Faith and Confidence

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

I think this was Teddy Roosevelt...the Progressive bastard. But I find the quote inspirational.

As a local Liberty Movement "leader", I worry about making mistakes, about screwing up—about looking stupid and as clueless as I sometimes feel. But this makes me realize that sometimes mistakes are the result of "daring greatly" rather than just being a garden variety fuck up.

And that's an eye-opening, soul-healing, confidence-building, self-esteem generating, very big deal!

And I have to thank Bob W. who took the time to send it to me so I'd learn that very lesson.

The Gunslinger

The Rest of the NRA Greybeard Story...

Remember this post?

Well I found out the rest of the story...and it's a doozy!

K.R. is an attorney, and he has a client that is...er...filthy rich.

And this client is preparing his bequests, and wants to make sure his money goes to worthy Liberty causes. He's adamant. Some will go to Hillsdale College, the Heritage Foundation, the Mises Institute...you get the picture.

My friend, his attorney wondered if he'd like to designate the NRA as a recipient, and his client said no—because he feels they are a calcified, one-issue organization incapable of reaching out to other groups, even in the interests of freedom - and therefore inhibit rather than advance the cause.

When K.R. was surprised at the answer, the client challenged him to "Go try!" and make the case for coalition building at the NRA.

If you read the post linked above, you know what happened.

What the petrified NRA council members didn't know when they unceremoniously rejected my friend's criticisms and suggestions and asked him to leave their meeting—is that they were being tested to see if they deserved to recieve MILLIONS of dollars from the client.

And they rudely and promptly failed the test.

Someone else will be getting those millions instead of the NRA.

That's what happens when self-importance, personal ambition, small thinking, single-issue obsession, and an unwillingness to see the big picture takes over. Opportunities are lost...and in this case, so are fortunes.

I consider it a happy ending. For liberty if not for the NRA...

...because the client is still looking for a beneficiary for that money. He's seeking an activist - "the Saul Alinsky of the Liberty Community" - to give between 5 and 10 milion dollars to. If you know anybody like that, let me know and I'll pass it along.

The search is underway as I write this.

He will be subjected to intense scrutiny, so don't suggest your uncle Harry in Hoboken...unless he really is a budding Liberty Community Organizing star; a serious, committed, effective activist for freedom, who just needs a little CASH to make it happen.

When's the last time you participated in a search for someone to give $10 million to?

It's a first for me.

The Gunslinger

Sad Saga of the NRA Greybeards

My friend, K.R. Mudgeon, had a ridiculous experience the other night at an NRA meeting—in California—a state in which that organization has been spectacularly unsuccessful.

He tried to point out, at a sparsely attended meeting of the Membership Council, that perhaps their single-issue strategy, and total lack of coalition building with other members of what I call the "Liberty Community" was part of the problem.

He attempted to suggest that common cause with a broader base of Liberty Activists—like the growing Tea Party and 9.12 movement—would increase NRA's effectiveness and their chances of success where up to now they have engaged in the rather pathetic defensive strategy of losing gun rights slightly more slowly than the Leftist gun-grabbers would prefer....but losing them just the same. The recent passage of the Ammo Tracking bill, AB962, signed into law on October 11, demonstrates that admirably.

The upshot is that he was told to shut up and go away. Literally.

Now, he admits that he wasn't as circumspect or delicate as he might have been, but that looking at a very large meeting room with less that two dozen atttendees—most older than Moses— he thought they might be open to a suggestion or two about their current, and obviously ineffective strategy.

They were not. I was surprised, indeed, rather shocked when he described their high dudgeon at his temerity in daring to suggest that there may be another, better way to defend gun rights that might actually include people who don't own a gun, are not members of the NRA, and don't pee on themselves at the opportunity to shoot a fully automatic weapon on Easter Sunday.

We had both imagined that the gun community was a natural constituency of the growing Liberty Community. But it seems the Leadership, at least, is unwilling to see the bigger picture.

Of course this doesn't mean that individual NRA members and gunnies won't join our efforts, but it means the instant communication, the established networks of information flow within the official "gun community" are closed to us because of the stubborn tunnel vision of its leaders.

Of course there are younger groups that might be amenable...but at least one veteran of the movement made this observation...

". . . gun people are just gun people, they are not freedom people. They don't really believe in rights, they believe in guns. Like any other single-issue organization, it's not that the larger picture has succumbed to tunnel vision over the course of time. Tunnel vision was the goal from the outset."

Clearly it's not true of all of us. But it's disappointing to realize that it's true of any of us. And while one can understand that in the mists of the past this might have made sense, we are now at a point in our history where this sort of limited vision is dangerous, self-defeating and frankly, stupid.

Of course, that just motivates us New Rebels to further effort. But it's too bad we have to spend the energy and time on people who should be our natural allies—against an organized coalition of enemies that has us ALL in their sights RIGHT NOW!

The Gunslinger