Wild Pigs

Posted Wed Jun 25, 2008 in

From a friend…

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Prof noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked:

“Do you know how to catch wild pigs?”

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.

“You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming.

“When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again.

“You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught.

“Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax cuts, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths:

  1. There is no such thing as a free lunch
  2. and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

If you see that all of this wonderful government ‘help’ is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends.

If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably delete this email.

But God help you when the gate slams shut! It’s coming soon. We will be the wild pig’s. We are losing America, as we see it today, a little at a time.

I see the erosion of individual liberties. It’s something that’s been creeping in over my lifetime. I started noticing it especially with legislation like “The Patriot Act.” This is not acceptable. It’s going to require work to fix it.

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9-1-1 Gone Bad

Posted Fri Jun 6, 2008 in

Here is an analysis of a 911 call made by a business owner after finding a burglar in his business. Wife and I argued over the interchange between the businessman and the dispatcher. I think the dispatcher was way out of line. Wife thinks she was just doing her job. It was an interesting dialogue between the two of us.

Have I mentioned how much I love Wife? She’s an excellent counterpoint to me and offers balance I would not have if she were not in my life.

It’s easy to armchair quarterback an event ex post factor. So Wife took me to task for it. A number of errors were committed by both the caller and the dispatcher. There are several important things to learn from the incident, however. They are:

  1. Make the call
  2. Make it brief
  3. Give your name, location, description, and problem
  4. Give the description of the perp
  5. Leave the line open and ditch the phone
  6. Don’t spend time and attention on a discussion with the dispatcher
  7. Give your attention to the problem

It was a rough situation and ended much better than it might have. That’s a good thing.

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Tactical Advantage

Posted Sun May 25, 2008 in

While looking for books my John Farnam on Amazon I came across this review. I’ve seen negative reviews of Gabe Suarez’s books before. Suarez is someone people either love or hate. There is no middle ground. I’ve read some of his writings and believe he knows what he’s talking about.

I read the reviews on this book yesterday and noticed two negative reviews, both by anonymous reviewers. I hate anonymous reviews. I understand why some individuals believe they need to hide, but I also think it’s cowardly. This review caught my attention and I thought about what the reviewer said. There is a wrongness to the comments and I couldn’t let it go. I started to reply on the Amazon site, but then decided to write here instead.

I read the Constitution and the amendments. I came away with the understanding that I am the government (or at least a part thereof). It is my responsibility to watch over those entrusted with running the affairs of this country. Furthermore, I am a part of the militia discussed in the second amendment. It is my right, and my responsibility, to keep and bear arms for the mutual defense of my community. That does not make me a vigilante or a member of some weird splinter group. It makes me a citizen.

I can easily envision a very bad situation (think Katrina) when my neighbor or neighbor’s wife might come to me and ask for help retrieving a family member from their home where they are held hostage. There’s no phone, no security police1, no one but a few neighbors and I to help. I think knowledge of how to enter a house would be a very good thing. There is nothing wrong with tactical knowledge and Gabe Suarez does not teach “how to indiscriminately kill people.”

I think I’ll order a copy of the book just because I want to know something about building-entry tactics.

1 I hope I never see another instance where security is sent off to collect the defensive weapons of private citizens. What happened after Katrina is something we should be ashamed of, in many ways. But the weapons sweep was one of the most heinous.

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Fingers

Posted Thu Mar 13, 2008 in

This article from ABC news reports that severed fingers from five American hostages were recently sent to the U.S. military.

That certainly seems in keeping with other brutality I’ve read about there. It’s difficult to not think about retribution for such acts.

At least there is evidence for the families of the hostages that their loved ones may still be alive.

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No DST Here

Posted Mon Mar 10, 2008 in

Once again, I’m not going to change the time to accommodate daylight saving time. I still don’t like it and so this is my very weak way of protesting.

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Politics

Posted Thu Feb 7, 2008 in

It’s no understatement that I find politics the most despicable of undertakings.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and hence clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

    -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

The quote above speaks volumes to me. I have thoughts about national security, homeland security, police, and personal responsibility, all wrapped up in my notion of freedom. Maybe sometime I’ll garner the energy to write it all up.

And then again, maybe I won’t…

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A Poem

Posted Fri Nov 23, 2007 in

Whatever you think about soldiers, but they are the reason we are free…

It is the soldier, not the reporter,
who has given us Freedom of Press.

It is the soldier, not the poet,
who has given us Freedom of Speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer,
who has given us the Freedom to Demonstrate.

It is the soldier, who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag
that allows the protester to burn the flag.


By Father Dennis O’Brien
Chaplain, United States Marine Corps

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