Today, my jurisdiction ends here. — Silverado

There has to be a limit.  There has to be a place where we tell our public servants “This far, and no further”.  They have to be taught to respect that, either in the courthouse or at the ballot box.  The first step in rolling back the more outrageous abuses is to keep them from spreading.  Maybe we can remove the chains they’ve put on us, maybe not, but we won’t get anywhere until we stop their advance.

They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder. — The Princess Bride

Find a way to succeed.  Scratch, bite, claw, cheat, steal, whatever it takes.  If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing whatever it takes to finish the job.  Remember, if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.

In the future, in place of “search and destroy,” substitute the phrase “sweep and clear.” Got it? — Full Metal Jacket

They’re not illegal aliens, they’re undocumented immigrants.  It’s not police brutality and harassment, it’s an aggressive response to someone resisting arrest.  It’s not a wholesale attempt by the government to control what a consenting adult uses to change their mood or how they feel, its a War on Drugs.   It’s not a rifle, it’s an assault weapon.  I’m not a concerned citizen who believes that things have gotten out of hand and that we should use every legal method we can to right the ship of state, I’m a potential domestic terrorist.

Words matter, especially when being used to influence the attitudes of the masses.  Yeah, those who use guns know that “assault weapon” and “high capacity magazines” are buzzwords.  The same goes for “limited operations”, “budget cuts”, and “government reform”.  All of these things are misleading ways of saying “we are going to screw the greatest number of you possible with the smallest number of you realizing it.”  But does the average citizen watching the 6 o’clock news know that?  We have to take back the language if we are to make any headway in taking back our country.

Basie: Jim, didn’t I teach you anything?
Jim: Yes! You taught me that people will do anything for a potato.

— Empire of the Sun

It’s easy to have principles when your belly is full.  Anyone can choose to believe in liberty and be contrary to those who want to control others when their children don’t cry themselves to sleep every night.  It’s amazing how quickly things like freedom and justice get jettisoned when people are hungry or afraid.  Live through enough suffering for long enough, and you may find yourself selling the things we fight for now at fire sale prices.

That’s why it’s so important to build up the walls that protect us now, when times are relatively easy.   In 1928, Germany and the United States were free societies.  By 1934, both had socialized their economy, adopted gun control, and were giving massive amounts of power to oligarchical juntas.  Let the collapse be quick and painful, and people will line up to sign away their rights in exchange for a bag of food and a warm place to lay their kids down.  Preparing for those times now will help us to fight holding actions while the rest of the herd panics.

When I was your age, television was called books. And this is a special book. It was the book my father used to read to me when I was sick, and I used to read it to your father. And today I’m gonna read it to you.  — The Princess Bride

All of my kids have liked to be read to, and Boo loves it most of all.  I think at first it was the one-on-one attention, but now he enjoys reading along in the simpler books and helping to tell the stories.  There’s something absolutely golden about finding a quiet moment to read to a young kid who is paying attention.  Children who are read to will read to themselves, and that opens up an entire new universe for them.  Ten minutes of reading thrown in between brushing your teeth and turning off the bedroom light will pay off in spades later in their life.

I must be losing my punch. I never expected the son of a bitch to get up. — M*A*S*H

Like I always tell my kids, if you have to fight, fight until they stop resisting or someone pulls you off.  I’ve also heard someone say that if you have to shoot, shoot until the target changes shape or catches fire.  Either way, one punch, one kick, one shot, or one whatever might not do the job.  I had “One shot, one kill!” drilled into my head so much that now I have to remind myself in shooting competitions to shoot two or three times at the same target to make sure I ‘neutralize’ it.  Yeah, one bullet is enough if you put it in the right spot, but I can’t guarantee that I’m that good a shot on any given Sunday, and a little overkill between friends never hurt anyone.

Realizing that is why I’ve absented myself from the current argument about the U.S. Army’s rumblings about replacing their standard pistol, the Beretta M-9 in 9mm.  My 1911 brethren have come out of the woodwork, and the 9mm versus .45 ACP versus 5.7mm versus .457 Cthulhu holy wars have flared up yet again.  But if you look at the gelatin penetration tests, they’re all pretty much the same when it comes to how we gauge effectiveness.  With any pistol caliber, you’re liable to need at least one follow-up shot.  Truth be told, I’m starting to lean toward dropping the pistol completely for almost all troopers that need a weapon that’s not a rifle.  Instead, if I had a leg to stand on and anyone would listen to my relatively uninformed opinion, I’d suggest issuing pistol-build M-4’s in 5.56.  More compact than a rifle, pretty easy to carry, and with a rifle round coming out of the muzzle.

Of course, all of this discussion is moot if you don’t train enough to actually hit what you’re shooting at, but that goes without saying.

We’ve no use talking like this. You won’t know what I mean. Only, it’s been a long while since we enlisted out of this classroom. So long, I thought maybe the whole world had learned by this time. Only now they’re sending babies, and they won’t last a week! I shouldn’t have come on leave. Up at the front you’re alive or you’re dead and that’s all. You can’t fool anybody about that very long. And up there we know we’re lost and done for whether we’re dead or alive. Three years we’ve had of it, four years! And every day a year, and every night a century! And our bodies are earth, and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death! And we’re done for because you *can’t* live that way and keep anything inside you! — All Quiet on the Western Front

The things we ask our young men and women to go through are beyond most of our imaginations.  No matter how we think it is, it can be worse.  Promises of a quick, easy, and short war are rarely true, and as we can see from recent events, planning for the war means you have to plan for what to do with those who are wounded.  If we are going to provide free homes, free healthcare, free food, free telephones, and free just-ab0ut-everything-else to people whose biggest achievement is learning to breathe through their nose without drowning, then we need to find a way to provide for those who suffer on our behalf.

Benefits to combat veterans are not welfare.  They are bought and paid for with their youth, blood, minds, and souls.

Now, notice how in the count room nobody ever seems to see anything. Somehow, somebody’s always lookin’ the other way. Now, look at these guys. They look busy, right? They’re countin’ money. Who wants to bother them? I mean, God forbid they should make a mistake and forget to steal. — Casino

Ever notice how quiet a lot of politicians are for the first year or so after an election?  Things go back to “go along to get along”, nobody makes waves, and we get hosed.  Then, just as the election cycle revs back up,  a few soapboxes are set up, a line forms behind them, and members of both parties take turns standing on them and spraying the crowd with their own special blend of 64 insults and refutations.  Either way, not much that needs doing gets done, but a lot of smoke and noise is created, and it’s used as cover to do things that would never happen if they got doused with a little sunshine.

What I want is a politician who hits the ground running the day after they’re elected, never stops but for water and a protein bar, and isn’t afraid to spit in the eye of anyone who gets in their way.  It helps if I agree with them, but I can respect someone who is actually trying to work in the interests and wishes of the people who voted them in even if we don’t agree.

That goes double if you’ve served more than a couple of terms in your current job, and more than a couple decades overall.  I’m not advocating for formal term limits, but there should be a social taboo against being in office for your entire career.

Schmidt, the Hangman: [During Duffy’s speech to the crowd] You haff last request?
Cigar smoking prisoner: [Spitting out cigar] Yeah, tell him to shut up and let’s get this over with.

— Hang ‘Em High

There comes a time that all the planning, motivating, informing, empowering, and whatever-ing that is going to happen, has happened.  I call this time “GET ON WITH IT!”.  It’s a serene state where those who have been slowly suffering under a burden of unnecessary talking finally get to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of productivity.  It’s usually when everyone notices that deadlines are fast approaching, most of the budget has been spent on non-productive drivel, and the 20% that does 80% of the work earns their pay.

Hawthorne: I wouldn’t have thought bravery would be a problem for you.
Charles Remington: Well, you hope each time it won’t be… But you never really know.

— The Ghost and the Darkness

There was a situation when I was stationed in Germany where wounded women, children, and old people from Sarajevo were evacuated to a military hospital.  Since the doctors didn’t speak Serbo-Croat and little children don’t tend to speak English, a group of linguists was sent to provide what help we could translating.  Some of the issues were pretty routine, including one poor woman who was in labor almost from the moment the plane touched down.  Some, however, were pretty bad.  This is when I saw something that I had never seen before and have only seen a few times since.  Some people who were normally squared away and brave fell apart, while a few people, who we had all rolled our eyes at when they got into the van for the trip north, were absolute wonders.

What I guess I’m trying to say is that you never can tell, especially when something new pops up.  One of the people who had a really hard time with that assignment was one of the few intel people I ever knew with a “V” device for valor on a Gulf War I decoration.  He stood up to being shot at, but the sight of suffering children threw him for a loop.  One of the ladies I considered a waste of a good uniform turned into a mama bear, worked unbelievably long hours in bad situations, and made a big difference to those kids and their families.