decline

Boy, It Just Doesn’t Stop!

I receive some diverse emails from varied sources.  Last night, not so much…

First from the National Association for Gun Rights:

Dear Guffaw,

“You bet!”

That’s what Republican U.S. Senator Jeff Flake said when asked if he supports President Obama’s nationalized gun-control agenda. ¹

To make matters worse, he’s now touting President Obama’s rhetoric when it comes to expanded background checks.

“All of us Republicans and Democrats recognize that we need more effective and broader background checks,” he recently told Politico. ¹

This sort of Washington beltway blabber is what we’ve come to expect out of Arizona’s Senior U.S. Senator, John McCain…

But watching Junior Jeff fold like a house of cards after spending months paying gun owners lip-service is disappointing. ~

This, after many of us wrote our Senators pleading with them NOT to buckle to Senator Feinstein and the state socialists!  I heard back from Senator Flake’s office just a few weeks ago stating he supported us!  Is he lying?  (I know, his mouth is moving – he’s a politician!)

THEN,

Dear Guffaw,
TODAY, the Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on Senator Dianne Feinstein’s anti-gun bill…which would BAN millions of commonly owned semi-automatic firearms and BAN ammunition magazines that hold more than ten rounds.

YOUR SENATORS NEED TO HEAR FROM YOU RIGHT NOW!!!

Please call both of your Senators today at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to OPPOSE the Feinstein Gun Grab bill.

Tell your Senators that President Barack Obama’s own Justice Department recently reported that any ban on semi-automatic firearms WILL NOT WORK…unless it includes mandatory gun buy backs, which is federal GUN CONFISCATION!

Senator Feinstein herself told CBS’s 60 Minutes that if she could get the votes “for an outright ban, picking up every one of them — Mr. and Mrs. America turn ‘em all in” she would do it!!!

If you live in Arizona, please call Senators Flake and McCain, TODAY!  Hell if you live in Flotsam’s Mistake, NJ! call them.  And call your own Senators, too.

I’ve called and sent emails, more than once.  They need to hear us…RIGHT NOW!

Don’t count on someone else to do it.  Take action!  Call the number above an let your voice be heard!

But Brutus is an honorable man…

Having studied American History for some time, with certain foci (The American Revolution, progressivism, political intrigue and assassination, Constitutional government, libertarianism) something has been bothering me.

Like most civilizations, historically, we have (had) a code and at least made an effort to abide by it.  A man’s word is his bond.  A handshake means something, as does a signature.  Being a gentlemen means holding to certain standards of behavior and deportment.  Honor.

But, it appears all this is now a facade; it has all fallen away.  Especially regarding men of influence and power.  Lying, cheating, stealing, having an alternate code of whatever it takes to accomplish ‘x’, rules the day.

I remember my College Course ‘Introduction to Western Civilization’ wherein Dr. Smith taught us that The Roman Empire didn’t fall because of barbarian attack.  It fell because of a decline in morals – in short, a loss of honorable men.

I’ve been following the articles on Manly Honor, as posted in The Art of Manliness website.  I suggest we need to return to the evolution of the Code in the Twentieth Century – Personal Integrity.

As author Brett states in Manly Honor VII…

But today in this final post I want to strip away many of those layers and try to get back down to the heart of manly honor – the basics of why it’s worth preserving and how we can, and must, revive elements of it in this anti-honor-honor world.

You should go and read, not only this chapter, but the previous six.  Both men and women.  We can restore civility, integrity and a code of behavior as it once was, if we agree to take a code upon ourselves to behave and act accordingly.  And by doing so, perhaps we can reverse this trend wherein people protest by destroying and stealing property, and songs are written about killing civil authority and defiling women.  By being an example for our youth.  By doing what’s right for the American Culture and our own worth.

How Sad

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about blogging is finding out persons from all over The United States, in fact, The World have clicked on a posting or a Google/Bing response and found their way here.  I’ve stated many times before that I’m continually amazed anyone stops by – so anyone doing so makes me happy.  Or used to.

I monitor the (meaningless) statistics about the blog – Where are readers located?  How many?  Total views for a 24 hour period.  Then I compare that to what posts I did that given day in an effort to find more titles/subjects appealing to more readers.  It really doesn’t affect my titles or content.  I’m compulsive.  It’s not as if I make any money doing this!

But, the other day, I quickly inserted a blog post blurb regarding the horrific tragedy in Connecticut, as the reports were coming in.  Just the name of the town, Newtown Connecticut was the title.

And I was deeply saddened to see 333 search views in 24 hours!  My average is 163 over the previous 28 days!

Are people so ghoulish that this is what drives them?  Even worse is so-called ‘news’ organizations are so thirsty to ‘get the story first’ they report anything without verifying facts or sources!

It used to be there was a twenty-four hour news cycle, many times longer.  Now it’s minutes; seconds.  No time to verify anything, just get ‘it’ out there!  If it’s wrong, we’ll submit a correction – or not.

And the people who just can’t wait to hear about the latest exploits of Lindsay Lohan or Honey Boo-Boo are waiting like vultures to lap it up.  Or search for it on the Internet.

How sad.

Foodstamps and Kardashians

AmericanMercenary: The slow collapse into the soft dark ages….
American Mercenary opines regarding the inevitable decline of the American Ideal.
All good things must come to an end.

“Infrastructure allows economic mobility.  Legal standardization combined with a culture that respects honesty minimizes the corruption that eventually hurts everyone.  China is a good example of a “civilization” that is rapidly turning from agriculture to industry.  However, because of the social climate of corruption corners are cut, contractors pay party officials to look the other way, and next thing you know a major earthquake flattens substandard housing.  But the corruption continues, because it is good for business in the Chinese culture.  And the Chinese know that business is good for China.
So what frightens me most about the United States is the death of Rule of Law.  When the Administration breaks contract law to support the UAW in the GMC Bankruptcy, when MF Global is legally allowed to raid customer accounts to pay off debt in total violation of established practice and law, when “Recess Appointments” fail to meet recognized legal standards, we have POWER unconstrained by our Laws.  Our civilization is falling apart.  Rule of Law is good for business in America, and the only replacement for rule of law is corruption.  However multinational corporations have learned how easy it is to operate in a corrupt society like China, do you think they will have any compunction of applying those lessons to a corrupt American Government?
It isn’t our “crumbling infrastructure” that makes economic powerhouses like China, India, and Brazil drool with envy that is causing our civilization to fail.  It is our rising culture of corruption.  Corruption allowing a modern Caesar to turn the Republic into a Dictatorship.”
~The old saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day” also has a corollary “Rome didn’t fall in a day” either.  The UAW was protected because they had “their man” in power.  So far everyone has lost, and the only “redistribution” that has gone on is the spread of poverty to an ever growing population of “the underclass.”  But we have our bread and circuses.  Or as we like to call it “foodstamps and Kardashians.”  (emphasis Guffaw)

Go to the link, above, and read the whole thing.
But be forewarned.
It’s not pretty reading about your inevitable demise.   

h/t AM