Hit the Blogroll

I leave the interwebz in the trustworthy hands of my fellow bloggers for a few days. I will return with tales of adventure and derring-do.

Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.
J.R.R. Tolkien, writing in the Lord of the Rings

Abuse of Power

Updated: link replaced
"Police Tasered an 86-year-old disabled grandma in her bed and stepped on her oxygen hose until she couldn't breathe, after her grandson called 911 seeking medical assistance, the woman and her grandson claim in Oklahoma City Federal Court. Though the grandson said, "Don't Taze my granny!" an El Reno police officer told another cop to "Taser her!" and wrote in his police report that he did so because the old woman "took a more aggressive posture in her bed," according to the complaint...The police then grabbed Ms. Varner by her forearms and jerked hands together, causing her soft flesh to tear and bleed on her bed; they then handcuffed her."

A bedridden 86 year old woman is no threat to 10 armed and healthy policemen. They should be charged with the same crimes as you or I would be if we tazed a bedridden elderly woman.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
--James Madison

Real Shooting

As OldNFO pointed out in the comments, the previous video is not a realistic portrayal of shooting. To make up for that, I offer a video of Jessie Abbate at the 2008 Nationals. Here's a real shooter, running a complex course at a pace that would challenge anyone, male or female.

I don't shoot that well in my dreams.

If you train hard, you'll not only be hard, you'll be hard to beat.
--Herschel Walker

Angry Moms

I don't even have to know what they are advertising, this is fun to watch.

When I'm with a pistol I sparkle like a crystal, yes I shine like the morning sun.
--Annie Oakley

Another Viewpoint on Global Warming

Oh, sorry, wrong poodle.

Remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.
--Woody Allen

Al Gore, Savior of the Earth, Reduced to Poodledom

Vice-President, Nobel Laureate, now just another sex crazed poodle. You can't make this stuff up, and it couldn't happen to a more deserving arrogant windbag. Well, there was Bill Clinton, but it already happened to him.

Speaking of Bill, he denied everything until it came out that Monica had POTUS juice on her blue dress. According to The Smoking Gun, this lady has a pair of black slacks that were decorated in a similar fashion by the Goracle. If that turns out to be accurate, it will certainly be an inconvenient truth.

My son had suffered a concussion, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a compound fracture of the thigh bone, and massive internal injuries as well as a bruised lung & pancreas & a fractured kidney. I tell this story because it was a turning point that changed me in ways I could not have imagined. I asked myself how did I really want to spend my time on Earth?
--Al Gore, writing in "An Inconvenient Truth"

The Constitution for Children

Published in June of 1936, this little book includes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, essays on the writing of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and pictures of the men and places that figured in the creation of these historic writings.

It is clearly a child's book, some places are underlined in blue ink, the edges are worn, but the words are all clear. There is no disclaimer that the writings are not suitable for children, or that we should study the words of our founding documents through a filter of political correctness. I bought it in a junk shop for $3.00.

The assertion that 'all men are created equal' was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain, and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
--Abraham Lincoln

Shocked II

I have a feeling this may be a depressingly regular feature here on RAoP.

Anyway, today House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that middle-class tax increases will eventually be necessary to address the nation's mounting debt. Really, Mr. Hoyer? I though Pr. Obama was promising he was going to bleed the rich. I thought he was going to lift my burdens. I thought the economy now ran on unicorn farts.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

In the short term, government spending has been necessary to stimulate the economy, Hoyer said. But in the longer term, Congress will have to rein in spending and raise taxes to tackle the debt, he added.
"Raising revenue is part of the deficit solution, too," Hoyer said.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, "It's now official. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill are starting to signal their intention to raise taxes on the middle class."
On the spending side, Hoyer said Congress should consider raising the retirement age for full Social Security and Medicare benefits, and making those benefits progressive so that wealthier recipients get less than the needy.

So it really a two-fer three-fer, I'll pay more taxes now, have to work longer, and get less benefits when I'm old because the government spent money it didn't have, and doesn't have any plan for paying it's bills except to steal it from me (and you and your children and grandchildren).

If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not a single dime.
--Pr. Obama, Feb. 24, 2009, in an address to a joint session of Congress.

Faisal Shahzad

The failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, testified in court about his motivations and plans to kill Americans. He was open, even proud, of his actions. It's a free lesson for anyone willing to listen.

Faisal Shahzad was born in Pakistan, but had sought and received American citizenship. He was married, had two children, had a job as a financial analyst. To be come a citizen in this country, among other things, he took the following oath:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

What was his oath worth? Three months after taking it, he went to Pakistan to train with the Taliban. He took money, built the device, and tried to detonate it in Times Square. Why did he do these things? We don't have to wonder. He spelled it out.

One has to understand where I'm coming from. I consider myself a Muslim soldier...I am part of the answer to the U.S. terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die.

What I find interesting about that quote is I agree with him. I, too, consider him a Muslim soldier. I see his motivations as reasonable to him. He is right about me only caring about my own people. That's the way the world works. If it meant killing him and everyone who thinks like him to protect the United States, I would be in favor of it.

If he wanted to be a soldier in a foreign army, he should have done so. Since I am truly an American citizen, and freely take the oath he fraudulently took, I consider him a traitor. Since he came dressed as a civilian, not in the uniform of a soldier, when he made his attack, I consider him a spy and a saboteur. If we, as a nation, could grasp the true nature of the threat, this trial would not be taking place. He would have been taken as a military prisoner, interrogated, and then hung.

They know they are at war, do we?

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.
--Ulysses S. Grant

Here's a Politician to Support

I don't know anything about him except that I have seen his campaign commercials. How many political ads have you seen where firearms figure so prominently? I'd vote for him just for his stand on the 2nd Amendment, and it wouldn't matter if he was running for Ag Commissioner or Governor.

An armed society is a polite society.
-- Robert Heinlein

I'm Shocked

China is about to overtake the U.S. in manufacturing. I'm shocked. I thought that China had passed us years ago.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
--Confucius

Meme

My first meme, I think. Borepatch wants to know what's available for reading material in my potty. Four things.

Front Sight Magazine, May/June 2010, the one with Jesse Abbate on the cover. I get this because of my membership in USPSA.

WAR -- A Classic Collection of 56 Great War Stories Of Our Time, Joe Lewis, editor. Bought as reading material for the beach.

Complete Aikido by Roy Suenaka. Signed by the author. I have been studying the information in the second section, there is always more to learn.

The Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, C. Kenneth Rampage, editor. Loaned to me by a friend as a study guide for detailed information about casting. I'm mostly casting .45 caliber pistol bullets out of old wheel weights and using them for reloading to save money, but I have a couple of other moulds and a Lubri-Sizer, so the possibility of making some rifle bullets exists.

There, Borepatch. I feel vaguely like a participant in an experiment.

There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job to be done around the house.
--Joe Ryan

Beyond Weapons

I have not said much about self defense that does not involve firearms. I am an old man, and started studying a martial art only a few years ago. I have not felt that I had the skills or depth of study to comment publicly. I would still choose to preface my remarks by saying that I am a low ranked neophyte and no one should take my words to be anything but my personal observations and opinion.

Here's the sum of what I learned. Any of us can be taken. By surprise, by stealth, by skill, or by overwhelming force. It doesn't matter what you study, what weapons you own and know how to use, how strong you are, how much training you have, or anything else. if I'm right about that, then what is the point of training?

The point of training, whether armed or unarmed, is to shift the odds, to change the outcome of most encounters you might face. The goal of training is to provide you with a skill set that enhances your ability to emerge from violent encounters that would have overcome you without that training.

If you are active duty military, and involved in combat arms, that training involves strength and aerobic fitness, weapons competencies, team tactics, communications, as well as scenario training to help prepare you for the worst. Apparently the U.S. is very good at this sort of training, good enough that the enemy doesn't like to face us directly, and men who have years of the best training in the world are killed by IEDs every week.

I'm a civilian. Beyond a hobby interest in firearms that includes Garand Matches and USPSA Pistol and Multi-gun shooting, I am studying Aikido. Two or three evenings a week, I put on a gi and train with a small group at a nearby dojo. I have made new friends, developed a new respect for the skills, grace, and philosophy that Aikido represents, and learned a small, but growing, set of skills that might, one day, be something I will need very badly for a few desperate moments.

In extreme situations, the entire universe becomes our foe; at such critical times, unity of mind and technique is essential - do not let your heart waver!
--Morihei Ueshiba

Times Change, People Forget

We have let the knowledge of it slip away. The ones that remembered got older, passed away. The young were taught something different, so that the old ideas have become so subversive that they come with a warning label.

Wilder Publications published a book that includes the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation and the Federalist Papers. That seems alright, until you find out they put a disclaimer at the beginning. A warning to parents to "discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."

The reason? They spell that out, too. "This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today." They are right about that. The men that wrote our founding documents had just come through a war. They had seen what Europe was, and what sorts of governments had been tried. They wrote documents that helped form a country like none the world had ever seen. If a Constitution was written today, by the same politicians that wrote and passed the health care bill, it would be an unreadable hash of platitudes and lofty phrases. But it wasn't. It was written in 1787, and then ratified the following year. It was written plainly, and is a short document.

We knew, once, and it is time to remember again. Read the Constitution. Then read about it, and how it came to be. Teach your children. Discuss it with your friends. There might be a test.

The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.
--George Washington

Innocence Is No Defense

To a certain kind of evil, innocence only sweetens the pleasure of the crimes.

Being unarmed, untrained, unprepared for any sort of defense, means that the camp doctor gets to sort you to the right and your wife and children to the left and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Being unarmed, untrained, unprepared for any sort of defense, means that 4 or 5 religious fanatics can turn the aircraft you are riding in into a fuel filled missile.

Being unarmed, untrained, unprepared for any sort of defense, means that you and everyone you should have responsibility for protecting are at the mercy of every amoral threat that might notice you.

I learned this lesson in Junior High.

Be a sheepdog. There is no honor in being a victim, or watching helplessly while others are victimized.

When the world is at peace, a gentleman keeps his sword by his side.
--Wu Tsu

Bloody Sunday

From the Museum of Free Derry, for those of you who don't know the history of Bloody Sunday.

When the government has a monopoly on the weapons, they can murder unarmed protesters. When the government has a monopoly on the news, they can write the reports and create the history. It is always so, and is the biggest lesson of Bloody Sunday. It is a lesson that has been repeated over and over with depressing regularity throughout history.

The British government, to my surprise, has admitted that the Bloody Sunday killings of January 30th, 1972 were both both "unjustified and unjustifiable", and that the first reports exonerating the military were a whitewash.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
--Winston Churchill

Safety

Click image to enlarge.
Safety is important, all the time. I hope the surgeons were able to save his thumb and perhaps his first two fingers. There is no teacher like experience, but sometimes the price is hard to bear.

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
--Pearl Buck

Sometimes It's the Little Things

An addition to the blogroll. He has the following in his profile :

I'm a father. A husband. A son. A friend. A small L libertarian. A survivor. A gunnie. A hunter.

Then he has the New Hampshire motto under his title, the Four Rules on the sidebar, and that's before you get to reading his posts. As has been said before, "He's one of us!"

I have come to see that the internet and blogging creates a new kind of community, and moving with it, meeting new people and hearing their thoughts without ever physically shaking their hand, is still meeting them, in the same way that I might meet an author long dead in the words of the books he has left behind.

Aiki is not a technique to fight or defeat an enemy. It is the way to reconcile the world and make human beings one family.
--Morihei Ueshiba

Making Sense of Things

Congressman Bob Etheridge had just finished attending a fundraiser for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the time he was filmed assaulting a young man that had asked him a question. To his credit, he has apologized. If it was me he had assaulted, I would accept that apology, saying, "I understand, Congressman Etheridge, if I was locked into a job where I had to attend fundraisers for Nancy Pelosi, I'd be pretty irritable, too.

In other news, the noise made by the plastic horns called vuvuzelas that fans have been blowing at World Cup soccer football matches has been called the "most annoying sound in the world".

It's pretty annoying, but I don't watch soccer football, and if I did, I would watch it muted so it didn't disturb my nap on the sofa. I would put it #6 on today's annoying sounds list. The top 5? Thought you'd never ask.
#5: Joe Biden being interviewed.
#4: Harry Reid being interviewed.
#3: Barack Obama telling me for the 200th time how he's all over the oil spill.
#2: Keith Olbermann ranting about his leftist fantasies.
And the #1 most annoying sound of the day:
.

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
--Robert Service

An Answer to a Question from the Dojo

Sometimes we practice defending against an attack that starts with a wrist grab. The question that comes to mind quite often is, "Who would ever grab you like this?" The defenses are so varied and so simple, and you have given away everything to the defender. The answer to the question is, obviously, a U.S. Congressman.

I've watched this a couple of times, and I don't think the Congressman went berserk, although he clearly assaulted the young man in a technical sense. The Congressman did stop his aggressive behavior, but not because of any effective defense on the part of the victim. Even in Washington, D.C., if you are attacked, particularly with a wrist grab, there are options.

To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.
--Morihei Ueshiba

Hot Brass

JayG at Marooned has a reminder about muzzle control, hot brass, and new shooters.

Safety is something that happens between your ears, not something you hold in your hands.
--Jeff Cooper

Boldly Going Nowhere

It wasn't covered I didn't see it in the U.S. press, but the Times of London has an article about the backdoor means the Obama Administration is using to shut down the Constellation program. I don't know if we should be going, or if the current design and plans were the best choice. I do know we are an empire in decline.

May 1961 President Kennedy announces that he is setting the United States the goal of reaching the Moon by the end of the decade.

June 2010 President Obama follows up on plans to cancel additional funding of the program to return US astronauts to the Moon by 2020.

Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity.
--Neil Armstrong

Joint Light Tactical Vehicle

The Army Times is reporting that the Army and the Marine Corps will be fielding a new vehicle as a replacement for the Humvee. 60,000 of them. Three companies have prototypes and will be involved in testing at Aberdeen, Md. and Yuma, Az. The primary improvement will be survivability under attack. Click the link for the details.

As long as we have troops overseas, they can't build enough of these fast enough for me. I remember the pictures of troops welding scrap metal over their door panels to try to armor their own Humvees in the early years of the Long War. We have to do better than that.

The best armor is to keep out of range.
--Italian Proverb

Searching for News

The New York Times has a vaguely derogatory article about Sharron Angle, the Republican challenger to Harry Reid. Reading it, you would come away with the idea that she is too weird, too religious, too negative, perhaps even as the article says, "too conservative", to get elected in Nevada.

Here's a website everyone needs to bookmark:

http://www.dailyearth.com/index.html

It's a newspaper link site, with links to newspapers in every state and foreign country. Because if you rely on a newspaper in New York City for news about senate races in Nevada, you're not going to get all the news that's fit to print. I have used this, and other ways, of looking for local coverage of news stories for years. It may not always give you the whole story, but it will provide a different perspective than the major news sites.

So, back to Ms. Angle. In the Las Vegas Sun, there was an article outlining the coming Senate race and Harry Reid's strategy for victory. Here's a quote:

Political scientists and partisan strategists said Reid, whose approval ratings hover in the 30s in part because of the state’s record unemployment and foreclosure crisis, will make good on his promise to “vaporize” his opponent.

“He can’t boost his approval much so he has to drag her down,” Damore said. “He’s going to slash her and it’s going to be brutal.”

As Republican operative Steve Wark put it: “Harry Reid was planning on spending $10 million making Mother Teresa look like a Nye County whore. They were always about driving negatives, so that doesn’t change with Angle ... He’ll keep his mouth shut and fly napalm missions.”

It's interesting times, and it takes some effort to be informed, but the internet gives everyone the tools to find out what is going on. If you read it or hear about it, and want to know more, use the web. Political news, especially, lends itself to this sort of searching.

Personally, I hope Sharron Angle beats Harry Reid like a cheap drum.

Republicans agree with Harry Reid on one thing though, and that's his new campaign slogan -- 'No One Can Do More' -- because no one in Washington has done more to grow the size of the federal government, done more to skyrocket our national debt or done more to increase the tax burden on Nevada families than Harry Reid.
--Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee

Reloading

I like reloading. It's time consuming, but I feel like I have learned a lot. I try not to stray above the recommended loads in the manuals. I weigh loads, check each case to see that the powder level is right, inspect the fired cases for signs of overpressure, use a chronograph to compare my expected velocity to the actual, and other practices recommended to me by shooters that have been reloading a long time and still have 10 and 2 (fingers and eyes).

Apparently, I am not having all the possible fun. I like it. If you needed to start a fire or signal your location to a passing satellite, you'd be ready. Really good timing on the camera, too.

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.
--Mae West

Obsolete Pranks

Since blogging is like sitting on the porch telling stories, in response to Borepatch's story of days gone by, I have a couple of pranks we played when I worked for the Really Big Company and there was a team of electronics guys making the transition to computers. Here's what it was like, set to music.


We had finished up the days of 286s and moved onto 386 and 486 class machines, running DOS 5 and Windows 3.1, wonderful days, every computer faster than the one before, and the first networks being installed, linking machines to intranets and to a larger, still unknown future.

We had a fellow that thought highly of his skills, and would tell you so, with little or no prompting, making him a likely target of all sorts of frivolity. This being the days of autoexec.bat, config.sys, and win.ini, here were a couple of the better tricks.

In Windows 3.1, it was possible to make every option of every color in the frames and background black, then close all the desktop groups so the icons disappeared. On start up, a machine so configured would appear to cycle through DOS, Windows would start, and then the screen would go blank. Must a Windows problem. You could leave him to troubleshoot for hours, sure that he was just one startup away from figuring it out. The fix was to save a copy of win.ini somewhere, and put it back while still in DOS. Assuming he didn't hose the system while working on it, that would restore the colors and icons. Using this method and a couple of short batch files, you could convince him it was an intermittent problem.

Another favorite was to take a capture of the screen, make it the background, then move or delete all the icons. This one is still possible, although I would be kind and put the icons in a folder on the drive somewhere to facilitate restoring it later. This leave what looks like a dead system, every desktop icon unable to open.

But my favorite, done just after the first network connectivity was provided, with grave warnings about business use and system monitoring, was this. The same fellow was addicted to solitaire. Working the midnight shift, he would play whenever time permitted. I replaced sol.exe with sol.bat and changed the icon to point to the new file. Sol.bat popped up a flashing warning screen that said something like this:

Unauthorized gameplay has been detected on this computer. The IP address, time and date have recorded. Supervisory personnel will be notified to take appropriate disciplinary action.

I loaded the batch file and made the changes on the two computers he was most likely to use. It was wonderful. When we came in on the next shift, he was obviously nervous. We did the transition, took the tool cart, and as he was leaving, he said, "Hey, just a warning, don't do anything on the network computers, 'cause they're definitely watching."

We never told him.

Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment.
--Horace

The Southern Border

Here is a quote from the House Committee on Homeland Security - Interim Report.

During 2005, Border Patrol apprehended approximately 1.2 million illegal aliens; of those 165,000 were from countries other than Mexico.Of the non-Mexican aliens, approximately 650 were from special interest countries. Special interest countries are those “designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals that could bring harm to our country in the way of terrorism.”

So 650 people from terror exporting countries were apprehended crossing from Mexico in 2005, how many made it and were not arrested? Why didn't the previous administration seal the border? Why doesn't the current administration seal the border? Why is Arizona left to pass a law to allow them to do what the federal government should be doing? Who do we have to elect to find leadership that will see to the common defense?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
--Preamble to the Constitution

June 6, 1944

I wanted to say something about D-Day in Europe, but after I found this, I decided to just offer you the link.

The alternate history of June 6, 1944 is too terrible to contemplate.
--Donald Sensing

Garand Match

Our club hosts a local CMP sanctioned Garand match several times a year. The rules are fairly simple. You have to shoot one of the following weapons: M1903 Springfield, M1917 Enfield, M1 Garand, M1941 Johnson, or the M1 Carbine. The targets are normally shot at 200yds, but can be shot at 100yds with a reduced size target. The course of fire consists of the following:

Stage 1: 5 Sighting shots and 10 shots for record, prone position, slow fire, time limit 12 minutes.
Stage 2: 10 shots for record, standing to prone, rapid fire, time limit 70 seconds.
Stage 3: 10 shots for record, standing position, slow fire, time limit 10 minutes.

Sounds doable. For many shooters, the third stage is the heartbreaker. To do well, you have to consistently put your shots in a 5 inch circle, using a battle rifle firing surplus ammo, with iron sights. Slow fire prone shooting lends itself to this activity. A fair number of shooters can turn in scores above 90 (out of 100) on prone slow fire.

The rapid fire is tougher, and tougher still if you are using a bolt action rifle. The rules give you an extra 10 seconds, so the whole firing line gets 80 seconds to fire 10 shots. With a 1903A3, you load five rounds. When the line goes hot, you fire, work the bolt, reacquire the target, and fire again until the rifle is empty. Then you reload, and fire the second five. Eighty seconds. Same scoring as slow fire. As hard as this sounds, there are shooters whose rapid fire scores are higher than their slow.

Then the final stage. Standing. No slings, no supports. When you hold the rifle up, and sight in on the target, the front sight dances like Joe Cocker at Woodstock. You can't hold a rifle still, your heartbeat and muscles will not do it. All you can do is reduce the motion, and direct it. I let the front sight oscillate in a small figure eight over the target center, and try to fire when it's crossing the center. Sometimes that works. There are other techniques, but there is no perfect solution.

Turning in great scores on the first two stages often results in the disappointment of a couple of poor shots while standing, taking the promise of a personal best crashing into mediocrity.

I had fun yesterday.

Practice is the best of all instructors.
--Publilius Syrus

The Nature of Evil

I got asked today what I thought the difference between insanity, criminal activity, and evil was. It's an interesting question. Can you be evil, in some moral sense, and be sane? It delves into what the words mean, and they don't all mean exactly the same thing to each person. What we believe about the nature of the world, our particular religion, and the existence and nature of God also play into it.

There are shadings and overlap in my answer, and in the same way you can discuss how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, it is an interesting question to discuss. My real short answer is,

"Yes, you can be sane and evil. For some small number of people, they know what is right, and clearly, freely, choose to do monstrous evil.

For most people though, I think they commit evil acts, knowing that the acts are wrong, but justify the acts to themselves one way or another. Most people we would call criminals fall into this category.

Truly insane people, those with no ability to understand consequences or moral boundaries, are also a small number of people. What they do is not evil, it is more like the actions of a rabid dog."

When you are faced with a threat, though, the mental clarity, intentions, and beliefs of that threat matter not at all. If a dog is attacking your child, knowing if the dog is wild and hungry, trained to attack, or possibly rabid, is immaterial. All that matters is having the means and the will to stop the threat.

This is true for a society as well. Accurately understanding the threats posed and having the means and the will to respond to those threats is far more important than a philosophical discussion of the belief systems and morality behind those threats.

The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
--Albert Einstein

Blogroll Addition

This one was found via Breda's blogroll and recommended to me by a friend. The site is Blackfork. I wandered through dozens of archived posts, pictures of old rifles, deer, and writing about shooting in Texas. His addition to my blogroll is due to his choice of guns. 03-A3s, K-31s, Ar-15s. Rifles after my own heart, this is someone I would like to go to the range with. He shoots hi-power and vintage military rifle competition. As an example of his writing, I offer this post, from August of 2008, where he writes about the blood and violence at the National Matches at Camp Perry.

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
--Robert A. Heinlein

No One Really Knows

The dead are taken from us, and what they might wish will remain a mystery until we join them. What we do know is what the living dream about, remember, wish for. I went to a picnic on Monday. We ate too much, enjoyed each others company, took a walk across a plowed field, and then she and I drove home as the sun set.

It was another day to be alive, to be free, so spend it slowly with friends. Sitting here now, with a good dog sleeping at my feet, it is the end of another day. A gift I have that many did not.

Looking back on who I was when I was 25, if someone had told me I wasn't going to make it back it to the USA and wanted to know what I would miss, it would have been quite a list. You want to say the lofty things, and those would be true, but they wouldn't be all of it, because we were young men, and the truth is what it is.

I would have started with her, the young pretty woman I had married. To see her again, to lead her off behind closed doors. Hell, the old man I am now would like another day with that dark haired, blue eyed girl.

To see the child we had made, to watch him grow up, take him camping, teach him to change the oil in a car, shoot a rifle, see him become a man.

To go to a picnic, eat some barbequed meat, drink a beer, tell a joke or a story.

To go to the beach and watch the pretty, unknowable, beauties walk past in their bikinis. Then walk along, looking for shells, hand in hand with the one that I loved, as the sun settled and the breeze picked up.

To drive too fast, in a big V-8, the rumble of horsepower and the radio blasting out rock and roll as I press into it, the exhilaration making me grin as I hammer down the road.

To come home and see my parents, and have them be proud of the man I became and the things I had done for my country.

To get drunk and tell stories, laugh and cry about the way it turned out, what we did, who we lost, and how it all worked out.

This list goes on and on. It's edited for your civilian sensibilities. I got to come home and do those things. I was never shot at and never had to fire a shot in anger. I came home, and had the life I wished for, and have it still. I don't know if it's a life worth what was paid for it, but I think in many ways it is the very thing those boys would have wished for.

If the universe has any purpose more important then topping a woman you love and making a baby with her, I have never heard of it.
--Robert A. Heinlein