people to have second thoughts about murdering their neighbor when they are aware that their neighbor and his family and friends are armed.  The deterrent effect of privately owned firearms is tremendous when criminals and governments are aware of their existence in the hands of the competent and willing.  And, in spite of all those crybabies in the gun control movement, the rapid growth of America from a savage frontier to a great nation is an everlasting tribute to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.  No other civilization on this earth has ever made such progress in such short time.  Peace and progress are the protected children of strength and freedom, but mother freedom is vulnerable to rape, plunder, and pillage when her husband of strength is not at her side, and armed. 

The age of mass communications brought upon the world the concurrent age of international terrorism.  Before the advent of instantaneous communications, most people never heard of an act that today would be labeled terrorism until days, weeks, months, and sometimes years after the fact.  Advances in tactics and weaponry, which enabled humans to wage war more effectively, have always accompanied further progress in communications technology.  Regardless of cries to condemn terrorism as immoral and illegal, secretly killing one’s enemies and attacking their home bases has always been practiced as a prelude to and during the conduct of war.  War is war, and terrorism is only a component of war.  And those who have the fortitude to win employ terrorism because it is effective.  “Think, therefore, on revenge and cease to weep,” - King Henry IV.   With the advent of the communications age, terrorism is just now being revealed to the lesser astute as only another example of how people have always been killing people. 

Whether we like it or not, killing civilians by fire bombs delivered by air, pipe bombs delivered by hand, or by setting fire to their teepees has always been a political strategy and instrument of warfare.  Condemning terrorism as illegitimate and immoral, and wishing for a benevolent government to make it go away is an unrealistic and naïve response from weak and uninformed people.  And governments that try to deal with terrorism by feeding the fears of the civilian population and imposing restraints on their freedom and personal liberties are giving aid and comfort to the perpetrators and sponsors of terrorism.  Such regulatory actions by governments, allegedly to suppress crime and terrorism, have equal repressive effects on the people.  Every new restriction placed on a people’s liberties in the name of crime control or anti-terrorism is added oppression from a government that can no longer be trusted.  When mutual trust erodes between a people and their government, laws become more frequent and repressive, and hatred and strife is fostered between the people and the police forces that must enforce the laws. 

Before terrorism can be effective, the civilian population must believe they are living in a state of instant vulnerability and perceive themselves as unable to do anything about their personal safety or social condition.  When they are in constant feat that, at any moment, some stranger can reach out and harm them and their loved ones, they are ready to be manipulated by both the perpetrators of terrorism and their own government. 

Socialist governments and other repressive forms of government always emphasize their positional power over people and overstate their ability to protect them.  In their efforts to gain and maintain more power and control, such governments always resort to exploiting the people’s cultural and racial xenophobia, personal vulnerabilities, and base human fears of personal harm.  This is a heinous crime against the very people for whom governments are instituted to serve.  It is also human treachery at worst and government sponsored strategic terrorism in reality. 

All warfare involves terrorism, and we cannot be choosy about how it is delivered.  Those who try are destined to be losers in a contest where rules are made by the winners and enforced after the fact.  When people are armed, those who would attempt to conquer them from without or control them from within must consider what is on the minds of an armed populace.  An armed populace is a visible reminder to the agents of any government or the purveyors of terrorism that it is the people who are in charge.  When people are unarmed, their minds are insignificant to any discussion on the issue because they are at the mercy of all terrorism, including that which comes to their doors wearing the cloaks of their own government.  Any society that would jeopardize their freedom and personal liberties by voluntarily or involuntarily giving up their natural right to keep and bear arms is a pool of slave labor waiting to be exploited by their own government, conquered by another, or raped and murdered by common street thugs with small brains and guns of any size. 

Upon observing the Ziegfried Line during World War II, General George S. Patton remarked, “Fixed fortifications are eternal monuments to man’s stupidity.”  Therein lies the problem with groups that claim to be protectors of the people’s right to keep and bear arms.  So-called conservative politicians, the National Rifle Association, and lesser known patriotic groups have failed to take the battle to the enemy.  Such words as audacity, attack, and maintaining the offensive don’t seem to be in their vocabularies.  But much too common are words such as resist, protect, cooperate, and hold our ground.  No person ever won a fight, battle, or war by sitting on his posterior and crying about the fact that his rights are being violated.  To win means to get in the fight and remove the danger.  While federal agencies were spending taxpayer’s resources spying on American citizens who were only exercising their constitutional right to own firearms, a known terrorist, Osama bin Laden, was arming his agents with box cutters.

Slavery was a terrible thing, but we should thank Providence that it happened.  That may seem somewhat of a conflicting statement, but it is true.  Had it not been for slavery, the idea of a republic would only be an aborted fetus of an idea and the United States of America would have never been born to become the greatest example of freedom and individual liberties the world has ever known. 

When despotic kings ruled the world and the lives of the non-endowed were spent in everyday effort just to survive, the under classes had little time for leisure or intellectual pursuits.  But something happened.  As royalty became less competent in matters of state and more desirous of entertainment and leisure, they became by necessity more and more dependent upon people of talent and intellect who were not members of the endowed royalty, even to the point that they began providing some members of the lower classes with status and endowments.  This introduced leisure time to those who were the newly endowed, many of whom had been slaves.  That would seem a fair exchange for the times, yet it signaled the beginning of a cultural and political turning point in the history of the world, The Renaissance. 

Two things happen when people have leisure time.  Some use it wisely and some waste it.  The wise are noted in history books as great leaders, artists, musicians, and writers while those who waste it receive, at best, graves. 

Slavery dates back to before the beginning of recorded time, but the middle class began to gain prominence only during the Renaissance.  Niccolo Machiavelli was an example of one of those who was fortunate to be endowed by the elite of the Florentine City State.  When not attending to matters of his benefactors, Machiavelli wrote The Prince and his Discourses on the Roman Republic wherein he defined the two basic forms of government, the Principality and the Republic.  His writings planted the seed that would eventually germinate and grow to create the only true republic ever established in the history of the world, the United States of America.  Even today, other nations are yet to even comprehend the meaning of a republic, much less establish one. 

But Machiavelli’s seed needed nourishment, and nourished it was.  John Locke (1632-1704) wrote on the natural human right to revolt against tyrannical governments and the illegitimacy of slavery.  In 1787, a Scottish historian, Alexander Tyler, informed us of the dangers of pure democracies that will vote themselves the keys to a nation’s treasury.  Thomas Paine lit the fires of the American Revolution and gave his fellow Founding Fathers purpose and reason for taking action.  The Founding Fathers were mostly slave owners, yet they detested the institution.  But the industrial age had not yet begun and slavery was a brutal fact of the times, as it had been for thousands of years.  The economies of the world were still based on agriculture, a time-consuming daybreak to dark enterprise requiring much labor and land.  If a landowner didn’t have slaves he couldn’t compete.  If he couldn’t compete he was reduced to being a sustenance farmer, a slave to himself.  Slavery was the means that provided intelligent men time to think, write, and to eventually act on their thoughts. 

Slavery cross-cultured the world and gave those whose ancestors were slaves a chance for a better life.  Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) said it best when, upon his return from a visit to Africa and was asked what he thought of Africa, his answer was, “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat.”  We can all agree that slavery was a terrible thing and should never have happened, but we must also agree that it resulted in a better life for all, especially for those whose ancestors were slaves. 

So, when you hear people speak of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and our other Founding Fathers as only “dead white men who owned slaves,” you will know what to tell them.  Tell them that they were great men who were caught up in the processes of their times yet still rose to the occasion.  Tell them that they established a republic, which although couldn’t change all the injustices of the immediate times, it did set in motion a chain of events that would one day lead to abolishment of the institution of slavery.  Tell them they were wise men who foresaw the Industrial Age and wrote a document that would be the catalyst for ending slavery in a country destined to be the envy of every nation on earth, the Constitution of the Unites States of America.  Tell them that they freed their slaves, thereby setting an example for others to follow. 

When you hear people demand reparations for themselves in the name of their slave ancestors, tell them they should instead thank their slave ancestors and be proud of them, for without the sacrifices of their ancestors they would still be slaves to the rampaging thugs of today’s Africa.  Tell them to thank the men of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Normandy, Kea San, and the road to Baghdad.  And tell them that the battle against slavery is not yet won and the sacrifices of all races are still needed in an eternal vigilance against those who would take our civilization back to the dark days of tyranny and slavery. 

            Radical liberal socialists are on a crusade to deny the American people their unalienable right to keep and bear arms while masking their sinister efforts by fostering fears of domestic terrorism and violent street crime.  As usual, the rhetoric of the radical left obscures truth with simplistic appeals to the thoughtless emotions of an uninformed public.  They would have people believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution recognizes only the federal government’s obligation to maintain a military force and individual states to maintain a militia rather than an affirmation of the people’s unalienable right to defend themselves against aggression from whatever quarter it may come.  The specter of domestic terrorism and visions of crazed gunmen running through school buildings killing children has become a key tactic liberals use to entice weak-minded people into giving up their personal liberties in exchange for an impossible promise that government will provide safety for everyone.  In the world of crime, evil, and corruption, that is what is known as a protection racket. 

Liberal socialists will never admit that the reason terrorism is so prevalent in other countries is that those governments have successfully relieved their citizens of the most effective means of self-defense ever devised in the course of human history.  Neither will they admit that criminal behavior can be controlled by quickly removing murderers and other dangerous felons from society.  They relish the fear-mongering of terrorism and media hype over deaths by firearms, distortions that further their dastardly mission to consolidate and centralize government, a government they intent to dominate.  A disarmed people are a vulnerable people, and liberal tears publicly shed over the bodies of dead schoolchildren are crocodile tears. 

The idea of firearms in the hands of a free citizenry scares hell out of liberal socialists like Charles Schumer (Dem., NY) and his fellow gang of traitors to American republicanism and individual liberties.  That is why they are so rabid about disarming all Americans except their personal bodyguards and a national police force that they plan to own.  Americans should get over their fanciful illusion that gun control is about crime control and protecting children.  It is really about turning America into a worker’s breadbasket to feed a world of working class people dominated by socialist elites.  If that scares hell out of you and makes you wonder if perhaps I am just another gun nut with a conspiracy complex, read on, things get scarier. 

            An ideological war is being waged in American over traditional ideals and values.  The aggressive element in this affray is a consortium of neo-liberals and classical socialists often referred to as the left-wing conspiracy but best described as a liberal socialist mindset with commonality of purpose.  To achieve their ultimate goal of world socialism, their intermediate but necessary objective is to eradicate the idea that private citizens have a right to keep and bear arms.  Their ultimate goal is easily recognized by anyone schooled in political theory and history of the development of socialist states.  There is no other way to express it; liberal socialists intend to eliminate individual liberties and establish a socialist state controlled by a privileged few.  It is a merging of liberalism, socialism, and communism; in other words; “totalitarian collectivism.” 

Leaders of the American socialist movement understand it will take time to destroy America’s constitutional republic and must therefore accomplish two secondary objectives before achieving their primary objective of unarming America.  They must be successful in their on going disinformation campaign designed to soften young people’s thinking to the point they are receptive to socialist answers to everyday challenges of life.  Simultaneously, they must seize every opportunity to denigrate and corrupt the simple beauty and intellectual genius of our primary governing document, the Constitution of the Unites States of America.  Their aim is to create confusion over its original meaning, distort its purpose, and make complex its simplistic functionality.  They have made much progress through effective use of propaganda supported by a narcissist news media, financial and moral support from a friendly entertainment community, and infiltration of America’s educational institutions.  The National Education Association has been busy dumbing-down schools, liberal socialist college professors revising American history, and attention-hungry entertainment personalities attacking the character of America’s heroes.  It is a smoke screen when they claim they are promoting academic freedom, free speech, multicultural diversity, and equitable redistribution of public wealth (other people’s money). 

Another objective of the liberal socialists is to pack legislative and judicial bodies with politicians who are willing to ransom the individual liberties of Americans in exchange for vague promises of comfort and security without personal effort.  The ignorant, uneducated, illegal immigrants, recipients of unearned taxpayer funds, and a psychologically dependent female middle class hyped up on hormone patches and Prozac are the human foundations upon which they are building their electorate.  The building blocks are jealousy, envy, greed, public paranoia, and people’s feelings of insecurity and insignificance about living in an overcrowded world of diversity and non-stop electronic images showing other people reveling in success.  Psychological warfare is at its ultimate usefulness when employed to meet the objectives of class warfare. 

The final assault upon the nations’ producers and their means of self-defense will be the elimination of the manufacture of firearms and ammunition through over taxation and regulation.  The final mop-up will be the overt banning of all privately owned firearms and confiscation of previously existing civilian owned firearms.  The British example is a case in point.  The one provision to our Constitution that presents the greatest threat the world has ever known to common criminals, despots, socialists, and one-government statists will then be obliterated.  That should remove all doubt as to why the liberal socialists want to collect names, dates of birth, social security numbers, and other personal information every time a firearm is sold, traded, or otherwise transferred to another person.  Such actions have nothing to do with tracing firearms to their criminal users but everything to do with identifying legitimate firearms owners and imposing unconstitutional infringements upon the Second Amendment.  Furthermore, the numbers do not justify the task.  Rarely ever does the solving of a crime depend upon whether or not a firearm was registered.  Firearms tracing only identifies the original owner from whom it was stolen.  Identifying criminals is best accomplished by employing investigative solvability factors and forensic techniques such as fingerprints, ballistics, and chemical residues.  Can any reasonably intelligent person believe that personal information collected from adults will reduce juvenile crime when it is already against the law in every state for juveniles to purchase or have unsupervised access to firearms?  Furthermore, the easiest documents to fake are a driver’s license and social security numbers; the primary documents used by businesses and public agencies to identify people who cash checks or apply for government services.  The only rational objective for committing funds and manpower to identifying, registering, and licensing firearms is to establish a data pool for eventual confiscation.  When laws do nothing but create public fear, apprehension, and suspicion, it is time to fear government more than its laws. 

The only way to prevent juveniles from purchasing firearms at gun shows or anywhere else is to prohibit the sale of firearms to juveniles, anywhere and anytime.  That is not a violation of any constitutional rights of juveniles.  It seems strange, however, that liberals are always dreaming up special rights for children, like abortions without parental notification and condoms for pre-adolescents.  Juveniles are citizens in training, and it is foolish to award trainees of any age full rights and privileges until they demonstrate competence and personal responsibility for their actions.  However, when an adult wishes to purchases a firearm for self-protection, teach his child to shoot or hunt, or for any other honorable purpose, the government has no business meddling in such private affairs.  Every politician, appointed government official, and weak-kneed liberal socialist should understand that message, and it needs to be put in very definite and pointed terms.  They must be informed that, if they fail to respond in a satisfactory manner, they will be forced to do so, and it might very well be at the point of the same firearms they want to confiscate.  Despots sow the seeds of their own demise. 

Liberal socialists fully understand that they must neuter the Second Amendment before accomplishing their objective of disarming the American public.  Yet, they champion free speech and tell people that their speech and free press will always be guaranteed.  But once their firearms are gone only government will have the instruments of personal power.  Free speech will not be material to the issue, because any degree of free speech people are able to exercise is directly proportional to their personal and collective ability to protect that liberty.  The notion that firearms should be developed that can be fired only by their registered owners is a warning to Americans that liberal socialists intend for firearms be owned only by the police and the military, which they plan to control.  Any person who expects another to protect his personal liberties soon becomes a slave to his protector. 

            All citizens of assumed responsibility and established age of reasonable consent have an unalienable right, and often the obligation, to possess and carry any weapon they choose.  The writers of the Constitution did not confer the right of self-defense upon the people of America as a product of some new concept they conjured up during heated debates over the rights of humanity.  They merely and justly affirmed the existing natural right of self-defense, which has always been inherent in all forms of life.  The one moral obligation is that anyone choosing to possess a firearm, or any weapon, should be competent in its use and understand when it is appropriate to apply deadly force against another human.  The federal government, every city, county, and state should be prohibited from enacting any measure that abridges that absolute right.  That was the purpose of the Second Amendment, which consists of only one sentence that ends with a strong prohibition against government; “...the right of the people to keep and bear arms "shall not" be infringed.”  In the Kings English, shall is a strong word.  It is directive; not suggestive. 

Criminal laws should prohibit the evil actions of men but never prohibit peaceful people from owning anything.  However, people should be informed by the certainty of criminal prosecution that they must not harm another person except in defense of themselves or other innocent person from imminent and felonious physical attack from any beast, human or otherwise.  When government, for any reason or by any means, attempts to deny people their ability and innate right to participate in their personal preservation, there is born a legitimate and immediate justification for violent revolution.  No law, regardless of intent, can obscure that fact. 

            It is easy for political despots and common criminals to intimidate an unarmed society, and that is the dark motivation behind their movement.  It has nothing to do with crime control or fighting terrorism.  It has everything to do with elite socialist statists who believe they are the only people who should control society and dictate conditions for their brand of social order.  Just think how history might have been written had the tribes of Africa had access to personal firearms during the slave trade era.  There would have been little reason for them to fear the yokes of their own tribal traitors, the chains of northern slave traders, the slave auctioneer’s gavel, or the masks of Klu Klux Klansmen.  As long as people retain their right to arm themselves, are willing to train themselves in the use of arms, and are willing accept personal responsibility for their actions, there will be no reason for them to fear bad men, bad government, bad law, or the enslaving chains of socialism. 

            Every time the government moves to place more controls on firearms, their announced intentions are couched in terms designed to make people believe that, since certain people will not have firearms, everyone will be safer.  Their unannounced, desired, and resulting effect is for people to be more dependent upon government.  This is one of the objectives of socialism and the principal reason why liberal elitists advocate banning firearms.  When governments are successful in eliminating privately owned firearms, only despots, their lackeys, and common criminals will have the means for self-protection, government power is enhanced, and people are more dependent upon government for the necessities of life.  Few pleasures and fewer liberties remain. 

            Governments have always tried to control the proliferation of weapons; from the rock to the spear, the bow to the rifle, boiling oil to nerve agents, and catapults to nuclear bombs.  Every attempt to ban weapons, especially those proven effective for personal defense, has resulted in failure and further alienates people from their government.  In fact, no weapon ever invented in the history of the world has ever been successfully banned.  International agreements designed to control nuclear weapons have failed to stem their proliferation.  Attempts to control land mines have resulted in them being more plentiful and less expensive.  Controls on chemical and biological agents have created a fair price for them on the international criminal marketplace.  Such attempts prove the old axiom, “When weapons are banned, only criminals will have them.”  Federal laws designed to control the manufacture, use, and possession of explosive devices have never and will never prevent the kinds of incidents that occurred in New York, Oklahoma City, Atlanta, Birmingham, and Littleton, and international laws will never stop the killing in Belfast, London, Belgrade, and Jerusalem. 

            Governments that fear an armed citizenry are justified in their fears, and people who are forced to live under such conditions are even more justified in fearing their government.  It should be acutely remembered that many of the weapons used against the people who died at Waco were the same types of weapons that our government accused their victims of possessing.  When federal agents gunned down another American family in Idaho, it was not because a man named Randy Weaver was a dangerous criminal.  It was because a paid informant, acting under the direction of an agent of our government, pestered him into shortening the barrel of one shotgun; a shotgun that after being shortened was still several times longer than any legal pistol or revolver.  The people who died in Waco and Ruby Ridge died because of needless laws, the criminal application of those laws by an arrogant Attorney General, and wrongful enforcement of those laws by dangerously misguided law enforcement agencies acting under incompetent leadership. 

            It is interesting to note that many people demand only the newest models and latest state of the art technology when it comes to choosing automobiles, computers, stereos, and other personal conveniences.  When it comes to protecting themselves from the criminal intentions of others, they might attend a few classes in martial arts to learn a few cute but ineffective moves against a sparing partner while pretending they are defending themselves against a real criminal.  They go home, lock their doors, check their phone messages, and believe that a police officer is only seconds away from a 911 emergency telephone call.  They never realize that most people who are murdered in their homes never had a chance to get near a phone, and those who did usually died because plastic phones are ineffective weapons against big men with bad attitudes. 

When I was a young Lieutenant in the US Army, I received intensive training in hand-to-hand combat.  Later, when in actual combat, not one of my attackers ever used fancy moves to kick my weapon from of my hands; not because of my hand-to-hand combat expertise but because I made sure they died from a well-placed bullet much short of me having to engage in hand-to-hand combat.  It would do us good to remember the warning of Sun Tsu (The Art of War), “Kill your enemy; first.” 

            The fact that firearms in the home can be an asset rather than a liability never occurs to people who are constantly bombarded with emotional terrorism from liberal media pundits and other misguided social idealists.  Parents are told that firearms are dangerous, children will play with them and shoot themselves, and it will be the parent’s fault for having the firearm in the house in the first place.  Those same people store acid, chlorine, insecticides, and other poisonous substances under their sinks and then file lawsuits against the manufacturer when their unsupervised child takes a big gulp.  They are same people who spend entire weekends in front of a computer surfing the Internet but never spend one minute on a shooting range with a competent instructor.  People who fail to develop effective self-defense skills, harbor uneducated and unrealistic fears of firearms, and rely upon the skills and knowledge of minimum wage 911 telephone operators are the ones we often refer to as victims. 

We need more than well-meaning and eloquent people like Charleston Heston to pick up our flag, wave it high, and lament about our dying right to keep and bear arms.  We need leaders who will carry that flag into the halls of congress, literally.  That means hold demonstrations on the capitol steps and pitch our tents on the Mall, just like the anti-Vietnam War demonstrators did.  We need to camp out on the steps of every state capitol in this nation, get arrested for disorderly conduct, get dragged kicking and screaming to jail, pay our fines, and then go back the next day and do it again.  Politeness does not work; power works.  The NRA should take the offensive and quit reacting to criticism from the left.  This is war, and wars are not won by reacting to the enemy, they are won by forcing your enemy to react to your offensiveness.  The NRA should move against liberal socialists in Hollywood and challenge movie moguls and their narcissist movie stars every time they denigrate the American spirit by insulting the memory of our national heroes and present people who have deviate disorders as heroes.  Confront them and publicly embarrass them every time they don’t respond appropriately.  In other words, beat them at their own game.  We can win the war by developing and initiating new ideas, not by defending old ones.  It was a good start when Charlton Heston held up a firearm at the 2000 NRA National Convention and said, “...when they take it from my cold dead fingers.”  Our government should hear that warning every day.  We must make every liberal socialist in the United States Congress understand that, if this is what it takes, the right to keep and bear arms will be the battleground for a new American Revolution. 

Discussions on the subject of homosexuality usually begin within a context of issues having to do with religion, morality, crime, or free choice.  Homosexuality certainly impacts on those issues but the condition can’t be explained by applying religious dogma, moral principles, criminal definition or by stretching the Constitution of the United States to ridiculous extremes.  As much as religious absolutists exploit homosexuality to support their agenda, the underlying condition cannot be reasonably considered sinful.  The nature of the basic condition suggests no conscious will to do evil.  Furthermore, the condition cannot be sinful when the usual deviate behaviors that are associated with it are absent.  The application of the human element of will is necessary for any act to be evil, sinful, criminal, or even an act of goodness. 

Neither is homosexuality corruptive of the moral standards of heterosexual adults.  People who have normal minds and grew up under the influences of cohesive family environments are capable of exercising sufficient will to resist the urges to participate in behaviors that they innately recognize as risky, repulsive or otherwise unacceptable in normal social settings.  The primary standard for determining human normalcy is whether or not a person understands the differences between right and wrong, good and evil, harmless and dangerous and reality from imagination.  However, this is not an appropriate standard to apply to the underdeveloped minds of children who regularly engage in conceptual and physical experimentation.  Sane and normal parents attempt to guide their children toward positive influences and shelter them from exposure to the detrimental effects of crime, evil, corruption and people we correctly define as deviates, sexual or otherwise.  The failure of some parents to exercise that kind of responsibility might suggest the answer as to why some children are shooting up our schools.  There was a consistency in each one of those reported incidents.  The participants were all pre-puberty or adolescent misfits whose home life was characterized by inadequate parental supervision.  They were permitted unbridled latitude to experiment with their emotions without being closely monitored and were never held accountable for their failure to make appropriate decisions.  The “Sociology 101” word for such conduct is hedonism, which leads to a social condition called anomie, which is a general breakdown of social cohesion and the reason that civilized societies have always found it necessary to impose rules upon themselves. 

The homosexual condition cannot be a crime since there is no mens reh (guilty mind) associated with the affliction.  There is shame, embarrassment, and even anger, but no inherent intent to commit a criminal wrong.  Most people avoid committing crimes not from a fear of legal sanctions but because they have an innate understanding of good and bad that was developed through the human social experience and reinforced by the example of man’s social success.  The fear of legal retribution only restrains people of evil intentions, people who have always been social outcasts and will always be with us. 

The experiences gained from thousands of years of the human condition have bestowed upon modern humans an innate and reasoned reluctance to the idea of death.  This reluctance, or fear, has been reinforced through informally and formally established social sanctions for generations.  We naturally fear death, therefore, we make laws designed to protect life.  Accordingly, the heterosexual majority doesn’t feel obligated to award homosexuals with equal social status, nor do they have to require themselves to adjust to the demands of people who defend and support homosexual activity.  However, they should be compassionate, understanding and tolerant without yielding to the absurd demands of people who want others to share their misery. 

Homosexuality isn't a choice, but it can be the cumulative result of a series of bad decisions, subconsciously or consciously.  The bizarre acts in which homosexuals knowingly, willingly and jointly participate in are examples of outward manifestations of a mental condition that prompts the resulting and observable deviate behaviors.  It is a mental condition characterized by acting out fantasies and yielding to fears associated with a person’s earlier abnormal sexual development.  Homosexuality is therefore a mental health issue and must be addressed as such.  It can most accurately be described as a functional mental disorder characterized by deviant personal behaviors in which manifestations of deep rooted sexual aberrations involving gender confusion, identity, and subsequent feelings of sexual inferiority and compulsiveness are outwardly exhibited.  Sexual disorientation, therefore, is an obvious direction that immature minds take when external stimuli received during early development are inconsistent with the physical sex of that person.  Homosexuality is a common condition in people who experience psychological clustering in early childhood and who have failed to make satisfactory mental adjustments.  This clustering effect, when accompanied by high intelligence or other innate talent often results in such people achieving notable success in one of the arts or other pursuits that require channeled concentration.  Such people often pursue their particular skill or talent with a passion equal to their fear and anger over their homosexuality (positive displaced aggression). 

Rather than punishing or condemning victims of such dysfunction, we should provide them opportunities for treatment in the same humane manner in which we assist people who are afflicted with other and more socially accepted functional mental disorders.  If we can treat, while respecting, the over-neurotic musician who indulges in self-destructive abuse of drugs, we should just as well be capable of treating and respecting the homosexual actor who indulges in self-destructive behavior.  It would also be helpful if research into the root causes of homosexuality included more possibilities than genetics, free choice, differences in external physical characteristics, or the size of some obscure node in the base of the brain.  We might discover that homosexuality is more related to the influences of parental incompetence, bizarre socialization policies in elementary schools, or the inability of children to make satisfactorily adjustments to problems associated with inadequate and dysfunctional environmental experiences.  If homosexuality is a chosen sexual preference, as some suggest, one question should be asked.  What are the factors that lead people to make that choice?  If, as still others suggest, homosexuality is a natural sexual orientation, another question should be asked.  What is natural and who and through what processes did they determine what is natural?  We might find that the people who are diagnosing the condition are the ones who should be the patients. 

Until the advent of AIDS, homosexuals caused less damage to themselves and to society than did people with related functional disorders such as necrophilia, pedophilia, and rape.  However, homosexuality is no less a similar mental disorder in terms of psychological urges to participate in deviate forms of sexual gratification.  Exhibitionist homosexuals, those who came out of the closet so to speak, handle their condition much like people who cover up inferiority complexes or other dysfunctions that are not immediately apparent or obviously debilitating but none the less obsessively compulsive and chronic.  Such people are often self-protective, display airs of superiority when in safe circumstances, and participate in joint and communal efforts to establish a unity of cause with people of similar ilk.  In other words, they attempt to find happiness and acceptance in their commonalties.  The natural reaction from opposing social moralists and religious zealots to such public displays of the homosexual lifestyle is to engage in vocalized assertions of superiority, displays of protective xenophobia, and emotional exclamations of self-righteous indignation.  Homosexuals and their apologists refer to this reaction as homophobia while failing to recognize that their condemnation of others is displaced aggression and masked attempts to justify the inadequacies of their own sexuality. 

Claiming that homosexuality is a freely chosen life-style, a natural sexual orientation, or a genetic predisposition may be comforting to the soul but such assertions, when used as stand alone causes, are misleading at best and inaccurate at worst.  Social scientists and physical scientists would do well to stop being competitive and start cooperating in a common effort to resolve the conflict over environmental and genetic causes of organic and environmental disorders.  There is a lot of room for real science in that cooperative laboratory. 

When unmasked, homosexuals are very insecure and troubled people who need professional assistance in establishing, or more accurately re-establishing, an appropriate condition of mental health and developing functional personal lifestyles.  More often, like victims of other functional disorders, homosexuals do not seek help because they don’t believe they need it, or don’t know they need it.  When denial and ignorance is reinforced by a collective social attitude that goes beyond acceptance or tolerance and begins to amount to actual encouragement, some mental disorders and conduct related disease like AIDS are provided special social status with their own sets of rights and privileges.  Already we see homosexuals being provided an array of special rights not afforded to victims of other more unfortunate and debilitating mental disorders.  Such special treatment reinforces unsubstantiated claims that the affliction is a natural or elective condition rather than a behavioral abnormality.  There is nothing normal about abnormality. 

The proponents of extra civil rights for homosexuals and those who engage in aberrant sexual behaviors argue that all people have a right to choose, do, or say anything they please as long as no one gets hurt.  The problem is that they never define just what they mean by hurt.  Apparently, this assumed right includes the right to not only be homosexual but to wander freely amidst society while infected with a deadly communicable disease for which a cure is yet to be found but for which there is a method of prevention.  Some people go so far as to claim the right to terminate the lives of infants the moment the first rays of light begin to shine upon their emerging and helpless heads. 

There is no absolute right to choose when that choice is a threat to the safety of any unsuspecting person, child, or any soul who does not have the ability to protect itself.  Homosexuals may believe they have a right to choose the behaviors they perform among themselves, but when their choices interfere with the free choices of people who wish to direct their own lives and object to being constantly exposed to such deviant behaviors, someone is apt to exercise their right to choose the manner in which they defend themselves against aggressive homosexual advances. 

Although the homosexual condition, by itself, cannot be a crime, regardless of how religious zealots and their pandering politicians would prefer, it is the acts that homosexuals do as a result of their dysfunction that can be punished as crimes.  When a person knows what he is doing, understands the damaging results of that action, and the action has been deemed unlawful, the person committing that act can be declared responsible under established criminal codes as well as held accountable under civil law.  Some of the extreme activities in which homosexuals indulge meet the rules of premeditation and, therefore, there is no defense of diminished capacity.  Although heterosexual males and females often indulge in many of the same acts when in private and intimate relationships, such acts are considered normal in those settings.  When practiced in a homosexual relationship, those same acts may be abnormal, deviate, and even dangerous, but it is difficult to assign criminality to them when most people consider heterosexual engagement in such activities adventurous or just merely naughty. 

In most circumstances, it is normal for a man and a woman to kiss.  It is not normal when a man and a man kiss or a woman and a woman kiss in a sexual manner, but these are not acts that can be considered criminal.  Homosexuals, however, have very deep seated and camouflaged hostilities and, when afflicted with the terminal disease that is associated with their conduct, they are apt to use their affliction as a weapon against the innocent.  When people are burdened with a strange and deadly disease, it is natural for them to suffer from suppressed rage, self-pity, jealousy, guilt, and the fear of impending death.  But some victims are so blinded by rage that they seek revenge.  Such displaced aggression is sometimes manifested by intentionally inflicting others with their disease. 

While most people talk freely about the conduct of homosexuals and rapists, they seldom talk about the antics of two other, yet similar, types of sexual deviations.  One is necrophilia, the person who drives the hearse and haunts funeral homes the night before your wife, sister, or daughter is to be buried.  The other type of deviate has no common name because we can’t bear to think about it.  For the lack of a more descriptive name, they can be called geronphiles; those who work the night shift at the nursing home where your mother lays speechless and helpless.  Don’t get mad at me for making you think such thoughts, just make sure that you are fully aware of who is attending to the most vulnerable members your family every moment you cannot be with them. 

No one wants to be stigmatized by being identified as having a mental problem, especially if they are otherwise capable of functioning within acceptable limitations.  But people who are afflicted with functional mental disorders have great difficulty in solving problems, because dealing with problems is their problem.  They make poor adjustments to problems and, when their problems are left untreated and unresolved, they become even more exacerbated and continue in inadequate efforts to adjust to their problem.  If you are a homosexual, do not get mad at me for saying that, just prove me wrong or get professional help.  But getting help presents another problem. 

It’s time for the psychiatric community to stop avoiding the issue and begin providing helpful research and public discussion rather than hiding in their self-dug holes of denial.  Getting the psychiatric community to do that will be difficult.  Homosexuals have been entering the professions of psychology and psychiatry at an increasing rate and have gradually risen to positions of power where they have consolidated their influence over their professional associations. 

In the early 1970’s, the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations quietly, almost covertly, removed homosexuality from their “list” of mental disorders, an act that effectively closed all professional debate on the issue.  This was done absent published research validating any conclusions regarding the origins or causes of homosexuality, its effects upon victims, impact upon family relationships, or known and possible effects upon society.  They simply stated that homosexuality is no longer considered a mental disorder and then threw the ugly baby out with the dirty water.  They never provided a sincere opportunity for honest and meaningful professional discourse or public debate regarding the differences between organic mental diseases and functional mental disorders.  Obvious questions as to who did the considering and on what specific evidence those so-called experts based their conclusions were never asked and never answered.  The APA’s action was much like that of a student who can’t solve a problem on the blackboard, so he erases it.  Wipe the problem away and it is easy to believe that it never existed.  Problem solved. 

In military organizations people are often required to respond to the immediate needs of their comrades.  This is especially true in fast moving and highly charged emotional combat situations where ordinary men are forced to make extraordinary decisions as to whether or not other men live or die.  Such circumstances provide opportunities for the majority to take certain actions against one of their members who is not held in equal esteem.  No one talks about it, but that is why homosexuals should not be permitted to serve in the military, especially in combat and combat support units.  When homosexuals are allowed to serve openly in the military, there must be a clear understanding that the military is accepting people who have demonstrated an incapacity for resolving personal conflict.  If not, when such people find themselves in a combat situation, someone else is likely to resolve their conflict for them.  No mandated classes in human relations or diversity can ever obscure that fact. 

The primary purpose of a military force is to win wars.  When the time comes for the military to perform that mission, the citizens of this country deserve to know that their military is capable of concluding the conflict, not only victoriously but with as little loss of American life as possible.  If the military is used as an experimental laboratory for social programs rather than a vehicle for training and preparing men and equipment for combat effectiveness, who will hold the military responsible when they fail to win a war?  It will certainly not be liberal socialists, homosexuals or social workers, and certainly not those who survived the war only to be forced into servitude by a conquering army. 

Any person who believes it can do no harm for homosexuals, weak girls, and fat boys to serve in the military should do something before it is too late.  You should sit down with your daughter and apologize to her.  They should do it now before the conquering soldiers of radical Islam take turns raping her in your presence and then slitting your throat while she is forced to watch.  Apologize to her for failing to listen to the men of America who have actually been in combat and witnessed what bad men enjoy doing and what good men are driven to do.  Apologize to her for not heeding the warnings of men who have seen the results of incompetent leadership and know what happens when personal feelings and self-esteem training are given priority over combat effectiveness.  Apologize to her for having listened to people who never heard the staccato of machine-gun fire or felt the sizzling thud of artillery, never cried with a dying comrade, never risked their lives for another human, and have never known the love of a real woman waiting anxiously for her man to come home alive. 

Homosexual activists and their effete protectors often cite, as justification for their claims that human homosexual conduct is normal, acts that appear as homosexual conduct in primates and other lower animals.  People who espouse such leaps of logic cannot, themselves, be normal when they think such feeble reasoning is supposed to make intelligent people believe that human homosexual conduct is normal.  Non-human animals do not think.  They react to genetic predisposition and stimuli received from immediate surroundings.  They do not have the capacity to make rational judgments based upon prior knowledge.  Their responses to any given situation can even be anticipated because their actions are consistent with repetitious behaviors that were programmed in their rudimentary brains and developed over generations of their particular species as they continue receiving similar stimuli from similar environments. 

If a dog is kept in a kennel for a long time and then moved to a different kennel it will adjust to its new environment in a totally different way than it adjusted to its old location.  The dog cannot store, maintain, or transport such details of memory.  However, if a dog has been trained to bring its master’s slippers to him every evening, and the master and location are changed, it may very well continue bringing its new master his slippers, provided the new environment (setting, slipper location, etc.) is similar to the old one.  However, this is not the result of memory.  It is a repetitiously rehearsed retrieval instinct common to the canine species and which was developed over millions of successive generations and further enhanced through line breeding practices by their superior human masters.  Nevertheless, if not provided reinforcement training and constant praising attention, that dog will soon stop acting as if it ever had a duty to bring slippers to its master. 

Lower animals do not possess will, only humans do.  Humans have the capacity to transport their memories from one environment to another and relate numerous and different circumstances and locations to past and future circumstances and locations.  In other words, only humans possess the ability to remember and reason; abilities that are based upon previously acquired knowledge and experiences.  When male homosexuals perform fellatio or sodomize each other, there is no sane way in this world such activity can be considered the conduct of reasonable and normal men.  It is simply an example of the baseness of lower animals that, when performed by humans, is a form of deviant behavior resulting from poor decision-making and a manifestation of a functional mental disorder.  It certainly is not the result of any rational thought process or genetics. 

When we see a dog sitting in the road licking his penis, we think nothing of it and even accept it as normal conduct for a dog.  If a man were to do the same thing, we would consider him crazy; not just mentally disturbed but stark raving mad.  Would two men be less crazy when licking each other in the back seat of a car at a drive-in movie?  Does privacy mitigate deviancy?  I apologize to those who consider such descriptions as vulgar, but that is what homosexuals do; it had to be said.  Such acts are simply compulsive acts of troubled people and are not acts of people who simply wish to demonstrate some constitutional right to make a free choice. 

As a criminal investigator, I have had many opportunities to observe and investigate death scenes where homosexual activity was part of the killing ritual.  This by no means infers that all homosexuals are criminals.  Nevertheless, unique and telltale signs characterize murder scenes where homosexual victims and perpetrators are involved.  It is enough to say, without going into the filth and slime of the details, that the kind of rage involved in homosexual related murders is not the kind of rage that can be considered normal under any known standard of normalcy.  The perpetrators of such carnage are not only guilty of murder but are people who, although afflicted with a functional mental disorder, understand what they are doing. 

I have also had the distinct displeasure of investigating homosexual activity involving school employees and students.  Strangely enough, the employees were usually associated with physical education or health programs, occupations that afford close, personal, and private contact with students more so than teachers in usual classroom settings.  Some critics might condemn this observation as stereotyping, but as much as they dislike the idea, they should first ask themselves why it is that the FBI has been so successful in stereotyping (profiling) criminal activity.  The answer is that criminal and deviate stereotyping is a science based upon a history of accurate observations of similar conduct of similar types of people in similar circumstances.  When conducted as part of the crime scene investigative process, psychological stereotyping has proven to be a valuable asset in developing likely character profiles of the perpetrators of the particular crime being investigated. 

Homosexual activists and those who support their efforts to gain social acceptance and legal recognition claim that homosexuals are not like pedophiles that cruise school yards, playgrounds, and gymnasium shower rooms attempting to recruit new converts among the youthful innocence of school age children.  People who believe that have been living with their heads in sand.  My personal observations of homosexuals and the spoiled souls they leave behind indicate, like pedophiles, they are compulsively aggressive in their sexual deviancy and, regardless of denials of the activist homosexual community they consciously involve themselves in pursuits to engage others in their deviate life-styles.  In that sense only, I concede that homosexuals act like normal people.   People that have sexual urges, normal or deviate, try to engage others in their favorite form of sexual activity.  When they are heterosexual, the human species is continued.  When they are homosexual, the species is corrupted and even interrupted. 

It is necessary to draw a distinction between regular homosexuals, pedophiles, and homosexual pedophiles.  Regular homosexuals generally restrict their sexual activity to people of the same sex and similar age groups as themselves.  Yes, there are exceptions to all general rules.  It is the pedophile that most people think of when conjuring up images of some dirty little man skulking and lurking around playgrounds where young children play.  This vision is not a false one, because pedophiles are extremely predatory.  The primary difference between pedophiles and homosexual pedophiles is that homosexual pedophiles restrict their sexual targets to children of the same sex as themselves and are the most aggressive and predatory of all sex deviates.  Regular homosexuals, like heterosexuals, may sometimes cross the underage barrier when they are able to control their environment or where conditions appear safe for indulging in sexual deviancy.  When heterosexuals do it we call it statutory rape.  When homosexuals do it we call it pedophilia.  This is one of the clandestine dangers of regular homosexuals and homosexual pedophiles.  Think, just a moment, of the reported exploits of so many Catholic Priests. 

One of the least examined and discussed of all classes of homosexuals and pedophiles are female pedophiles and female homosexual pedophiles.  Female homosexuals, bi-sexuals, and pedophiles enjoy almost unlimited opportunities for close and private association with each other and children.  It is considered natural when women share the same bedroom, are seen leading small children from playgrounds, or when female baby-sitters are left in charge of young boys.  When a man is seen with his young daughter near a playground, there is immediate suspicion, if but only in silent inquisitiveness and for only a fleeting moment.  Few families will permit boys to baby-sit their daughters but will allow female sitters to have the run of the house while in attendance to their little boys.  That monster under your child’s bed could very well be your child’s lingering memories of a pedophile or homosexual pedophile sitter. 

It is understandable why the leadership of the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations refuse to talk openly about homosexuality and have kept their heads stuck in their self-made sands of denial for the past quarter of a century.  The problem with the professions of psychiatry and psychology, other than it appears that their patients have infiltrated their occupation, is that few of their conclusions are based upon real science.  They are based more upon inferences and assumptions derived from observations of reactions to selected situations having little known scientific basis or definition.  It is difficult to prove a conclusion when its origin is based upon data that, at best, was speculative and often even agenda-controlled or directed. 

The physical world lends itself to scientific study and logical conclusions that can be based upon proven facts.  The emotional world of psychology is much less tangible.  As we stand upon what appears to be a flat world, we cannot perceive that it is actually round, but given certain facts and other observations, we can infer that it is round and apply other known facts to prove our inference.  Physical scientists understand the difference between inference and proof.  It appears, however, that the ruling psycho-babblers of their respective associations have determined that emotional inference is sufficient proof.  Perhaps, like the student who couldn’t solve the problem on the chalkboard, they just wiped their troubles away. 

The American efforts to establish a lasting democracy in Iraq is doomed to failure.  Muslim clerics are poised to quickly take over the very system that our military forces are trying to install.  They will be successful because they have something we don’t have; thirteen hundred years of tenure as tribal savages and oppressive rule under religious fanatics. 

Elections are still being held in Vietnam some thirty-five years after American troops left that country, but who always wins the elections?  After ten years of daily exposure to democracy, the South Vietnamese people didn’t rise up and demand one when the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army entered Saigon.  They folded, haven’t demand one since, and are yet to make a whimper. 

An infant democracy will die an even quicker death in Iraq because Iraqis have been burdened for centuries with an endemic and historically proven inability to think or act as responsible individuals.  They have never and will never understand or appreciate the concept of building and maintaining a republic.  They are Muslims first and therefore have no concept of the principle of separation of church and mosque.  They may vote to please us now but will vote according to instructions from their Muslim leaders as soon as American troops leave Iraq.  They will do it because Islam and democratic forms of government are incompatible; two diametrically opposed ideologies. 

We are already losing our Constitutional Republic because we failed to heed Thomas Jefferson’s warning against factionalism.  America became great because our Founding Fathers gave no mention in the Constitution regarding proportional representation for political parties or religious sects.  Nevertheless, our government is now divided because the Senate and House of Representatives institutionalized political parties in our government that do nothing but squabble over how much taxes they can raise from a weary public.  Iraq is even more factionalized with multiple Muslim religious sects vying for power.  Proportional representation for every political party and every religious sect is only guaranteeing that there will be more conflict. 

Why would we expect Iraq to turn out any other way?  We already told them we are leaving.  Radical Mullahs, Clerics, Imams and Saddam’s henchmen will still be there, and the Iraqis know it.  They see American troops getting blown up on their streets and then coming back to their base camps and getting blown up again in supposedly safe zones.  And the Iraqi people know who the people are who are doing the blowing up; people who live in their neighborhoods and know who they are and where they live too.  I repeat; Vietnam, Vietnam. 

England, Ireland, Germany, France and other western countries have proportional representation under the guise of Parliamentary governments.  However, while America is predominately a two-party system, although not sanctioned by the Constitution, those countries are multi-party systems.  Factionalizing their representation has reduced those governments to making feverish attempts at satisfying every minority group, even those that are such a minority that they have only one seat in their governments.  The majority factions within those governments are spending most of their time garnering support from minority members while neglecting their duty to represent the majority.  

Morocco and Kuwait are constitutional monarchies, but those countries are quasi-democratic principalities and therefore not good examples.  Their particular circumstances allow them greater degrees of tolerance for western cultures.  Morocco is conveniently situated for siphoning off tourist dollars and Kuwait understands that being friendly to the West guarantees that their oil will be safe from being ripped off by competing Islamic despots.  But that will change as history progresses. 

It appears that American commanders in Iraq are incapable of providing security for their own troops and even less capable of providing security for a civilian population where urban guerrillas own the streets.  News clips telling us that our troops own the streets at night because of their night vision technology aren’t comforting.  If we don’t own them day and night we are losing our butts.  While our posteriors are getting scorched during the day, our senior commanders are worrying about what to say at their next television interview, quibbling over armor-plated Humvees, busting good soldiers for showing initiative in the absence of good leadership, and building bombproof mess halls so they can continue their insanity.  General George S. Patton said it best, “Fixed fortifications are eternal monuments to man’s stupidity.”

The Iraqi people see other things too.  They see American big brass living the same life style that Saddam’s cronies once lived.  They see them being treated like kings and living and dining in the plush safety of air-conditioned and well-bunkered quarters while their troops are dying in the streets the same way the Iraqis are dying.  The Iraqi people may be throwbacks from the dark ages but they are not totally stupid.  And neither were the Mountainyard tribesmen and South Vietnamese villagers we left behind in Vietnam. 

Our troops see things too, and they wonder.  They see their buddies go down and wonder when it might be their turn.  They may complain a little but they keep on going because they know that’s their job.  I wasn’t the first person to ask this, but where do we get such men?  We get them from the same places that Washington, Jackson, Grant, Lee, Pershing, and Patton got them, from America’s cities, towns, farms, and shores.  Our fighting men of today share the same legacy and honor with a long line of dedicated soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen.  They deserve our deepest respect and gratitude but, above all, they deserve competent leaders who don’t lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. 

Just a suggestion for some of you current day officers who are clamoring for recognition and trying to get just the right ticket punched on your way to stars; dump that new pretty-colored FM 22-100 (Military Leadership), the one with the cute pictures and gobbledygook feel-good advice, and get one that was published forty years ago.  Read, learn, and memorize the fourteen traits of good leaders and the eleven principles of effective leadership.  Then, leave the ladies and fat boys at home and get out there and apply those character traits and principles to real situations with real soldiers.  There is not much difference between a politically correct officer and an improvised explosive device; both are dangerous and cause friendly casualties. 

A personal note to the commander who was responsible for the compound where that mess tent blew up: That sapper strolled through your so-called secure compound and walked right through your mess hall door.  What the hell were you thinking?  I’ll answer that; you were not thinking.  I bet that sapper even stopped and chewed the fat for a while with your headcount. 

The words leader and leadership are widely used terms that have been topics of study for a long time.  Politicians, businessmen, and scholars use the terms liberally but rarely come to common agreement as to their meanings.  A scientist who discovers a new celestial body is likely to be referred to as a leader by his contemporaries, and people who achieve special notoriety in business, politics, and other endeavors are also thought of as leaders in their fields.  Nevertheless, it is only in the arena of organizational dynamics having to do with superior-subordinate human relationships that the terms, leader and leadership, are accurately applied. 

            It is normal for people to admire others who have achieved public acclaim as leaders, and some cling to a belief that they too could be a great a leader if only afforded an opportunity.  The liberal use of the word leader in describing all people of notable success has institutionalized the notion that anyone who indicates, in any way, that they might not be capable of exercising leadership must somehow be inferior.  This notion is further exacerbated by the “anyone can be anything they want to be” culture that permeates our society and causes people to believe they can achieve success without personal commitment, sacrifice, and a generous application of individual responsibility.  People who harbor such unrealistic assessments of their abilities generally fail to apply the necessary personal effort needed to achieve anything of merit.  A new culture of dependence has conditioned people to think more in terms of what they deserve than in terms of what they might be able to earn.  When failure finally consumes them, they continue insisting that it wasn’t their fault; something or someone else must be blamed. 

            Can leadership be demonstrated and measured to the extent that we can estimate, with reasonable accuracy, the probability that a person occupying a position of leadership will actually achieve an acceptable level of success?  The study of leadership seems to lend itself to the principles of scientific examination as much as the study of the arts of music, sculpture, and painting.  Most people are capable, to varying degrees and not withstanding the concept of innate talent, of learning and applying the principles and techniques of the visual arts and leadership.  Most people are even capable of learning any one of the arts to a sufficient degree as to enable them to teach their chosen art at an acceptable level, provided however there is a strong application of personal effort.  But, only certain special people seem to be blessed with a talent, or some other intrinsic capacity, for performing their art to a level that brings special acclaim and fame to their names.  And, it is not necessarily all hard work, for there really exists in some people a natural propensity for doing certain things above and beyond the normal understanding of others.  Because of a lack of comprehension by those who do not possess such propensities, we simply refer to these natural abilities as talent.  Talent is closely related to intellect, although talent in some people is often accompanied by very little demonstration of intelligence, and high intellect is often barren of any signs of what is conventionally referred to as talent. 

            Early attempts at defining leadership focused on the person occupying the leadership role to virtual exclusion of other variables.  It was believed that a leader’s effectiveness could be explained by isolating certain stable and identifiable psychological characteristics common only to great leaders.  It was further postulated that those characteristics could be studied, learned, and then developed in others, much like the training process involved in learning a trade or skill.  Although leadership was not being researched on exactly the right island, the researchers were at least in the right ocean.  However, such studies of leaders and leadership were essentially abandoned in the 1960s with the advent of the war in Vietnam and subsequent rise in anti-military attitudes.  This was especially so in the world of academics where it was common practice for draft evading students to remain hidden in universities long enough to achieve tenured professorships. 

            In the civilian environment, the terms leader and leadership were soon replaced with manager and management, and the traditional military leadership style was ridiculed as an oxymoron.  It was postulated that, to be effective, managers must become more in touch with some undefined inner-self and solicit participation in the decision making process from even the lowest ranking members of an organization.  Front line supervisors were no longer referred to as leaders but facilitators who were expected to subjugate the importance of their position and functions in the organization and place more emphasis on the workers and their feelings.  The focus had shifted from the leader and the mission to the worker and the working environment.  Terms like participative management, quality circles, and involvement response teams became fashionable buzzwords in college lecture halls and corporate boardrooms.  In the beginning, topics such as salaries and certain managerial and operational prerogatives were off limits during quality circle meetings.  But, regardless of how employees answer survey questions, those are issues with which employees are most concerned, and it was not long before the rest of the camel crashed in the tent. 

            This importation of the liberal socialist ideology into academia is the same ideology that was introduced much earlier into the union troubled world of the American industrial age.  It proposes the classical socialist theme that all employees in an organization should have equal representation in order to keep the wicked captains of industry and business from exploiting the workers.  This is the same doctrine that has been given a white-collar face-lift and is now being taught in universities and at business seminars under the guise of Total Quality Management.  Although the dictatorial style of oppressive leadership is often cited as the sin of the industrial icons, the leaders of industry were beginning to be more attentive in a growing environment of capitalist competition that was demanding more enlightened leadership.  With the interjection of unionism and the violent reforms that came with it, the sound principles and traits of leadership that had been responsible for building a great nation and winning wars was soon relegated to the dungeons of academia.  They have languished there ever since and fed a starvation diet of only occasional passing mention in management textbooks or referenced to with disdain during socialist classroom lectures.  However, truth is like nature, it can be soiled, damaged, and defiled, but it cannot be destroyed.  Truth to a socialist is like daylight to a vampire. 

            Although the trait, behavioral, situational, interactional, and functional leadership theorists contributed much to an understanding of the dynamics of leadership, they never fully examined the idea that exceptional leadership may simply be the result of some very talented people who are able to capitalize upon their best personal qualities and apply a few basic principles of human psychology.  It can hardly be denied that successful artists of the mediums of music, sculpture, paint, and theater are talented people.  However, as much as people would like to claim they possess such talents, they are restricted by the requirement that their product be placed on view in the public arena and judged by all.  It is during unusual and exigent circumstances involving great crises that previously unknown leaders are provided a public forum to display their talents.  During normal times, most good leaders go unnoticed by an apathetic public more concerned with the pursuit of their personal comforts and pleasures. 

            Does this mean that only people who have demonstrated special talents for leadership should be placed in positions of authority?  Not necessarily, although the idea should be given serious consideration when making appointments to positions where extraordinary power is exercised over the lives and fortunes of people.  Military command, law enforcement, the judiciary, prison operations, and policy enforcers in those fields are examples of occupations that must not be used as experimental laboratories in mediocrity or score boards for social agendas.  Although good leaders usually make themselves apparent in times of great emergency or national crisis, so do the poor ones.  It is in such times that good or bad performance becomes obvious, and the process for selecting people for key leadership positions becomes easy.  It is during less intense periods of peace, business as usual, and routine governmental agency operations that poor leaders move into influential positions where they manage to do great damage without their incompetence being revealed.  Under such circumstances, good leaders usually go unrecognized. 

            There is an accepted rule that researchers should maintain impartiality in the course of their research.  Recently, however, there has been some reluctance by researchers to consider even a possibility that great leaders might be very talented artists in their own right.  Such reluctance is rooted deep in the pits of human envy.  Most people have little trouble with giving admiration to and offering respect to other people who achieve success in areas they too would like to excel but understand they most probably won’t.  That borders on hero worship but is still within the bounds of normal behavior, even though it is sometimes taken to extremes.  The traditional disdain for everything having to do with the military displayed by academia during the past few decades is characterized by their refusal to admit that strong personalities usually do make successful leaders.  When dominant personalities are attenuated by a few very identifiable positive character traits and simultaneously augmented with an understanding of a few principles of human behavior, such people are capable of becoming great leaders.  It is an even a greater possibility when they are capable of independent thought, that rare talent of the intellect that gives only a few people a special ability to detach themselves from the usual and expected and to venture, untethered, into the open spaces of knowledge.  However, the emotions of hate and envy bear heavy upon the soul.  The irrational jealousies of those who ran from duty when their country beckoned have impeded the pursuit of pure knowledge within the walls of academia.  Many of these people still attempt to justify their cowardice by condemning the practical elements of military leadership as inappropriate and impractical in the civilian environments of public service, industry, and business. 

            By the 1950’s and early 1960’s, training in military leadership had developed to the point that it was solidly based upon a few universally known traits of good character and sound principles of human interaction.  For people, who claim to have academic credentials, to condemn military leadership simply because it is the duty of military leaders to force men to kill other men in times of war is a narrow minded approach to understanding and appreciating leadership.  Military leaders must know how to apply the principles of leadership during peace just as well as during war.  The leaders of industry, business, and public services can just as easily apply these same principles in the civilian environment.  The problem is that many civilians reject everything relating to military leadership, perhaps because of their short and distasteful experience with military discipline during an earlier enlistment.  Some reject military leadership simply because some family member, friend, or associate had similar experiences. 

            Actually, traditional military leadership has very little to do with distinguishing military life from civilian life.  It is military discipline that defines the distinguishing difference.  While military discipline is necessary and even mandatory in the military, people who work in business, industry, and public services usually reject such high standards.  It is their association with the idea of strong military discipline that civilians confuse with authentic military leadership.  Since the personal traits and principles of traditional leadership, common to the military, can be universally applied, they might best be referred to as the universal elements of effective leadership. 

            The fact that humans exist within social groups for safety and preservation as a species dictates that anyone assigned to a position of authority, not just the especially talented, must be capable of exercising an acceptable level of leadership.  Any person with slightly above average intelligence, like the untalented but persistent student of music, is capable of being sufficiently acquainted with the elements that make up the basic concepts of leadership.  These elements can be studied, practiced, learned, and effectively applied, even by people of mediocre abilities, but it does require work. 

The United States Army manual on military leadership, FM 22-100, states, “Any theory that leadership is solely inherited - - that leaders are born, not made - - must be rejected - - individuals may become outstanding leaders at the level of their capabilities provided that they have the sincere desire to do so.”  This is an over simplification designed to encourage young soldiers to develop leadership ability and to instill confidence in their leadership.  Nevertheless, it is essentially correct to make the assumption that most people, with adequate preparation, can function as leaders at a level appropriate for certain situations and under a given set of circumstances. 

Leadership is the art of influencing and directing people in such a way as to obtain their willing obedience, confidence, respect, and loyal cooperation in order to accomplish a stated objective.  It is possible to exercise leadership at any time and without regard to a framework of some prescribed authoritative structure.  In any group endeavor, some person always emerges as the leader even though no such structure is present.  However, in most work environments, we think of leadership as being exercised within some legitimately established authoritative structure.  Therefore, leadership is also the proper exercise of authority.  This is especially important in military organizations, criminal justice agencies, and law-making bodies where the public has placed a special trust and confidence in the leadership of those functions.  There are individuals at every level in these types of organizations who have been vested by law with appropriate authority for carrying out their very grave responsibilities.  However, the possession of authority, in itself, does not qualify a person as a good leader. 

            Some people who occupy positions of leadership often use their authority in such a manner as to alienate their people rather than inspire them to respond with willingness and respect.  The natures of public services agencies, military organizations, and criminal justice agencies requires that every level of responsibility reply to or react immediately to instructions and orders that might be received from the next higher level.  Whether the organization is large or small, complex or simple, the leader must be the controlling head.  The degree to which the leader successfully exercises authority will have a direct influence on how well he fulfills his responsibilities to those people who actually do the work, as well as whether or not he accomplishes the mission of the organization. 

            All leaders have two basic responsibilities; accomplishment of any mission that might be assigned to the organization they command and to look after the welfare of the people assigned to their organization.  These responsibilities are of equal importance.  However, in the event of conflict between the two, the mission must take precedence.  In the final analysis, the accomplishment of the mission will normally satisfy the responsibility for the welfare of the people.  Furthermore, the responsibilities of leadership cannot be delegated.  The leader, alone, must shoulder the responsibilities of the position he voluntarily occupies. 

            Leadership quickly resolves itself to a meeting of two or more personalities.  Therefore, the leader must develop a personality that is adequate for coping with the many types of situations that arise in an organization.  This does not mean that the leader must put on an act.  It means that his actions and instructions must be employed in a manner that is best suited to his personality.  If not, there will be a loss of prestige that will interfere with the successful accomplishment of the primary task.  An understanding of the desirable character traits of leadership is essential to the development of this kind of effective leadership personality.  Although there are many traits essential to the exercise of good leadership, a critical self-evaluation will enable a leader to identify his strongest traits, capitalize upon them, and apply constructive effort to improve upon those traits in which he is weak. 

            Regardless of the dismissal of the trait theory by those researchers whose leadership experience probably never extended beyond taking roll call in college lecture halls, certain fundamental personal characteristics have been consistently identified in the most successful of leaders.  The best leaders, throughout history, have always practiced what they know works.  This is the reason that, for many years, the United Sates Army required all student officers to memorize fourteen desirable character traits of good leaders and eleven principles of effective leadership.  In recent years, however, there has been very little emphasis placed upon these qualities of leadership. 

The following traits and principles have been written in such a manner as to allow those who are unfamiliar with the military to be able to understand how they can be applied in any situation where good leadership might be desired and appreciated: 

            Bearing is the maintaining of a favorable impression in carriage, appearance, and personal conduct at all times.  It includes other related terms such as courtesy, respect, dignity, deportment, and chivalry.  Bearing is an outward projection of a leader’s inner self that has been stripped of all masks and lies, and it is the only character trait that has no degrees of positive or negative; people either have bearing or they do not.  If they do not have it, they simply have varying degrees of crudeness.  Even if someone is fortunate enough to possess all other character traits to their highest degrees, their character will always be suspect if they are lacking in bearing.  Bearing is the mirror that reflects the character of the mind.            

Courage is the ability to meet danger, criticism, or opposition with calmness and firmness.  It is a combination of mental and physical stamina that is demonstrated by an ability to exercise will.  Courage encompasses the ability to recognize what is right and then do it, even in the face of adverse circumstances or pressures from others to act differently.  When a person, without hope of personal reward or profit, knows what must be done and then does it, that person is said to have the courage of his convictions.  Convictions, however, must be based on a sound understanding of the differences between actions that are right or wrong, smart or stupid, and necessary or dispensable. 

            Courage is not taking stupid chances, accepting dangerous dares, or otherwise demonstrating reckless disregard for prudence.  In fact, it is well demonstrated by a unique ability to abstain from such impulsiveness.  However, courage may also be well demonstrated by taking risks of personal danger or condemnation from others when the reasons for taking such risks are of noble cause.  That is the recipe for heroism.  Tread lightly however, for courage and poor judgment walk the same path and there is a natural tendency for people to want to follow a courageous person, even if that person may lack other desirable traits of character.  Courageous people are usually decisive people. 

            Decisiveness is the ability to make decisions promptly and express them in a clear and firm manner.  Leaders who are hesitant and indecisive create a lack of confidence in their followers, which can quickly turn into rejection of the leader’s instructions when they finally are issued.  Decisiveness embodies a sense of timeliness that is demonstrated when a leader makes a decision and takes action on that decision at the most opportune place and time to achieve the greatest degree of effectiveness.  Decisiveness is also related very closely to courage and judgment in that some decisions require great courage to place into action and then the judgment to know when to do it.  Being decisive without having courage to place a decision into action or judgment to be timely with its execution can be disastrous, especially when lives, great fortunes, or the future of a nation are at stake.  Decisiveness is one of the finer distinctions between ordinary and great leaders.  When a leader displays decisiveness, he instills in people a feeling of confidence in him as their leader as well as pride in their organization.  When decisiveness is coupled with a demonstrated ability to make wise, sound, and timely decisions, it eliminates uncertainty and helps to build discipline, the core of group effectiveness.  When leaders are decisive they are more dependable, and their people will grow to trust them and their decisions. 

            Dependability is the certainty of proper performance of duty with loyalty to one’s superiors and subordinates.  It is the keystone of trust and confidence that people give or deny their leaders.  How well a leader can be relied upon determines his effectiveness in working with other people and sets the basis for developing his potential for assuming additional responsibilities or being promoted to positions of greater authority.  A person’s demonstrated dependability is also a measure of the degree of loyalty that person feels to his profession, trade, or skill, as well as to his subordinates, co-workers, and superiors.  A leader who demonstrates a certainty of proper performance of duty and is loyal to his profession and the people to whom he is responsible is cultivating honor.  An honorable person possesses well-defined and enduring values. 

            Endurance is mental and physical stamina that can be measured by the ability to cope with fatigue, stress, and personal hardships.  Endurance enables a leader to function in an effective manner even when under attack from those who oppose him.  The qualities of initiative and enthusiasm are important elements in creating and maintaining endurance.  There must be initiative to begin and enthusiasm to continue in order to capitalize on the benefits of endurance.  Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and hare is an example of endurance supported by initiative and enthusiasm.  If a person cannot stick to a project, the project will fail. 

            Although many people think of endurance as a continuous application of energy to overcome resistance, endurance can also be demonstrated by patience.  Patience, in the form of watchful waiting for a more opportune moment to achieve a stated mission, is a calculated employment of endurance as long as the end product is not forgotten or abandoned without good purpose.  People who demonstrate a lack of endurance are often thought of as victims of a form of attention deficit disorder rather than lacking in confidence that is exacerbated by their lack of mental integrity and discipline.  When a leader successfully endures personal and professional hardships in order to achieve noble causes, his followers will award him with enthusiastic devotion. 

            Enthusiasm is the inward and outward display of sincere personal interest and exuberance in the performance of duty that demonstrates how much interest a person has in any task that might be assumed or assigned.  Enthusiasm is infectious in that, when displayed by a leader, it quickly permeates the psychological climate of his sphere of influence and creates a unified sense of group togetherness and purposefulness.  When leaders demonstrate enthusiasm they create a spirit that is above and beyond the aggregate personalities of all the individuals in an organization.  The military term for this kind of unified enthusiasm is esprit de corps. 

            Although no foolproof method has been devised that can predict with absolute accuracy whether or not a person will be a successful leader, the possession of a positive attitude is one of the best indicators of future performance.  People who demonstrate enthusiasm for their work are most likely to seek, accept, and enjoy responsibility.  Leaders who appear lethargic and without enthusiasm demonstrate they are disinterested, lazy, and lacking in any personal interest for the welfare of the people they are supposed to represent or lead.  Initiative dies a quick death where there is little enthusiasm.             Initiative is the quality of recognizing what has to be done and commencing an immediate course of action without having to be told to do so.  It is the spark in the human soul that one either has or does not have, and its possession separates those who do from those who do not.  Initiative enables leaders to originate and continue a plan of action to completion, provided that endurance is present.  Initiative also allows leaders to meet needs and challenges for which there have been no previous solutions.  However, leaders who have initiative should be distinguished from leaders who are work-a-holics.  The latter often initiates tasks but rarely completes one and, when in charge of others, they are a constant hindrance to group progress.  Work-a-holics always appear busy, are self-indulgent, and constantly prepared to provide excuses for rarely accomplishing anything of importance.  Initiative without endurance is wasted effort, and initiative without integrity is criminal. 

            Integrity is the quality of absolute truthfulness and honesty.  It is characterized by moral uprightness, a soundness of personal principle, and it is the cornerstone around which all character is built.  Integrity is one of the most desired qualities of human beings and the root of all respect that comes from other humans.  It is, however, the one character trait that gives most people the greatest trouble.  A compromise of personal values and convictions are the first casualties when people fail to place honesty, sense of duty, and moral principle above all else.  Instant signs of a lack of integrity, and which should be the basis for rejection by all people, are evasive answers to sincere questions often asked of public servants.  Integrity is also the quality most lacking in the voting public and, therefore, the reason why integrity is lacking in their government.  The lamp of Diogenes of Sinope is burning dimly, and justice is always the victim where integrity cannot be found. 

            Justice is the demonstration of impartiality and consistency in exercising authority, and it is beseeched by many but feared by all.  It is the proper application of justice that is supposed to give every person his dues according to his deeds.  Few things will disrupt the morale and discipline of an organization or country more than partiality and unfairness from their leaders.  Justice is what brings stability to all organizations and stimulates people to greater effort and achievement.  More than money, fame, or all else, it is justice that people desire from their leaders and their governments.  However, it is what they get least and, therefore, their suspicions feed the eternal flame of discontent and contempt for authority.  Justice not served is a demonstration in poor judgment. 

            Judgment is the capacity to weigh facts and possible solutions upon which to base sound decisions.  Good judgment is predicated upon the necessity for even handiness tempered by fairness, although fairness does not mean that all results should be equal.  Judgment and Justice are fraternal twins and must be exercised as a team.  People who habitually display poor judgment have much difficulty in being just because, once they have made an error in judgment they often violate the principles of justice by covering up or denying their mistakes, which further jeopardizes their integrity. The character traits of effective leadership are so interwoven and dependent upon the others that when one is weak the others are weakened. 

            Knowledge is acquired information, which includes professional knowledge and an understanding of one’s subordinates.  Knowledge is the all-encompassing word that is used to describe a level of learning that enables a person to be competent in any particular field of endeavor and, like dependability, is one of the primary reasons for promoting people to positions of greater responsibility.  It should be a person’s knowledge and demonstrated performance that counts, not seniority.  Labor unions and state and local government agencies seem to miss that point. 

            With every station in life there is a responsibility to be as knowledgeable as possible in one’s chosen occupation.  Without knowledge there is ignorance, and ignorance is the end of human progress, which is the beginning of human extinction.  Ignorance is the greatest curse of humanity and the dark pit from which no one can see but into which others can see who resides there.  There must be a willingness on the part of leaders to exert personal efforts toward the achievement of knowledge.  Those who do not are disloyal to themselves, their profession, and cannot expect to enjoy the loyalty of their people. 

            Loyalty is absolute faithfulness to one’s profession, organization, superiors and subordinates, and it is the cement that binds together the smallest of organizations and the greatest of nations.  It is characterized by a display of faithfulness to a person’s family, friends, contemporaries, employees, superiors, and country.  Loyalty is like integrity, often violated by those in pursuit of personal recognition, fame, and fortune.  Loyalty is one of the many essential elements of human respect that gives caution by the old axiom, “Be careful how you treat those you meet on your way up for you will meet them again on your way down”. 

            Loyalty is not the kind of blind devotion expressed in such platitudes as “my country, right or wrong.”  It means that people have an obligation to be devoted to the principles that make any organization or country great.  Loyalty places three demands upon all leaders.  First, they must be personally committed to improving, in themselves and in their subordinates, the desirable character traits of leadership.  Second, be personally loyal to people who demonstrate those traits.  Third, be professionally loyal to those institutions, systems, and states that reflect the good character of their founders.  Where there is no loyalty there is treachery and where loyalty is blind there is terrorism.  Award loyalty generously but with wise and tactful selectivity. 

            Tact is the ability to communicate and deal with others without creating offense, and it is the vocal equivalent of bearing.  The ability of a person to say what one means without resorting to repetitious vulgarity, unwarranted personal attacks, or excessive verbiage is an audible mirror to one’s character.  It is the language of diplomats who must achieve with words what others may loose in battle.  However, tact must be judiciously applied, but it may not necessarily be applied in all situations.  In certain exigent circumstances there is sometimes a requirement to exert more force than tact would normally permit.  Good judgment will determine if and when tact might be more appropriate.  Diplomats and politicians may choose their words wisely but generals and other tacticians must sometimes resort to more abrupt methods.  A leader who is able to sense the difference and speak appropriately for the occasion will be more successful than either the crass swaggert or suave despot.  The character flaws of arrogance and vulgarity assert serious negative impact upon a person’s tactfulness and bearing, and they result in a diminished perception of the leader’s competence. 

            Unselfishness is the avoidance of providing for one’s own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.  If business leaders understood and displayed that one trait, there would be little cries for unionization.  Practicing a sense of unselfishness enables a person to develop self-respect and gain the cooperation and respect of others.  There is an instinctive willingness to follow leaders who are concerned for the health and welfare of their people to the extent they subjugate any personal needs to those of their people.  Unselfishness is also embodied in the practice of giving credit to others for their participation in successful projects.  The lowest ranking worker is not so stupid as to not know when praise is undeserved.  Therefore, never praise or award the incompetent or undeserving but reserve your accolades for those whose work is well done. 

            Complementing the desirable personal character traits are the principles of effective leadership that have been habitually followed throughout history by the most successful leaders.  They are fundamental truths of human relationships that can be applied by leaders while controlling and guiding the actions of their subordinates. 

The following principles of leadership serve as rules for the proper exercise of authority in all group endeavors and all levels of responsibility: 

            Be technically and professionally proficient - This is the practical application of the character trait of knowledge which must be constantly supplemented by additional information and training.  While the leader has an obligation to ensure that his people are provided adequate opportunities for basic and specialty training, it is just as important that he maintain himself abreast of current information, techniques, and methodology concerning his profession.  That does not mean that leaders should be able to do every other person’s job, but they should develop a reasonable familiarity with the various functions of all task requirements common to the organization.  Leaders who possess a wide field of knowledge, both within and outside their specialty, and who use that knowledge for the benefit of their people and their organization, are most able and likely to accomplish their jobs with willing support from their people.  Nothing clothes a leader with less distinction than one who does not know his job. 

            Know yourself and seek self-improvement - Self-evaluation is the duty of every leader.  No one can become a successful leader without first appreciating their own capabilities, understanding their limitations, and making efforts to correct any personal deficiencies.  Knowing one’s self seems simple but is a difficult that requires complete honesty and constant self-evaluation.  Today, because of the availability of so much information that prohibits anyone from knowing everything, there is a practical necessity for people to compartmentalize their learning process.  People who wish to pursue knowledge must progressively develop their knowledge in a pragmatic manner and in those areas of knowledge that will permit one mind to absorb the desired information within the span of one lifetime.  The better leaders and thinkers of today have learned how to develop a solid mental base of operations that they use as reference point from which to systematically branch out to probe the recesses of other areas of information.  In other words, in their search for more knowledge, they use their minds like a computer network server that protects them from unwanted information and refuses to allow their minds to be victims of information overload.  A leader can never become successful until he understands his own capabilities and limitations and is the master of himself before he attempts to be the master of others.   

            Know your employees and look out for their welfare - Leaders will obtain a better understanding of how their subordinates react and function under various conditions when they make efforts to observe them, become personally acquainted with them, and recognize their individual differences.  Personnel files are not just for reviewing when it is time to consider an employee for promotions, assignments, or disciplinary actions.  A good leader uses them as a source of information when making any decision that affects the people in his organization.  However, knowing one’s self is the first step in the journey toward becoming capable and responsible enough to judge others.  That is why it is important for leaders to have a complete understanding of the desirable character traits of leaders, be aware of those that are his strongest assets, and display an ability to implement the principles of leadership. 

            Looking out for people will often mean a leader should know when and how to keep out of the personal business of his people.  He should, however, know the difference between his employee’s rights to and desires for individual privacy and their obligations and duty to the organization.  It is often an occurrence that much harm is done in the name of an assumed common good.  By neglecting their welfare, the leader forfeits the trust of the people who are essential to accomplishing the mission of his organization. 

            Keep your people appropriately informed - Employees want to know how well they are doing and what is expected of them.  Informed people, commensurate with an appropriate need to know, are more effective.  Keeping people properly informed promotes initiative and loyalty but an uninformed people will perform blindly, without purpose, or will not perform at all.  However, regardless of what many presumptuous representatives of the media may claim, there are no such unalienable rights as the public’s right to know or, with the exception of criminal accusations, an individual’s right to be informed.  There is a practical obligation for leaders to provide their people with sufficient training and information so as to ensure their ability to perform their tasks and to understand their relationship with their organization.  This obligation also necessitates that leaders educate their subordinate leaders regarding their responsibilities to support the goals of the organization as well as to faithfully execute their responsibilities to their subordinates.  An informed work force and a knowledgeable supervisory staff promote willingness for voluntary service to the leader’s causes.  There is also a moral obligation and practical reason for the employees of an organization to keep themselves informed about their jobs.  The primary responsibility for job security belongs to the employee.

            Set the example - This is a mandate that begs an answer to the question as to what constitutes a proper example.  In an imperfect world, it is impossible for all people to be individually, much less collectively, a perfect example of anything.  Setting an example means that a leader should be forthright and sincere in his efforts to ensure that, when someone observes his past deeds, present conduct, and future results, they will gain a favorable impression regarding his character, knowledge, and abilities.  People instinctively look to their leaders for examples they wish to emulate or use as excuses for their own shortcomings.  Therefore, leaders should set the standard for their organization by committing themselves to the achievement of outstanding performance of duty.  The leader who appears in an unfavorable light before his subordinates destroys the mutual respect upon which effective working relationships are built.  Leaders at every level must establish this non-negotiable rule: “We do not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do”. 

            Ensure the task is understood supervised and accomplished - Leaders must give clear and concise instructions that cannot be misunderstood.  Although the issuance of orders and instructions are relatively small parts of a leader’s role, there must be adequate supervision to ensure that instructions are properly executed.  This can be most difficult unless leaders make wise use of their subordinate supervisors.  Any leader who fails to make proper and adequate use of his subordinate leadership demonstrates a fundamental weakness in leadership ability.  It is the front line supervisor’s job to ensure that the specific tasks of the mission are accomplished in a proper fashion and in a timely manner.  They can accomplish that only when they know their jobs and they are actually on the job with their people.  Absent supervisors are ineffective supervisors. 

            It is the principal leader’s task to provide his subordinate supervisors with sufficient authority so as to enable them to direct the functions of their specific tasks while still holding them accountable for ensuring that those tasks are properly supervised and accomplished.  The principal leader, alone, must bear total responsibility for the successes and failures of his organization, his business, or his country.  An effective leader ensures the accomplishment of his mission by constantly checking on the progress of tasks and projects, reviewing intermediate results, and making appropriate changes as might be necessary. 

            Train your people as a team - Teamwork is the key to successful completion of all tasks requiring more than one person’s attention.  It starts in the smallest work unit and carries through to the largest organization.  Each member of the team must understand where he or she fit into the whole effort.  After each person in an organization is individually trained and proficient in their specific tasks, they must gain a further understanding and appreciation of their relationship with their contemporaries, with other functional elements of the organization, and with others whom they must coordinate their actions.  This means that group functionality training is as important to an organization as individual training is for people who are assigned independent functions.  All individual training, therefore, must be supplemented by additional combined unit training and organized group practical exercises that put the training subject matter into actual practice.  The leader who fails to foster teamwork through training will not obtain the desired degree of organizational efficiency. 

            Make sound and timely decisions - Good decisions, whether made under the pressures of exigent circumstances or with the luxury of time, require adequate prior thought and planning.  No decision should ever be made without going through a formal, although in some cases very hastily formal, problem solving process.  In order to develop sound decisions, this process must be followed whether in written or mental form. 

            No proper decision can be made without a clear understanding of the situation that the demands the decision be made.  The leader, therefore, must first make an estimate of the situation, which includes the factors that led to the present situation, just what is the present situation, and what are the factors that may influence or change the situation.  Once an estimate of the situation has been accomplished, the leader must next consider the various courses of action, which are available to him, and what impact such courses of action might be anticipated to have on the situation.  Which course or courses of action to take will always be dictated by the desired results.  Time permitting, consider as many courses of action as possible and select the one most appropriate for the situation.  Once a course of action has been selected that action should be taken at the most opportune time, followed through to completion, and further followed up with an evaluation of the results.  

            Develop a sense of responsibility among subordinates - Leaders should encourage initiative in their subordinates and hold them accountable for results.  Rarely, however, should the method of accomplishment be restricted.  Proper delegation of authority accompanied by adequate supervision develops trust, faith and confidence. 

Reluctance to delegate authority is an indicator of retarded development in a leader.  The problem with responsibility is that it must begin to be learned and developed at a very early age.  It first begins with learning how to be responsible for things, and then for one’s own actions, other people, primary family groups, extended groups, and finally for one’s community and country.  Most people never progress beyond a limited degree of responsibility for themselves, or at least for no more than one or two other people.  If a sense of responsibility is not an integral part of people’s commitment too not only themselves but to greater causes and to other people, they will never reach their potential and fulfillment as members of any group or society.  The key to effective leadership, therefore, is responsibility.  Even if a person is capable of faking the desirable character traits of leadership, possesses a high degree of personal knowledge, and is able to employ most of the principles of leadership, his failure to be personally responsible for his deeds and words will be his Achilles heel. 

            Employ people and the organization within their capabilities - Leaders must have a thorough knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of their organization and their people must be assigned individual duties commensurate with their abilities.  There is little useful purpose in hiring employees who are incapable of performing, or who are unable to learn in a reasonable time, their assigned tasks and responsibilities.  It makes no more sense to attempt to force people to perform tasks for which they are not trained to accomplish.  Although leaders should try to improve the capabilities of their people and their organization, this is best accomplished through a discriminating and selective hiring process, training programs that actually relate to the mission of the organization, and attentive supervision by competent junior leaders and front line supervisors.  The higher the standards for selection and retention, the more pertinent the training, and the more competent the supervision, is what determines the level of accomplishment that can be expected from the members of an organization.  Repeated failures to accomplish tasks cause a loss of confidence, which in turn destroys organizational efficiency and brings about a collapse of morale within an organization. 

            Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Leaders must seize the initiative in the absence of instructions and accept personal responsibility for everything their organization does or fails to do.  Any effort to evade this responsibility destroys the bonds of loyalty, respect, and confidence that must exist between a leader and the members of an organization.  It is natural for people to desire power and authority and these aspirations are often the primary forces that drive petty internal office politics as well as savage political battles for public office.  However, seeking responsibility and taking responsibility for one’s actions has less to do with power and authority and more to do with proper human conduct in an effort to improve the operations of an organization and the honor of its leadership.  Be ever mindful of the vultures of authority that pretend to be eagles for their songs usually give them away. 

            The ability to employ people in such a way as to successfully accomplish a task, the heart of leadership, involves understanding, predicting, and controlling human behavior.  Although it is not necessary for leaders to undergo the training required of psychologists, they must at least possess an understanding of basic human behavior patterns in order to obtain maximum effectiveness from the people they lead.