Free In Idaho!

You ask why I always fly the flag.  My answer is, liberty. 

Ah, Liberty…  such a gift!

“Our flag means all that our fathers meant in the Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means justice. It means liberty. It means happiness…. Every color means liberty. Every thread means liberty. Every star and stripe means liberty.”       - Henry Ward Beecher

I went into my nearby shooty supply store yesterday for some ammo and some target dots, preparing for a morning in the desert.  Picked up a brick of .22 and went over to the target aisle to grab some 3″ dots (1 moa at 300yds).  Hmmm… not a dot in sight (what pun?).

I thought about pilfering some of the wonderful 3×5 sale price signs to use as targets, but I’m not a young whippersnapper any more, so that option was a nonstarter.  I did ask the young man at the counter though.

“Did you find everything you need grandpa sir?” 

“Almost.  You guys are out of target dots.”

He opened the drawer under his register and pulled out a roll of 1/2″ green price dots.

“I can give you a bunch of these, if you like?”

“Too small” says I.

“That’s all I need” says Young Gun. Can you say ‘testosterone dump’ boys and girls?

I held my hand out to him.  The tremor this morning is a half notch higher than a coffee buzz (not bad, I think to myself).

“Oh!” he says, “does it do that all the time?”

“Sometimes it’s worse.  Enjoy those small dots while you can.  Thirty years from now you might need the big ones too.”

I didn’t tell him I use the 3″ circles for the .308, or that prone, at 300 yards with a bipod and a sandbag, I can do a passable imitation of a testosterone dump myself.

So, all you “I love my country more than I hate Obama-vote McCain” kool-aid drinkers…amnesty, McCain-Feingold, McCain-Leiberman, the whole glowball warming nonsense, past threats to not only switch parties but consider the Dem VP spot, unreliable at best on the Second Amendment, and lately, floating the Bloomberg name for his own VP… if all that hasn’t been enough for you, try this on

“I believe there needs to be a thorough and complete investigation of speculators to find out whether speculation has been going on and, if so, how much it has affected the price of a barrel of oil,” Mr. McCain said in response to an audience member’s complaint about investors driving up the price of fuel and other commodities. “There’s a lot of things out there that need a lot more transparency and, consequently, oversight.”

Investigation?  And oversight, eh?  That’s big government, lose more freedom talk if I ever heard it.

“I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies not only because of the obscene profits they’ve made but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil,” the senator said. “They’re making huge profits and that happens, but not to say, ‘We’re in this so we can over time eliminate America’s dependence on foreign oil,’ I think is an abrogation of their responsibilities as citizens.”

That’s the way Hillary Clinton was talking on the campaign trail but a week or two ago.  Obscene profits, eh?  That’s a socialist word if I ever heard one.  The man sounds like Barack Chicago Mob Obama, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi.  I won’t bore you with a rundown on the different profit percents for various industries in America because I’m sure you’ve all heard them before.  The profits made by the oil companies are actually below what many other American companies make (check out what the banks, the IT, and the high tech companies make, if you want some comparisons).  But to suggest that their profits are somehow obscene, and that they have some kind of civic duty to invest in other technologies is absurd.  Hey Maverick, profit is NOT an obscene thing.  And they’re OIL COMPAINIES!  They do oil, not solar, not wind, not buffalo chips.  For crying out loud, get a clue.

Might I suggest that it is YOU, and Congress, that have abrogated your responsibilities as representatives in locking up American resources and American industry to the point that we cannot even use our own resources and technologies to solve this “energy crisis”.  Our resources, meaning the ones owned by the American people.  All you big government  people have done is bitch, and make laws that have hamstrung American businesses (and driven them out of the country in some cases).  Big government power used by big government politicians in a way that harms the American economy, American business, and the American citizen.  I’m up for more of that, you bet.

And back to you folks who keep telling me I HAVE to vote for McCain… really?  You really think he’s DIFFERENT from Obama?  No.  Not. One. Ounce. Better.  You’d better quit trying to enlist my vote for John McCain, and start working your tails off to get some conservative/small “l” libertarians on the down tickets in your states, because John McCain isn’t going to change squat.  The only difference we can make is to promote and elect better choices in the other slots.  If you have a decent candidate running for Senator or Congressman in your state, screw McCain and concentrate on getting the good candidate elected.  If you have someone running locally who believes like you do, then you’d better spend time getting your neighbor involved in voting for that person, and quit telling me I need to vote for John McCain.  That isn’t going to happen.

Do you believe in freedom?  In liberty?  Then convert your friends, your family, your children, your co-workers to the ideals of liberty.  Tell them about individual rights and freedom.  Teach them about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Explain to them about responsibility, and why John McCain’s idea about “their responsibilites as citizens” is just plain wrong.  Show them that big government, whether big socialist Democrat government or big conservative Republican government, is unworkable at best and downright dangerous to everyone’s freedom at worst, and try to explain that there hasn’t been much difference between the two lately.

Forget John McCain and Barack Guevara Obama.  That is not where we are going to make a difference this year, or the next four.  You won’t turn the machine that gave us these two candidates by voting for the “least nasty candidate”.  But you can try to throw a small monkey wrench into that machine by converting and trying to activate your friends, family, and neighbors.  You can’t change Washington, despite what Barack American Idol Obama and John Angry Maverick mcCain are telling you.  But you can change your neighborhood.  And isn’t that what citizenship is really all about?

But I do have to laugh a little bit.  All the people telling me to just hold my nose, ignore how OBVIOUSLY WRONG John McCain is on so many issues, and just vote for him anyway… yet not many of you big “L” Libertarians (or small “l” for that matter) are similarly telling me to just ignore the dope issue and vote for Bob Barr, who is clearly more correct on most of the other issues.  Heck, I’m already there, I already believe, you don’t have to convince me that individual freedom and tiny government are the correct way to go.  But if you won’t even try to enlist MY vote, how are you going to sell it to your family and friends?  Just asking.