Sheepdogs

This is a good article written by a Sheepdog... a Warrior very good reading, especially in light of the Va Tech murders. anyway, I wont be comment at all on this, just I thought some people might like to read it.

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman
By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."

Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997
One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.
Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.
Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.
For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.
I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.
Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.
And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...
"Baa."
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

The Democratic Process can be tyranny too....

Sorry, no von Mises yet. But.....

For all of you out there who used to think that the democratic process safeguarded our rights, I have news... It dosen't. and to prove it, I have Anceint Athens, and modern Cherokees.

"OKLAHOMA CITY - The Cherokee Nation vote to revoke the citizenship of the descendants of people the Cherokee once owned as slaves was a blow to people who have relied on tribal benefits. " http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17442676/

Note: The Cherokee Nation voted to expel the decendants of freed blacks. This means that a majority of Cherokees have decided that decendants of black slaves their ancestors used to own are not good enough/ pure enough, to be part of the 'Nation'. Also, it is extreamly possible that some of these newly outcast decendants of black slaves could be more Cherokee percentagewise than those who claim Cherokee ancestry and are mostly Caucasian. This means that simply on racial lines, the Cherokees have cut some people out of rights and benefits, through a democratic process. (I will not go into whether those rights assigned to them by our American law are actually just) It is apparent, however, that the democratic process cannot safeguard our Liberty. All it takes to destry this fragile thing we used to have is a deluded majority. that is, in a democratic system. which is why our goverment was never meant to be a pure democracy. it was meant to nearly have an aristorcracy built in, to protect the masses from being deluded into giving up their own rights. we all know, it dosent just end after some people have been voted to no longer be their race (somthing one would think was not even in the ken of the law), it affects everything.

As to Athens. What does Thucididies give as a major role in their loss of the pelpeneseian war? Their Democratic process made them compleatly schizophrenic in their forgein relations and with their colonies. this led to them not being able to concentrate on beating the spartains, they were too busy running on some dumb mission propunded by the most eloquent speakers, and supported by the dumbest of the population. this is what happens to a pure democracy, it inevatable leads to either destruction, as in Athens, or to the rule of the few and privilidged. How? you ask.... very simple. Each and every time the masses are deluded into giving up their rights, or precluding some class, the class of people able and willing to affect the government decreases, until, poof, now the masses might as well not even bother to vote.

Coming attrractions

I am writing a short essay on Von Mises' bok 'Liberalism'. It should be done sometime next week, if I am not killed by all the physics homework.

New Slaves?

What distinguishes a slave class. I think that a slave class is three things. Noticeably different from the non-slave class, has a different culture that they cling too, and finally a different original language. Take the Romans for example. They too Greeks to be slaves all the time. The Greeks fit all these categories. they had their old culture of the Polis and Aristotle, and they all spoke Greek natively and they are different. These qualifiers are probably this way because in times past slaves were taken in war, and those were usually people far different that had been subjugated.

Now for American slavery. The slaves were quite obviously told from the free. They were very much different from the free owner culture. This, of course, was enforced and the black slaves were not allowed to assimilate in any way. To top this all off, the black slaves were sort of forced into a different habit of speech.

Now lets talk about Illegal Immigration. Isn't it odd that we now have a group of people coming from Mexico, doing all the dirty jobs that Liberal rich kids wont do, who speak another language, have another culture, and look different. And the left is not permitting any Mexicans to assimilate. They have laws meant to make us feel good about helping the poor stupid Mexican immigrants who, for some reason, cannot learn English or our culture, unlike any other immigrant group before. We have to teach them in Spanish in some states, businesses are going bilingual. and the biggest obstacle in the way for Mexican assimilation is illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration makes it impossible for anyone to see a Mexican immigrant and not be suspicious. Lets face it, Illegals take all sorts of taxpayer money and send it back to Mexico. so now we have this highly segregated race who will not assimilate, and who, many of them aren’t even citizens. this look suspiciously like the start of a slave culture to me. And the Left is exacerbating it.

Non-PC History Part One

This is my non-politicly-correct Civil War Historical summery,

The civil war was an almost inevitable clash of two fundamentally different cultures making up America at the time. There was the Southern agriculture society that hinged on slow development and growing stuff. and then there was the Northern culture of factory. Now if these two cultures had remained balanced then the whole slavery thing would probably have worked itself out with the inventions of machines.

But the North exploded with population of immigrants thereby forcing the south into what is termed a 'Permanent Minority'. A permanent minority was descibed by De Toquville before the civil war. It is when a large group of people in a country like ours is somehow permanently outnumbered in every way. Now when a group of people are in this position, they cannot keep any laws from being passed, they are completely at the mercy of the 'permanent majority'. There were checks on the permanent majority in the House of Representatives caused by immigration; namely the Senate and the President. Then there were all sorts of aggreements to try to keep the northern states and the southern states balanced. But then California was ready to enter the union and there were no southern states to enter. So another somprimse was forced on the southerners letting California in and making the southerners a permanent minority in the Senate as well. This left only the President (because the suprime court was, as it still is, ineffectual at actually protecting peoples rights) Then Lincoln happened, and the South was cornered. And they turned to fight to protect EVERYTHING that they now considered their way of life that the North was forcing from them. This unfortunately included slavery.

Hello to you random visitors...

Well, I am starting this blog for fun, to post ideas and essays on just about anything that strikes my fancy. This could include art, chemistry, physics, economics, religion, and of course, politics.
..... Whenever I have time