Be Belligerent

There are two major forces we are dealing with at any given point in our lives. One, is the force that the world imparts upon us, the other the force that God imparts to us. Our choices are influenced heavily by how much we give into these two forces. For every human being who has ever lived, except Jesus, we have surrendered to the force the world imparts at least sometimes. At any given time, we are in some level of surrender to the world (used interchangeably with “self” or “self-interest), and in some level of surrender to God. Our goal, of course, is to be wholly in surrender to God, and completely against the forces of the world. Only at this point would we truly have the “whole armor of God” on. This is where beligerence comes into play.

Belligerence is the act or state of being at war. It is conflict. Its connotation, when applied to a person often means “headstrong” or “stubborn.” The less you surrender towards the world, the more belligerent you are towards it. You fight, you assert the rights of men, you change things and rock the boat if you are surrendered to God and belligerent to the world. I just wanna talk for a bit about what fuels my belligerence.

I call debating “sharpening my sword.” When I am debating stuff thats theological, scientific, etc… or reading the Bible or any other good book, I feel as though I am training. Getting ready for battle. Because battle will come, the world will come and demand you bow to it. The devil will demand you that you surrender to his forces. You must know how to defend, and how to strike back. If you do not have the knowledge (or you are not seeking knowledge), you will not be able to defend yourself. You will be untrained in how to wield your sword. But when you have knowledge, you have gotten understanding from God, and you are well read in Scripture and in science, you are an expert swordsman, an unstoppable force. Of course “unstoppable” is the ideal right? Everyone falls short of that. But if you always shoot for perfection, you will generally land somewhere in the vicinity of greatness.

The other thing, which comes from knowledge, prayer, and understanding of the Word of God, is confidence. This idea can be found in the Bible when Paul mentions “Peace which surpasses all understanding.” You gotta know that you know that you know that you know what you know and why you know it. When everything comes together in one harmonized symphony through full surrender to Christ by believing Him and seeking to be like Him, you are confident. You are then ready to take on the world and, as Timothy 6:12 says, “Fight the good fight of faith.”

guns guns guns

Different types of guns for dummies

A lot of people I know know virtually nothing about guns. So this blog will be explaining everything the non-shooter could want to know about guns using no jargon, in very little time.

First thing its important to know is that guns are classified, in broad terms, by the way the cartridge (that is, the ammunition) is loaded into the gun and fires. Some guns have external magazines, which are then put into the gun and they fire, some guns have internal magazines, in which you put the bullets directly into a holding bay inside of the gun, which are then fired. Internal magazines vary, some are just little spring loaded boxes, and some are revolving cylinders.

Then consider the way the gun actually shoots the bullets out of it. this is almost always done by a hammer, which strikes the back of the bullet, causing the chemicals inside to explode. Once they explode, the bullet goes flying. Then, a new bullet must enter the chamer where the hammer is in order for it to be fired. There are various methods of loading the next bullet into the chamber. The mechanism used to load the next bullet is known as the “action” of the gun. There are varoius kinds of “actions” that a gun might have, these include semi automatics (which have a slide that loads the next round), revolvers (which have a rotating cylinder), and bolt-actions (which have a bolt that manually loads the next round). Semi automatics, will fire one bullet every time you pull the trigger and automatically load the next one (using a system based on recoil, mostly… the details on it are complicated and best saved for another time). Some guns, revolvers, have a cylinder with all of the bullets in it, and when you shoot one, the cylinder simply rotates to put the next bullet into the chamber with the hammer. Some have a bolt (these are called “bolt-action” guns), which you must pull back and then push forward manually to get the next bullet out of the magazine and into the chamber. There are also pump-action shotguns, which are what like granny on the beverly hillbillies used to sit on the front porch with. These guns make use of a little pump on the front (that makes a cool sound when you pull it back) that takes the shell from an internal magazine, and pushes it up to the chamber where the hammer is.

Of course, there are rifles and handguns, rifles being longer guns that generally shoot farther, and handguns which are less accurate and have less range, but are smaller and more portable.

Last but not least consider the terms “machine gun,” “semi automatic,” and “burst fire.” A machine gun is a gun in which you only have to hold the trigger down, and it will shoot until there is no ammo left. A machine gun can be a pistol, a rifle, or a mounted turret, so long as it fires fully automatic (continues shooting automatically so long as you hold the trigger), it is a machine gun. A semi automatic gun, you pull the trigger once, and it will shoot one bullet and automatically load the next one. It shoots one at a time. A gun that shoots “burst fire” will fire a few rounds automatically when you pull the trigger once. An example would be a 3 shot burst rifle. You pull the trigger once, it shoots three bullets, that simple.

now you know 🙂

Self Defense

So this blog will be about the basics of self-defense philosophy as I teach it at my dojo

 Rule 1: Do what you have to do to survive. A lot of people don’t have a strong enough stomach for this. They don’t like to think about the nitty-gritty real life things they might have to do to survive. That includes injuring people – badly. You must be able to respond quickly, impersonally, and with no regard for your opponent’s well-being.

Rule 2: Always be aware of your surroundings, and don’t be afraid to profile or judge people. If you feel afraid to go near someone, trust your gut and keep your distance. If your reaching out to that person benevolently, as in charity or something like that, be sure that you are well protected, and have multiple people with you (this rule is especially true for women).

Rule 3: Always let your opponent think he’s in control… before you hit him. The fact with most violent criminals (especially rapists) is that they want control. Let them think they are in control, up until the moment you knock them out. That will make them get cocky and overconfident, and it will give you the element of surprise.

Rule 4: Use anything you can to get an edge. Do things like picking up weapons from your environment (that’s why we train with escrima and bo staves), kicking dirt in the face of your opponent, throwing items at them etc…

 Rule 5: Last but definitely not least, PRACTICE. Make sure your self defense techniques are second nature. This holds true whether you are learning firearm self defense, knife, or unarmed. Your moves should be automatic, and you should not have to think about it when the moment of need arises. If you hesitate or have to think too much, you will lose, and you will mess up when the adrenaline starts pumping. Repetition is key.

terrible presidents #2

More Terrible Presidents,

This one is about LBJ, AKA Lyndon Baines Johnson. I am doing this guy next because I got a commment about him in my last post.  At the end I will also expound upon my views on President Lincoln a little more.

Generally speaking, you can judge the successfulness of a product or idea by how efficient it is, if it turns a profit, if people are happy with it, etc… He expanded Federal control of education with Elementary and Secondary Education Act, he signed Meciare and Medicaid, he signed the Revenue Act of 1964, the Economic Opportunity Act, Food Stamp Act of 1964, Gun Control act of 1968. What do all of these mean? Let me go over SOME of them piece by piece.

Before I begin, let me say I think the Civil Rights act was good in what it, itself achieved and so was the Voting Rights Act. But, the ideas that started THEN have moved on to become patronizing, and disrespectful to minorities as far as Affirmative Action, and special rights for minorities are concerned. is it really American to say, “Oh, your of one of those poor, stupid races that needs extra help and tax credits to make it in life”? I find that extremely racist and disrespectful.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 forced dealers to have more liscensing, and forced them to keep more records so the government would know everything about who has guns. It created restrictions on having guns based on age (which is the one that tweaks me). It also banned criminals and mentally insane from actually posessing guns, which sounds like a good idea, but I see it as a can of worms. Once you allow the government to decide who is and who is not allowed to have guns, they may decide you are too radical or different from their point of view to posess guns. I just think that should be out of the hands of the Federal government, it would be perfectly acceptable as State law, however, as long as the State constitution agreed with it. It just so happens that the Federal constitutions says the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. it does not say “the right of the people over the age of 18 to keep and bear certain firearms shall not be infringed so long as they have been deemed mentally stable by the federal government and have no criminal record” Get where I’m going with this? Leave it to the states.

Medicare and Medicaid. I don’t know what degrees of dissention will exist here… you do all know that there are huge amounts of fraud and waste in the medicare and medicaid systems, they lose tons of money anually and are one of the largest drains on the federal budget. Were they necessary? No. They are also largely responsible for the current plight of the health insurance industry, and industry which is more than 50% controlled by the federal government (NO!? The Federal government did something inefficiently and caused prices in everything it touched to rise? IMPOSSIBLE!). Chances are, if your not getting a fair price, the Feds were involved.

Food Stamp Act and Economic Opportunity Act were obviously Federal entitlement and welfare programs, completely unconstitutional, wasteful of federal funds, and a violation of the doctrine of separation of Church and State. thats right,… Benevolence and Charity are things which are primarily the responsibiliy of private people, to be done out of their own concience. Government owned benevolence is FORCED CHARITY. While I am all for charity, I am 100% against FORCED charity, just as I am against FORCED religious beliefs.

thats enough I think…

One of the Worst Presidents Ever

One of the Worst Presidents Ever No folks, this is not about Obama. Its about a president mostly everyone will claim is one of the best presidents in American history. I am talkng about Abraham Lincoln (WHAT!? no….. he ended slavery how can he be bad!?)

 I recently did a research paper on Article 4 Section 4 of the United States constitution. This particular clause guarantees to the states a “Republican” form of government. During the Reconstruction, this clause was greatly abused by the North to rewrite State constitutions, expand the size of the federal government and mandate government control of social issues. Abolitionists claimed that slavery was “Un-Republican” because it denied a large class of people suffrage, and so their consent could not be given, resulting in government without the consent of the governed. While I agree that slavery was (and is) wrong, I think that it must fit in with republican principles, as defined by the U.S. Constitution.

 You don’t have to be a historian to realize that America’s history of slavery has caused much racial divide. More so, I would say because of the way slavery was abolished. If it was, at some point, killed as an institution by legitimate laws (passed in the Southern legislatures), then the bitterness and racial tension that existed afterwards would not have occured. In the militarily Reconstructed South, lynchings, skirmishes, and near civil war were common in many of the Southern states. This was due to the fact that the laws being forced upon the South had to be enforced by the military might of the North. The net result was a government that was unrepublican in nature. you cannot use force to create republican government for someone, when republican government is necessarily consent based. the moment you use force to enforce republicanism, it ceases to be republican. You cannot cure an evil, by using more evil. Your ends defy your means.

To go on, lets just take the idea of precedent. Where in the Constitution, does it give the President to give people suffrage, or change social status or do anything at all by means of “proclamation”? It doesn’t. My problem with Lincoln and the Civil War is that he expanded the Federal power so greatly, that the size of government we see that has continued to THIS DAY, the racial divide in this nation that has continued to THIS DAY, are a result of his abuses of power. To top it all off, despite Lincoln’s common citation of “God” and “religion” in his speeches in order to appease his largely Christian electorate, Lincoln was an ardent Atheist.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v07/v07p319_Dickson.html  One good source.

 My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures, have become clearer and stronger with advancing years and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them. — Abraham Lincoln

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. — Abraham Lincoln

 More atheistic Lincoln quotes: http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/lincoln.htm

Winning attitude

Giving Up?

I often tell my martial arts students, whether you think your going to win or you think your going to lose, your probably right. If you go into a fight, and you hesitate because you don’t think you can win, well thats a self-fulfilling prophesy. Your thought that you couldn’t win made you lose. Never go into something halfway. Your going to hurt yourself.

Conversely, if you go into something blindly, you can hurt yourself too. If you kick it up to full speed and don’t stop, you will wear yourself out. So, really the ideal combination is brains and commitment. When you decide to commit to something, do it 100% but don’t commit to something blindly. Make sure you know what your going out for, but when you go for it, really go for it.

I was talking to my sister about what the term “no regrets” means the other day. It kind of applies to this topic. Failing isn’t falling down, its staying down, and its kind of like that with regrets. Having no regrets isn’t about never making a mistake, its about saying “hey, if theres a way I could have made that endeavor work, I would have done it, I gave it 200% and never looked back.” Having no regrets is knowing that when you failed, you gave it 100% and theres no possible way you could have succeeded. Regrets are when you think hey,… maybe if I had just tried a little harder, maybe if I hadn’t wasted so much time,… maybe if I actually applied myself, maybe if I didn’t give up, I would be much better off today. Its about being tired at the end of the day. When your exhausted by the end of the day, you know you’ve completely spent yourself, and not wasted anything.

Rights and Choices

What is a “Right” anyway?

Amidst this health care bill controversy I have heard people say healthcare is a right. I would like to examine what a right is. We have the  self-evident rights, by the definition of the Declaration of Independence, to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Now notice, amongst the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration, in no way do they ever claim government can endow a right upon a person. the next line of the Declaration reads “that to SECURE these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.” So, governments protect rights we already have, not give new ones. Lets not examine the nature of these rights.

We are all born with life, no one really “gives” us life, except God. Our parents are the vessels that are used to construct life. To argue the opposite would lead to the idea that parents can just take the life of their children whenever they please. So the first right is life. The next is liberty. In nature, we have liberty to pursue our lives however we really choose to. That doesn’t mean we can’t get eaten by a tiger. Thats not a violation of our right to life, thats a result of misusing liberty when in proximity to a tiger. Similarly dieing of old age or sickness is not a violation of the first right, but rather a result of it. the pursuit of happiness is that we get to choose how we want to make ourselves happy, we get to make our own destinies. that doesn’t guarantee that we will be successful, only that we have the right to try. Notice that none of these things are endowed on us by any other person, but rather are facts inherent to our existance.

People who claim that health care is a right claim that security is a right. It is not. lets say everyone has the right to get surgery if they have cancer. They can’t have had that right 1,000 years ago when that surgery was not yet invented. When you have to contrive complex means of what a right is based on what other people can do to him, you are no longer defining a right in a natural or absolute sense, but rather whatever you choose to do to someone. No one has the “right” to demand health care or any other form of security from another person.

It should be noted that security is actually the result of a sacrifice of liberty. Back to the tiger, if we say “well I am free I can do whatever I want!!!” and so go stick their head in the tiger’s mouth, they are not secure. Instead, they sacrifice a bit of their liberty, by choosing not to exercise their right to go put their head in the tiger’s mouth. In civil society today,  we gain security from foreign countries and enemies and criminals, by sacrificing a small amount of our liberty to our government. Security in this sense, provided by another, is a result of your sacrificing your right to a small portion of your property (taxes) and a small part of their free will (the will to do evil). to quote Thomas Paine, Government is, “in its best state, but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

Side note: I just bought the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers, “The Spirit of Laws” by Charles De Montesquieu, and John Locke’s “Two Treatises on Government,” as well as Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man.” on Amazon. I am already reading Gordon Wood’s “The Creation of the American Republic” and William Wiecek’s “The Guarantee Clause of the United States Constitution.” Gotta read most of them before the third week of April :-). Gonna be busy….

Peace, Love, and Genocide

This symbol is used by Christians and Non-Christians the world round to represent “peace.” knowing what I know about the symbol, I get a little bit sick every time I see a Christian with it. here is why.

Originally, the symbol came because Nero crucified Peter on an upside down cross. Originally, it wasn’t a symbol against Christians. It was used by Nero, however, as a symbol of the genocide of Christians. he believed that only peace could come once all Christians were dead (guess why its now the “peace” sign). Later, it was used by the Saracens as a symbol of the “broken cross” on their shields to symbolize their anti-Christian tendencies. It has been used historically and in modern day to represent certain Occult traditions and Satanism. It was used as the symbol for Hitler’s 3rd panzer division, and can be found on many Nazi tombstones because it was known as the Dead Man’s Rune (Nazi’s were neo-pagans of the teutonic variety, which can be verified from the use of various runes in their uniforms and symbols. They were not Christians, though Hitler did cite Christian theology at times to appease certain Christian elements in his country, much the way Obama has done.). Many Anti-Christian metal bands and other groups used the inverted latin cross or Nero’s cross to represent anti-Christian beliefs.

The popular story about the peace sign is that it was invented in 1958 by Gerard Holtom. I believe this is somewhat genuine. Holtom did not know the historcal meaning of the symbol, and invented it anew from different criteria for the purpose of a world nuclear disarmament group.  After learning the meaning of the symbol historically, he wanted to change it to the same symbol, but upright to represent a person with arms upstretched towards the sky. His wishes were rarely met. If you are going to draw peace signs, do them upright in accordance to Holtom’s request.

Bertram Russel, head of the nuclear disarmament society that Holtom belonged to, however, adopted the symbol in full knowledge of its historical meaning. Bertram Russel, was a historian and member of the Fabian society, and adopted the symbol in part because of its Anti-Christian meaning.

Many people adopt the symbol without knowledge of its historical meaning. Don’t blame them for it, they mean well. Just now that you know it yourself, try to realize what you represent when you display the symbol.

This Snake Has Fangs

        That flag is the symbol of the revolution. It says “Don’t Tread on Me.” We will bite. We have Fangs. When we are tread upon, our first attack will be voting them out in November. If they refuse to listen to the consent of the governed, if they try to subject us to governmental rape (that is being governed without consent) we will show them the venom inside the fangs. We will show them why the 2nd ammendment is in there. Americans have not shown themselves to be a people willing to live in mediocrity. We demand greatness. These socialists want to tear us down to the level of the rest of the world. They want everyone to live in equal mediocrity. NO! I will not have it, and millions of Americans agree with me.

         Sunday, March 21st Congress thumbed its nose at the American people. It passed a healthcare bill that would affect the lives of every American when the only thing bipartisan about it was the opposition. Not a single Republican voted for it, and many Democrats voted against it. For years, the vocal minority has dominated America because the moral majority, the Reagan Majority, as they are often called, has been sleeping. We have been going about our business, many of them not even voting or worrying about politics, while those who lived in areas where they recieve something from the government (welfare, medicare, social security, other entitlements…) have just increased dependancy and voted to keep their free “Obama money” coming.

      Well now that we see that we are not being represented. Now that we see what mistake we have made,… we are no longer sleeping. In November, you will see what happned. The American people have now awakened, and there will be earthquakes. No seat is safe. They just threw the entire Democratic Party under the bus. they will start taxing us right away, but no subsidies will start coming until 2014, so I don’t think even the entitlement junkies will be happy until then. They have tread on us. When you step on a snake, you get bit.

Threat of Islam

Could Your Best Friend Kill You?

I am writing this blog, because I believe it is important. I am writing it because it is something every American needs to know, and if you do not wake up soon, the very freedoms you cherish will be used to kill you.

As Americans, we don’t understand hate. Admit it, you don’t understand it. To be honest, I don’t completely understand it. My father, many of my relatives, and people I know, I have lived it. They have seen hate with their eyes. Imagine this,… someone you know your whole life, someone you treated like a brother,… tries to kill you when a war starts. His family tells him, and he arms himself and tries to kill you and those you love, along with every one of his friends. People you knew your whole life, people you went to school with, people you maybe danced and played soccer or basketball or football with, suddenly try to kill you. Thats what happened in Lebanon in the 1970’s.

Beirut, Lebanon was often called the Paris of the Middle East. A center for multiculturalism, tolerance, and Western culture. The art, the nightlife, the people, everything about Lebanon was known to be a center for peace, tolerance, art, food, and fun. It was like much of the U.S. It had the highest standard of living in the Middle East. Muslims and Christians lived mostly in peace together. The government provided them both representation, and they respected each other. Christiand thought that Islam was a fairly peaceful religion, and its people were good hearted and loving towards them. For a long time this was true. Then the Palestinian refugees came.

Hate like this is something no American can understand. As soon as the balance of power shifted. As soon as the Palestinians came in and made Islam the majority, the killing started. They would set up checkpoints along the roads, and if you got IDed as a Christian, you would be pulled out of your car and shot in cold blood, as well as any of your family that was with you. They would rape your wives, sisters, and mothers. They would torture people and do things I cannot even say here because its too disturbing. My father, knew a kid who he grew up with like a brother. A friend his whole life, they went to the same Catholic school, they played sports together, and they were friends. When the war started, he says it was like Jackal and Hyde. This kid left, armed himself with the other muslims, and tried to kill my father and his family.

In Brigette Gabriel’s book, “Because They Hate” she relates going from her little 10x 10 bomb shelter that her and her family lived in down to the spring. She had to crawl in the trenches to avoid being shot by snipers. She would sit there as she crawled and wonder who the sniper was. Who was that guy up there poised to kill her? Her family had been wealthy, and they often had given clothes, food, and free meals to muslim families who couldn’t afford it in the area. She had many muslim freinds at the Catholic school she went to. Could this have been a boy she danced with at the last festival? Was it a man her dad offered free food to? She knew that when the problems in the area started, they went off and joined there army. It was not untypical to be killed by someone you were friends with your whole life in that time.

Prior to the war, the Lebanese Christians loved their muslim brothers. They thought they were their friends. They thought Islam was a religion of peace. Thats not to say there are no goodhearted muslims, there are, but they are easily highjacked by the fundamentalists. The fact is, the religion sanctions hate. I will not let Americans be so ignorant about this, because I do not want to happen here what happened there.

To be honest, I do not know yet what needs to be done. I don’t know how to stop it. I just know that the first step is that people must wake up and see the nature of the enemy.