The Paradox and Absurdities of Carbon-Fretting and Rewilding

Herschel Smith · 28 Jan 2024 · 4 Comments

The Bureau of Land Management is planning a truly boneheaded move, angering some conservationists over the affects to herd populations and migration routes.  From Field & Stream. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently released a draft plan outlining potential solar energy development in the West. The proposal is an update of the BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan. It adds five new states—Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming—to a list of 11 western states already earmarked…… [read more]

In Praise Of The Good Man

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 1 month ago

Georgiaboy61:

Re: “A man can’t live forever. And it matters how you die.”

Precisely my point. Our civilization and our society used to contain men who understood that certain fates were worse than death. Traditional manhood was sacrificial, when necessary, to protect the aged, infirm, the weak and the children. Allowing the law of the jungle in society, where the strong preyed upon the weak, was seen as evil and would have been unthinkable.

Men also risked their lives in defiance of tyranny and to free the oppressed. The insignia of the U.S. Army Special Forces contains a Sykes-Fairburn dagger, pointed upward, superimposed upon crossed arrows, against a heraldic shield bearing the inscription, “De Oppresso Liber,” Latin for “To Free the Oppressed.” Once, those words meant something to Americans, not only to elite soldiers, but to common men as well.

Do we still live in a culture which honors those lofty values? I honestly do not know; you tell me. There are undoubtedly individual men who still honor those words, but as for the wider society, I am not nearly-so-optimistic.

This is not to say that men of that time threw their lives away cavalierly; they did not. Rather, it is to recall a time when honor and courage were virtues widely-celebrated in our culture – and men strove to live up to those lofty expectations. Cowardice was shameful, not something to be celebrated.

In those now-bygone days, little boys wanted to grow up to be just like John Wayne, James Arness, or one of the other great cowboy western stars. People still believed in heroes then; today, heroes are tough to find anywhere in pop culture – and when you do find them, they are apt to be post-modern caricatures of them – traditional males need not apply. Today, the role of the villain is reserved for those kinds of men! Today, many kids have the ambition of getting rich and famous. People who risk their lives for others are seen as fools, saps who didn’t know how to play the game.

Yes, I am cynical, I admit… but I have ample reason for being so, would you not agree?

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 1 month ago

Darrell:

As a former police officer I find you statement about police officers to be filled with ignorance and the same hatred and malice intent that the democrats have been spewing forth for years. 98 percent of officers would not react like this yet you paint them all with a broad brush and just like the racist black lives matter you presume they are all the same. Then again you may just be a russian troll.

A hit dog always hollers.

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 2 months ago

moe mensale on the Keymod vesus M-LOK debate:

“I think that debate is also stupid. That’s why my 10″ and 20″ Colt AR15s are fitted with full Picatinny rails! When did AR15s become overly heavy? I think maybe some people need to put down their double frappe mocha italiano grande caffes and pick up a kettle bell.”

Comment Of The Week: The Conversation Gun Controllers Need To Have With Their Wives

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 4 months ago

Fred Tippens:

Men cowering in their bathtub or not having the means to return fire is a sickness on their soul, the cure for which is Christ Jesus. If a man refuses to go armed he admits to a Holy God and all of mankind that he is unfit for his duties in a fallen world. He is a stunted child that is unequal to the task of manhood. Additionally, he doesn’t love his family. A man, any man, will fight to the death to protect that which he loves. This is God’s natural order that they deny and therefore, they deny God himself.

With Fred, I believe that any man who won’t defend his family is an ungodly coward.  Using Jesus as an excuse for his cowardliness is insulting to the Gospel.

Jesus came to die for the sins of His people as a vicarious atonement.  He had to drink the cup that was before Him.  Your death, or the deaths of your family members, won’t be a vicarious atonement for anything or anyone.  That’s why Jesus told His disciples to buy swords.

For everyone who wants to be a pacifist, beatnik, long haired hippie flower child, I suggest a long conversation with your wife (and children, if you have them).  It can begin this way.  “Dear, you know that I love you, and we lock our doors at night because I don’t want anything to happen to you.  But that’s as far as I’m willing to go to protect or defend you.  If someone invades our home, I’m willing to let him rape or even torture you, kill our children, and burn down our house, because I think that’s what Jesus wants us to do.  We care more about the criminals than we do our own safety.  I hope you understand.  Oh, by the way, just to make sure you understand, I feel the same way about defense of you and the children in restaurants, school, and at church as well.

Please write me and let me know how this conversation goes.  I want the nitty, gritty details of her reaction.

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 8 months ago

Randolph Scott concerning the CIA:

I would choose to get rid of the agency. As the pricks walk out the door arrest every single one of them, everyone including pissy secretaries, readers, do nothings, mail clerks, janitors, every single living human being even remotely associated with that agency. Hold them all in jail and question every single one of them and if anyone is implicated in a seditious, treasonous or criminal offense prosecute and complete the execution by public hanging. Next burn the buildings down and grind the rubble to dust.

That is how you drain the swamp. When this is done move on to the next 3 letter agency.

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 10 months ago

Archer:

“But I suppose we should thank Hill for reminding us, once again, that “Progressives” can — and will — reverse course and trade in all their “gains” at the drop of a hat once the logical conclusions start to apply to a right they don’t like.

If it weren’t for double standards, they wouldn’t have standards at all.”

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 11 months ago

Roger J.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
From ‘The Gulag Archipelago’, Part I, Chapter 1, ‘Arrest’:

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the down-stairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you’d be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur — what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!”

Translated from the Russian by Thomas P. Whitney

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 11 months ago

TheAlaskan:

“Those who demand that you surrender your arms, are planning on keeping theirs.”

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 4 months ago

I get so many wonderful comments it’s hard to pick out the best.  I honestly believe I’ve got the best patrons on the interwebz.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but a lot of my payment for what I do is getting to read your comments.

That said, I have to pick one that rises to the top.  This one comes from Ray at WRSA regarding this article.

Mr H. Smith is a rabid Jesus Nazi. Who he wants for the next Emperor is of no importance to me at all.

Hey, I didn’t say to the top of what pile this comment rises.

Comment Of The Week

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 10 months ago

Fred:

My nephew is in tech school (navy) and I told him before he went in to seek a deep understanding of illegal orders and to make sure they trained him on it. I also told him that if he took his training and turned it on his fellow citizens I would hunt and kill him, this child that I love and helped to raise up. He understood that this is no small matter.

And thus it will necessarily be like it was in the days of the war of independence, with family turning against family over the king.  Dark days may lie ahead.


26th MEU (10)
Abu Muqawama (12)
ACOG (2)
ACOGs (1)
Afghan National Army (36)
Afghan National Police (17)
Afghanistan (704)
Afghanistan SOFA (4)
Agriculture in COIN (3)
AGW (1)
Air Force (40)
Air Power (10)
al Qaeda (83)
Ali al-Sistani (1)
America (22)
Ammunition (275)
Animals (282)
Ansar al Sunna (15)
Anthropology (3)
Antonin Scalia (1)
AR-15s (373)
Arghandab River Valley (1)
Arlington Cemetery (2)
Army (86)
Assassinations (2)
Assault Weapon Ban (28)
Australian Army (7)
Azerbaijan (4)
Backpacking (2)
Badr Organization (8)
Baitullah Mehsud (21)
Basra (17)
BATFE (218)
Battle of Bari Alai (2)
Battle of Wanat (18)
Battle Space Weight (3)
Bin Laden (7)
Blogroll (3)
Blogs (24)
Body Armor (23)
Books (3)
Border War (18)
Brady Campaign (1)
Britain (38)
British Army (35)
Camping (5)
Canada (17)
Castle Doctrine (1)
Caucasus (6)
CENTCOM (7)
Center For a New American Security (8)
Charity (3)
China (16)
Christmas (16)
CIA (30)
Civilian National Security Force (3)
Col. Gian Gentile (9)
Combat Outposts (3)
Combat Video (2)
Concerned Citizens (6)
Constabulary Actions (3)
Coolness Factor (3)
COP Keating (4)
Corruption in COIN (4)
Council on Foreign Relations (1)
Counterinsurgency (218)
DADT (2)
David Rohde (1)
Defense Contractors (2)
Department of Defense (210)
Department of Homeland Security (26)
Disaster Preparedness (5)
Distributed Operations (5)
Dogs (15)
Donald Trump (27)
Drone Campaign (4)
EFV (3)
Egypt (12)
El Salvador (1)
Embassy Security (1)
Enemy Spotters (1)
Expeditionary Warfare (17)
F-22 (2)
F-35 (1)
Fallujah (17)
Far East (3)
Fathers and Sons (2)
Favorite (1)
Fazlullah (3)
FBI (39)
Featured (189)
Federal Firearms Laws (18)
Financing the Taliban (2)
Firearms (1,758)
Football (1)
Force Projection (35)
Force Protection (4)
Force Transformation (1)
Foreign Policy (27)
Fukushima Reactor Accident (6)
Ganjgal (1)
Garmsir (1)
general (15)
General Amos (1)
General James Mattis (1)
General McChrystal (44)
General McKiernan (6)
General Rodriguez (3)
General Suleimani (9)
Georgia (19)
GITMO (2)
Google (1)
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (1)
Gun Control (1,634)
Guns (2,298)
Guns In National Parks (3)
Haditha Roundup (10)
Haiti (2)
HAMAS (7)
Haqqani Network (9)
Hate Mail (8)
Hekmatyar (1)
Heroism (4)
Hezbollah (12)
High Capacity Magazines (16)
High Value Targets (9)
Homecoming (1)
Homeland Security (3)
Horses (2)
Humor (72)
Hunting (31)
ICOS (1)
IEDs (7)
Immigration (106)
India (10)
Infantry (4)
Information Warfare (4)
Infrastructure (4)
Intelligence (23)
Intelligence Bulletin (6)
Iran (171)
Iraq (379)
Iraq SOFA (23)
Islamic Facism (64)
Islamists (98)
Israel (19)
Jaish al Mahdi (21)
Jalalabad (1)
Japan (3)
Jihadists (81)
John Nagl (5)
Joint Intelligence Centers (1)
JRTN (1)
Kabul (1)
Kajaki Dam (1)
Kamdesh (9)
Kandahar (12)
Karachi (7)
Kashmir (2)
Khost Province (1)
Khyber (11)
Knife Blogging (7)
Korea (4)
Korengal Valley (3)
Kunar Province (20)
Kurdistan (3)
Language in COIN (5)
Language in Statecraft (1)
Language Interpreters (2)
Lashkar-e-Taiba (2)
Law Enforcement (6)
Lawfare (14)
Leadership (6)
Lebanon (6)
Leon Panetta (2)
Let Them Fight (2)
Libya (14)
Lines of Effort (3)
Littoral Combat (8)
Logistics (50)
Long Guns (1)
Lt. Col. Allen West (2)
Marine Corps (280)
Marines in Bakwa (1)
Marines in Helmand (67)
Marjah (4)
MEDEVAC (2)
Media (67)
Medical (146)
Memorial Day (6)
Mexican Cartels (41)
Mexico (61)
Michael Yon (6)
Micromanaging the Military (7)
Middle East (1)
Military Blogging (26)
Military Contractors (5)
Military Equipment (25)
Militia (9)
Mitt Romney (3)
Monetary Policy (1)
Moqtada al Sadr (2)
Mosul (4)
Mountains (25)
MRAPs (1)
Mullah Baradar (1)
Mullah Fazlullah (1)
Mullah Omar (3)
Musa Qala (4)
Music (25)
Muslim Brotherhood (6)
Nation Building (2)
National Internet IDs (1)
National Rifle Association (95)
NATO (15)
Navy (30)
Navy Corpsman (1)
NCOs (3)
News (1)
NGOs (3)
Nicholas Schmidle (2)
Now Zad (19)
NSA (3)
NSA James L. Jones (6)
Nuclear (62)
Nuristan (8)
Obama Administration (221)
Offshore Balancing (1)
Operation Alljah (7)
Operation Khanjar (14)
Ossetia (7)
Pakistan (165)
Paktya Province (1)
Palestine (5)
Patriotism (7)
Patrolling (1)
Pech River Valley (11)
Personal (72)
Petraeus (14)
Pictures (1)
Piracy (13)
Pistol (4)
Pizzagate (21)
Police (648)
Police in COIN (3)
Policy (15)
Politics (970)
Poppy (2)
PPEs (1)
Prisons in Counterinsurgency (12)
Project Gunrunner (20)
PRTs (1)
Qatar (1)
Quadrennial Defense Review (2)
Quds Force (13)
Quetta Shura (1)
RAND (3)
Recommended Reading (14)
Refueling Tanker (1)
Religion (491)
Religion and Insurgency (19)
Reuters (1)
Rick Perry (4)
Rifles (1)
Roads (4)
Rolling Stone (1)
Ron Paul (1)
ROTC (1)
Rules of Engagement (75)
Rumsfeld (1)
Russia (37)
Sabbatical (1)
Sangin (1)
Saqlawiyah (1)
Satellite Patrols (2)
Saudi Arabia (4)
Scenes from Iraq (1)
Second Amendment (668)
Second Amendment Quick Hits (2)
Secretary Gates (9)
Sharia Law (3)
Shura Ittehad-ul-Mujahiden (1)
SIIC (2)
Sirajuddin Haqqani (1)
Small Wars (72)
Snipers (9)
Sniveling Lackeys (2)
Soft Power (4)
Somalia (8)
Sons of Afghanistan (1)
Sons of Iraq (2)
Special Forces (28)
Squad Rushes (1)
State Department (23)
Statistics (1)
Sunni Insurgency (10)
Support to Infantry Ratio (1)
Supreme Court (52)
Survival (185)
SWAT Raids (57)
Syria (38)
Tactical Drills (38)
Tactical Gear (14)
Taliban (168)
Taliban Massing of Forces (4)
Tarmiyah (1)
TBI (1)
Technology (21)
Tehrik-i-Taliban (78)
Terrain in Combat (1)
Terrorism (96)
Thanksgiving (13)
The Anbar Narrative (23)
The Art of War (5)
The Fallen (1)
The Long War (20)
The Surge (3)
The Wounded (13)
Thomas Barnett (1)
Transnational Insurgencies (5)
Tribes (5)
TSA (24)
TSA Ineptitude (13)
TTPs (4)
U.S. Border Patrol (6)
U.S. Border Security (18)
U.S. Sovereignty (23)
UAVs (2)
UBL (4)
Ukraine (10)
Uncategorized (98)
Universal Background Check (3)
Unrestricted Warfare (4)
USS Iwo Jima (2)
USS San Antonio (1)
Uzbekistan (1)
V-22 Osprey (4)
Veterans (3)
Vietnam (1)
War & Warfare (412)
War & Warfare (41)
War Movies (4)
War Reporting (21)
Wardak Province (1)
Warriors (6)
Waziristan (1)
Weapons and Tactics (79)
West Point (1)
Winter Operations (1)
Women in Combat (21)
WTF? (1)
Yemen (1)

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006

about · archives · contact · register

Copyright © 2006-2024 Captain's Journal. All rights reserved.