The city on the hill

The shining beacon of freedom and justice. The torchbearer of liberty and the hope to live free. A nation of laws, governed by a body for the people, by the people, and of the people.

A nation forged in the fires of its liberation and whose freedom has been secured through its centuries by the blood of its best and bravest.

Its scientists and engineers cured more diseases than any other nation, reached the moon before any others, and plumbed the depths of the atom.

She defeated communism, Nazism, Imperialism, and even fought brother against brother to end slavery.

A country whose fire is fueled by the hard work, sacrifice, ingenuity, and ambition of its people.

Kind of hard to reconcile all that with what we see on the news every day, isn't it?

The laws are hardly applied equally to everyone. The federal government has repeatedly demonstrated a disregard for the Constitution and has worked itself into a frenzy trying to seize control of as many institutions and industries as it can. The media blatantly shills for those in power whose agenda they agree with and a willfully ignorant populace accepts it. Just to name a very few outrages.

If we want to hold onto this great Republic our forerunners built for us, we must fight tooth and nail for it. We face entrenched power brokers, a hostile media, elected 'representatives' hell bent on ruling us as subjects, and an apathetic, largely ignorant electorate.

There is no consolation prize. This is the last redoubt of freedom in the world and the hope of the free world rests on our shoulders.

Poetry Corner: Recessional

Recessional


God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line--
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies--
The Captains and the Kings depart--
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away--
On dune and headland sinks the fire--
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget--lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.

By: Rudyard Kipling

You go ahead, I'll watch

The wifey and I recently gave a very good friend a pistol in .380 for her birthday. Skip ahead a few days and the Irate family is gathered around the table playing a friendly game of cards (for the record, our definition of friendly excludes violence and nothing else) when I get to fiddling. I finish my turn, go get the range bag and start digging for ammo. Not because of the card game. Wanted to find some .380 to give to our friend.

First box o'bullets to get dug up was 9mm FMJ. I set it down to take my turn, and went to pick it back up, noticed something amusing. On the bottom of the box is a list potential uses for this particular ammo. It included thin skinned game such as white tailed dear...and boar. Lemme rephrase that, BOAR.

Snickering quietly (loudly snorting), I pulled out one of the boxes of .380 FMJ and guess what, it said the same thing.

Now, far be it from me to say that you can't hunt boar with with a tiny little pistol round, but I will say you probably shouldn't.

For reference, THIS is a boar.



Hey, if you got the stones, and good life insurance, you go right ahead. Me, I'll stick to using rifles. Really big rifles. Occasionally rifled shotguns.

EDIT: That's not me in the picture.