The recent flap over an aide to Senator Jim Webb carrying a gun only emphasizes the fact every law-abiding, adult American citizen not mentally or otherwise incapacitated should have the right to carry. “Capitol Police said the arrest was made after an X-ray machine in the Russell Senate Office Building revealed that Phillip Thompson entered the building about 10:50 a.m. with a loaded pistol and two additional fully loaded magazines. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license and charges related to an unregistered firearm and unregistered ammunition. Thompson was to appear in D.C. Superior Court today...”

Now really, did this aide have cause to believe it was necessary to carry a loaded gun and two extra clips of ammo into the Senate building? If so, what does he know that We the People don’t? I find that a very disquieting question. Whatever the answer to the question that some feel they have a “special” right to carry is most often associated with those in power that feel they have the right to protect themselves, but that right does not extend to ordinary American citizens. Try telling this to gang members.

Every law-abiding, adult American citizen with the common sense exceptions should have the right to carry. This should not be the sole right of VIPs and gang members. Of course, the argument against right to carry for ordinary citizens is the fear it will turn cities into O.K. Corrals. And while I don’t accept it there is some justification for the argument. It was a gripping scene in the film “Tombstone” where Val Kilmer in the role of Doc Holliday winks at one of the bad guys causing the shooting and killing to start at the O.K. Corral. For those who may have naively missed it the homosexual “suggestion” is all it took for all hell to break loose. “That is so gay” may be a current manner of speech in some circles, but it is usually denounced and not given the imprimatur of free speech.

The barbarians in the gangs across America demand “respect” ever as much as perverts, but what exactly is the basis for such “respect?” In the case of gang members any number of things will occasion shootings and stabbings because one of these barbarians is being “disrespected” and the resulting cowardly drive-by shootings even claim the lives of children as a result. I have no respect for perverts and I have no respect for gang members. But I’m not going to go out of my way to “wink” at any in order to provoke the shooting. However, have Blair and Bush contrived to “wink” at the Iranians?

Were it not for the fact those in government have lied to We the People for so long and in so many ways we could easily dismiss the Machiavellian possibility Blair and Bush conspired to provoke that incident of Iranians kidnapping those British sailors in order to elicit sympathy from us common folks and inflame our passions toward Iran. And one of the Brits being a female and knowing how Muslims consider them not even human on the level of men, considering females in uniform an abomination to Allah certainly lends a high degree of tension to the whole affair.

As farfetched as the idea is I am troubled by the fact the Brits have too much experience with such things to put those sailors in harm’s way. It may in fact be more farfetched to ask us to believe those in command did not anticipate the danger of such a thing happening and being prepared for it, this failure thereby leaving the door open to speculation about dark Machiavellian motives.

We are living with the fiasco of the Warren and 9/11 Commissions, not knowing the truth but knowing we have been lied to with no one in government being held accountable giving credence to conspiracy theories, books, and films. Those in the Justice Department are pleading the Fifth lest the top law enforcement officer in America be proved a liar whose sympathies are more in line with Mexico and slave labor than with America, and those under him be dragged down with him once he is exposed. Talk of impeaching Bush is gaining some momentum; unlikely as it is the very fact of such a thing being spoken an indicator of dangerous times for an America lacking any trustworthy leaders or even a national identity, our nation being torn apart by the growing number of those demanding they be “respected” much as gang members. That many of these gang members profess to be “liberal” is not surprising since they have little else but the label to commend them, but don’t you dare “wink” at any of them or the deep pockets of the bullying ACLU will ruin you with litigation.

Tragically for humankind the wisdom of elders is disrespected by those younger, oftentimes in the speech of young people, even children accusing those older of “not understanding.” Those my age understood the inherent dangers posed by the lowering of standards throughout America, standards of civilized good manners, speech, and dress, the dumbing down of the schools, accommodating perversion in the media and Hollywood and so much more. The universities were cranking out “professionals” telling all of America they knew better than my generation what was good for children and parents, what was good for America, but the reality of what the universities have accomplished is that America has been weakened as a nation on virtually all fronts as a consequence; and we now live in an America hated and despised by much of the world, and certainly not trusted by much of the world.

In “Death Hunt” Lee Marvin plays a crusty old Canadian Mounty. At one point the RAF pilot accuses Marvin of resisting the better ways of the future. Marvin replies if the pilot represents the future he wants no part of it. Of course, the stories glorifying the rugged individualist resisting the “better ways” of modern civilization are legion. The mythic of America is steeped in such stories of heroic figures taming the West, of those who resist becoming supernumeraries of the “establishment.”

I’m often accused of being an anachronistic dinosaur that should have gone quietly into extinction long ago. But like the crusty old Mounty too many people purporting to represent the future, to represent the “better ways” of modern civilization have failed to impress me and have not improved on my generation that came together to win WWII. But unlike Marvin in the film, there are no younger Mounties for me to pass on the authority with the admonition “Now, it’s up to you if the killing stops here.”