I am also a life member and I too just recieved Wayne’s notice of shutdown. Cuomo has all the banks bailing and without my further contributions he can’t continue to operate.
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As will any other politician who’s been in that office for the last 50 years.
I dont know how to make him, or anyone, be a better man. I do know there are a great many people who would like the job and who will make it much, much worse.
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You don’t make them be better men or women, you elect better men or women. You will not convince me that any career politician is a decent person.
I don’t think there has been enough transparency to know what they have invested in or whether contributions truly are needed to continue to pay Wayne and his buddies!
What do you think, Zee?
@DOUG12 Trump may not be Second Amendment friendly but he’s more friendly than any other politician from the Executive Branch of government probably since the Dwight D Eisenhower administration. Trump has been a lifelong New York liberal with the exception of years 2015 to present. Don’t need to like Trump but until someone else better comes along he’s our first line of defense. Our second line of defense is the US Supreme Court but if Harris, Booker, Warren, Biden, O’Rourke is elected president we have 0% and everyone is going to be bitching(can I use that word) if Obama’s strike force is kicking down your doors at 5:15 AM some fine day.
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In my experience, the better men and women won’t run. If they do get elected, the system of deal making and existing alliances breaks them.
I dont think the NRA closes down. I see possible restructuring under bankruptcy laws if things are as bad as they say. I think things are bad financially but I think it’s more likely emotional manipulation.
I think that if Wayne wants the org to thrive again he’ll get out of the way and stand down. I think if he doesn’t, its because he believes he knows better than everyone else what’s good for us. And the people who scare me most are the ones who think they know better than we do what’s good for us.
If he wants money to flow into the org so it can survive, all he has to do is step down. I think he thinks too highly of himself and his own genius, and has too little respect for us, to ever do so.
I think he thinks he’s indispensable, and that without him the NRA is guaranteed to fail.
I think that kind of ego blindness, arrogance, and delusions of grandeur are a form of madness.
I also think if the NRA does fail, we are in a much bigger world of hurt than anyone realizes.
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In my mind, and this has always been my thought, there is a reason career politicians spend tens of millions of dollars to get elected to an office that will pay them three million!!!
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Actually I think it is a form of MANness!
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Maybe @George16 
, but I can think of two first ladies and a whole bunch of CA’s women elected officials that scare me just as much for exactly the same reason.
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Touche. But I can’t get the picture out of my head of the 65 year old man with the 25 year old blonde in the passenger seat of his Jag instead of someone he could truly care about. That is rampant down here in S. Fla.
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I have an idea to elect the Communists and see if they actually have the intestinal fortitude to take on the task they so stridently declare. If you believe cops are your friend in general then you are worse than naive. Need I remind you of New Orleans after Katrina? German cops are the one group most responsible for rounding up German Jews before and during WW2.
Police will have to make their own decisions when their moment of truth comes.
But do address my point about the NRA and their lack of active militia training. IF we are to pay homage to the 2ndA then the discussion must include the militia and not in an archaic manner.
To accept Mr. Trump as the lesser of evils does not make him good and constantly making such choices only allows the water to become increasingly hot for us “frogs”. Where is the line? For all the braggadocio about defending Liberty I don’t see a lot of folk taking a day off work to actually do anything. And, before you start with that “Well, what are you doing?” line I have on notable occasions sought to motivate friends, coworkers and family to bond together for mutual aid, to no avail. Jobs, family, ball games, vacations, etc. etc. always take precedence over any type of applicable training…(Maybe it’s because I’m an Axxhole)
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Mmm. Can’t go there with you. I’ve seen too many experiments with good intentions do irreparable harm.
You may want to have a look at some of my other posts. We’ve been SWATted, so I have no illusions. There’s good cops and not good cops, and their leadership casts long shadows. I take them as they show themselves to be… each an individual.
I don’t think that’s where the NRA sees their charter, and I’m guessing most of their members dont see it as their charter either. Given that a large part of their constituency thinks they are too soft on things like bump stocks and red flag laws, and that they have an internal “vision” problem, I don’t see them embracing a militia strategy.
Add to that, it seems that a large part of the non-constituency sees them as a hate organization so getting more radical (in appearance) with militia training would only make the situation more polarized. Given their embattled state, that would seem unwise.
FWIW, I know people do. Most, they’re pretty darn quiet about it, as it can elevate your visibility in circles you don’t really want attention from.
Is it a lot of folks? Guessing it’s not. How many folks do what we do here either? You know… train, practice, think things through, do the scenario discussion… or keep emergency supplies… or keep more than a weeks food? Not nearly enough folks, as far as I can tell. Most are good and content, or at least content enough, with their bread and circuses. Sad, but true.
Was I going to say that? Hm. Maybe, maybe not 
Perhaps your strategy could use some refinement. Maybe just take one or another to the range for a little plinking. Maybe just help them organize a small emergency kit for their car. Maybe boil them a little more slowly.
Very few people will be willingly dragged out of their familiar lives into the tin foil hat deep end all in one plunge.
Maybe 
Might not be a good strategy for converting those you care about.
Might not be a good strategy for getting invited to play with the folks who are interested in going full-out either.
I don’t know much about you, but you sound like you might be more than a bit younger than me. I’ve been working on my tin foil hat collection since the 70’s.
My experience tells me that radical strategies rarely get any traction, and what they do get needs a crisis, and the effects wear off quickly. Bread and circuses are powerful motivators, and the other players are patient, well funded, and willing to do their work over generations.
If I thought you were in the market for advice, I’d tell you this:
Come back from the radical edge, you can’t effect change from there.
Put your energy in tasks that can actually change things, with tangible results, and within your actual realm of influence.
Become someone people want to be like, the kind people want to be influenced by… bold, unique, kind, genuine, generous, and effective.
And then, lead them through that interest, one small step at a time.
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Megan,
I certainly enjoyed reading your reply. Thank you.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Don’t really know who coined the phrase but it is certainly applicable to this political system.
“Conservatives” certainly fit within it also. I do not believe that the “Great Experiment” is reparable at this point without another “Declaration”. The communists are infiltrated too deeply and control too much.
As far as creating more “polarization” is concerned I can only say: “GOOD!!” Our Lord told us to be hot or cold and we can be useful. But if we are lukewarm He will spit us out of His mouth. There is no room for “lukewarm” in the defense of Liberty.
"…“extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” Barry Goldwater.
Megan, you espouse the very concepts that have brought us to this stage of deterioration of the greatest nation that God ever saw fit to bless. Head down, don’t make waves, pay your taxes…If your happy with this country the way it is then you cannot conceive of anything better and it sounds like your satisfied with Trump because, once again, he is the lesser of the presented evils. What good is that? It’s like taking penicillin for cancer. It may make you feel better in the short term but eventually the cancer will win.
I just wonder how bad it will have to get before “Joe, the plumber” actually decides that there is no other option but force.
Americans can and have flexed their economic and political muscle but in such fleeting and overall unimportant ways. Our children and grandchildren will curse us someday and call us lazy cowards. When the battle could have been easy:
" “If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed;
if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” Winston Churchill
“… Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Patrick Henry
Think on these quotes and let their weight reside in you. These are not casual words but words of action and decision and life and death. There is no other way to defeat evil but to stand and deliver. NO country or people ever voted themselves out of slavery.
Nope, not the case at all. Read more carefully. What I said is don’t make useless waves. Make useful waves. What I said is don’t waste your passion on things you can’t change, spend it on things where you can be effective.
BTW, I didn’t actually mention Trump, and i don’t think I’ve shared my opinion about him anywhere on this forum. So you’re assuming a lot based on … I don’t know what.
What I am not is head-down, go along and don’t make waves. What I am also not about is tilting windmills and making spectacular flame and noise to no actual effect.
What I am is practical. Life has only so many days in it and I have no interest in wasting the days I have on trying to change things I cannot change. There are places I can be effective, so that’s where I put my time and energy and money.
I cannot change “the government”. Thats not within my power. I can’t change the courts. I can’t change the news orgs. I can’t change “liberals”.
There are people I can influence, though. Local policy, local politicians, local businesses. I can have some influence on state politics. I can train shooters, and help move individuals from anti- to pro-gun. I can encourage people to become more self reliant and self sufficient. I can teach them how. I can teach people about carry and lead them along their evolution until they are safe and confident owning the responsibility for their own lives.
I can help wake them up.
I can be a model for others to follow in changing what they have influence over. If I inspire others to change their world where they can be effective, what I do expands.
In engineering there’s a clear difference between “effort” and “work”. You can spend a lot of effort trying to push a 100 ton boulder but no actual work occurred… because nothing changed.
Effort that doesn’t produce change is meaningless. Might look spectacular, but no work was accomplished. I’m not about how it looks… I’m about what actually works.
Radical doesn’t work without a revolution, and I don’t see any possibility of revolution. What I see as possible is evolution, and I see that effort there produces change, hard-won, worth working for, but never fast.
If a day of revolution comes, that will be a different time, and I’ll give you different answers.
In the mean time, you know far too little of me, what I’ve done, what I prepare for, who my family is, who I’m married to, and what I am capable of to be able to judge my character or declare me part of the problem.
If your plan is full of blazing radical glory and sweeping changes, I think you will have a life of effort, but no results. If you put your prodigious energy to a hopeless plan, that is energy wasted, energy that could have made a real change somewhere else.
You like quotes, so here’s these:
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates
“America is at that awkward stage; it’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.” Clair Wolfe
“He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” Sun Tzu
I see your passion, it’s a powerful force if you apply it where change can be effected. Don’t squander it on wars you cannot win. Your intended audience has told you what you’re doing doesn’t work, that’s why you can’t get people to join you on your quest.
“When things go wrong in your command, start wading for the reason in increasing larger circles around your own desk.” Gen. Bruce G. Clark
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Well said @Zee. We need jot make useless waves. As for making USEFUL waves, well, turn the wave machine up to full blown tsunami levels, and lets drown them in facts and figures.
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I’m in. 
how bad? no bread and circuses. I don’t see that happening, short of a continent-wide EMP.
They may, as some of us already curse ours.
But there is NO time when that battle could have been easy - not now, not in the past, not in the future.
I had one more thought on this:
The question I WOULD ask is this:
- What are you doing that is effective?
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