Category Archives: Reflections on Liberty

Reflections on Liberty

Now Smackwater Jack, he bought a shotgun!

“Now Smackwater Jack, he bought a shotgun.”

Have you heard about the United States Department of Education preparing to buy 27 Remington 870 12-gauge shotguns with 14-inch barrels?  I have to be one of the last people to deny anyone gun ownership or the right to protect themselves, especially law enforcement officers.  Heck, I’d like one of those neat blasters with the ghost ring rear sights myself.  But hey, I don’t want to talk about guns.  I want to talk about Big Government.

Maybe you are like me and wonder where in the Constitution we found an education department in the first place.  Education was one of those things the States were to take care of.  Now we have a huge beauracracy in Washington dolling out funds for educational programs it likes and shutting off the spigot on the ones that don’t meet its arbitrary standards.  Even the uneducated know that whoever holds the purse strings has the control.  Where does the DOE get the money they send back to us peasants?  You’re right, they get it from us.  Why not just leave it here in the first place and let us set our own standards, build our own buildings, pay for our own lunches and hire our own teachers.

Back to shotguns.  The fact that the DOE has an enforcement section, the Office of Inspector General that needs SWAT shotguns, should be a wakeup call that the Federal government has gotten too big and paranoid. They’re’ afraid someone is going to steal all that money they are keeping for us. Maybe it’s time we started pulling the plug on this unwieldy and unresponsive monster; it will only be bigger later and it already has a shotgun!

“You can’t talk to a man with a shotgun in his hand.”

Ecclesia Real, Reflections on Liberty

ACOG and Bach

The Trijicon people, makers of the ACOG sights our troops use, have found themselves in trouble because they added Bible references to the serial numbers of their scopes.  The references are the same size as the serial numbers; and unless you’re familiar with Bible reference abbreviations, you probably wouldn’t even notice the cryptic notation, hardly an in-your-face testimony and too obscure to be of any value for proselytizing.

Why the fuss?  Good question.  Some folks are irritated at anything Christian, so the reference becomes a target of their illogical and anti-freedom wrath.  I’ll talk about anti-freedom more in a minute.

Some have said that when the mostly Moslem enemies we are engaging learn of this (which they have no-doubt done from the press it’s gotten), they will have proof we are engaged in a holy-war against them.  These geniuses have forgotten that it is our enemies that shout “Allah Akbar” when they attack.  It is these extremists whose motive is to destroy Christianity and Judaism.  We fight them because they have attacked us.

From a spiritual perspective, a committed disciple of Jesus should give honor to God for his success and thanks for all blessings.  The developers of the unique light-gathering ACOG added verses to their product that honored Jesus as the Light.  They were doing no more than glorifying God for their ability to harness light for the aiming system in their product, a product they developed and manufactured that was useable by our military.  I understand that a customer can make demands on the seller for what he needs before he buys the product.  The interesting thing here is that the verses have been there for years.  Someone must have gotten their feelings hurt and whined about it to someone who believes that people only whine when they are right.

In recent times these folks would have been highly regarded for glorifying Christ in their business.  In today’s anti-Christian American culture, they will bow to pressure and remove the verses from sights sold to the military.  Those sights are expensive; but now I’ve got to get one, one with an appropriate verse about Jesus being the Light of the world.  I won’t mind at all having a Jesus rifle.

BTW, I hope none of our warfighters have access to any of Bach’s music.  A committed believer, he inscribed most of his music with SDG, short for Soli Deo Gloria, which means “To God alone be Glory”.  Good thing he didn’t make optics.

Reflections on Liberty

On this day in 1776–The Unanimous Declaration was signed!

John Adams wrote this to his wife on July 3, 1776:

The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade with shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more–

Reflections on Liberty

I’m afraid we disappoint the Founders

This is the closing of a letter written by John Adams to Abigail on April 26, 1777.  He is lonely, weary, ill and discouraged by the lack of action of others.  It is my sincere prayer, though I am very doubtful, that this generation will not disappoint his.

I have been lately more remiss, than usual in Writing to you. There has been a great Dearth of News. Nothing from England, nothing from France, Spain, or any other Part of Europe, nothing from the West Indies. Nothing from Howe, and his Banditti, nothing from General Washington.
There are various Conjectures that Lord Howe is dead, sick, or gone to England, as the Proclamations run in the Name of Will. Howe only, and nobody from New York can tell any Thing of his Lordship.
I am wearied out, with Expectations that the Massachusetts Troops would have arrived, e’er now, at Head Quarters. — Do our People intend to leave the Continent in the Lurch? Do they mean to submit? or what Fatality attends them? With the noblest Prize in View, that ever Mortals contended for, and with the fairest Prospect of obtaining it upon easy Terms, The People of the Massachusetts Bay, are dead.
Does our State intend to send only half, or a third of their Quota? Do they wish to see another, crippled, disastrous and disgracefull Campaign for Want of an Army? — I am more sick and more ashamed of my own Countrymen, than ever I was before. The Spleen, the Vapours, the Dismals, the Horrors, seem to have seized our whole State.

More Wrath than Terror, has seized me. I am very mad. The gloomy Cowardice of the Times, is intollerable in N. England.
Indeed I feel not a little out of Humour, from Indisposition of Body. You know, I cannot pass a Spring, or fall, without an ill Turn — and I have had one these four or five Weeks — a Cold, as usual. Warm Weather, and a little Exercise, with a little Medicine, I suppose will cure me as usual. I am not confined, but moap about and drudge as usual, like a Gally Slave. I am a Fool if ever there was one to be such a Slave. I wont be much longer. I will be more free, in some World or other.
Is it not intollerable, that the opening Spring, which I should enjoy with my Wife and Children upon my little Farm, should pass away, and laugh at me, for labouring, Day after Day, and Month after Month, in a Conclave, Where neither Taste, nor Fancy, nor Reason, nor Passion, nor Appetite can be gratified?
Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.