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What is the Warrior Spirit?
And do you have it?
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Lieutenant Colonel “Jeff” Cooper quotes an old Shoshone refrain that goes:
"Over here, over there, everywhere,
Today, tomorrow, always:
Bad men there are.
Hate you they do.
Kill you they will.
Watch out you better!"
Good advice!
The only thing that stands between you and death is your ability to resist. Order and justice can only be realized through the hand of might. Fear is ignorance actualized. Knowledge displaces fear.
Death is always one step from despair. Next to nuclear war, this current explosion of interpersonal violence is the single greatest threat to civilization. Hericletus, the brilliant Roman general, accurately gave percentages long ago: “Of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are nothing but targets, nine are real fighters… We are lucky to have them… They make the battle. Ah, but the one, one of them is a Warrior… and he will bring the others back.”
Throughout history, the Warrior’s been celebrated and exalted due to his essential place in society.
Bruce Lee’s conceptual framework for Jeet Kune Do parallels Jiddux Krisnamurti’s writing on the nature of all things. Bruce immediately recognized the significance of what Krisnamurti was saying, applied it to fighting, and painstaking made the critical connections from word to physical movement. In his book "On Education" Krisnamurti wrote: “Freedom, liberty, the independence to express what one thinks, to do what one wants to do, is one of the most important things in life. To be really free within oneself is one of the most difficult and dangerous things.”
The philosopher reasons, but the Warrior acts, or as phrased by Phil Messina, President of the prestigious Modern Warrior® “Martyrs alert the world to the presence of evil. Warriors do something about it.” Although he doesn’t appear to be, the sheepdog is a Warrior, one who would never turn claws and teeth on the flock, but nonetheless, who yearns for a righteous battle.
Patriots long for the inevitable battle against the forces of social fascist enemies of liberty, whether they be in a dark alley or the halls of Congress, to once and for all defeat the terrible peril that has cost untold millions of innocent unorganized Militia members their dignities, their livelihoods, their cherished loved ones and their very lives. It’s difficult for rational Man to envision evil incarnate, in the frightening form of a stranger ardently willing to destroy him for what he can only perceive as “no good reason.” This moral ambiguity is what the threat counts on during the initial phase of his assault, to delay your appropriate response just long enough to kill you. The thing that distinguishes a Warrior from all others is his propensity to not only survive in the realm of interpersonal aggression, but his capacity to thrive in it. While mere sheep flee the clamor of conflict, the courageous Warrior willingly advances towards it and returns fire.
The legally defensively armed unorganized Militia member faces analogous paradoxes. He must exert a high level of self-control. Petty offenses and insults can’t be allowed to goad one into an unwarranted armed confrontation. An exceptional level of skill must be attained in the use of the legal defensive firearm. If one must shoot, the shots must be expertly placed. It would be better to endure a mugging than to shoot three innocent bystanders in the process of stopping an illegal assault.
The legally defensively armed unorganized Militia member must imagine and rehearse endless possible scenarios in order to be adequately prepared. What if I’m illegally assaulted in a crowd? What if I’m seriously injured? What if my legal defensive firearm malfunctions? Part of this process is fantasy and imagination, and we must do some serious soul-searching to make sure that we aren’t seduced by such fantasies into desiring or seeking an armed confrontation.
We must be detached and yet devoted to the craft. We must be free from degrading machismo and blood lust, and yet ready to justly apply countervailing lethal force without hesitation whenever necessary. The Warrior is prepared for combat wherever he is.
It’s said that one Samurai, who was so poor as to earn his living by working in a small field, always carried a sword and wore leggings even in the field. He therefore didn’t need to go home first if he was called up. A Samurai is a Warrior first, whenever and wherever he is. He doesn’t sleep with his non-dominant arm under his body. If he’s illegally assaulted when he’s in bed, he can prevent the first blow with his non-dominant arm, and can reach for his sword with his dominant arm. He remembers to find an emergency exit before he sleeps when he stays in an inn or hotel.
Like the Samurai in the story, the best practice for the legally defensively armed unorganized Militia member is to be armed at all times. There are several practical reasons for this. If your legal defensive firearm is on you, it isn’t laying around unsupervised somewhere and it’s immediately available to you when you need it most. If you get into the practice of wearing your legal defensive firearm every day, you’ll wear it more naturally and adjust your wardrobe for adequate concealment. When you wear your legal defensive firearm at all times, the muscles and subconscious learn where your legal defensive firearm is, making for a faster and more certain draw.
This practice of wearing your legal defensive firearm at all times reinforces the "Warrior spirit" and is the safest mode of storage for a legal defensive firearm. When Jesus met Cornelius the centurion, a Warrior, He didn’t say, “violence never solves anything”; instead, He marveled, “No greater faith have I found, no not in all of Judah,” making the first Gentile convert of him.
In his book, “Sudden Violence,” Greg Jones asks, “To what extremes are you willing to go to ensure your own safety? Do you believe you have it within you to be able to take a man’s life with… no hesitation if a situation warrants it?” Jones shares that there are too many people who are shot with their own legal defensive firearm because they waited too long to act for their own protection, naïvely hoping the threat would simply go away. This is a hard-wired psychological response to the appearance of a threat. Our first instinct is to run, and failing that, to cower and capitulate, give him anything to save our miserable lives. Most people, when the time inexorably comes to act, instead simply stare stupidly at their swiftly impending doom, thinking something profound, along the lines of, “I can’t believe it’s not butter.”
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman explains in his book “On Killing,” that most men, when the critical instant comes to justly deliver death, hesitate. He gives the example that during the Civil War, muskets were recovered having over a dozen minié balls recklessly stuffed down the barrel, or that men would purposely shoot over the heads of the enemy.
To kill or seriously injure another person is as foreign to them as committing suicide. Every species has no compunction over exterminating a different one, but all hesitate to destroy their own. Mentally, a particular scenario reveals our makeup: picture two men locked in mortal combat, one with his hands wrapped around the other’s neck. What would you do? The “trick” in this question is that you must first decide which of these two men you are. Most passive sheep can’t easily visualize themselves doing the choking; they invariably select themselves as the victim. Only those who’ve experienced it, or have trained for such an encounter, identify themselves as the one doing the choking.
A given percentage of people can’t be made to kill -even to justifiably immediately protect their own lives. Phil Messina, president of Modern Warrior®, expresses it like this: “Being a Warrior has little to do with war and much to do with causes.” This type of person is referred to as “cannon-fodder,” similar to those individuals who repeatedly engage in life-threatening skateboard techniques without benefit of helmet or padding: in the distant past, those are the same slow-witted individuals who would have been eaten by dinosaurs or other carnivores; today, they’re artificially kept alive using your extorted tax dollars, and at increasingly-earlier ages continue to breed even slower-witted tattooed and pierced welfare-dependant offspring.
In Portland Oregon, a standard question on the mercenary proxy-guardian “police” entrance exam states, “If you were called to a disturbance and arrived to find another officer being repeatedly kicked in the head while down on the opposite side of an impenetrable, unscalable fence enclosing them, what would you do?” A percentage always refuses to answer, “Shoot the perpetrator.” Using the principle of inoculation, or toxin/counter-toxin, by becoming exposed to interpersonal aggression in small doses, we can become somewhat immunized to it. Like a magic trick, we’re awed the first time we’re exposed to it, but if we subsequently learn how it’s done, it no longer astounds.
Today, the Warrior isn’t a hero, his exploits aren’t celebrated, and in fact, the exact opposite is true: the disarmed victim, who doesn’t fight and certainly never wins, has replaced, and is wrongly called “hero.” No society can long exist thus. Persia, Greece and Rome all fell, Spain, France and Britain are no longer great empires, but mere third-world nations. The U. S. isn’t immune to history. Remember, the Warrior is as much “sensei,” or teacher, as artist and fighter.
He freely passes on to as many as will listen, his joys of liberty.
His confidentiality standards are higher than those of a physician or priest.
He never publicly criticizes any of his students, but always publicly praises them.
He never hesitates to push his students to the point of failure, but will always gently coach them to do it again until it’s right, and the again, until it’s ingrained.
He never turns away an inquisitive mind, and is always there for his students.
True Warriors view themselves as protectors of those they serve and society in general.
They have a powerful belief system and a willingness to sacrifice for those weaker than themselves, even if that sacrifice includes the death of themselves or another. Each Warrior may have a slightly different view of good and evil or legal and illegal, depending on their environment, education or upbringing, but all true Warriors believe in the basic concepts of right and wrong, of fair and unfair, and in the concepts of loyalty and honor. It’s these last two that often create the true Warrior’s greatest turmoil.
Although true Warriors must have courage to perform their duties as Warriors, many don’t fully understand the comprehensive meaning of courage even if they, in fact, display it every day. Courage is displayed in various ways, although when all is said done, we basically can say that there are three basic kinds of courage.
The most commonly recognized form of courage is physical courage, and that’s the kind of courage a Warrior displays when he enters a physical battle with life and limb on the line. We often honor those acts of physical courage, especially when the Warrior knows the odds are against him and enters the battle anyway.
The true Warrior understands that physical courage isn’t the absence of fear, but merely the belief that many things are worth more than fear. This kind of fear is often referred to as bravery and when bravery’s noticed, it’s usually rewarded by some type of public or private admiration.
So although true Warriors don’t perform brave acts just to receive this admiration, they do know that the reward is often there, especially if their courageous act succeeds.
The second kind of courage is emotional courage, and this is often displayed when one is terminally ill, or handicapped, or is close to someone who is. Recognition for this type of courage isn’t so easily obtained and sometimes never truly recognized. It requires a kind of strength that goes far deeper than the strength often required for physical courage, because there’s almost always a feeling of hopelessness and the enemy is one that can’t be harmed or even seen sometimes. The true test of this courage is to fight the fight you can’t win.
Although the reward is rarely public recognition, there’s often a private recognition of those that display this type of courage and sometimes even a kind of immortality for those that face it or even those they face it for. Those that display emotional courage tend to be those that care more about the feelings of others than they do about their own feelings. This kind of courage is often referred to as dignity.
The third kind of courage is moral courage, and in many ways, this kind of courage is the truest form of courage. Moral courage is almost always tested during ethical battles, rather than physical or emotional ones. Sometimes just the act of entering an ethical battle takes a great deal of moral courage. Unlike other battles, ethical battles are usually fought alone by the time they’re completed and it’s the Warrior’s willingness to fight such a battle alone that truly tests his or her moral courage. Unfortunately, most ethical battles are usually lost by those that initiate them. This is usually due to the fact that unethical conduct often has the loyal support of those who have gained from it, while ethical conduct rarely has such support, because there’s no tangible benefit for those that would support it and most people feel that without a promised reward, the inconvenience and ridicule often heaped upon those who identify unethical conduct just isn’t worth the effort.
There are those, of course, who although ethical by nature, still allow themselves to profit from the unethical conduct of others. Some even initially put up token resistance against such conduct, but in the end fall back on the old "well I tried to change it" excuse and continue to reap benefits from the very acts they fought against.
Unfortunately there’s no rule as to how long one must continue to fight unethical conduct while still allowing oneself to benefit from it and each person must eventually make that decision on their own.
Unfortunately, there are too many otherwise ethical persons who’ll never make that decision and in failing to so will, in fact, be endorsing the very conduct they’re trying to condemn. It’s these conflicts, plus the fact that even in victory moral courage is rarely recognized either publicly or privately that makes it so difficult for even the most heroic Warriors. Unfortunately, because legal defensive firearms permit holders are held to such a high standard, we’re evaluated by the public more by our standards of moral courage than by our standards of physical or emotional courage.
Many honest and decent unorganized Militia members feel that although we’re willing to condemn the wrongdoing of others, we’re very slow and even reluctant to even identify the wrongdoing of our own. Unfortunately, many of our legal defensive firearm leaders and representatives seem to act in a manner that appears to verify this perception.
One way to address this issue is to simply argue that those that criticize us also ignore, or simply give lip service to, unethical conduct within their own professions. The problem is, of course, that they aren’t the ones that want to be thought of as "Warriors.” We are.
The other way we can address this issue is to simply not tolerate unethical or immoral conduct by our leaders, our representatives or our peers. We can acknowledge that this lack of credibility by many honest unorganized Militia members may be at least partially justified, and that with a lack of credibility comes a lack of support, and that with that lack of support, more legal defensive firearms permit holders than necessary may die in the long term.
We may, in fact, have to concede that as true Warriors, we’re bound by an obligation within ourselves to display all three kinds of courage and that in doing so, we’ll regain the respect and support of all those honest and decent unorganized Militia members that may not give us that support now. Legal defensive firearms permit holders aren’t superior to those they protect, but they are few, and so quite special.
How few?
The total population of my state is one million two hundred thirty-five thousand seven hundred eighty-six. A rule of thumb states that permit holders amount to only two percent of the population, or twelve thousand three hundred fifty-eight unorganized Militia members. However, of that number, merely two percent, or one hundred twenty-four Warriors carry on a daily basis! These aren’t the collectors, hunters, trap, skeet, or “sport” shooters; they’re the defenders of society. They’re special because they do things that others are either unwilling or incapable of doing. They’re exceptional because they’re among a few that are willing to risk their lives for a total stranger. They’re extraordinary because they see themselves as Warriors in a world where Warriors are often resented and ridiculed by those that need them.
However, being a Warrior means more than just saving lives. It even means more than dying with honor. It means living with honor as well Mike Straw |
