Category Archives: Personal Responsibility

What could you do?

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South Kansas City was aroused yesterday afternoon to the sound of sirens, police and ambulances. In an upper-middle class neighborhood, five people were shot, three fatally in the quiet of the afternoon. The shootings occurred, if I understood the reports correctly, in five different homes. The five people were victims of a single invader, so we’re told.

It is a tragedy and it leads to a number of questions.

  1. Could it happen here, where I live? Yes, it could. No neighborhood nor home is invulnerable.
  2. Can the police protect me? No. I have no doubt the police desperately wish they could but there aren’t enough to post a cop in every home. The old adage, “When seconds count, the cops are minutes away,” is still true. I live only a few hundred yards from the police station and it would STILL take minutes to reach my home.
  3. I don’t like guns, isn’t a phone call to 911 sufficient? No, see #2 above. First, you must have your phone on you, second you must dial 911…and wait for them to answer, and third, you must be calm enough to tell them what is happening. Few people, in a personal emergency, can do all that in the few seconds they have.
  4. I have a gun in the house, that should be enough. No, it isn’t. Do you know where it is? How quickly can you get it in your hands? Is it loaded? Many families with small children won’t keep loaded weapons easily on hand. Is it in a safe? Can you open the safe in a few seconds, absolutely in less than a minute?
  5. Well, what can I do? Carry a weapon and either keep it within arms reach or on your person at all time. Practice with it, get training in how to defend yourself and how to use your weapon, practice until you needn’t have to think in an emergency, you react.

I hear so many women claim, “I couldn’t shoot anyone!” Stop and think of the consequences. Could/would you shoot someone to protect your children? Your husband or family?

Some men say the same, with all the usual responses. The actual answer for both men and women is that you will do whatever is necessary to protect your family and yourself—or you and they will die.

It’s a harsh statement but that doesn’t change the reality. The world is not safe. It has never been and never will be. We can prepare ourselves for the reality. We can train, teach our family to prepare and train them how to defend themselves and others even if it is nothing more than to train your children to flee and seek protection. Know your neighbors, communicate with them, ask if your neighbor will watch out for you, your children and family, watch your home when you’re away and be a place of shelter if necessary.

I carry a weapon. It is something I put on when I dress in the morning, and it is next to me on the nightstand when I go to bed at night. If someone breaks in to my home, I have a weapon within reach in seconds. I am determined I will protect myself and my family. So can you. You needn’t be a victim waiting to be found.

If one of those five victims had a weapon close at hand and knew how to use it, perhaps one or more of the others would have remained unharmed. More and more police chiefs and sheriffs are admitting they are powerless to protect anyone. The first responder for your personal defense is you.

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I wrote an article a week or so ago about the parallels with current events in the Ukraine and China to those just prior to WW2. Obama, like the bungling Chamberlain, is placing the United States into harm’s way and our military is woefully unprepared, undermanned, undertrained and underequipted. The democrats/liberals/socialists have been all too successful in emasculating the US armed forces.

Obama Authorizes Sending Additional Troops To Iraq

Posted: Updated:

President Barack Obama has authorized a State Department request for additional troops in Iraq.

Obama ordered approximately 350 additional military personnel be sent to Iraq “to protect our diplomatic facilities and personnel in Baghdad,” according to a Tuesday statement from the office of the White House press secretary. The statement notes that the troops will not be serving in a combat role upon arrival.

The Defense Department confirmed that 405 troops will be deployed to Iraq, allowing for 55 military personnel who have been in Iraq since June to redeploy outside of the country and resulting in a net increase of 350 troops on the ground.

“This action was taken at the recommendation of the Department of Defense after an extensive interagency review, and is part of the President’s commitment to protect our personnel and facilities in Iraq as we continue to support the Government of Iraq in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” according to the White House statement.

The numbers being sent are too few to be effective. In reality, all they can be…are targets. There are few good troops in the Middle-east. None of them are in Iraq.

But Obama isn’t placing our troops in harm’s way only in Iraq, he’s sending them to the Ukraine as well.

U.S., allies to stage exercises in West Ukraine as battles rage in East

By Peter Apps. WASHINGTON Tue Sep 2, 2014 1:41pm EDT

(Reuters) – As fighting between the army and Russian-backed rebels rages in eastern Ukraine, preparations are under way near its western border for a joint military exercise this month with more than 1,000 troops from the United States and its allies.

The decision to go ahead with the Rapid Trident exercise Sept. 16-26 is seen as a sign of the commitment of NATO states to support non-NATO member Ukraine while stopping well short of military intervention in the conflict.

The annual exercise, to take place in the Yavoriv training center near Ukraine’s border with Poland, was initially scheduled for July, but was put back because early planning was disrupted by the crisis in the eastern part of the country.

“At the moment, we are still planning for (the exercise) to go ahead,” U.S. Navy Captain Gregory Hicks, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s European Command said on Tuesday.

NATO stepped up military activity in its eastern member states after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, and is expected to agree at a summit in Wales this week to create a new rapid reaction force of several thousand troops.

In addition to staging air force exercises, the United States is moving tanks and 600 troops to Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for joint maneuvers in October, replacing a more lightly armed force of paratroopers.

But Rapid Trident will entail the first significant deployment of U.S. and other personnel to Ukraine since the crisis erupted.

President Barack Obama will visit Estonia on Wednesday to reassure the former Soviet Baltic states of U.S. support, and Estonia’s prime minister on Tuesday called for a more visible NATO presence in eastern Europe.

Washington has promised Ukraine $52 million in non-lethal security aid and has already provided combat rations, body armor, radios and other equipment. Pentagon leaders have met with Ukrainian counterparts to discuss a range of cooperation, but, for now, arms supplies have been ruled out.

“It is very important to understand that a military solution to this problem is not going to be forthcoming,” Obama told reporters at the White House last week.

Once again, Obama is acting, or rather reacting, too late with too little. Our troops in the Ukraine will be nothing more than targets, just as they are in Iraq.

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News you won’t hear from the MSM

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If you’re like me you seldom listen to the MSM. The only time I do is for a different viewpoint—if there is one at all. For example, I’ve posted several times about the events and non-reported events in Benghazi. The MSM is remarkably silent on that subject. If you go to the CBS News website, you’ll find nothing about Benghazi. You’ll find sympathetic stories about children in Egypt, the Syrian civil war but not a word on Benghazi. Ditto for ABC News, NBC News, and CNN. I’m not going to bother with MSNBC.

But Benghazi isn’t the subject for today. It’s all the other news items, some big, some small, that isn’t being covered.

If you rely on the MSM and the local TV stations for your news, you’re being lied to—lied by omission rather than commission. The result of either method is ignorance…your ignorance of what is truly happening in the country and around the world.

An ignorant populace is one that can be easily led, mislead and manipulated. That is the prime reason why pamphleteers such as Franklin and Paine were so important during the revolution. It is also why the press has in integral function in our society. Until that responsibility is corrupted like is has been today.

Being informed in not the sole responsibility of the press or the MSM. Like that of self-defense, insuring we are informed is a personal responsibility.  All the headlines above were found on The Drudge Report this morning. The Drudge website is updated frequently, sometimes within minutes of the event. It is one of a number of sites I use to keep myself informed.

Here are a few others. I would suggest you build a list of favored sites and check them daily, if not more often. Being informed allows you to make good, informed decisions. Decisions at the polls. Decisions at work. Decisions at home.

This is just a short list. I have as well some liberal sites such as The Politico and The Hill because some of their reporters aren’t all that liberal.

Have you created your news list? Everyone should.

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A Necessary Evil?

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I’ve heard these phrases more than once. “Credit cards are a necessity of modern life. You can’t survive without them. No one carries cash anymore.”  And, worst of all, “Instant money!”

No, credit cards aren’t, “instant money.”  It’s someone else’s money and they are allowing you to use it—for a fee. It’s called debt.

There was a report on Drudge today that eight million people have stopped using credit cards in the last year. That is a significant number—a reduction of credit card holders from 70 million down to 62 million. 

The AP report appears on one of Andrew Breitbart’s websites. It is written with a particular bias.  In one paragraph it states, “The Chicago company (credit reporting agency TransUnion) found that consumers in the subprime category, or those with low credit ratings, were believed to be without cards mostly because they were shut down by banks after payments fell behind or balances were written off.” 

The AP implies that it is banks that keep low income earners from having credit cards. They imply that banks should continue to provide “free money” to those unable to repay the debt.  

I disagree. Debt, by any other name, is still debt. Folks forget that 200 years ago or so, debtors could be imprisoned or placed into a form of slavery called indenture.  In the early years of the settlement of this continent, England provided colonist by indenturing them, either voluntary or involuntary, to pay for their passage to the New World.  Legally, there was a difference between those indentured and those enslaved.  In practice, that difference was often ignored.


The brief history lesson aside, being in debt is not a positive lifestyle nor is it a productive one.  All your resources are spent servicing your debt and bankruptcy, if it is allowed, is not a solution, only a postponement.


But what are you to do if you don’t want to carry a large roll of cash?  In some areas, that is an invitation to be robbed, or worse. 

The answer is debit cards.  A debit card can be used like a credit card, but the funds are drawn from your personal account—just like a check.  You manage your account just like a checking account.  In fact, my first debit card was called a “check card.”


The important difference is that the money used in a debit card transaction is YOUR money, not money borrowed from someone else.  Dave Ramsey has a radio show about how to manage, reduce and recover from debt.  If you listen to him, you’ll hear him advise an operation he calls a “plastectomy.” That is, cutting up your credit cards.  He approves, however, of using debit cards.


I admit, that Mrs. Crucis and I still have a VISA credit card.  We also have VISA debit cards and I have a VISA debit card on my credit union account. About the only thing I use credit cards for is gas for the cars.  We pay off our credit cards at the end of every month and one single charge for gas is easier to manage that keeping track of every gas receipt.  My wife is much better than I. She uses our debit card much more than I.  Frankly, I don’t remember our debit card PIN and most of my personal purchases are paid using my credit union debit card.


The bottom line to all this is that owning a credit card is not a necessity of life.  Even heavy business travelers often use a corporate card that bills the employer directly. (But Heaven help you if you lose a receipt!)


Like our federal government, we must manage our debt.  We just sent a new set of, hopefully, conservative Representatives to Congress to start managing the government’s debt.  We must do the same for ourselves.