My Blog List

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Most Important Non-Holiday

I was looking at my Google calendar last week, planning out the rest of my month.  I have the "US Holidays" option set so I know when to plan gun classes or schedule time at the precious metals shop.

I noticed that this week, there were two entries:  On Monday, it showed "Tax Day" and on Friday, it noted, "Earth Day".  Can I see a show of hands for anyone who knows what was missing for today?

Like Tax Day and Earth Day, it's not a federal holiday, but April 19 should be.  Today, in 1775, the first shots were fired - The Shot Heard 'Round The World - at the battles in Lexington and Concord.

The American Revolution was on.

Ironically - or perhaps not - the first shots were fired over gun control.  The Brits were going to Concord to seize or destroy the armaments held by the local militias.  The Good Guys got word of this, drew a line in the sand, and the rest is history.

The local colonists had tried discussion, pleas and protests.  None worked.  Defense of their property and their right to self-determination took precedence.

IMO, this date is much more important than the Declaration of Independence because it represents actions, not words.

I wonder if we're reaching a similar breaking point in current times....
---

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry regarding 'The Shot'.  It gives a brief nod to this - even acknowledging it is the original meaning - yet it gives no detailed explanation.  It jumps to the shots taken at Archduke Ferdinand which precipitated the start of World War I.

Sure, let's dumb-down American history.  Wouldn't want those gun-toting, God-fearing, loose-cannon, racist, poor-people-hating Tea Party folks to get any ideas, right?

Want to kill two birds with one stone (so to speak)?  Take your kids to an Appleseed shoot.  They'll get excellent Rifleman instruction coupled with a healthy dose of American Revolutionary War history.  Well, accurate Revolutionary War history.

I took the course last year (articles on my preparations here and here, results here), and cannot speak highly enough of the program.  In every one of my NRA handgun classes, I wrap up the, "Other Training Opportunities" portion with a plug of Appleseed - even though it's not an NRA program.

Accept The Challenge

Fight the pablum taught in public schools regarding American History.  Teach your kids, your friends, family and anyone that will listen, what happened and WHY it happened.

It's clearly not in the best interest of a sitting government to teach the benefits derived by an armed insurrection.  So they don't teach it, or just pass over it as an afterthought.

Does anyone see the correlation between the folks now paying for your kid's education (uhm, redistributing YOUR tax dollars) with the slant given in classrooms?

Yeah, me too.

The Commie's had it right - control what is taught to the population, and you can control the minds of the population.  It's why "Free education to all children in public schools" made the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto.

Let that sink in a bit...

---
Please click our advertiser links. They pay us so you don't have to. A click a day is all we ask!

Copyright 2011 Bison Risk Management Associates. All rights reserved. Please note that in addition to owning Bison Risk Management, Chief Instructor is also a partner in a precious metals business. You are encouraged to repost this information so long as it is credited to Bison Risk Management Associates. www.BisonRMA.com

7 comments:

sneaux said...

Today is also the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

suek said...

This article is primarily about the attack by Russia and China on the US dollar. It also has some interesting comments about the "fruits of revolution".

The thing that interests me is the "fall" of the dollar. It is supposed to be a major catastrophe if the dollar is no longer the basis for international currency. I don't understand why. I _do_ understand that if the standard is gold, then those who control the production of same will control the exchange rate. That would mean a major problem for importation of goods...but maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe it would bring production back to the US. In short...would we still be using the dollar for most transactions? How would our lives change, if in fact the US dollar was dumped as the international standard?


http://noisyroom.net/blog/2011/04/17/say-%E2%80%9Cgoodbye%E2%80%9D-to-the-dollar/

Chief Instructor said...

sneaux, yep, OK City and Waco as well.

Sue, right now, the primary value of the dollar is as the international medium of exchange. Countries have to buy dollars to pay for crude oil, for instance. That demand, in and of itself, gives value to the dollar. If the yuan or euro or peso became the defacto world currency, the dollar would have little value outside of the US since it isn't backed by anything of value, such as gold.

If the dollar is dumped by the world, our price for buying imports will skyrocket. We'd have to buy the "world currency", then buy, say, oil.

suek said...

>>the dollar would have little value outside of the US since it isn't backed by anything of value, such as gold.>>

So...at the moment, whose currency _is_ backed by gold? In other words, why is _any_ "world currency" of more value than the dollar?

If the result is as you say (and I don't question that), wouldn't it mean that we'd have to become self-sustaining? Meaning very few if any imports? Would that be a bad thing? (speaking long term - I understand that short term, it might be _very_ difficult. We'd probably have to close our store, for example - we sell light bulbs...100% imported, I think.)

Chief Instructor said...

Sue, as far as I know, no major currency is backed by gold. So, none are intrinsically worth more. Right now, the dollar is king because of its status as the world's trading currency.

I saw a piece on Varny and Company on Fox Business this morning where a number of countries are stopping dollars from coming into their country, as they have too many right now. There is no reason to hoard dollars as they are very readily available. We can thank Uncle Ben for that little situation.

Yes, imports would be more expensive. It WOULD likely provide opportunity here for businesses to produce goods here in the US at prices lower than overseas.

Regarding your biz, people still need light bulbs - they'd just be more expensive. I'd guess people would pare back on "luxury" bulbs for non-essential lighting, much like people buy high fuel efficiency cars and sell gas-hogs when the price of gasoline goes up.

This is, of course, very broad projections. Macro-economic stuff. How individual products would be affected is very difficult to say, but in general, import prices would go up, and likely export prices (to the rest of the world) would go down. This would all be nice for that pesky trade deficit it seems like we've had since I can remember...

suek said...

Another shoe just dropped. No doubt it's significant, but I'm not sure exactly what impact it's likely to have...

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/oil-crisis-just-got-real-sinpoec-cuts-oil-exports

Chief Instructor said...

Sue, it doesn't look like they're a major world oil player. Still, it's interesting to see how they're ensuring their country is somewhat protected in the event things get worse.

What a concept...