I don’t know about you but if the same thing happened in my home and the “burglar” was to continue into the home, he would be confronting an armed American family. I have three children (well the third will be here within the next few days, it’s going to be a girl :-}) as well as my wife and myself. My two oldest teenage children have both been taught gun safety and handling, and have been shooting since they were four and five, respectively. They started with a lever action BB gun, then a .22 rifle and then moved up from there; just as I was raised.

   They have been taught what to do (since the age of four or five) as to what action to take in cases where a “friend” was playing with a parents gun, what to do if a shooting were to occur while they were playing outside, or if they believed that another child had a gun in his or her possession. They have also been trained in unarmed defensive tactics, which for years they only thought was “wrestling with Daddy.”

   Foremost in that training was the concept of understanding consequences for their actions and the importance of taking responsibility for those actions. They have been taught the difference between right and wrong, to respect others and the property of others, and the importance of doing their best. They have also been taught to speak their minds and to stand up for their beliefs.    

   I am aware that many in our society today would gasp in horror at such advice and “training” for children so young. That’s fine with me, they can raise their clueless children to be as ignorant to the dangers of life as they are; but to ignore the reality of life is the true crime so far as I am concerned. I have no such illusions. I have seen first hand how quickly life can be taken by accident as well as intentionally. I have no illusions about the mindset of criminals the world over.

   Not convinced? Look at what is happening to that very peaceful religion of the Tibetan Monks. They truly believe if faced with violence that you should just respond with love. What has that achieved? They are now the minority within their own country! The Dali Lama continues insisting on only peaceful efforts to defend themselves. Meanwhile hundreds of monks in Tibet have ended up dead in roadside ditches and swamps. If a person has come to kill you and you insist on greeting him with only love you ensure the killers happiness at being able to achieve his intentions without fear of harm or apprehension to themselves. If a pack of wolves attacks a flock of sheep and all the sheep do is roll onto their backs and submit does anyone truly believe the wolves will abort their attack?  

   I have attended the autopsies and crime scenes of men, women, and children, many of whose lives were ended by the homicidal intentions of another. Sometimes the killer was a family member and sometimes they took their own life. I firmly believe in maintaining a level of “situational alertness” to whom and what is going on around me. I believe that the commonality shared by both the good guys and the bad is their use of violence as a tool. Violence should always be a last resort (at least for the good guys) but unfortunately violence is a reality of the world we live in, not just within humanity but among just about every living organism in the highly vaunted “greens” world. To believe otherwise is ignorance taken to the extreme of denial, and those who insist on such ignorance are what I, among many others, both the good and the bad, consider sheep. The key difference is that the "good guys" won't harm them, but they will defend them.  

   Hollywood and the MSM would have us believe that the majority of our military servicemen and women are simple minded, high school dropouts that are “trained killers.” They don’t mention the fact that study after study has shown since at least WWII that our military veterans, upon their return to civilian life, are less likely to commit a homicidal attack against another human being, than was the general population of non-military veterans! Why? Because the training that every military service member receives, and is carefully indoctrinated (trained) in Duty, Honor and Country, and the rules of engagement. That is there are “rules” to the use of deadly force, along with severe consequences to the unnecessary use of that force.

   Far from being mindless, PTSD suffering robots of the “establishment” these brave men and women are well versed in the use of violence as both a tool and a means of saving their own lives, and the lives of others, under the worst possible circumstances imaginable. There should be absolutely no doubt but that these predominantly young soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines are the truest representation of American’s and American courage.

   It is the rest of the American population that I have my doubts of. Why is it that we so seldom hear during our current presidential race, that Senator McCain is one of the very few elected federal officials, who has personally served in both the American military, as well as in combat, at great personal sacrifice, AND has children of his own serving in our military? How many of our current politicians can make the same claims?

   Why is the fact that Senator McCain’s own exemplary military service, often ridiculed, or at the very least ignored, by so many Americans around our country today? Why did our Vietnam veterans have to face the disrespectfully horrid treatment of their “fellow Americans,” after having served so selflessly in a war to which their government sent them? Why isn’t there more of a public outrage against nut jobs travelling around the country for the sole purpose of disrupting the funeral services of those Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and causing even more grief for the poor veterans family?

   When I was a young boy sitting at the very top of some outdoor bleachers with my father while watching a local school baseball game, there were two women in their early 20’s sitting in the seats in front of, and below us. There was an older gentleman sitting about three feet from them who appeared to be in his seventies or better. During a brief lull in the game the older gentleman pulled out a pipe to light it and the young woman sitting closest to him snatched it out of his mouth with such force I could hear the chatter of his teeth on the pipe. Before I knew what was happening the woman threw the old mans pipe over her shoulder and it sailed over the top of the bleacher where it fell to the ground nearly twenty feet below. I sat there stunned as did the older gentleman, but before that pipe had hit the ground my father had grabbed the woman’s purse and threw it right after the man’s pipe!     

   When the woman spun around and looked up at my father he simply said, “Why don’t you get the pipe while you’re down there?” Several of the people sitting around us who had seen or discerned the situation began applauding and echoing my fathers call for the woman to get the man’s pipe. That was pretty typical of my father, and it wouldn’t have mattered one whit to him if it had been a man instead of a woman.   

   Nowadays we hear that our national deficit is going to hit $480 billion dollars and while our national “leaders” point fingers of blame at everyone and everything but themselves, the American public does nothing. Does the American public believe the excuses? Just who does the American public think is spending their hard earned tax dollars? Just last month Congress approved a $45 billion dollar AIDS package that will span the next five years. They had approved a $15 billion dollar AIDS package for the previous five year period (2003 – 2008). That’s $60 BILLION of our tax dollars being spent to fight aids in AFRICA!

   Yet the same Congress is bickering over how much to spend on America’s roads and bridges! Our elected politicians continue to spend hundreds of billions of our tax dollars on aid to the tsunami victims of the December 26, 2004 tragedy. Just this year the same Congress approved billions more to the relatively small Palestinian population of Gaza and the West Bank. We give billions more in aid to Egypt and other countries of the Middle East. We have been giving Pakistan $10 billion a year for their “assistance” in the fight on terrorism. But this same Congress refuses to reduce the ridiculous business tax (about 35 percent, which is among the highest taxation of any industrialized country in the world today) on American businesses. It refuses to expend money on any significant building of new electricity plants to ensure no further “rolling blackouts” in states like California, even though they know that our electricity needs are going to double by the year 2050. What has Congress done for New Orleans?  

   In fact Congress seems to have a great deal of difficulty in spending American tax payer’s money on American tax payers, and American infrastructure. Instead Congress seems to listen to tiny, but powerful special interest lobby groups demanding that we spend even billions of more American tax payer dollars to, get this, subsidize the countries of India and China’s electricity plants, in an effort to assist them with cleaner burning coal plants!

   You would think that the wealthiest nation in the history of the world giving so much of its wealth to other countries would have at least bought us a great deal of international good will, but no. If anything it has caused many of those nations to demand still more. Still, Americans do nothing! Worse than nothing, Americans continue reelecting the Rockefellers, Kennedy’s, Marion Berry’s, Nancy Pelosi’s, and yes the Clintons and the Bush dynasties. I find it hard to believe that out of the 300 million Americans today, these are the best we can find?

  Courage doesn’t necessarily mean confronting some huge machinegun toting thug. Just standing up and voting for the best person for the job can show courage. Refusing to join in the disrespectful actions of others that you know to be wrong is courage. Rising up in a grass roots response to the raping of America and its citizenry and ensuring those elected officials are truly held accountable, are removed from office, or imprisoned, depending on the severity of their actions needs to start soon. Otherwise; how will you answer your child’s, or grandchild’s question, “When did Americans lose their courage?”