Editorial

Kelly R Piercy, Editor

This may seem a conundrum to those who know me. It may seem more confusing when I take Locke in context.

I am a complete anarchist. I do not believe in government in any form above that of the Clan and I hold the first principle in the rights of man are those most closely defined with the concept of Pater Familias.

That is, accepting that the human condition is based on two principles; 1) Survival of the Species and 2) Homo Sapiens (and it branches and precursors) has become the apex predator because of their species inherent social nature.

To defend Pater Familias is to argue against the 'social nature' in the overbearing extent it has become intertwined with government. That is, in today's society, specifically American Society, and in various degrees, the social order of other political entities, government has become more a part of the family and the family has become more a sub-division of government.

In the sense that I hold with Pater Familias, I maintain that the proper order of a society is one where the rule of society stops at the euphemistic door of the household. That is, the rules of the society hold outside the realm of the family and the rules of the family hold within that bound.

Pater is an unfortunate word in its masculine form. I do not hold with the image of the Roman Household where the dominant male in the family was the law and rule over life and death and in many instances women were chattel. My definition is a condition wherein the family is a unit that is governed by some sort of rule that is agreeable to the family with the caveat that an individual within the unit has recourse to the larger society to remove themselves from the family without prejudice.

To defend the Clan system requires argument against the supremacy of a central government.

First, a Clan system is a system in which the 'cobbler' holds the same value as the 'chief'. A clan leadership of this sort is based on models from American Indian to pre-Roman Celtic and Hibernic societies. In those tribal and clan groups the 'leadership' was more a council where every member of the group held the right to speak and the decisions made by the council considered the good of the tribe or clan.

If the clan did not prosper, the leadership lost influence and a new leadership emerged. This transition in leadership was done without coup and generally did not result in loss of respect for those whose influence waned while others influence waxed. In fact, a form of this system of social organization was championed by none less than Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson held that the nation must be a representative republic where the political power resided in the States and the People (see Amendment 10 to the United States Constitution.)

Jefferson held that the nation, at that early date, was too populated and diverse for a central government to result in anything other than a disinterested tyranny. Today, we are even more populated and diverse and consequently less represented in the central government.

In fact, we see that today regions of the country are at odds with other regions and the central government levies law and regulation that seems too liberal for one region and too restrictive for another. Consider that maintaining the 55 MPH speed limit beyond its usefulness makes sense along the congested and convoluted highway systems in the East, and it is a complete wastes of time and money in the expanses of the West.

Now, comes the confusion. Now I must argue against my own dearly held anarchism.

To begin, there is a necessity for a central government. That need was most clearly defined by the immediate result of the Revolution that broke the ties to the British Empire. That immediate result was the Articles of Confederation.

Students of American History know well the failings of this first government. That greatest failure was in commerce. There was neither a uniform method of exchange nor free trade among the states. That failure led to the Constitutional Convention and the Constitution of the United States of America, a new form of government. That constitution begins in Preamble with:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

These simple phrases cite the reasons and intent of the document. Importantly, the words note that a nation composed of different and diverse interests must have a founding document that crosses regional differences when it is attacked from outside. The words also give assurance that the rights and responsibilities of individuals, as stated in the Constitution, are guaranteed to all citizens (reinforced by Amendment 14.)

A further discussion of the meaning and importance of the Preamble to the United States Constitution will be the topic of next month's editorial.

Suffice it to say, for the purpose of the following argument, we are a society governed by a central government and there are justifiable reasons for this form of our society.

Discussion:

I would prefer to live in a Clan system that respected the limits of the household. I would then live in a world where I had no concern for what went on in my neighbor's home as long as a member of that household did not appeal to me to leave that home with justification and I would have even less concern what the people in the next region held as their socially acceptable rules. If I did not like the rules of my community, I would be free to move to a community where I did like the rules or form my own clan. If the greater society was attacked from the outside, I would understand that it was my responsibility to defend that greater society and willingly do so.

I do not live in that ideal world. I live in a world where politicians whose primary job is to get re-elected do their job by passing high profile legislation without thought to what effect that legislation has in even the near term.

I live in a world where reason is subdued by emotion. I live in a world where right and wrong are governed by political correctness. I live in a world that is rapidly becoming a theocracy and freedom of speech is based in the speech rather than the words. I live in a world where the media results in government by whim and the Constitution has become more a reason for U.S. Parks Service to have a job than the established and ordained implementation of social order.

That all means one thing. It means if I want to see change, I must make my first strategic decision based on political reality and my every tactical move must consider political sensitivity.

The first, and most important lesson I learned in the Marine Corps is my six P's. Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

Contrary to popular belief, The United States Marine Corps is not one of the world's most effective combat elements due to a bunch of undereducated crazy people who rush pall mall into machine guns. The effectiveness of the Corps is based completely in those six P's. Marines are not cold calculating killers, they are compassionate calculating winners. They inflict concentrated damage on an OpForce in a way that breaks the will of that OpForce, using extreme violence to cause limited and concentrated chaos to an enemy that convinces that enemy to give up.

What that requires is to being by identifying a goal and not straying from that goal. The consideration of that goal is that it must be realistic and it must not be expanded beyond its limit.

In our effort we have a unique opportunity. Our goal is the same as the goal of those who oppose us. Both sides of this issue want a safe society. That must be our first position. We want a society that reduces the incidence of sex crimes. The definition of sex crimes is not part of that definition. Those who want to resolve this issue by redefining what the greater society labels as criminal, should find another place for their argument. That particular expansion of the goal is defeating to the purpose of ending the registry and is, in fact counter-productive to the goal.

Another principle of the six P's is to consider options for setbacks in the offense. The first position to consider in the offense is the defense. If the offense collapses then there must be a position to fall back to defense. The reality is that the fall back position must be stronger than the offense. If it becomes necessary to quit the offense, it means you are getting your ass kicked and you better have a safe place to fall back to in order that you can regroup and resume the offense.

In our case, it means that we must vet every individual allied with us and be absolutely certain that there are no weaknesses or hidden agendas that will turn an attack on us into a route, leaving us to run chaotically into the hills.

Given that we want the same thing our opposition wants, it makes little sense to spend our time attacking our opposition.

Sun Tzu tells us:

In contested ground, you march;
In surrounded ground, you plan;
In death ground, you fight.

This is the six P's set in dynamic language. The proper progression is from bottom to top. In death ground you fight to get back to surrounded ground. In surrounded ground you plan to get back to contested ground.

In our issue, we must always act to move to dialogue. The facts support our position. The opposition is not the John Walsh's or Oprah's or Grace's. The opposition are those who consume their pabulum. Those are the people who we must engage in dialogue and stop believing we are in death ground. We are not. Consider the numerous conversations you have had with those who have learned to respect you. When you raise the topic of the registry, either directly associated to yourself, or in some tangential conversation, you always find reason. Most people are rational and rabies can be cured.

We are in surrounded ground in some instances, mostly we are in contested ground. We must stop fighting and move to planning and dialogue (marching.)

Another part of the six P's is tactical rather than strategic. Planning, Prior Planning, does not mean you make a plan and move blindly ahead. It is true that all the planning goes out the window the moment the first shot if fired in a battle. Adolph Hitler ordered divisions and armies into counter-offensive after the Western Wall was broached by the Allies. The minor difficulty was that the Western Wall was not the reality of his imagination and the formations he ordered into the fray had ceased to exist as effective combat forces long before his frenetic orders were issued.

Once the opponent is engaged, planning must continue and it must be accomplished in the reality of the engagement.

Jumping up and rushing the machine gun, as a rule, has one result. The person rushing ends up with numerous holes in their body, generally resulting in death.

Hard points are engaged, whenever possible by indirect fire. Machine gun verses 155 mm howitzer is always decided in favor of the howitzer.

What this means in our issue is that we must not speak or write until we are certain of our facts and that we are communicating with those who are prepared to be receptive. That means we must play the political reality game. We must remain focused on the goal, not expand the goal, and established a preliminary relationship with the opponent.

We have all done this. We have all had conversations with friends and family that we knew to be controversial. First, we begin with a neutral subject. We look for a place to introduce the topic of concern. Then we do something very clever. We monitor the conversation and when it looks like we will be unable to reach the desired conclusion, we move the conversation back to safe ground.

It is called 'getting to yes'. Find where you can agree and work on more agreement until you get the yes you want.

The reality is society is convinced by these very tactics that a registry is necessary and it can only work if every time it fails it becomes more restrictive. Notice how the media and registry supporters present the argument. Every case of horrendous offense is presented as if it is happening every day and every single individual of the over 300 million individuals in America is going to be the next victim.

Why does that work? It works because we do not have a goal and we either slink into the shadows or go on the offensive.

What should we do?

Every time a horrendous event is reported, we should be contacting the reporter or producer of the story and telling them how disturbed we are that this happened and that we, identified as our organization, wants to work toward preventing this from ever happening again.

That is different from our current approach. Generally, we complain about the 'broad brush'. Between horrendous events, we whine that the registry hurts. The 'broad brush' complaint will not work. The mass hysteria engendered only asks for a broader brush. The registry hurts, “Good! They want it to hurt!" is the only answer here.

Earlier, I propose that we and our opposition want the same thing. There is our strength. How can we be ignored when we are preaching the same message.

Getting rid of the registry needs to become a sub-text. We want safe communities. We want to protect children. That is our message. Once that is heard, then we give our solution. Get rid of the registry and spend dollars on education, awareness, and treatment. Bring Justice back to our courts to end 'guilt by accusation'. Base legislation of research and reason rather than hyperbole and hysteria. Spend dollars on solutions, not self serving organizations.

In every case, consider your six P's before you act. Remember the most important of those P's, R. Every plan has a Result. If you Plan before you begin and continue to plan as you progress, then the R will be closer to the desired outcome.

In every case, understand your agenda, the agenda of those you work with, and the agenda of those who oppose you. The way to win a game is to know the rules better than your opponent.

The way to lose a game is to discover that a member of your team does not share the agenda of the team and, indeed, is operating on a hidden agenda.

Dialogue it the key, it keeps the issue in contested ground and leads to resolution without conflict.

Dialogue is only effective if it is open and honest. Dialogue can only be open and honest when goals are clearly defined and everyone on the team agrees to the goal and limits of the goal.

Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Amendment 14
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.