The Good Life I suppose this title is apt—it’s all-encompassing in any event—for the first essay here on the Kifaru website on the broad topic of "politics". Some of you have asked me to do this—write about the political scene one encounters today as seen through the eyes of a hunter. Perhaps I should tell you that I’m also a historian. I never did anything with that degree except live a more fulfilled life so far. And I mean that—I am grateful for having acquainted myself with the foundations of culture. (Mind you, I was educated prior to PC-ness.) I am well aware of the long course of history that has brought us to the present. And so I bring that to bear as buttress to my observations. Call me a hunter/historian. I almost titled this series "Culture Wars". I selected The Good Life for several reasons. In the broadest terms, everybody—even our political/philosophical adversaries—is seeking The Good Life. What is it? Differences about that are at the root of our political conflicts. This is NOT to say that all "opinions" are "equal" or any of that new age poly- science pabulum. Certainly I am not suggesting that our opponents’ positions are just as valid as ours. Far from it—I intend to discuss at length why and how they’ve strayed from the path that represents the good life , and why they must be either led lovingly back to it, or resisted forcefully. But I want my approach to be free to soar beyond politics and into the realm of philosophy when called for. A broader view may be needed to get at the subject. So bear with me. We may, together, find nuggets herein that will help us Culture Warriors prevail. It is the philosophy one brings to politics that ultimately matters. THE REAL WORLD—Let’s get right to the point. You might note that, above, I called we hunters Culture Warriors—NOT the other side. I’m speaking in the real world sense of warrior—real weapons and real blood. Not in the metaphorical sense that describes the other side. By definition, these tender minded souls are loath to pick up a weapon and kill anything, for any reason. They are cunning at diminishing our hunting rights, and going for our guns too. They excel at manipulating the simple minded and/or uninformed to assist in this. But you can bet we’re never going to get to face them, mano a mano, in real life conflict. They will run like the rabbits they are. That’s because these benighted small souls have shrunk from contact with the real world. Of course you and I, as hunters, know much about the real world—the world that all humans lived in until very, very, very, recently in history, the one before malls and political correctness and…well, you know what I mean; it’s the one that lies "out there" failing the infrastructure that supports and protects the new-found "sensitivities" that are bedeviling these hypercivilized little folk. The real world is just too messy for them. Death lurks there. And death is anathema to them. The great cycle of life and death is to be denied, outlawed, legislated out of existence. They have sworn off all "killing" and they are going to force (legally, not literally of course) you and me to do the same. They have "new truth" and we must knuckle under. The most consistent, philosophically speaking, of these anti-hunters are the vegetarians. Understand that they are the ones most in denial, but at least they are consistent. Time was when they were content to practice their vegetarianism and leave the rest of us alone. Maybe some still are, but a lot are now members of the ARF (animal rights freaks) brigades. In this "enlightened" age of denial they have been able to attract the money to manipulate the next elements ranged against us—the air heads who eat meat and STILL (somehow) oppose hunting. When Socrates urged folks to lead "the examined life" he could have been admonishing exactly these muddled- headed nitwits. Like the vegetarians, they are cloaked in the numbing womb of the modern world, and so can be all aquiver about death and so forth. They just don’t SEE that cows are killed so that they can munch Big Macs. They must think the meat just appears somehow, like the bun, in the nice little wrapper the clerk hands them thru the pay window. Fact is, they don’t think at all. Raised on "Bambi", they just "feel" that they don’t want those nasty hunters out there killing those cute little anthropomorphic (assigned human-like qualities) animals. They also must "feel" that the meat in their supermarket grows in the back of the store in those styrofoam packets. As recently as fifty years ago millions of Americans still killed their own chickens to eat, even if they didn’t hunt. And there were no mewing noises in the land decrying hunting. Enough of us were still connected to our food supply in the real way. Not now. It’s the soft, disconnected soccer moms out there that the antis are able to manipulate so easily. These moms, who in decades past did the chicken-killing, are now so coddled they’re easy prey for the sentimental rantings with which the vegetable heads are plying them. I wonder what they’ll think when the ARFs go after meat in general—in short, when they try to outlaw meat, per se, for ALL of us. I’m betting they dig in their heels at that. After all, they’re not really doctrinaire about much of anything, just monumentally sentimental. Of course they have no sense of history or the natural order of the world. The world for them arrived yesterday and resides at the mall. In an incredibly short time the spunk has gone out of American "culture", and a huge part of that decline is the short-circuiting of being at least partly responsibility for our own food supply. This is probably the most significant single factor threatening the worlds first profession—hunting—in our country. We Homo Sapiens BECAME such when we rose up from grass-eating and starting killing other animals for their protein-rich meat. Our entire pre-history and history until the last eye-blink has been one of hunting. Hunting built our brains. It oriented our men-folks’ brains in a right side, total focus, innovation-prone way and our women-folks’ brains in a complimentary diffused, home and hearth and whelps sort of way that has served humankind so very well these eons upon eons. Hunting was necessary; it was essential. And it was spiritual. (Dear readers, you and I know that it very much still is.) Young men learned through rites of passage the restraint, the courage, the self-denial it took to provide and protect—to be men. Young women learned through their own rights of passage their equally vital roles of gathering the wherewithal of a more varied diet as well as how to keep the home fires burning. The system worked. Eventually that old right brain innovativeness led, a few thousand years ago, to settled animal husbandry, and thence to settled agriculture. And that has since led of course to electricity, internal combustion engines and all the rest of the infrastructure we have, including our incredible food production and distribution system. Not only do we no longer "need" to hunt we no longer even need to kill our own domestic pigs and chickens to eat. Not to mention we no longer need those hunted animal skins to clothe ourselves. Nor firewood we produced ourselves to stay warm. We are so "protected" from the natural world, so coddled, insulated, lazy and fat that we luxuriate in unreality. We wallow in it. And some of us have slipped into unreality so far we think (no, "feel" is the operative word here) that the old hunting virtues that got us to this point are no longer needed. In fact the hypercivilised among us "feel" them to be "barbarous". How ultimately JUVENILE such non-thinking really is!! What conceit!! How utterly disrespectful of the virtues that brought these little whiners onto the scene, that kept their very own ancestors alive!! Deer don’t lobby for wolves to stop killing and eating them, and humans killing and eating them is STILL very much part of the natural order of things. If not because it honors our past, and because to hunt is literally in the genetic make up of a great many of us, then because it is still necessary to have these very special, even sacred, skills should the flimsy barrier we have erected between ourselves and the real world be swept away. Imagine the collapse of the infrastructure, especially the food distribution system, which of course would certainly fail. God help the smug little anti-hunters should that come to pass. I imagine most would abandon their whiney politics pretty quickly, but they’ll still be as bereft of meat hunting skills as babes. I reckon they’ll show up at our camps and beg. Hunters acknowledge and honor the real world, and train in the skills to provide and protect in that world in the event it returns—for whatever reason, and even if temporarily. Ladies, don’t expect a vegetarian to feed you unless it’s in a college town or near the downtown of a major east or west coast city under so-called "normal" conditions. Don’t expect much from the anti-hunting burger eaters either should things fall apart. When the canned beans and tuna run out you’ll starve. Find yourself a hunting man and stick close when things are tough. Oh, and you’ll find he can and will shoot straight should ANY sort of predator threaten. For he knows the ways of the real world and is not a coward. Most of all he is not a coward about death. He knows it is part of life. The hypercivilised snivelers out there who insist on "saving" Bambi are terrified of death. Ultimately their own. We have provided them such a physical and psychological barrier of safety, of insulation from the elemental world that they are completely ignorant of death and thus terrified of it. And so they bite the hand of their benefactor and decry his "primitiveness", his "barbarity," and go "political" ( a refuge for cowards) to "put a stop" to the oldest profession in the world. What busybodies!! What children!! Arrogantly prodding with their little sticks at a force of nature!! They show no respect for a tidal force of tradition and its sacredness in the long, long drama of human history. I am astonished, too, at the restraint we hunters have shown these punks. But, then, restraint is a hallmark of the hunter, who knows much of self-discipline. Nevertheless, if I ever get around to producing a coyote jacket for my wife and one of these vermin spray paints her and the coat in some pathetic little "demonstration", said vermin will be headed for a lengthy hospital stay as sure as the sun rises each morning. Thus far we’ve been speaking of the anti-hunters, alluding to their cowardly aversion to death—ultimately their own—that is the philosophical underpinning of their politics. Their insulation from the natural world both "causes" their cowardice and "allows" them to act on their fears in the political arena. We know they have no honor for the laudable hunting history of their forebears. They view themselves as the "pinnacle" of "civilization" when in fact they are sniveling, air headed , cowardly and spoiled rotten children. The good life to them is one in which nothing or nobody ever dies, especially themselves. (Why they won’t set up their own little Utopia somewhere to try this, leaving the rest of us alone, is a testament to the vacuity of their lives—they haven’t the courage to do it). They have no idea that life is lived moment-by-moment, or that it involves risk. On the contrary, they lead riskless, unchallenging, drab, safe lives—looking for a safe "cause" to rally to. Having no idea of the real challenge of the hunt, and of course being far too cowardly to actually kill-to-eat they childishly challenge their betters, knowing at least enough about our restraint to think they can get away with it, all the while exhilarating in their "daring". They were raised in cities. What they know about animals they learned from Walt Disney. They are very often female. And they have no concept of honor, which is to them a Dead White Male term. No concept of the term in history; no concept of history, really. They’re just scared little city girls. Their philosophical "battle" cry is "BAMBI"! These wimps are vegetarians on Prozac. They are so detached from reality they’re never coming back. In fact, they’ve never been there in the first place. How could they have been? I suspect a large number of the ARFS are persistently in psychological counseling. They see their shrinks regularly. Possession of an integrated personality is illusive to these folks. And I can certainly see why—it’s right there in their politics: the headlong attempt to deny reality rather than accept it, honor it. These people are weaklings; they’ve been allowed to exist in their Pollyannaish state by the insulative infrastructure of the modern world in which they take up space. They’ve never exerted themselves for their food and fuel, much less had to develop and practice high skills in obtaining those necessities. One who provides them for himself is not only "connected" to the wonderful reality of things, he is a learned participant in it. He has demonstrated his worthiness; he is a person of accomplishment. He is integrated, personality-wise, and has no need of "counseling" from another who may, in fact, be just as poorly integrated as the counsel-seeker. One who has the skill and courage and strength to find and kill and eat large wild animals experiences the profound humbling of that. He is deeply immersed in the paradox of the universe—that one must kill to live. It is inexplicable and sad and wonderful all at once. Only those who can do it really understand what I’m talking about, but they know that the hunter who can do this is forevermore integrated into the scheme of the universe. They are connected. They are integrated. They are above all strong. I know many hunters, of course. As far as I know none of them are "in counseling". They are all men and women of accomplishment simply by dint of being hunters, no matter what else they "do". Some of them are doctors, lawyers and big chiefs, and some of them are regular folks in the getting of a living. But they all do their jobs with skill and they don’t whine. The rigors and realities of hunting have brought them face to face with the Good Life. It is acceptance of the bounties of the earth, and the fact that one has to earn them. Smart kings used to send their sons to live with hunters before allowing them to enter the posh life of the Court. The closeness to the real nature of things of the hunting life—its physical and mental toughening—created men of these lads instead of hot-house unrealists. The character- building right of passage of the hunting life has only been lost to us very recently—and to our peril. Skills and disciplines learned in the hunting fields mold one and can never be taken away. It builds self-sufficient citizens who don’t tolerate humbuggery. Theodore Roosevelt can attest to that and is an example of its value. Teddy was educated, cultured, loving, and tough as nails when he needed to be--altogether a real man. An integrated, complete and valuable package, undeniably. I do understand how such squishy, feely citizens came to exist—because they can now, basically—but I surely don’t welcome their arrival on the scene and I most assuredly think they should and must be vigorously opposed for the good of the country. And I wish them all a collapse of their trust fund, a disappearance of their Hollywood financial backers and the plopping of them down in some wilderness location with a rifle and a pocketful of shells to fend for themselves—on mother natures’ terms. Might snap ‘em out of it. If not, they can deservedly starve. But let me offer this to any of them who just might come across these words: I will diligently teach any of you wilderness skills, including shooting for your supper. You will find me pretty good company—educated, informed, mannerly, and a good conversationalist on just about any subject. A hundred years ago I would probably have been called a gentlemen, at least I hope so. You need to be in good physical condition and willing to get your hands dirty. Our camp will be warm and cozy and full of good cheer if you really do accept this offer. I fully realize that you never had the opportunity to learn what we hunters and the hunting traditions are about. In the spirit of the offer, I expect you to be genuine about your acceptance—that is, you will not be a "true believer" already, incapable of changing your mind and only attending so as to scuttle back and further ridicule, publicly, what you’ve experienced. You may think it unfair I’m not offering to change my mind in return, having never tried something YOU’RE familiar with—say, vegetarianism. Ah, but I have. For about a year, in the early seventies I gave up meat and hunting. I know what it "feels" like to be a vegetarian. It wasn’t for me. I felt weak, both physically and mentally, and began to feel non-integrated, personality-wise. I can certainly see why so many of you are in counseling. So. Come experience the best meat nature has to offer, and learn how it’s collected in natures most direct way. It might just change your life—and for the better. Just one proviso—you will be responsible for learning how to shoot and doing some of the killing yourself. It’s part of the deal. Natures deal. Don’t expect it to be easy; you are ill informed to think that getting to the game and accurately shooting it is a simple and guaranteed exercise. All you hunting readers heed what I’m doing here. Consider taking an "anti" hunting and shooting. We have to realize that none of them went through the rite of passage we did. And so they have no comprehension of the ethos we have internalized and its importance to connecting to life. Maybe we can rescue some of them. I mentored two men this season past in the art of wilderness elk hunting. Boy, do they "see" the wilds of nature differently than before. They are really alert now, noticing EVERYTHING out there—the birds, the small as well as the large animals, where elk have slept. These dudes are turned on to nature as never before. And they can track elk like they were born to it. Which in fact they were—they just didn’t "remember" it for all the modern clutter. So far we’ve been talking of anti-hunters in the "what’s the good life?" format. And I’ve concluded that they’re just coddled contrarians looking for a "cause" in a debilitatingly safe world. Near kin to their ilk—in fact the next crowd overlaps the anti-hunters—are the anti-gun people. Some of this group at least SAY they don’t necessarily want your hunting rifle. This, most of us are very skeptical about. I imagine very few anti-gun zealots are hunters. Probably none, in fact. I can’t imagine they have any sense of history, especially of the importance of personal firearms in our own Revolution. To them, personal safety is paramount. Honor, in terms of fighting back, is not even on their screens. They "feel" (they simply CAN’T be "thinking" here) that if EVERYBODY were disarmed then nobody can hurt them. It seems that no logic to the effect that bad guys won’t obey can penetrate this "feeling" they cling to. Like the Bambi crowd, these folks were not raised with guns, are profoundly city folk, have no idea how to fend for themselves absent modern support infrastructure, and are utterly ignorant that anyone can personally, independently, "control" a firearm—that it might be used with the utmost restraint and wisely, usefully, to STOP violent crime. They are "distrustful" of guns, those inanimate objects we profoundly respect, and talk about them incessantly as if they were living personifications of evil. They "don’t like" them, and because THEY don’t then NOBODY should HAVE one of the blamed things. And , as with the Bambiists on hunting, guns are not "needed" in the fantasy world they "wish" upon the rest of us—whether we want it or not. Never mind that ALL societies that have been seized by tyranny were first disarmed. They trust their government, not their fellow citizens; and certainly not themselves. They therefore tend overwhelmingly to be Liberals, politically. Liberals "feel" that you and I no longer have the "right" to defend ourselves and our families. That is now the job of their modern, enlightened Government. At bottom, they are arrogantly anti-personal freedom, politically oh-so-correct and sheep for demagogues who promise them bread and circuses. They have no sense of history, and consider themselves the "pinnacle" of "evolution", and therefore "above" the wisdom of the past. "It won’t happen here" (tyranny), they "feel". "That’s a thing of the past". They’re not about to fight (real fight) for anything either. Their "battle cry"(not real battle cry, of course): "Pro-choice for us; no-choice for you." They expect the police (where were they at Columbine?) and the "absence of guns" to protect them. Fundamentally, I think they must hate us for being strong and willing (and able) to defend ourselves. And so they want to disarm us and put us in the same cowardly hole they’re in. Problem is, there are millions of these never-fight-back cowards out there, pampered and groomed and assured they are "right" by the mass media. Most desperately, they are in need of real information about "gun control" failures elsewhere and some lessons in self-reliance and in acquiring a backbone. They actually seem willing to give up liberty for what they (mistakenly) believe is "safety". And since safety is the mantra of mantras to the masses of today there may be no hope for them. If only they could see that their safety is partly their own responsibility!! Of course I am acquainted with many people who are like this. When I express my view that the surest way to protect oneself in the "going postal" workplace is take your gun to work and shoot any bugger who wigs out on you between the eyes they gape at me like shocked cows. THEM, actually shoot somebody? Well, yes. You have a choice in life—cower or fight back. I must confess to being ashamed of most of my fellow citizens. What could possibly be "wrong" with simply "reflecting" violence directed at you right back at the perpetrator? You even have every right to back up that reflection with a good deal of righteous ANGER. You should actually get a medal for cleaning up the gene pool should you eliminate such a violent attacker. He has forfeited his "right" to exist amongst us by attacking (supposedly) unarmed fellow citizens in the first place. As I said above, it is his OWN violence, reflected back at him, that has removed him in such a scenario. But, alas, the modern method of enculturation in a cozy but spunkless, spineless soup of Kumbaya fuzziness has dulled most folk’s ability to even recognize that one has every right to fight back; that one CAN and SHOULD do so. "Oh no, that’s too macho!" Dear Lord, that knee-jerk term alone is gutting our citizens of their birthright of having and exercising some good old fashioned manly courage, and fighting back! I know that my fellow citizens just haven’t been educated to get their minds around such forthrightness. It’s not a modern mode of thought—this crazy idea of the VIRTUE of self-defense. I can’t really blame them too much for the blank stares. Too many years of soft schooling, where character and courage are not even mentioned, have molded them. I can only hope to change them, or at least change their minds, and their votes, insofar as they come to recognize that those of us who DO consider it right and proper to courageously fight back at the monsters the welfare state has failed to tame are not, ourselves, the monsters. In fact, that we may the good guys, and useful to have around. Yes, America IS the last place on earth with the right of citizens to arm themselves for personal protection. Unequivocally, that is a GOOD thing. Every other country is WRONG. WE are right. The sniveling liberals are "ashamed" we aren’t "like the rest of the ‘civilized’ world" in this. My heartfelt advice to them is MOVE somewhere more to your liking. You MAY NOT have my guns. Even if you "win" politically you may not have them. You are risking the beginning of the Second American Revolution if you persist in disarming those Americans who simply will not cower with you. I know that if it comes to that YOU will not be in the fight—for you are a coward; it will be your proxy "authorities" carrying your feeble will into the fray. Nevertheless, it will be YOUR responsibility. And I hope you get your dose of lead, somehow, someway. The RIGHT to self defense is just that. It is ancient and God-given and forever. No "government" can rightfully subvert it. Certainly not in America, whose founding citizens wrote the book on the this fundamental right. That many of our subsequent citizens have shrunk from their duty of self reliance does not mean that those of us who remain faithful to that duty must acquiesce as well. Not even if we should become a "minority" on this issue. The "Tyranny of the Majority" shall not prevail on this fundamental right. THE TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY—(Demagoguery's near-miss.) The above segueways into the near-victory of presidential hopeful Al Gore recently. Thank God and our Founders for the Electoral College! The Founders paid a lot of attention to this tyranny of the majority issue. Ours is not a "democracy" as such, and for this very reason. Instead we are a Republic, precisely so that the large states cannot bulldoze small ones. Our Senate and our electoral college are precisely designed to help prevent just that. Take a look at the map of the states won by Mr. Gore and by Mr. Bush. Gore won the big liberal states on the coasts; Bush cleaned up in the heartland. The heartland, where folks are raised with firearms and honest values. The Free Lunch crowd inhabits the Gore domains. The Gore campaign was the most disgusting example of demagoguery I’ve seen, and I’ve been around long enough to have seen a lot. Promise black Americans special preferences—so they’ll vote for you. Promise homosexuals special rights—so they’ll vote for you. Promise enough "working folks" who earn just enough less than somebody else that you’ll tax away the other guys’ money and give it to them—and they’ll vote for you. Offer enough special interests bread and circuses, free, and you have "bought" yourself an election. At other "working people’s" expense. Not a jot about responsibilities, oh no—you get all these free goodies just for voting for ME. No word about honor, hard work, dedication. You’re a "victim" (if you don’t "see" that then let me explain it to you) and I’m gonna set things straight for you—just vote for ME. I’m ashamed of the liberal free lunchers of our country. They have no pride, and their sticky little hands are always out. I’m especially galled by the "working people" angle. I suspect at least some of my readers are kindred small entrepreneurs or professionals. Remember what it’s like to work seventy hours a week for years and years whilst building a business or getting thru professional school? Remember having your entire life savings on the line AND the mortgage to your home—the one your kids grew up in? And do you remember who always got paid first? (You bet, everybody else but you!) Well, dear readers, according to this Gore fellow you and I are not working people! We’re the enemy, to be plundered of what money we’ve (eventually) earned in favor of the guy who just has to SHOW UP forty hours a week, who always gets paid whether you and I do or not, who gets wages and benefits no matter what, and who gets to watch football every weekend while WE (the "non-working") get to fret about how we’re going to pay everybody. If you are a forty hour wage earner fine, you are wholly entitled to your pay. What you are NOT "entitled" to is a taxed-away chunk of the guy’s earnings that are greater than yours by dint of long self- denial to lift his earnings above yours! He’s earned his pay too. Building a business is a long, hard, scary, penurious road. Survivors often (though not always) make more money than average folks. And they’ve damn sure earned it! Fair is fair. But fairness is turned on its head by liberals like Al Gore & Co. And by the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons that have oozed up from the mucky malaise carefully crafted by lickspittle liberals over the past forty years in our country. These two skunks make a very fine living trying to convince black citizens they’re "victims", when all around us are abundant examples of successful, highly respected, even beloved black people. Racism against black people is a thing of the past—or at least very nearly universally so. Plenty of black citizens are doing very well, without Jesse and Al’s Affirmative Action, Set Asides or anything other than their own talent and hard work. All such Preferences are INHERENTLY unfair. They certainly weaken character and I suspect many black citizens of good faith and good character are quite queasy about them. But there’s a steady drumbeat from the left, abetted by their lapdog media, that says it’s right to accept all this, that you’re ENTITLED to it! In reality, Sharpton and Jackson, et al, are racist extortionists. We will only be united when their ilk are gone and we look at each other as individuals and not as "groups". Once a government handout is firmly in the teeth of a privileged group it is well-nigh impossible to dislodge them. Forevermore spokesmen for the "disadvantaged" group are highly motivated to keep "finding" examples of why their group is still deserving of support. And besides, Jesse would have to get a real job. When my black buddy David and I "integrated" formerly white only restaurants in the south in 1963 neither one of us could have fathomed this giant INDUSTRY called Affirmative Action we see now in the land. Nor that anyone who disagreed with it, who thought it causes utter destruction in ALL our souls, would be knee-jerk labeled a racist. I can assure my fellow citizens of good cheer and clear thinking that the only people for whom race is a BIG ISSUE, PERMEATING ALL OF AMERICA are the liberals and the civil rights "professionals" making their living off the rest of us. And to the poor blacks (or whatever "group" is designated as "oppressed" you wish to insert here) who really believe all this propaganda: I hope you realize your oppressors are your "leaders" and not me or the vast majority of white folks you inhabit this great land with. I know the privileges are hard to give up, but you’ll never be able to get out from under the velvet but character-crushing yoke you have been put under by these guys ‘til you just say no! And, since I’m on a roll here in exposing all sorts of chicanery that inhibits the good life, I believe I should just say no! to the special rights of feminists while I’m at it. THE FEMINIZATION OF AMERICA.—I’m blessed with three fine daughters and a wife/partner of thirty six years duration. ( Don’t even think of trying to tell me I haven’t the qualifications to speak on this subject.) All of them can shoot. All of them take Feminism (with a capital F) with a large grain of salt. Not that it's been easy for them to do so. We’ve seen the culture warped against men-folks—from school textbooks to the popular media-- for quite a few years now. But my beloved females have all the while seen their Dad/husband in real life. And they know he really does have his act together, can be totally depended upon and is the one to turn to when things are really, seriously falling apart—especially if disaster or danger is the issue. Yes, I really do keep my head in situations when everybody else is losing theirs. It’s the "manly" thing to do, and that’s what I am—a man. I’m extraordinarily comfortable in this skin. In short, I think they’ve learned of the absolute, irrefutable value of a man. And that’s something dedicated feminists are in serious denial about, I suppose. Any society that fails to produce men is in imminent danger of collapse. A reminder, dear readers, that you and I are discussing the real world—the time immemorial nature of things. In our role as provider/protectors we men have naturally always been attracted to weaponry. Well, of course. Until very recently in history a man NOT adept at weaponry was considered something of a drone. After all, if he can’t (or won’t) wield a gun (or knife or bow or spear) how can he defend home and country? Oh my, how things have changed since the advent of the liberal elite! And, oh my, how dangerous this degeneration (for it truly is that) is to all of us—especially to our womenfolk. Paradoxically, it is the women of our country who are providing the votes to disarm their men—their ultimate protectors. It is in womens’ nature to desire safety. And to prefer soft, nurturing things. That is completely wonderful! It is the yin to the yang aspects of nature. But when the yin crowds out the yang nature goes out of kilter. The soft modern world of security and plenty we men have provided for our women has led to the ascendancy of the "unreal" aspects in feminine nature—the denial of the wholly natural and proper need to kill to eat and, sometimes, to kill to protect. This denial is ultimately unabashed irresponsibleness. It is pure feminine wishful thinking. Our women need us to be loving, of course, but they also need, desperately, for us to be, when needed, tough and strong and SKILLED AT ARMS. I believe if they could just get a break from the incessant drumbeat of the professional feminists who, like Jesse Jackson & Co., make a very nice living as victimologists, they could catch some perspective on the way things are headed. And it might make them nervous. But, alas, feminism, like racism, is an industry now—a pernicious one that to survive must continue to "find" new examples of "illness" in "society" and convince us that it’s toxic. Women in the Western World have for a very long time enjoyed very high status, and never in any place on earth have they had it so good as here, at this point in history—special rights added onto an already very nice situation. The Moslem world, to cite only one example, is surely an object lesson in a FOR-REAL "toxic" environment for women. I know that I don’t want my wife or daughters to EVER be subjected to that sort of life, and I’m grateful they live in the USA; with their loving Dad and husband, me, all of us free. A significant irony in the liberal feminists’ "thinking" is the notion that women have a "right" to abort defenseless babies but that men do not have a "right" to arm themselves in order to protect their families. There is something wrong here. This flies in the face of nature. KEYS TO THE GOOD LIFE-- But liberals will try to move heaven and earth and warp reality and common sense in order to get what they want: the good life for people who neither deserve it nor even know what it really is—themselves. By giving money to those who won’t work for it, by giving jobs and college and professional school placements to those who don’t deserve them, and by all the gigantic panoply of unfair squeezing and chiseling "moral" (by their twisted definition of morality) programs they are trying to level everybody in terms of MATERIAL "WELL BEING". Money. What they can never, ever lay their soft little sticky hands on are the real elements of the good life—concepts, principles, of honor, of hard work and genuine (not "given") accomplishment. And, by my personal lights, these good things include being skilled at building a fire, killing your own food and shooting straight. Such are not only accomplishments of the first order, they are requisites for being a complete and honorable man. Mastering these things well teaches us much. When I was a boy guns were simply no big deal; nobody thought anything of a kid walking along the road with a 22 or a 410 under his arm—heading for the squirrel woods. We never locked our doors, even when leaving for the weekend. True, we didn’t have much to steal, but I think readers get the idea. And those of you who grew up in the fifties know well what I’m talking about. The only gun control was peeling a fleeing rabbit out from in front of a pursuing Beagle. Boys had fist fights, and never gave a thought to going home for a gun (which were certainly there) to otherwise settle such matters. And no boy ever, ever, ever gave the slightest consideration to harming, much less killing(!!), a girl. Ah, weren’t we a benighted bunch of rubes, the liberals say today. Yep, I guess we were. Yes, and look at the fine results of forty years of "enlightened" liberal "it’s never your fault" rule as seen around us today. Just look. Fathers (we had them then) taught their sons the discipline and humility and seriousness that have for millennia come with learning the use of weaponry. That right of passage has built real men since forever. It is missing, on a vast scale, today. Loosed on us now is that raw power of young males with no training in being men. All the physical strength, right brain focus, and no restraint. What a stupid, unnatural, feeble-minded blunder! We cannot make girls out of our young men. God knows we have no reason to WANT to, for we need their power and focus as we have always needed it—but as men, not as loose canons. Loose canons, in part, because they are actually being DEMEANED in their feminized schools for their "maleness". What stupidity as "policy"! Maleness is one half of the universal plan of things and is just as necessary as air. Poke it, taunt it, demonize it and its natural tools, and inherit the whirlwind of its unrestrained ferocity. Think, dear men and women readers who still have strong and clear minds of what we are allowing pie-in-the-sky feminists and leftists to do to us, and to our young boys who should become men. DEAD WHITE MALES—Western culture has made a mess of the world, right? So the liberal elite and the whining "victim" classes tell us. So their schools are telling our children. Balderdash! Just for the record, here is just a short list of what the benighted dead white males have actually done:
Obviously, white males are getting a ludicrously ill-deserved propaganda-job laid on them out of nothing more than sniveling, spiteful jealousy. The PC brigades are opportunistic liars, of course, and their opportunities are great—they control the modern education establishment, the "entertainment" industry and most of the "news" business. But now that you readers have been prodded a bit to think about such matters, I should think you have a better idea of who brought the modern world to the dance. Yeah, us bad old white guys, that’s who! So. Any of you who are NOT white males, how about giving us poor live white guys a bit more respect!? OK. Am I done yet? Maybe so. I’ve cleared the air a bit. Got angry on paper, I did, too. And I do think I got in some good blasts at the foolishness, hypocrisy, racism, opportunism, extortionism, feeblemindedness, immaturity and downright evil loose in our great country as I speak. (Have I missed any isms here in this summary?) I guess I’m done—for now. So in closing I’ll come back to basics for we hunters and urge you to educate your kids in firearms—and especially your sons. And never give them up—either the sons or the guns! Patrick Smith 2/7/01 PS—I am hoping for a couple of outcomes from this first essay. I would be grateful if some decent folk who just haven’t had any exposure to the honorable "codes" we hunters live by will read these words and perhaps come to appreciate the worth of such codes. Our timeless hunting codes, faith in God, responsible family life—such verities support the good life. Of course, I sincerely hope I’ve not driven anyone away from the truths I disclose here by being too adversarial in tone and language. I ask good people to forgive me if I’ve given offense—I have allowed myself to express my message in polemical and even angry tones. It is solely because the message is that important. Also, I hope to give my fellow hunters some sense of the "core" behind the threats we face, both as hunters and as citizens. And that is the laxness of traditional virtue—caused by the combination of a surfeit of physical ease and security, and political demagoguery. Our day to day immediate concerns about on-the-ground hunting issues are the skirmish lines; the war is against the attitude, the philosophy, of those who would WANT to deprive us of our right to hunt, and of our right to self-defense. We hope to change those attitudes, at least among the uncommitted. So I hope that this essay opens up to you the fact that the hunting/self defense issues are but a part of a whole, the whole being a decline, across the board, in respect for the natural moral order of the world, and in its place the substitution of self-indulgent immorality and pie-in-the-sky immaturity. This truly is a Culture War, without a doubt. So take whatever ammunition I’ve laid out here that you haven’t already been using and add it to your supply in our battle for hunting and self defense rights. After all, those are the most important of all to our freedom. |