The Importance of Good Manners and Good Judgment

My buddy Jim was out on Halloween (on crutches following knee reconstruction) walking his kids around his neighborhood. Many kids were out on the street and the parents walked along with them. Suddenly, Billy Bob Half-wit and his wife Bobby-Sue come blazing down the street in their loud and smoky pick-up truck. Parents rush to gather their kids away from the curb and shout at the truck to slow down.

Billy Bob leans over toward the passenger window to look straight at Jim and shout “F*&# You!”

Jim Shouts back “ Noooooo, F*&# You!”

Billy Bob stops the truck, jumps out and beelines around the front of truck straight at Jim. As he rolls within range, He realizes just about the time that he gets into shoving range that Jim isn’t going to wait to be shoved. The pre-emptive strike is already on its way. He’s already trying to shift into reverse about the time that Jim's gnarled and scarred fist lands square on his face. This gave Billy Bob a boost in reverse like a jet launching from a carrier deck. He landed square on his back.

Meanwhile, Bobby-Sue jumped out of her door and jumped on to Jim’s back while Billy-Bob tried to get back in the game. Jim, Bobby-Sue and crutches staggered backward into a fire hydrant (undoing his knee reconstruction) and dumping her on the ground.

When Billy-Bob gets back into the scuffle, the severely handicapped Jim continues to give Billy-Bob reasons to rethink his self-image as a bad-ass.

When Billy-Bob was finished learning what he needed to learn. He and Bobby-Sue jumped back in the truck and drove away.

Jim now has to go get his knee rebuilt. How well it heals remains to be seen. Billy-Bob will probably never be the same. He just got his ass kicked in front of his wife and kids. He will never forget it. Except maybe when he’s drunk. Bobby-Sue will never forget it either. She married him because she was drawn to the alpha-male that showed all the strength and bluster. The kids saw their dad get his ass kicked. I expect it will be a life-shaping event like that scene from “Back to the Future”

My bet is that Billy-Bob will have better manners in the future. He has learned that not everyone will tolerate rudeness. He will play it over and over in his head and wish he had a knife or a baseball bat… something to shift the balance.

Billy-Bob’s only chance would have been to jump out of the vehicle with a sawed-off shotgun and empty both barrels from the far side of the truck. If he got Jim on the first blast, he might have had a chance to be a hero to his kids, but they’d have to see him during prison visiting hours.

What Billy-Bob doesn’t know is that Jim couldn’t have been beaten. Jim was fully prepared to escalate. Billy-Bob might have jumped out of the vehicle with a baseball bat or a knife but Jim had a Browning Hi-Power 9mm tucked in a paddle holster.

Early in the history of this country- someone said: An armed society is a polite society.

D-Day (Decisive Day)

It took a few days to gather my thoughts about the election day 2006. I am surprised. I didn't realize that there were so few Americans that can't think past the minimum wage.

Seriously, the control of Congress was shifted based on the turnout of voters that showed up to vote on Minimum Wage Increase initiatives in seven states. Reverse the party changes of the seats in those states and it's seriously different.

The shift was caused by folks that are stupid enough to think that the minimum wage does anything except increase inflation.

Stupid enough to think that ignoring imminent global threats will make them go away.

Stupid enough to think that the current 4.4% unemployment rate (that is the envy of the world) happened in spite of President Bush's tax policy rather than as a direct result of it.

Stupid enough to think that listening to international phone calls from terror affiliates is "domestic spying."

Stupid enough to think that humiliation and coercive interrogation that leaves no physical damage or emotional scarring are "torture."

Well this will be interesting to watch. If we allow Iraq to plunge into civil war and become a failed state. Americans will know what made it happen. They will be told that it was unwinnable. They will be told that any strategy that meet force with force is a flawed strategy. They will be told that only through humble and cooperative accommodation can we co-exist with our more zealous religious neighbors.

The war on terror will not be decided by weapons, training, intelligence, technology, tactics, or strategy. The war on terror will be decided in the newsrooms of the western world. I still have hope that we'll win. It will happen after a city with a bevy of top league newsrooms is vaporized. New York, London, Moscow, Paris, Berlin, Washington DC, Los Angeles, or maybe even Ottawa. Until then, all war is bad.

War doesn't become virtuous until the things that liberals value are endangered. Anyone want to know why we went after Hitler sooner and harder than we went after Japan? Because Hitler was smacking the bajeeziss out of their idol and mentor Uncle Joe Stalin. Japan was oppressing the nationalist Chinese and the Koreans and the Filipinos. When communism is endangered then war becomes virtuous.

Well, here's how I see it. I love my countrymen and I love my children. And I wish they'd learn from history and the experience of others. But sometimes when your children refuse to listen and learn from the record, you have to steel yourself to watch them learn from experience.

To terrorists, those huge metropolitan blue spots on the red map are what we in the military call "targets." When the terrorists succeed in bringing a serious WMD into this country (because intelligence agencies couldn't collate phone numbers and listen to phone calls) and vaporize a city or unleash a devastating plague, it will not be my home that is at risk.

I just want you to know, this is exactly like watching my kids do something stupid. You know it's going to hurt, but they insisted on doing it their way. Unlike the libs that feel suicidal after losing an election, I feel slightly amused. I'm just an interested observer. It could be that the Islamic Fanatics aren't really a threat, and that we'll never get hit again, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I expect it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time.

Ye that voted to lose the war in Iraq and embolden our enemies will be the ones that pay the price. I wish you'd learn from history and the experience of others, but if you have to be the ones that learn it the hard way, there's a certain amount of karma or kismet or whatever you want to call it that makes it seem right.

You vote to lose and then you lose big. First you lose the tactical fight, then you lose the operational fight and then you lose your life. But before that happens, I just want you to know that we will avenge you. We folks from the sticks will avenge you folks from the city. I expect that once the rest of the targets learn from your experience and get with the program, and the newsrooms decide that this is a virtuous war, then we'll draw our bloody sword of conflict and slay the jackals of terror.

That will be D-Day. The decisive day will be the day we decide to win. You won't be there, but we'll avenge you.

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