Conversation about rights.

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I was having a conversation at work the other day with someone that I consider a friend. We were talking about personal security and why I carry a gun openly, and he was trying to make me feel bad about scaring people (the little old lady in line behind me at the store, etc.) He asked me how many times I have had to use it since I started carrying. When I said never, he asked me what the chances of needing it were in civilized society.
And then he walked away to get his coffee. The conversation and his attitude upset me enough to write the following email:

From: Roote, Mark
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 10:38 AM
To:
Subject: this is civilized society?

Statistic for places that I go regularly enough to be concerned about:
Berwick crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 9 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Clarks Summit crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 2 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Dallas Township crime statistics report an overall downward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime decreasing and property crime increasing.
Dalton crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 2 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Duryea crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 2 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Forty Fort crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Hanover crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 11 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Harrisburg crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 10 years with violent crime increasing and property crime decreasing.
Harveys Lake crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 2 years with violent crime decreasing and property crime increasing.
Hazleton crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 7 years with violent crime increasing and property crime decreasing.
Jermyn crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 4 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Kingston Township crime statistics report an overall downward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime increasing and property crime decreasing.
Larksville crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 3 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Meshoppen crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 2 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Moosic crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime decreasing and property crime increasing.
West Pittston crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.
Wilkes-Barre Township crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 5 years with violent crime decreasing and property crime increasing.
Wyoming crime statistics report an overall downward trend in crime based on data from 4 years with violent crime decreasing and property crime increasing.
Scranton crime statistics report an overall upward trend in crime based on data from 9 years with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing.

OK, so those are statistics, you can see that there is an upward trend in smaller towns near us. I also know I left several out, but if they showed an overall downward trend with violent crimes and property crimes both decreasing I left them out (and I’m sure there are some that I didn’t even look at).
Here are a couple of stories from recent new around us:
Edwardsville shooting victims ID’d – so there was a shooting Wednesday night in Edwardsville.
Man charged in attack of woman – Wilkes-Barre
Man charged with shooting at cop
Prosecutor: Police, firefighter abused Pa. teen
Old Forge police chief arrested (on charges he had sex with a 15-year-old girl)

From the Times Leader’s Police Blotter:
- Victoria Lopez reported someone kicked in a door to her apartment in Hanover Village and stole items. The burglary occurred sometime in the last three weeks.
- Police are investigating a robbery of an 82-year-old woman whose purse was stolen from her on Mine Street at about 3:35 p.m. Tuesday. A dark-skinned male, about 5 feet, 6 inches tall wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, grabbed the purse from the woman, who fought her attacker. She suffered an injury to her arm, police said.
- Police are investigating an armed robbery at the Turkey Hill on Alter Street at 3:53 a.m. Wednesday. A white male, 5 feet, 8 inches tall and about 200 pounds, wearing a black knit hat, black pants and a long sleeve shirt, got away with an undetermined amount of cash. The suspect brandished a handgun, police said.

And here’s a good place to keep an eye on violent mobs, but here are some reports from within PA this year:
59 year old man robbed by 8 males, one w/ handgun (Harrisburg, PA – 4/21/12)
Man walking home from work attacked by six kids aged 11-14 (Pittsburgh, PA – 2/24/12)
College student in Center City assaulted as taxi cab attacked while stopped at red light (Philadelphia, PA – 1/28/12)

And don’t forget the kid that was attacked by someone with a machete while he was walking away from school (GAR) back in February.

So, after all of that, you’re going to tell me that statistically I shouldn’t worry about my safety? I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with you. It is my responsibility to protect myself and my family (multiple supreme courts have ruled that the police have no legal duty to protect… not to mention that they are almost never around when they are needed… “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away”). If you are comfortable playing the odds, go for it. I am not comfortable with that. I am fully aware that bad things happen unexpectedly and there is evil in the world. My gun is part of my insurance plan. This insurance plan has multiple parts to it, including avoiding places that I think are dangerous if at all possible.
The fact that anyone, whether it be you or some little old lady in line behind me at the checkout, is afraid of me simply for carrying an inanimate object, it’s not my problem. Humans are born with the right (and responsibility) of self defense. If you choose not to exercise that right it’s your prerogative and I won’t hold it against you. You have no authority to restrict my rights to self defense, period. I don’t care whether it makes you uncomfortable or not. Seeing two gay guys go at it makes me uncomfortable, and a lot of things that the media says (when they can be proven as lies) makes me uncomfortable, but I’m not trying to restrict their rights to free choice or speech.
The next time you think about restricting my rights, any of them, not just my right to bear arms, replace the right you want to restrict from me with the right to free speech and see how reasonable it sounds. In addition to my firearms being protected by the 2A, my right to free expression is being threatened. My openly carried sidearm is a warning, would you be more comfortable with me wearing/carrying a sign that says “I have a gun and I know how to use it”? I think that would cause more fear than actually openly carrying, but in the end, I DON’T CARE if it instills fear in “innocent” people… and I have no obligation to care. I am armed to protect myself and others that I see that need help, if anyone doesn’t like it they can tell me about it, but I have no obligation to give anyone a “warm and fuzzy” feeling. The world is a hard place. Either a person recognizes that and does everything they can to prepare for it or they don’t. I choose to prepare.
Also, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” ~Thomas Jefferson. Roughly, that boils down to: You have the right to Freedom OF Religion, not freedom FROM religion. This same rule applies to absolutely every other human right. You have freedom OF, not freedom FROM.

Sorry for the long email, but this is a very touchy subject for me on so many levels. No matter how civilized we think we are, there is only a very thin veneer of civilization between life as we know it and total breakdown of society (AKA, after Katrina life in the Superdome).
It is my responsibility to protect myself and my family, and I take my responsibilities VERY seriously.

PS. This is civilized China – Customs officials intercept 17,000 pills filled with powdered baby flesh from China. There is evil in the world. That may not be happening here, yet, but there are discussions from the intelligencia about the propriety of post-birth abortion. Post-birth abortion is another phrase for murdering an infant because it may be ill (or even just unwanted). And yet we live in a civilized society?

Mark Roote

Take Action

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I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I was never a good writer and I don’t think most things that happen to me are of any import. I’m going to try to talk a little bit more, but I make no promises. Here’s a quick update of what’s been happening: Designing/building my raised bed gardens, starting a rebuild project on a 1982 Honda Goldwing, rebuilding the automatic transmission in my truck, reloading ammo (still fairly new to it and trying to “perfect” my loads, 1 load for the .308, 2 for the .243, & 1 for the .223, plus a load for my .40 so I can better afford to practice with what I carry… jacketed hollow-points are expensive) and teaching my 9 year old step-daughter how to shoot (plus trying to give my wife some pointers). Add to all of that a full time job and the fact that I have an 11 month old son and there’s not much time left in the day. So, again, I know I haven’t been posting much, but I’m not all that interesting. When I think I have something to say, I’ll say it.

So, in that vein, here we go:
Courtesy of David (I hadn’t checked my email yet) I was directed to the latest Action requested by the GOA: Reid to Push Gun-Grabbing Judge for Nevada.

It’s not hard to do this simple little thing, so I did:
Elissa Cadish

But, I don’t think they went far enough, so I added a little bit to the editable portion of the text. Look at the last paragraph, that’s all I added:
Elissa Cadish

Foreign Policy

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I keep wanting to comment to other peoples threads about foreign policy but life keeps interrupting, so I figured I’d put my thoughts here. In particular, I keep reading AP’s rantings on the relationship between US and Israel, and originally I was upset by his words. Not that I really disagreed with him, it just sounded so… harsh. Over time he’s kept repeating and ranting about it, and I keep finding that I agree more and more with him.
It *sounds* like he could be an anti-semite, but if you actually read his words and don’t read anything extra into them, I don’t believe that he is anti Israel. I believe that he simply wants the US to get out of that discussion and let Israel handle its business. This leads me to my own view on foreign policy. I agree that we should not be in Israel’s business either. Or any other nations for that matter.
Mankind is brutal, but if a nation exists, no matter whether it fought to conquer its lands or it was granted lands from the people that conquered them (didn’t the British conquer that land then give it up for the creation of the Jewish state?), then that nation has every right to exist… until someone with the power to do so conquers them. That nation also has every right to pre-emptively strike at whomever threatens them if they think it is necessary. Here’s where you may think it gets sticky… but it really doesn’t. If Israel thinks that Iran wants to wipe them off the face of the planet, Israel has the right to do what it thinks is necessary to remain in existence. But the other side of that coin is that if Iran thinks that Israel is going to nuke them back to the stone age, then Iran has every right to do what it thinks is necessary to stop Israel. Notice that the US is in neither of these scenarios in this writing. That’s for a reason, the US shouldn’t be in either of them. We shouldn’t be giving aid/money/weapons to either of these two nations (or anyone else). If they want our weapons and we think that it is not outside of our national interests, we can sell our weapons to these nations. This is a hard decision to make, but I would probably not sell weapons to either Israel or Iran any time soon. Israel has been using us for too long and Iran currently does not like us. Iran has performed “exercises” that can logically be followed through to Iran preparing for war against us: they have missiles capable of carrying a nuke, they have launched these weapons and then detonated them at their apex (perfect elevation for an EMP, btw), they have launched these missiles from ocean freighters, they have run similar freighters within our waters to test our response time (they have not fired from there that I know of)… all of these things can point to preparations for war against us. So, in the Iran/Israel brouhaha, we just need to back the heck out of it.
As for my foreign policy with the rest of the world… It’s essentially identical to what’s listed above. I believe that we should pull all of our troops home from everywhere else in the world and let the locals handle their business. If North Korea wants to invade and conquer South Korea, so be it. If South Korea has the money, we can sell them weapons to defend themselves. If South Korea wants our help, they must submit to our rule completely. I do not mean that they should become the 51st state, but they would become one of our territories. The same goes for any other nation that we currently have bases in and any other nation that wants our assistance. If our troops are to remain overseas, then those lands become US soil.
I struggled with this one, but my other option of letting South Korea (or Germany, or Japan, etc) simply pay all expenses required to keep our troops there, to include our troops salaries, would mean that we were now just providing a global mercenary force. I don’t really like the thought of that, so, if a foreign nation begs us to come to their aid then they must become our property.
The idea of “Force Projection” is no longer valid in my opinion. When I was in the 82D I heard rumors that there was an exercise to deploy a brigade exactly half-way around the world. The story goes that the alert went off and the units packed up and boarded the planes. They dropped onto a DZ somewhere in Russia in less than 18 hours. I have never verified this because at the time I did not expect the people that told me to be lying (and I still don’t think they were), and I also believe that it could be done. 18 hours may be pushing a little bit, but we can deploy at least a few brigades damn near anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. I don’t believe we need to keep our troops elsewhere any longer (is South Korea really vital to our nations security?)
As to what we should do with all of these troops once we get them stateside… build more military bases along our borders and let our troops patrol our borders. I believe they would be much more effective at providing for the national security if they were, you know, providing for our national security by keeping trespassers out.

I realize that we cannot be commercially isolationist as there are, indeed, some things that we simply don’t have under our soil, but I believe that we should be militarily isolationist. If a bully starts picking on my child, I’m not going to move into the bully’s house. I’m going to teach my child how to kick the bully’s ass (and no, Israel is not our child)

That’s my opinion on foreign policy in a nutshell (although I may be a pretty big nut)

Calling Cards?

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I was reading this post from AP this morning, and I was going to post this in his comments but I decided to keep it separate:

I’ve been thinking lately that we need to have “calling cards” that we all can agree on so that “they” know that whatever just happened wasn’t random. I’m thinking a simple phrase or word and/or image that can be printed on business card stock out of any printer on the planet and left where it will be found.
I’m not talking about killing anyone, but the other acts of resistance… vandalism or whatever.
Say someone were to cut the valve stems off of all of the squad car tires outside the donut shop, then they leave one of these cards under the wiper blade or something.

Do we want to use the “Resist” Image of the III?
III Resist

I’m thinking of this because I want to start warning “them” that the lines have been drawn and they have been crossed. But I also don’t want them to think it’s just a random thing by some high school punks trying to make their friends think they’re cool. I want them to know that they were specifically targeted for their role in the growing tyranny. The main reason that I believe they should be standardized calling cards for everyone is so that they won’t point to any one person.

Indeed, I want them to wonder how much we will tolerate before they have to start worrying, “when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?”

What do you think their meetings will be like when someone stands up and admits that his tires were deflated, or somebody stuck a III sticker on his cruiser window while he was supposed to be paying attention? Simple vandalism is one of the greatest tools of psyops, in my unprofessional (and uneducated in these things) opinion. For example, when I was in AIT and my battle buddy and I were on a 4 hour pass we stumbled across a toy store and picked up several bags of those little green army men. We wrote the countdown (to graduation) on the bottom and made a game out of sneaking them into the CQ sign in and placing them where they couldn’t be missed, but not getting caught. We had to recruit a couple friends to help us do this, but it drove the Drill Sergeants nuts. They couldn’t catch us. They raided the barracks, but we were warned because one of us overheard them talking about it. That night, we made sure that everyone had one on their boots (even the females got them, we recruited some of them too) when the raid happened so they couldn’t isolate anyone for having one in their possession. Again, it drove them absolutely crazy. They began to literally stand there watching everyone sign in for duty and watching every move we made while in the room… we still managed to leave them right under their noses without getting caught. They spent more time trying to catch us than they did watching tv when they were on night duty. We made it 48 days (to graduation) and were never caught. At the end, we presented Senior Drill with a plaque that identified everyone involved. I know for a fact this drove them all nuts because years later at JRTC I ran into one of my former Drill Sergeants and we talked about it. He admitted that they were all desperately trying to figure it out because they were all going nuts over it (he also admitted that it did make the trail more enjoyable for them all after it was over).

Anyway, we need to get in their heads everywhere. Let us start to actively resist. Force them to step it up (or, God willing, step it back). Keep harassing them, but make sure they know they are being harassed.

Any thoughts about that?

Regarding my vote

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OK, I don’t know how many people out there are like me, but I have to vote. It’s just one of those things. I’ve wrestled with it recently, but I still have to do it. I can’t explain it, it’s not logical, it’s just something that I feel I have to do even though I know that it will not have any effect on the future of this once great nation. Maybe one of these years I’ll get over it, but I don’t think it will be this year.
I wrestled with voting for Obama to hurry the coming struggles and get it over with while it’s still on my watch rather than my infant sons, but I can’t vote for him. In fact, I can’t vote for any politician as none of them believe in Liberty, they all believe in big government.
So, I’ve made my decision. I will still vote, but I will vote for myself as a write in candidate. Not just for president, but I will write in my own name for every position that allows me to and all others will be skipped. This will satisfy my silly need to exercise my duty as an American to vote, but it will be casting a vote for the only person on this planet that has the right to govern me.
And then, immediately after I finish voting, I will go and do part two of my duty as an American; I will participate in Buy A Gun Day 2012.

From my email

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This was forwarded to me by a pretty good friend, but he’s a Democrat and has a few positions I strongly disagree with. I’m really not sure of his opinion on this item yet, but I’m sure I will after he gets my response. Hopefully we are still friends afterwards.

Subject: FW: Big money buying congress

Attached is an interesting article.

Hope that all is well with each of you, have a great day!

Subject: Big money buying congress

Hi,

Things do not seem to be improving, in my opinion.

I do hope you are hanging in there and persevering in the face of what looks like a
very rocky road.

Hope you and yours are doing well.

href=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/money-throws-democracy-ov_b_1276769.html?ref=yahoo&ir=Yahoo

So, I had to respond:

OK, I’ve read it. I have some issues with it. I will ignore the fact that this is the Huffington Post, an avowed left-wing organization, and try to keep my comments relevant to the article itself.

While I will admit that big money buys elected officials, the author leaves out and/or completely disregards a couple of things. The biggest thing he completely ignores is that the People do not have to elect anyone based on the “air time” they get or the donations (payoffs?) they receive. If you (generic you) vote for someone because you saw a lot of their commercials, you’re an idiot and part of the problem our country is in. If someone has a lot of commercials, it means they got a lot of donations (or they are already filthy rich). In a “perfect” world, it wouldn’t matter if someone donated $15 billion to a candidate that wanted to legalize murder and theft, an educated voting bloc wouldn’t vote for that criminal. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world, nor even really a close approximation to the nation our founders envisioned. People these days vote for someone because he’s a good speaker and promises to give them more free stuff and they don’t care that he has a history of pushing for communist policies (and while Obama is included here, Bush, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Clinton & damn near every politician running is in that list as well). The People have become complacent and ignorant. That has nothing to do with how much money a candidate receives. Also, in order to actually buy an election, these donors would have to pay off all of the voters, not the candidates.

Another thing he leaves out is why eliminating a super pac would make anything different. OK, so you make it illegal for any one entity to donate large sums of money to a candidate. Does anyone really think these “evil” wealthy people won’t find a way to get the money to their candidates? Really? Criminals are criminal because they ignore the law, they WILL find a way around it… kinda how “gun control” works, the law-abiding follow the “law” and the criminals still have guns (and now they have an advantage because the “good” people gave up their personal protection to comply with the law).

Another issue I have is that it appears that the author agrees with the “99%” by making a comment about the wealthy 1%. This means that he sides with the “Occupy Wall Street” protest movement. The “peaceful” occupy movement that is rioting, attacking cops, defecating in public, taunting and assaulting children on their way to school, providing “internal” security (to cover up the fact that rape and violence is rampant in their camps) and generally being a giant drain on society by damaging everything they touch. They are preventing small businesses from actually conducting business and making money (they are keeping the customers away because the customers don’t want to go anywhere near these people). Another thing these “99%” are trying to hide is that they’re not just unhappy about the “ultra-rich”, they don’t like anyone that earns more than the poverty limit. There is no such thing as the 99%. There is the 53% that pays taxes and the 47% that collects money from the government. Those last 2 numbers may be off by a couple percentage points, but not enough to make any real difference. These people claim to want everyone to pay “their fair share”, but they ignore the fact that the wealthiest 5% in America pay something like 90% of the taxes in this country. They claim to want a “fair share”, but they advocate for a progressive tax rather than a flat tax. By definition this isn’t “fair” since the more you earn the higher a percentage of your income you have to give away. I’m sorry, but anyone that sides with the Occupy movement or the 99% needs to have their voting privileges revoked (and that’s the nicest thing I can think to do to them).

And finally, one of the biggest issues I have, WE ARE NOT A DEMOCRACY! This author claims the we are in the title and again in the body. We are NOT. We were founded as a REPUBLIC. We the People have not been holding Washington accountable for the crimes they have committed, which has led to all of the problems our Nation is in. Welfare? Social Security? Universal Healthcare? The list goes on and on. All of these things were approved by the “democratic majority” and all of them violate the individual rights that our Republic was intended to protect, which has led to the entitlement mentality which has led to a greater “democracy”. This is a vicious cycle. The more the government steals from the actual working class to give to the parasites of the welfare class and the “big money” that funds the politicians, the more demand there is for free stuff. We need to stop this cycle before it’s too late… Although there is a growing minority that believes it is already too late and is preparing for the end of the United States as we know it.

This article probably does not deserve this kind of response, but I am tired of reading things like this and not trying to at least convey why I think it is wrong. Also, this little rant is not directed at anyone in particular, it’s just that some things piss me off these days, and this is one of them. The author got a cut on his cheek and is worried about how the scar is going to look in the mirror, but he’s ignoring the fact that his leg was severed. His cheek won’t matter in a very short time.

Mark Roote

And people ask why I’m always armed…

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I live not far from Wilkes-Barre (less than 30 minutes). My sister and mother live in W-B suburbs, as do a LOT of my relatives. We go to the movies in downtown W-B (closest theater to my house).
People also ask why anyone should be allowed to carry guns or other weapons on school property:
GAR student’s hand nearly severed in machete attack

It’s fine, I’m sure the victim and the 30 plus witnesses had time to go home and get their personal protection before this attack happened, they just chose to hang around the school instead. Oh, wait, the attack happened as the students were walking away from the school immediately after dismissal… and they were still well within the “no guns” school victim disarmament zone. And the police were able to respond quickly enough to catch the ‘suspect’ (why is he called a suspect with that many witnesses?) OK, the city police didn’t get there on time, but surely the uniformed police officers employed by the school and on the property were able to capture the attacker. No, wait, I’m sorry… as of 13:32 when I’m writing this, the suspect has still not been caught (or even identified as far as I know).

So, either the attack was totally random or the 30+ witnesses, including the victim, are so terrified of the attacker and possibly his gang that they are pretending to have no idea who did it. Either way is bad for ‘public safety’, but if gang members want to kill each other with machetes instead of guns I’m fine with it (less collateral damage with a machete).

Oh yeah, it appears this isn’t the first time either, from June 8, 2011:
W-B Police Arrest Man for Machete Attack

But don’t worry, the police will be there to protect you from any harm those damn paramedics would want to cause you when they put you into the ambulance. There’s absolutely no reason you need to carry a gun, especially in or near a school, you silly psycho.

Is it just me?

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Racism is a rather difficult subject for me to bring up. I am not racist, but I am a white guy. The cliche that some of my best friends are black is true in my case. My step-daughter is mixed and I love her just the same. Now, having said all that, what the hell has our nation become?
As I have stated before, I am a disabled vet. As such, I regularly need to be seen at the VA hospital. The closest VA with adequate facilities/specialists for my specific injuries is the Manhattan VA. My last appointment was on Thursday the 26th, and the racism in that place is getting terrible. I first started going there back in early 2009, and from the start I felt a tinge of it. Each time I’ve been there, it felt a little bit worse. I thought I might be imagining it, but this time it was undeniable… or I’m really just that paranoid?
Anyway, I get to the specialists check in desk and there are two people sitting there (both black). The male is checking someone in and the female is just sitting there. She looks at me as I start towards her and points to the guy. OK. So as I’m standing there waiting for the guy I’m watching her and she’s doing nothing. Nothing on the computer. No patients. Nothing. Then some black guy walks in and gets in line behind me and she calls him over to check him in. Strike 1 this time (this is the same woman that has been giving me attitude for 3 years, but I’ve been ignoring it).
So, I finally get checked in and the nurses do the preliminary stuff (vitals, etc), no hints of racism from them (of course they were all asian, the only people displaying racism were black). I get called back to see the specialist, we talk about what’s going on, he sends me for some x-rays. I get to the desk there to check in and get checked in. While I’m sitting there waiting, a black guy comes out of the back (he’s one of the techs). The woman that checked me in says “he’s here for you” and they both look at me, he says something to her that I didn’t hear, they both laugh and he goes in the back. 10 minutes later he comes out again and calls one of the black patients that got checked in after me (he was not an emergent case). The same tech comes out several minutes later and gets the other black guy that checked in after me. Finally, after I’d been sitting there for 25 minutes or so another tech comes out and gets me (this guy was Italian). The x-rays I needed took all of 5 minutes, but the black tech was apparently too busy for me.
So, I get done with that, go back down to the specialist and finish my exam and treatment (I finally got the shot I was supposed to get last year, that wasn’t racism, that was standard VA bureaucracy). The Dr. tells me to come back in 3 months to see if it worked, so I go to check out. The black woman ignores me again so I go to the guy. Wait for him to finish with the patient in front of me and then hand him the paper. He looks at it, says “3 months, you’ll get a letter” and drops the paper. OK, fine, that was kinda rude and I’ve never been given a follow-up appointment like that, but whatever.
So I go down to get my travel voucher. After waiting for the people in front of me to finish I get to the window. There’s nobody in line behind me. The 3 black people in the room ignore me while talking about personal shit for about 5 minutes. Finally, the one furthest from the window looks at me and asks what I’m there for. I say I need a voucher and he says that the cashier is closed at 3:30. I said that I see the sign, but you’re supposed to do the voucher the day of your appointment, and since it’s over 150 miles for me to get here, I’m not leaving without it. He puts me in the computer and says, “oh, yeah, you qualify”. It took everything in me not to snap at him. I’ve been through this shit before, but after being ignored for hours by the people that are supposed to speed the process up, I’m kinda pissed off by this point. So, he fills it out and says I’ll receive a check in about two weeks.

I’m trying to figure out how to file a formal complaint.

I realize that racism against blacks does happen. I realize that slavery was a huge problem in this country. I also know that I am not racist and have never been a slave owner. My parents and grandparents never owned slaves. This shit pisses me off.

Now, after I’ve said all that, do you think that race isn’t going to play a part in the upcoming activities? I may not be racist, but when the opponent is, does it make any difference?

The Bottom Line

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via CA, I was sent to The Bottom Line by Ontoliberty. At the end, he sums it up with

YOU are harassing us.YOU have overstepped your delegated authority.YOU have violated your oath.YOU are trying to provoke a response.YOU are the real criminal.

“I was just following orders” has never been an acceptable defense.

You,individually,have a decision to make:

Treat us with respect,and we will respect you.
Behave honorably,and we will honor you.
Do the right thing,and we’ll do right by you.

Don’t,and we won’t.

The decision is yours alone.

OH HELL YES!!

That’s about all it comes down to, isn’t it? Especially this part: “You,individually,have a decision to make”

It’s not just the wannabe tyrants that have a decision to make. Each of us must make our decision.

Improving Yourself

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Since I’m not a great orator, nor am I any kind of motivational speaker, I started this blog just to post my own thoughts, opinions and actions (depending on what the action may or may not be). So, along those lines, CA, AP and JM have all been harping on personal improvement for quite some time (at least as long as I’ve been reading any of them). There are some things from each of them that strike me. One of them is this photo:

Suffer

While I wasn’t quite that big, I am considered obese by most standards (including my own). I’ve got two bad knees, a bad back, a bad shoulder and neck pain. Each of these things have contributed to my excuses for not exercising (and not paying attention to what I was putting into my body didn’t help either). I have tried to lose weight in the past, sometimes temporarily successful, but it’s never been permanent because I wasn’t quite as aware of what’s going on in the world. Leaving out what’s happening in the world, being overweight is definitely NOT good for bad knees and backs. My fat hurts me. It doesn’t just make me slower, it actually, physically hurts me. So, several months ago I decided that I needed to lose weight again, but this time I need to actually keep it off. Phase one was just changing my diet. To assist me with this, I found a free app for my phone that merely allows you to put in a starting weight, a goal weight and how much you’d like to lose per week (along with height, age, etc) and it’ll calculate how many calories you should eat to lose weight at the appropriate speed. I’m not going to name it because there are a lot of free apps out there that will do this. I’ve been doing this for about 4 months now and I have lost about 26 pounds. It’s a good start, but I’ve hit a plateau. I have remained right around my current weight for coming on two weeks. It is time for me to add exercise to my “diet”. Because of my injuries, I can’t run at my current weight, it’s too much impact on my knees. I have an elliptical in the house, but I hate that. A) it’s boring and B) I can’t stretch out and run at a truly comfortable pace. When I was in the army, I was running just over a 6 minute mile. For someone that’s just over 5’4″ tall, that’s moving and it requires being able to stretch my legs. So, I have started the search for a bicycle. I haven’t found the one I will buy yet, but I’ve started the research. I’ve talked to friends that ride competitively and been to a bike shop to get pointers. I’ve narrowed my search down to what’s called a ‘hybrid’, now I’m trying to find a good deal (money is always a factor).
OK, so I’m working on the physical. While I am always working on the mental, I believe I am prepared to do what I must. Only a true test will determine whether I am actually ready for that. The final phase of getting ready is equipment. While my weekends activities were planned before this post by ND, this quote about sums it up:

Combat mind-set implies on open-minded readiness to adapt to any effective method or skill that will increase your lethality on the battlefield. Unwavering conviction in your ability demands a “software-centric” approach to training and preparation. Even within the “dedicated, cold-dead hands three percent,” there are masses of gnu-owners who purchase a firearm at their local sporting goods store or gun shop, along with a box or two of ammunition, based on the advice of the inexperienced, minimum-wage clerk (or strangers on the internet forums…). Then, the firearm and ammunition gets tossed in a closet or drawer and is promptly forgotten. These people place absolute faith in the weapon, expecting it to solve their potential future problems. The firearm becomes a sort of magical talisman in their mind. This “hardware-centric” approach is the route of amateurs, the path to hell-fire and damnation.

So, in that vein, I attended my first Appleseed shoot. Prior to this weekend I considered myself an adequate shot. Saturday showed me that while I may not be “too bad”, I’m not that great either. I had a few problems. I took a S&W M&P-15 with a CMMG .22 LR AR Conversion Kit and a box of Remington “Golden Bullets” that the guy who sold me the kit recommended. The first problem was the ammo. That Rem stuff was getting a misfire about 1 out of every 10 rounds. I have some with multiple hammer strikes that didn’t go off. So, one of the cadre gave me a box of Federal ammo to use, that problem was fixed. The next problem was zeroing. I could not get my AR zeroed with the .22′s. I finally gave up trying to zero so the other two shooters (and me) could move on. None of us were able to qualify on Saturday. One of the cadre went home and did a little searching and found out that the conversions practically never get better than 6 MOA accuracy. That is terrible, and nowhere near good enough to qualify at an Appleseed.
So, Sunday rolls around and he tells me about this at breakfast. After much cussing and complaining about wasted money, I decided to try to zero/qualify with my AR in its original configuration (expense is the reason I did not do this previously). So, I got zeroed fairly quickly and we went to shooting for quals. I was unable to qual with my AR. I was zeroed fine, but my bad shoulder was not liking the weather (never got above freezing) and by the time I got to phase 4 I could no longer hold steady. I was going to call it a day at lunch, but one of the cadre offered to let me use his 10/22 to try. So, a quick zero and no adjustments later, we started shooting for quals again. It took me a couple tries with an almost qual first (I miscounted on phase 4 and put an extra hole in the first target which cost me 10 points):
Almost - 204

The next round was going to be my last, no matter what, so they asked me if I wanted to do “Rapid Fire” and I did. I got qualified in 3 minutes (out of 4 available) with a 212. Got my picture and my patch:
Got it - 212

After that one we did one final run with the “Redcoats” and I cleared that one:

I am very grateful that Gary let me use his firearm. I had a great time, but even more I learned a lot which helped me become a better shooter, now it is up to me to practice. I will definitely be returning to more Appleseeds, and I’ll be taking my wife next time (she’s already signed up for March).

So, yeah, we need to learn and train, what are you doing to improve?