Wake up Call.

     

We got our wake up call this week didn’t we?  5 of our boys, dead in Chattanooga. Shot and killed by a member of the “religion of peace”.  There have been warnings about this kind of thing happening.  We knew that it could happen, but our answer, just like most times in history, has been to bury our heads in the sand.  Our media, instead, choosing to split hairs about long forgotten war monuments and make sure we know the very latest news about Justin Beiber. We not only allowed this to happen, we welcomed it.  Our collective blissful ignorance, paired with the urgent need for thorough political correctness has left us with our pants down, and ISIS just smacked us on the ass.

Over the last couple of days, the media has taken up a new rallying cry. CNN, NBC, FOX all asking: “Why were our soldiers so vulnerable”?  “Why did they not have access to weapons?”  People seem thoroughly perplexed at the notion that our soldiers have no access to weapons with which they can protect themselves.  Fortunately for you,  I can explain it for you in small words that are easy to understand.  YOU are the reason.  Pure and simple.  The news media has been on a rampant campaign for the last three decades to disarm the American Citizen.  I think we all know that I would be wasting our time if I sat here and cited some of the thousands of examples of this.  This is a well understood fact, the media is in favor of gun control.  They have pushed it, they have helped pass it through legislation, and they have made it a social stigma to be a gun owner.  This is irrefutable.

We as citizens are guilty of letting it happen.  We have not stood up and held our media and our law makers to task when they slowly cut away at our rights, by passing unnecessary and unconstitutional laws.  We believe the rhetoric and the lies that the media has fed us about what kind of a safer world we can live in if we just took away your right to defend yourself.  We sit in our comfortable homes.  Cooled by central air conditioning.  Drinking a Bud Light and watching the latest episode of Jersey Shore or Walking Dead.  We believe the Soylent Green that the media spoon feeds us about how much safer the world would be without weapons.  It would have been illegal for me to be carrying a concealed handgun on that property, and it was illegal for our soldiers to do it.  We left them with no means to defend themselves. —and we let it happen without so much as a protest.  YOU let it happen, by not speaking up.

First and foremost, our soldiers are citizens.  They are a volunteer force, consigned to protect the Constitution of the United States, and the interests of this country.  They offer to do so, knowing full well that they are betting their life on it.   What soldiers are NOT, is law enforcement officers.  We have very specific vocabulary in our Constitution that forbids our soldiers from acting like law enforcement, especially within our own borders.  (Except in certain special circumstances)  There are very good reasons for this.  First of all, our soldiers by and large are not trained in law enforcement.  They are trained in tactics, but not the application of the law itself.  As such, I do not want my soldiers to look or act like law enforcement.  It’s not their job.   Because of this, our citizen soldiers are subject to the same laws and regulations that apply to you and me when it comes to carrying a firearm for self defense. And guess what folks? YOU allowed the media to tell you that it was a good idea to forbid the carrying of a firearm ANYWHERE on federal property.  That includes recruiting offices.  Do you want to know why those soldiers weren't armed?  Because WE told them they couldn’t be.

I am seeing calls from the leftist media now that are screaming for our soldiers to be allowed to carry weapons.  Well, I have a pretty big problems with this.  “Howie you hypocrite!” No- I can explain.  Lets look at the soldiers training.  Soldiers by and large are trained in the full tactical use of the AR-15 rifle and its applications.  My boys, who are both serving in the Army, can break down one of these guns, clean it, and reassemble it blindfolded in under 3 minutes.  Impressive stuff.  However, we have established that we do not want our soldiers marching into Chick-Fil-A with a big scary rifle on his shoulder.  So that’s out.  What about a sidearm?  Well, what most people don’t realize, is that we don’t really spend much time training our soldiers in the use of sidearms. Very few soldiers actually ever carry a handgun during their service.  Couple this with the fact that we also don’t have a stock of handguns to give to all of our soldiers in the field.  Most of our soldiers stationed within our borders are not infantry, but clerical and tactical jobs.  And they will tell you, they really don’t get as much weapons training as the public might believe.

So, outfitting our soldiers with government issued sidearms is impractical and difficult at best.  That leaves us with the application of existent laws that allow for the carry of a personal firearm for self defense.  Now, here is the rub.  The media is now screaming for our soldiers to have the means to defend themselves.  I totally agree with this sentiment.  Let’s make that happen and let’s make it happen right now. We need to make it allowable for our men and women serving in the armed forces to chose to carry a firearm for self defense on and off duty.  But, now what we are looking at is a big fat double standard aren’t we?  How can the media call for the application of stricter gun control out of one side of its mouth, while calling for the immediate access to firearms for a single group of citizens out of the other side of their mouth?  You can not have your cake and eat it too.

Laws need to be revised.  Some of them need to be revoked entirely.  But what is going to happen in the coming days, are proposals to make exceptions for the men and women in uniform that would allow them to disregard existing laws, instead of fixing the unconstitutional legislation that currently affects all citizens.   This is not the answer folks.  Our citizen soldiers are not “more citizen” than you or I just because they wear a uniform.  We do indeed need to revise gun control policy, but we need to do it for the citizens, not just one group of them.  So, are you going to sit there and finish your beer and watch the end of Walking Dead?  Or are you going to listen to your wake up call and start holding the media and your law makers to task?

Rainbow Effect

Chips? Check! Salsa? Check? Little Smokies? Check! Remote? Check! Popcorn? Check! Beer? … Oh crap, are we really down to 2 beers 30 minutes before the game on Sunday?  How the hell did this happen?!   No time to worry about it now, gotta run to the gas station and grab a quick case of suds.  I know most of us have been here:  Squealing of brakes follows you into the door at the Quick Mart and you swiftly stride to your favorite brew, tug on the glass door—LOCKED!  As you stand there, inches from your goal, your breath accumulating on the cold glass with your hands curled into fists, you ask aloud:  “What is this? Some kind of sick joke?”   The voice of the cashier behind you answers curtly: “Sorry hon, no beer sales before noon on Sunday, it’s the law.”  As you stand there, cursing under your breath about what kind of barbaric, bohemian would conceive such laws, you suddenly ponder the merits of driving to the neighboring state---- “I don’t think they have these stupid laws”.

Those laws are called “Blue Laws”  The first Blue Laws started showing up in Colonial America as early as 1620.  They were written in an effort to honor the Sabbath according to doctrine specified by individual religions.  The ranged from banning business sales and travel on Sunday, to the banning of sales, including alcohol.  Over half of the states in the US still have some residual blue laws of one sort or another. They vary in times and days and content, but they all share one thing in common: They are all secular.  The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of these laws several times in the past, but that could soon all be changing. Or at least it should.

I am sure that I do not have to educate readers about the recent Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.  By now everybody has heard about it.  But what I want to point out is the logic they used to come to their conclusion.  The Supreme Court found that the 14^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States protects gay couples from the direct discrimination applied vial laws created from religious viewpoints.  It is also Unconstitutional for individual states to have laws in place that discriminate against individuals based on their personal viewpoints. In other words, Laws that discriminate based on religious practices, are unconstitutional.   By doing this, the Supreme Court has set a precedent that so far has been unheard of in this country.  It’s a legal precedent, which we can use to come back and fight against some laws that are currently in place on the books that lay down some pretty stupid and discriminatory practices.

If you take this decision and apply it to the existing Blue Laws, you can start to see how, with a little legal wrangling, it might not take long for Blue Laws to disappear entirely in the US.   In fact, we can probably take the application even further.  “Sin Taxes” are a tax applied mostly to the sales of alcohol and tobacco.   Just the name “sin tax”  betrays itself as one of secular origin.  If religious laws are now deemed unconstitutional- then maybe there is a possibility that Illinois and New Hampshire may soon see the end to $15.00 packs of cigarettes.  It could also possibly put an end to state and local Governments illegally placing unduly large tariffs on things they find distasteful.

Bob Owens over at Bearingarms.com also sees an application of the new ruling in a much more meaningful way.  He contends that the decision by the Supreme Court could be applied to the existing variation of firearms laws in states across the country.  The Idea is that by application of the law, it would force states to adopt a universal reciprocity for concealed carry permits, thereby making it much easier for the transport and carry of legal firearms across the country.  Currently, the laws vary so much from state to state, that law abiding citizens risk prison time just for transporting firearms they legally own to another location.  Owens contends that this ruling could end all of that and apply universal legal framework for firearms in the United States.

To take this even one step further, If Owens is correct in his assertion, that means you could apply his same logic to laws regarding marijuana.   Forcing all states to recognize the legality of pot based on the recognition of just a few.  All of this might ultimately lead to an end to the war on drugs.   Of course all of this is speculation right now, but it has a legitimate basis in law, and we could and might start seeing some of these challenges pop up really soon.  That means that our great friends in Colorado who have already blazed the way for us, may have done the entire rest of the country a huge favor by getting rocky mountain high.

So if you have been trying to decide in your head if the decision on gay marriage is good for you or not, I would really wait to pass judgement until you are sitting in front of your television, gun at your side, bowl on the table, with a big cold brewski before noon on Sunday before you pass judgement…. At that point you may want to call up your gay friends and thank them for paving the way for the rest of us. 

Happy Birthday

I am fairly certain that I spent some portion of last night with a lampshade on my head.  I honestly don’t remember.  The house is a mess, I have a four wheeler that needs some fixin, there is too much food and too many empty beer cans laying about and my boots are full of mud-on the inside. BUT DAMN IT WAS AWESOME!  I was blessed this 4^th of July to get to spend some time with my family at my home in South Florida.  There was too much food, there always is.  We grilled brats from Carroll’s Sausages in Georgia and they were fantastic.  Pasta salad that Melissa made with home made duck egg mayonnaise was out of this world.  We bought corn on the cob, but we forgot to cook it.  That’s OK though because the horses love corn on the cob-more for them I guess.    There was the screaming of small children in the house and it was music to my ears. 

We started the day at Peace River Seafood right down the road.  I want to say a special thanks to all the folks who worked on the holiday so that others such as ourselves may celebrate it.  The seafood festival that followed was no less than spectacular.  Oysters, clams, shrimp and crabs were sampled by all.   Peace River is the kind of place where when you order blue crab, its still alive and waiting on the back steps when you place the order.  I have not found a place that serves fresher, or better seafood. 

We followed this up with the age old American tradition of mixing alcohol with explosives. We broke out the firearms and headed down to the range.  I honestly can’t think of anything more American to do on America’s birthday than spending an afternoon with my nephews and cousins disposing of old communist ammunition-one bullet at a time. My nephew Blaze got to shoot a .380.  The smile on his face and the approval of the range master at our absolute application of firearm safety were awesome rewards for this venture.  (And for the record, the alcohol only came out AFTER the firearms were put back away.)

Then it was off to the mechanical horses.  We own two four wheelers and it didn't take long before people started to notice that it’s the rainy season in Florida-so there is PLENTY of mud on the ground. The younger kids squeals of delight while being toted around on the four wheelers through the pasture was food for the soul.  You cant help but enjoy the smile on the face of a child that goes from ear to ear when the get off such a fun little machine. 

  That was of course followed by my two nieces who INSISTED that they were going mudding with Uncle Boo Boo.  They paid for it…they had to ride behind me.  

Of course, my boots are still soaked through and I am not sure what I will be wearing on my feet today.  I know better than to wear my good boots on the trails, but by this point in the evening, the Allegany Mountain 140 proof moonshine liquor might have been making a few decisions for me.

I have a brother in law who is pretty sick and may not be long for this earth,

   I very much wanted to spend some time with him and I am glad I got to do it.  My only sadness comes from the fact that my children: Alex, Nicole and Steven are all off living their own lives and could not be home for this holiday.  By the way- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICOLE!  I am sure you thought I forgot.

Too many holidays I have wasted not caring too much about celebrating them.  This year, with everything that has been happening in society around us, I kinda felt it important to celebrate everything that makes America the best place in the world to live.  A day where we can put our petty political differences aside for a few hours and just reflect and celebrate all the things that our founding fathers did to insure that we would have this opportunity.  I am not sure they intended for me to do it with a lampshade on my head, but at least I am free to do it.

Americana

Ray Kroc

In 1954, a middle aged man named Ray Kroc revolutionized the restaurant industry.  Kroc had purchased a fledgling hamburger and milkshake chain from two brothers named McDonald.  What Kroc did next seems like a no brainier by today's standards.  He simply set a universal standard for all the food cooked at his establishments, and then offered out franchises.   That way, one could be assured that a cheeseburger and milkshake purchased at one of Kroc’s establishments tasted pretty much the same as one purchased 50 miles down the road at another one.  Truck drivers hooked on to this concept almost immediately.  At a time when finding a decent meal was a crap shoot, it was a good sign to see the big yellow arches down the read because you knew that the food was going to be good.   Kroc’s idea and business were jump started by the Trucking industry and the drivers behind the wheel.  Kroc kept the name, and McDonald's never looked back.  

Other retail outlets had already started applying this principle by the time Kroc took it to food.  Sears and Woolworth's had already spent years applying the principles of having outlets that offered pretty similar products in every location. Dave Thomas and Harlan Sanders soon took notice of Kroc’s success and launched restaurant chains of their own specializing in chili and burgers, and chicken respectively.  Eventually, food chains launched that covered just about every palette in the world, making a huge variety of menu options available to every day Americans. Today, the truck driver is reaping the fruits of that labor, and it’s biting him in the ass.

For scores of years, truck drivers have relied on the truck stop as a place to refuel and rest.  If you are lucky, you might be able to find a good home cooked meal being served.  Many people in my generation who traveled with their parents will probably remember stopping at these roadside icons.  You could marvel at the big rigs and probably find some kind of souvenir trinket to beg your parents to purchase for you.  The truck stop is a uniquely American thing.  It has always served as a reflection of the local people in the area.  Usually the food and the wares you found in each location were specific to the region, allowing you to discover parts of the country without ever venturing too far off the roadway.  The truck stop is pure Americana, But all that is melting away. 

Over the last couple of decades, the truck stop has been quietly fading away into history. Large corporations have targeted the truckers wallets and used Kroc’s formula to do it.  About a half dozen large companies have been systematically buying out smaller truck stops and re-branding them with their logos.  Where they cant buy, they just build across the street and use the power of bulk purchasing to offer lower prices to drive the independent owners out of business.  They are very careful to make sure that just about any store you go into with their name on it has exactly the same products, and in many cases, the same layouts as any other store in their chain.   What you end up with is a series of Wal Mart style establishments every fifty or hundred miles down the road, where nothing ever changes except the name of the state on the Chinese made souvenir shot glasses they sell.  In a cruel twist of fate, most of these places only offer fast food for travelers.  Considering how the quality of McDonald's has dropped over the last 20 years or so, It almost seems ironic that this is the menu being offered up to drivers.

Just as Wal Mart crushed main street, so too has TA and Loves crushed the American Truck Stop. Many of the smaller places just could not compete.  Big chains offered fuel discounts to trucking companies, who in turn forced their drivers to fuel up at these locations.  They offered free showers to drivers and rewards cards that accumulate credit for purchasing fuel in bulk. Mom and pop truck stops could not compete with this aggressive marketing.  Many of them have folded.  Some of them have sold out to foreign investors who struggle to squeeze what little life out them is left.  They cut costs by serving instant coffee and microwaved meals in establishments that were once beacons of quality in the food they served.  

You can still see many of the old time mom and pop truck stops littering the interstate.  Most of them have long since been abandoned and sit as silent testimonials to a younger, more innocent America.  If you are really lucky, and you know where to look, every once in a while you can still stumble across an independently owned place that still serves a home cooked meal and sells beef jerky that was cured in some local guys garage.   These are the kinds of places that I seek out when I travel.  I am fortunate enough to work for a company that does not get bent out of shape when I patronize these establishments by spending my money there and purchasing fuel when I can.    Admittedly, I have eaten some pretty lousy food and showered in some bathrooms that hadn’t seen the business end of a can of Lysol for some time.  But I have also eaten some fantastic meals that came out of greasy kitchens.  I have met some wonderful people along the way.  And I have groomed myself in facilities that would stir envy in some of the bigger home owners in our community.   

It is probably inevitable that these icons of the American roadways will slide into obscurity.  Experience has taught us that you can not fight progress.  But there is still time to visit some of them before they become a page in the history books.  I would strongly urge readers to seek out and visit these places when you can while you are on the road.  Try to spend a few bucks in the store and if you buy a meal, tip the waitress an extra five.  She don’t get many customers these days.  Besides, sometime soon, she probably won’t be there anymore, this little piece of Americana will be closed, and you will be relegated to spending your money at McDonald's

.

Fe!

I really hate to have to keep coming back to this subject, but it is the one persistent that keeps coming up in the news.  I just saw this week where NASCAR has asked it’s fans not to display the Southern Cross flag at their events.  I honestly can not think of a more glaring example of an establishment being more detached from its consumer base, although New Coke and the Ford Edsel come to mind. 

Last week, NASCAR chairman Brian France (oh he also owns the licensing rights to Britney Spears) told the press that he finds the flag offensive.  This is a man who peddles whorish bubble gum pop stars and cigarettes to children and thinks you should not be able to flex your First Amendment. “Oh c’mon the Winston Cup thing is in the past”  Right?  Yes, so was the Civil War, but you get to dig up old dirt, so do I.  France went on to stress that “While the flag itself is a part of NASCARS roots as a series from old bootleggers, it is not indicative of what the sport represents today”.   I think one unofficial poll I found on a random website kinda sums up how the fans feel about this move.

Great PR move NASCAR.

I want to redirect your attention now to the Kentucky race riots of 1979.  As you may recall, dozens of people were injured and hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage were extolled on the small community of Hazard after two boys who meant no harm, painted a large Southern Cross flag on the top of their Dodge Charger.  They shamelessly and insensitively dubbed the hate machine “The General Lee” as a special kind of affront to all the minorities in the community.  They spent the next six years speeding through town jumping over ravines while avoiding inept law enforcement officials.  The public was so outraged by these atrocities, that they tuned in to their televisions on a weekly basis in the hopes of finally getting to see the law catch up to the two racist hate mongers so that justice would finally be served.   Not quite the way I remember it, but that’s what the media is telling you today.   Last week,  TV Land announced that it was pulling all episodes of the Dukes of Hazard and ending sales of toys from the show.  It seems to have snuck by television executives for 37 years that the General Lee had a big ass rebel flag painted on the top of it.  I’m glad someone finally noticed this week.

Racist outlaws. 

What we are seeing is no less than a propaganda campaign by the media, and its working. But this whole movement is so full of irony that it’s starting to rust.  The world media, as it exists today is almost entirely a by product of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The Revolutionary war created media outlets that thrived and some that still exist to this day.  These same media organizations that were born and raised under the cry of freedom, which exist under the protection of freedom of speech, are now driving a campaign to suppress an entire groups voice.  In the process, they have aggressively worked to re-apply all the old hatred to the flag, and it’s working.   All I have to say about that is we should be very careful what we wish for folks.

There has been a lot of back and forth about what this flag means, or more specifically what it meant.  There is no denying that the flags of the Confederacy were created and hoisted in a battle that was born of the fight over the enslavement of the black man.  The southern states, led by the Democratic party, told the US: “Piss off, we are taking our ball and going home.”  And the US, led by Republican president Abe Lincoln said: “No. were all in this together, get your ass back here”.  The Democratic party created their own new country with all new flags and prepared for war.  Today what we see is mostly redneck Republicans waving that flag around talking about heritage vs hate, while the Democrats are screaming about how racist it is.   When you think about it, that’s a downright brilliant marketing maneuver, getting members of your opposing party to wave your flag around for you; it’s genius!

Symbol of the Democratic Party.

Over the years, the hatred and symbolism of the Southern Cross had faded into the background pretty well.  Otherwise, those Duke boys would have had their car repainted by TV execs a whole lot sooner.  Especially in the south, the flag had been boiled down into representing being a bit backward, a little redneck and somewhat rebellious.  Yes there was also a bit of “We stood up for what we believed in even though it was a moral affront” attitude.  But in places where it flew, the message was no longer: “Niggers go away”  It had pretty much molded into: “All rednecks welcome”.  But now, the Democratic media would have you believe otherwise, claiming that the hate can never fade, the meaning never changes and the redneck Republicans who fly it are a bunch of racists.  Irony folks, Irony.

To say that the meaning of a symbol can not change over time, while the United States flag flies over your head is not only idiotic, it hypocrisy.  I suggest you go ask the Native Americans about being systematically slaughtered at Wounded Knee under the American flag to see what I am talking about.  If the vestiges of slavery are such an affront to the sensibilities of Americans, then I have a few other things we need to take down:

Built by Slaves

Built by Slaves

Yep, built by slaves.

Slaves helped build the White House, now occupied by a black family. That needs to come down along with Monticello.  Thomas Jefferson, the man given credit for the modern Democratic party-built his mansion with slaves.  And lets not forget the Pyramids in Egypt.  Generations of Jews died building these affronts to freedom.  We should get to work at once pressuring Egypt to take them down-or at least cover them with a large drop cloth or something.  To stand in the shadow of these structures and tell me that time can not make the hatred fade makes me not trust your message very much.  Just like Mr France saying that NASCAR is no longer “about” that, while attempting to ban a flag that in his eyes can never change.