Presenting a true American Living Hero! ***** L. Neil Smith *****
Lonnie Clay
Distilled wisdom 100% unadulterated - CAUTION - TOXICALLY PROFOUND
Tactical Reflections Revisited May 18, 2011
[Author's Note]: the following observations have been published in
various places over the span of 40 years. They were first collected
and published together in my 2001 book of essays, _Lever Action_.
There are some new ideas, here, and minor changes to others. Please
feel free to quote them anywhere you wish, as often as you wish, as
long as you give proper credit to the author.]
******
Always attack in perpendicular fashion, from an unconventional and
unexpected (but make it relevant!) direction. The enemy will be
unprepared; you can strike him with your full strength while he finds
nothing to attack effectively.
All religions are equally vile. What the Aztecs did with people’s
hearts, Judaeo-Christian-Islam does with their minds.
America’s historic misfortune is that her people, in aggregate, have
never been quite equal to the ideals upon which she was established.
Only the American left will break both your legs, and then sneer at
you because you can’t walk.
Any point of view that fails to assume — and to accept — that males
and females will inevitably perceive one another as “sex objects” is
simply deranged.
As much as the “sunshine soldier” or the “summer patriot”, beware an
ally — they are more common than you know — whose fear of the
uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of
victory.
The average media personality rises to his level of incompetence
simply by getting up every morning.
Believe what you like about “wasting your vote”, nothing will ever
alter a fundamental assumption on the part of Democrats,
Republicans — and the vast, despotic bureaucracy they’ve created
together — that even the slightest manifestation of individuality
(let alone individualism) is a threat that must be dealt with harshly.
Better the “Me” generation than the “Duh” generation.
Beware of geeks bearing GIFs.
Beware those — in New York, Hollywood, and generally in life — who
would make you a “star” because you’re fresh and original, then spend
the rest of your career trying to turn you into a carbon copy of
everybody else.
Choose your allies carefully: it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever be
held morally, legally, or historically accountable for the actions of
your enemies.
Choose your enemies carefully: you’ll probably be known much better
and far longer for who they were, than for anything else you ever
managed to accomplish.
Conservatives are accustomed to being called fascists and are well
prepared to defend themselves on that ground. Liberals are used to
being called socialists. Those labels can be switched, however, and
remain valid and instructive. It also catches them completely
unprepared.
“Credible deniability” is probably more highly esteemed for the degree
of psychological relief it offers its users, than for any political
immunity it affords them.
Do not be deceived by the mere appearance of purpose. A string with
one free end will often tie itself in a knot in a high wind. That’s no
reason to go looking for a Great Knotmaker.
Don’t be disheartened by opinion polls or the outcome of elections.
History has never been made by the majority and it never will be.
Euro-American welfare statism’s preoccupation with “the halt and the
lame” isn’t an iota healthier than the obsession of ancient Egypt’s
priest-kings with death.
Ever notice how those who believe in animal rights generally don’t
believe in human rights?
Ever notice that the “Golden Age” of television was when sponsors had
the strongest control over program content?
The fact that nobody asks you to sing is not an indication that you
should sing louder. This sounds obvious until it’s applied to matters
like mass transportation. There are virtually no private mass transit
companies. This does not represent the failure of the market to
provide a needed service, it represents the failure of an unneeded
service to go away!
The function of government is to provide you with service; the
function of the media is to supply the Vaseline.
Give the other guy an Angstrom unit, and it’ll be reported that you
gave him a parsec.
Go straight to the heart of the enemy’s greatest strength. Break that
and you break him. You can always mop up the flanks and stragglers
later, and they may even surrender, saving you a lot of effort.
Great men don’t “move to the center” — great men MOVE the center!
The great secret of life lies in choosing the right woman. It’s a
mother’s job to tell you not to play with fire. Marry the girl who
tells you, “Go ahead.”
Hell hath no fury like the well-nursed resentments of a younger
sibling.
Hey, Hollywood, what’s this throwing the gun down in horror nonsense?
When you see that you’ve driven a nail, do you throw away the hammer?
I was surprised to discover that children have to be taught to tell
the truth. Lying, as a path of least resistance, is easier and comes
more naturally. Children also have to be taught that life is more
important than television. For that matter, so do most adults.
If the backside pockets of your jeans are your “hip” pockets, does
that make the ones in front your “un-hip” pockets? Then why is it that
it’s the ones in back that are square?
If there were a generic one-word expression for one “whose fear of the
uncertainties of success moves him to surrender at the very moment of
victory”, it would be “Republican”. That’s how they lost their “grand
old party” to Trotskyites.
If you can avoid it, never play on the other guy’s field, by the other
guy’s rules, or with the other guy’s ball. He didn’t design his system
to give you the advantage. Remember that organisms defending their own
territory are twice as effective as an intruding attacker.
If you lose, go down fighting. It costs nothing extra, and now and
again …
If you’re not a little bit uncomfortable with your position, it isn’t
radical enough. How can you be too principled? Take the most extreme
position you can — you’re claiming territory you won’t have to fight
for later, mostly against your “allies”.
In real life, a Smith & Wesson beats four aces, and Charles Darwin
beats Bishop Berkeley.
In this world we live in, there are good ideas and there are bad
ideas; those who can’t tell the difference conduct opinion polls. And
focus groups.
It has been my experience of life — my conservative former fellow
travellers to one side — that a girl who says she doesn’t believe in
pre-marital sex usually doesn’t believe in sex after the wedding,
either.
It is moral weakness, rather than villainy, that accounts for most of
the evil in the universe — and feeble-hearted allies, far rather than
your most powerful enemies, who are likeliest to do you an injury you
cannot recover from.
It is not the purpose of education to produce good citizens, but to
help children become successful human beings. The former is properly
identified as “indoctrination” and, when undertaken at the taxpayers’
expense, should be illegal.
It is unlikely that your opponent thinks of himself as the badguy. Of
course he may be wrong …
Just what “life” is being defended here? I seriously doubt whether
99.99% of the anti-abortionists who wave their gory photo-placards
around at demonstrations could tell a human fetus from that of a
rabbit or a rat.
Know, down to the last cell in your body, that the other guy started
it. He’s the one who put things in an ethical context where
considerations like decency and mercy have no referent. The less pity
moves you now, the sooner you can go back to being a nice guy.
Know, otherhandwise, that the easiest, most humiliating path to defeat
is thinking that to beat the enemy you must be like him. Avoid the
temptation to set your values aside “for the duration”. What’s the
point of fighting if you give up what you’re fighting for? If
remaining consistent with your values leads to defeat, then you chose
the wrong values to begin with.
Know when to give up a lost cause. Anyone who needs to be persuaded to
be free, doesn’t deserve to be.
The Left fawns obsessively over animals because an animal has no
intellect, is incapable of challenging their discredited ideas, and
can’t say, “Leave me the hell alone and get a life, geek!” They like
retards (and conservatives love fetuses) for exactly the same reason.
Let the other guy offer compromises. Think of them as rungs on the
ladder you’re climbing. Keep your own goals fixed firmly in your mind
and make sure you never move any direction but upward. That’s how the
other side got where they are. It works.
Lies can be custom-tailored; truth comes straight off the rack—one
size fits all. (This gem by my wife, Cathy L.Z. Smith.)
“Little” people, finding themselves in a position to say “No”, will.
Manned spaceflight versus robotics? Let’s see … on your wedding
night, would you be satisfied to send in a remote, and receive
telemetered progress reports?
“Manx” is the noise a cat makes when you chop its tail off.
Many of life’s tragedies — and comedies — arise from a misconception
women suffer under that sex is optional.
Money, first and foremost, is a medium of communication, conveying the
vital information economists call “price”. Government control of the
money supply is censorship, a violation of the First Amendment.
Inflation is a lie.
The more fundamental position is the highest ground, allowing the most
“perpendicular” attack. If he argues politics, argue ethics — as with
punches in a bar-fight, things seldom go beyond this one-two stage. If
he argues ethics, argue epistemology (look it up). If he argues
epistemology, argue metaphysics. If he argues metaphysics, you’re up
against Darth Vader and you’re in trouble. Switch back to politics and
accuse him of being out of touch with everyday reality. Or ask him if
he’s stopped beating his wife.
The most dangerous and successful conspiracies take place in public,
in plain sight, under the clear, bright light of day — usually with
TV cameras focused on them.
Mrs. Grundy is dead. Tell me what you think, not what you think other
people think. If you voted in terms of what you’re ready for, instead
of what you’ve convinced yourself others are ready for, we’d have had
Constitutional government, a libertarian society, and eradicated
socialism half a century ago.
Never aim at anything but total achievement of your goal: the utter
capitulation of the enemy. Every effort involves inertia and
mechanical losses, so adopting any lesser objective means partial
defeat. Total victory means you don’t have to fight the same fight
again tomorrow.
Never look down your nose at the popular culture, or self-righteously
shun contact with it. How can you hope to change something you know
nothing about?
Never say “gun control”, say “victim disarmament”.
Never soft-pedal the truth. It’s seldom self-evident and almost never
sells itself, because there’s less sales resistance to a glib and
comforting lie.
No process, event, or situation has ever improved under media
scrutiny.
Never say “sentient” when you actually mean “sapient”. (Sentients are
aware; sapients are aware that they’re aware. Sentience thinks;
sapience thinks about thinking). Knowing the difference — and
insisting that it be observed — is enough to settle the hash of
anti-abortionists, animal rights advocates, and similar flim-flammers
everywhere.
One of the sadder facts of human existence is that power will get you
through times of no brains better than brains will get you through
times of no power.
Once you’ve taken a public stand you know is right, never back down;
anything less than a rock-hard stance will allow your enemies to
nibble you to death.
Over two centuries, American democracy has acquired something
analogous to an immune system to protect it from the merest threat of
wisdom, intelligence, honor, decency, individuality, or courage.
Anyone entering the system who exhibits any of those undesirable
attributes will sooner or later find himself broken and cast aside —
if he is fortunate — or assimilated.
People who fear confrontation and avoid it at any cost will be eaten
alive by their own children.
The people who worry most about “controlling their appetites” are the
very people who least need to. And the people who need to most —
never do.
“The perfect is the enemy of the good”, you say? I say that if nobody
ever insisted on the perfect, there’d never be any good.
The police are like parents. They’re not interested in justice, they
just want _quiet_.
Politicians, bureaucrats, judges, and cops all see the Constitution in
about the same light in which your great-grandmother saw the
Sears-Roebuck catalog: a fine useful thing to have around — although
its principle application may be somewhat different than its authors
intended.
“Question Authority”? To hell with that — hang it up by its thumbs,
cut off its toes, and let it drip dry!
Regrettably, the only way to beat the government is to become the
government.
Remain the judge of your own actions. Never surrender that position by
default. When the enemy screams “Foul!” the loudest, you know you’re
doing him the most damage. Those who help him scream are also the
enemy.
Sarah Brady is no lady; Diane Feinstein is no Einstein.
Second thoughts, failures of confidence, nervous last-minute course-
changes are all detours and recipes for defeat. The time to think is
before the battle — if possible, before the warn — not in the heat
of it.
She never said a word during labor, but four and a half years later,
as we stood in my daughter’s bedroom, hip-deep in toys and trying to
clean the place up, my wife glared at me and said, “You did this to
me, you sonofabitch!”
The shortest path to victory is a straight line. He who remains most
consistent wins.
The simple-minded credo of the dirt-worshipper goes, “Four legs good,
two legs bad”. Otherhandwise, “Two wheels good, four wheels bad”. The
abysmal self-hatred thus revealed sends the imagination reeling in
shock, disgust, and pity.
Sometimes stereotypes are 180 degrees off-course and common sense
isn’t worth the paper it wasn’t written on. For example, see who goes
on enjoying a political discussion longer — and who, by contrast, is
the first to get tight-lipped with indignant outrage — an individual
secure and unbending in his principles, or a compromise-prone
“moderate”.
Stereotypes can be a would-be objective observer’s undoing: in terms
of surface area alone, for example, is it human males or females who
shave?
There are two kinds of people in the world, those who say, “There are
two kinds of people in the world,” and those who do not.
There is indeed some justice in the universe. Simply say “I’m not a
crook” enough times, and everybody will start believing that you are.
There is no AWAY? Then where are Barry and Michelle going to go?
They tell me it’s important in life to serve others. In fact, they
insist on it. But what life has taught me is that one serves others
best by leaving them the hell alone.
Those who lead through authority have rivals on whom they must expend
as much energy and attention as they do on their enemies. Those who
lead by example have enemies, but no rivals.
Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if
pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth,
power, or even a moment’s respite, deserve only the end of a rope.
To be human is to live by means of the artifacts that humans devise.
To build a home, and scorn a weapon, is hypocrisy. It’s also a good
way to lose the home.
Truth is a valuable commodity which you don’t automatically owe to
anyone. Remember, however, that lies are even more expensive —
they’re tiring and costly to maintain — and even a tiny one can
utterly destroy you.
Try never to speak of your enemies by name. Any publicity is publicity
nonethelessn– and there are those for whom your disapproval
constitutes a recommendation.
Understand from the minute the fight begins that you’re going to take
damage. Accept it. (You’ll always suffer more from the idiots and
cowards on your own side than from any enemy.) Keep your overall goal
in mind above all. Those who swerve to avoid a few cuts and bruises
defeat themselves.
Victim disarmament is the view that it is somehow better to see a
woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose, than see
her with a gun in her hand. — originally by T.D. Melrose
“Wake up America”, you demand? America doesn’t need to “wake up” — by
which, of course, you mean pay attention to whatever you think is
important. If America weren’t already awake, paying attention to what
each individual thinks is important, your milk wouldn’t have gotten
delivered this morning, and you wouldn’t have any electricity this
afternoon.
Want a clear indication of what the welfare state is really all about?
Note that the barest necessities of life — food, clothing and
shelter — are all taxed.
Washington, D.C is where they took a perfectly good swamp and turned
it into a sewer.
We have a “disagreement” over my intellectual property rights? Then by
all means let’s have one over something you own, too. What kind of car
do you drive?
Well-timed silence is an effective bargainer. Most people fear silence
at a level below conscious analysis, and rush to fill the emptiness
with accommodation. It’s a difficult tactic to learn and use, but it
works.
What about GATT and NAFTA? If an agreement is more than a paragraph
long — and it’s between two governments — then it ain’t about free
trade!
When you boil it down, all group behavior is about eating, and all
individual behavior is about sex.
Why is it so hard to understand that the reason the first ten
amendments — commonly known as the Bill of Rights — are trampled
underfoot by politicians and bureaucrats is that the Founding Fathers
failed to provide a suitably harsh penalty for it?
Why is it virtuous that Indians used “every part of the buffalo” while
meat companies that use every part of the cow or pig are “peddling
garbage to children”?
The worst thing about Bill Clinton is that he gave oral sex a bad
name! George Bush has done much the same for chimpanzees. And Barack
Obama for marionettes.
You cannot force me to agree with you. You can force me to act as
though I agree with you — but then you’ll have to watch your back.
All the time.
You may never convince the other guy, but it’s often worthwhile to
keep arguing for the effect it has on bystanders, especially his
allies.