Bill, as for cowboys going undercover, consider "Below the Border", or even "Nevada Smith". I'm sure others will bring their favorites up soon.

Awesome post. Thanks.

That's tellin' 'em, Tex.

Remembering a line from an old Chuck Norris movie - I think it was "Forced Vengeance"...

"Why do they always pick on my hat?"

- MuscleDaddy
(dedicated hat-wearer)

Bill,
When your favorite writer starts writing about guns and cowboys, well, it just doesn't get any better.This line in particular made me want to stand up and holler "Yeehaw!"

"I just walked past the jail, and he’s not only not scared, he’s whistling Dixie and puttin’ on a tie! He wants to kick your ass!"

We need a whole heap more of that attitude if we are going to take our country back from them Philadelphia Lawyer types.

Sorry for the bad link. Fixed it.
Svin

Every Friday we get an article?

Sweet!

You are a grand find on the net. (H/T Rachel Lucas)

Bill,

Are you really a Cowboy? Or is that just a clever disguise?

When we last saw our hero, Agent WW, he was disguised as a brash struttin Cowboy loudly shootin off his mouth in plain site, attracting the spotlight as he points out the obvious with acclaimed eloquence. Meanwhile, unseen by all, he slowly assembles his secret weapon, actually just a simple machine that has been around for thousands of years - The Lever, adding new high tech NRO and PJTV extensions, gaining the power to move...

Don't miss future exciting episodes where we may just find out:

Just what fulcrum or pivot point has our hero chosen for his secret weapon?
Will the NRO extension continue to provide the extra leverage Agent WW needs?
Will the PJTV extension beyond written words into sight and sound take on a life of its own and create the Ultimate Super Lever of Agent WW's dreams?

What is\are the Object(s) Agent WW and his European secret cohort Agent Helga - if that's her real name - are trying to move?

Ya'll come back now, Unquiet

Haven't had a chance to read this article, but I want to point everyone to the Corner at NRO from last night, where Bill posted several comments. Nothing of mind-boggling insight (live-blogging isn't conductive to that) but hopefully a sign of things to come.
Congrats on moving up in the world of commentary, Bill.

(P.S. I mean moving up in terms of recognition, of course, you are nigh-unmatched when in comes to insight and prose already.)

Bill,
Best one yet. I, like you, remain proudly in the "cowboy" category (often defending the notion against those less-historical who use the term disparagingly in aviation), but I thank God daily for those patient enough to fight that good fight behind enemy lines.

We have the gift of being among the like-minded more often than not. They have only their convictions to keep them company, along with a good amount of Hope and Faith. It is truly humbling.

Bill,

Found you on NRO. Valiant effort on yours and Helga's part.

And doomed. Dump NATO first, and see who decides to submit, and who decides to live. Then we choose. The Euro's are a millstone around our neck, had we dispensed with them seven years ago the war would be a receding memory of our victory by now.

A little triage would snap the ones worth saving awake, and the losses would make an excellent lesson for the others.

Get Helga a visa, and quit them.

Bill, in one paragraph you mentioned working against "the treat of Islamic fascism".

I do not think that word means what you think it means ... 8^)

Also, you said in p6 ever when I'm certain you meant never.
(the treat=threat one was p11). Just fyi, good article notwithstanding.

What's the matter? Aren't you waiting for the treat of Islamic fascism too?

Sent an email. Thank's Randy. I'm a dope.

Great article, as always, Bill.
I've always wondered why "cowboy" was seen as an insult, especially when the first things the Euros do when they get to Texas is buy boots, a hat and a stupid belt.
Too bad NRO crashed last night but we caught up on all your liveblogging today.

When we lived in Germany, we discovered that there was a beloved series by German author Karl May set in the cowboys and indians genre. However, the cowboy was definitely not the hero. And while you can find Old West reenactors, the role of indian is often the choice role.
I think that when a European says cowboy, they rarely think of the hero of the story. Rather, they use it as shorthand for someone who goes off half-cocked and reckless, putting the residents of the town in danger.

Bill,
Another eagle feather in your magnificent head-dress!

May you long roam the lonely plains, ever-vigilant, always forward scouting in support of (hopefully) relentless progress in the march of civilization across the vast desserts of ignorance and complacency. Our hero, complete with the white hat.

(OK, so the head-dress and hat conflict a little... I tried.)
All my BEST! Ad Astra!
Paul A.

Bill,

Haven't visited your website in a few weeks & look at that! Three articles. Thanks for sharing your insight.

Wayne H Morgan

Well, it's shorter than what readers here regard as your usual work. Which from my perspective is a point against it. But it's got so many points FOR it that it can easily afford to lose that one.

A+, dude. I hope they're, you know, PAYING you for writing there.

Great article, Bill. I understand completely where you're coming from. By temperament and circumstances, I tend to align more closely with "Helga" than with Cowboy Bill. I'm an American civilian who lives and works overseas, often in countries that are not favorably disposed towards the U.S., so I have to watch what I say and who I say it to. Free speech is for the infrequent times I'm back in the States. But I do what I can to undermine the Islamists and America bashers every chance I get, especially to Muslims who have relatively open minds (I focus on Muslims because I currently live in a Muslim-majority country outside of the Middle East, and surprise, there are some open-minded Muslims around). Many of them have never heard the "other side" before. I make sure they do. Muslim women seem especially receptive to hearing the message of liberty, and I ensure that anyone within my earshot espousing an Islamist viewpoint--or an anti-American one--is challenged. Maybe not at the time, if the risk outweighs the potential gain, but at a more opportune moment. Do I have to grit my teeth and bite my tongue sometimes? You bet. But I always get my shots in, and fighting dirty doesn't bother me. A high-noon face-off may not be my style, but a dagger from behind in a dark, reeking, third world alley somewhere certainly is. Cowboys and secret agents--we need them both.

[Fulcrums and levers and Helgas, oh my. Now I get it.]

Bill:

Excellent post on the need for cowboys and undercover types. I lived in Italy for a year about 16 years ago, and already the normal folks could see what was happening, while the entrenched elites could see nada. I lived in a very small town in the Alps and a muslim family was supposed to immigrate there and receive public assistance for housing. The local government (We're talking reps for a town of 300) fought it tooth and nail because they knew that the muslims would not assimilate. They had not problem with muslims qua muslims; they just knew that nothing good could come of moving North Africans into subsidized housing in the snow. There was also a very strong separatist movement there for just the same reason: they knew that their culture was (will be) lost if they stayed a part of greater Italy. I would imagine by now, those separatist fires are burning even hotter now.

Thanks for the great articles. Found you on NRO, btw.

Bill,
My no-good attorney brother up Columbus way sent me your "Proud of the GOP" piece a few weeks ago, and I forwarded the link over and over, like snowflakes in a blizzard, to people who need to hear that point of view, expressed in just that way. Very nice. People probably think you're a liberal because you have a smart ass way of expressing yourself. It's what I find. Anyway, as the libs skulk around me in the darkness, I warm my hands at the campfire of yer writing. Thanks very much for what you're doing. I'm glad you now have medical insurance.

Bill,
My no-good attorney brother up Columbus way sent me your "Proud of the GOP" piece a few weeks ago, and I forwarded the link over and over, like snowflakes in a blizzard, to people who need to hear that point of view. Very nice. As the liberales skulk around me in the darkness, I'm warmed by the campfire of yer writing. Thanks so much for what you're doing. I'm glad you now have medical insurance.

Best of your NRO posts yet, Bill.

Bill, I thoroughly enjoyed "Cowboys and Secret Agents" on NRO today, and it dawned on me that you're the guy who wrote "Tribes", which I consider a piece of straight-up genius.

You see, I send it to all my lefty friends (in the People's Republic of Oregon, they are legion) and ruin their days every so often. Kind of a political Schadenfreude.

Anyway, keep up the great work, and thanks!

Geez, you mean all they had to do to get you to write something more often than every 8 months (or before every national emergency) was give you an NRO column??

Holy cow! I'm re-subscribing to NR immediately, and I'm telling them exactly why.

BTW Bill, if'n y'all ever want to be a bit more...COWBOYish in real life, I can find you any number of weekly events with Single Action Shooting Society-affiliated clubs, all a whale of a lot closer to you than a trip to the secret private spaceship launching facility.

No new-fangled calibers like .45auto though.

You wanna hear the sound of freedom, try on some black powder .45 (Long) Colt!
THAT is the sound of Freedom talking, pilgrim.

Bill,
Another tremendous piece; I love your imagery. (And having had a kidney infection the past week, have thought of you more than once!) I linked to you and wrote about it over at WhenWeAreQueen--another image that came to my mind was that Europe needs a skilled therapist. Since America is the "problem child," they aren't going to listen to us point out the family sickness.

Glad to have you on NRO--a fitting addition to all my favorite people over there.

Queen1

Queen1 - may I ask what, exactly, you mean by "the family sickness"? Stalinist Socialism of the most pinkish hue? The imminent takeover of their continent by the 5% muslim-almost-a-majority (heck, within a generation or two there will be almost as many muslims in Europe as blacks in America!)? Lingering traces of gun-shyness perhaps traceable to a pallid reflection upon the 50 million Euroweenies who slaughtered each other in the previous century's two really big shows? The inability to produce more than a handful of television series in the last two decades that are as funny as Seinfeld? The lower number of citizens who profess to believe that the Baby Jesus loves them and weeps for their sins?

Any clarification would be appreciated.

Bill et al.

It's not just governments that prevent people from being free, open, and optimistic Cowboy types. Like Helga, I have to be a Secret Agent type since I teach in an American university where I too would find my career at an end if my comrades discovered my real (conservative, individualist, pro-USA) political views.

FAR - While I can certainly appreciate the terror-filled life in the shadows you must lead as a right-of-center (ie, heroic) employee at one of America's august institutes of higher learning, do you actually have any statistics to back up your claimed need of anonymity to evade the dreadful pink-squads who hunt down and ruthlessly terminate the remnant, lonely outposts of righteous America-loving in academe? These tales of brave-but-unnamed redoubts against the raging hordes of effete, Marx-loving salmonbellys who thirst for the jobs of True Patriots smacks of a (sub)urban legend.

Godspeed in your fight for truth, justice and you-know-what.

Somebody just graduated from the Olbermann School of Journalism, and typically, found an ineffective location to post a resume.

Slothrop, lovely prose. "Effete, Marx-loving salmonbellys". I like it. I gotta go with Otto, though. Definitely Olbermann School. Heh.

Thank you, qwer, I appreciate that.

It was pretty Olbermannesque of me - nevertheless, my saucy solicitation stands: even though we all know that academia is dominated by les gauche, do right-of-center faculty actually get fired merely for stating/indicating/showing this allegiance? I could see them getting the cold shoulder - their invitation to the 23rd Sovnarkom Invitational Kulak Hunt getting lost in the mail, let's say - but job termination? I have my doubts, and I suspect the statistics would bear me out.

> I get to stand on a hilltop and trumpet exactly what I believe as loud as I want — like I’m doing right now. I have no way of knowing who will hear me

Yeah, Bill, but you miss something: You're the armaments guy

Even if *you* never took your own shot at them damn raidin' Cherokees*, you'd STILL have shot a few hundred thousand of them for yourself, just by giving people the guns and bullets they need to shoot 'em down.

I'm a pretty good fisker, myself, but you're a much better writer than I am. Your style is more engaging, and your analogies are often much more straightforward than anything I'd come up with. The nice thing about the NRO gig is that you're writing more on schedule, which has some good points.

(*apologies to any actual Indians out there, esp. Cherokees. It's a cowboys motif, ya gotta fit in with it.)

Bill, Great article. I keep thinking back to my WWII history. The Brits were much better spies than the Yanks, but it took the might of the US along with the "smarts" of the Brits to really put it to Hitler. Same thing now, me thinks.

> But I had been mistaken, and sadly condescending, by not realizing the reverse: that the secret agent cannot unmask . . . that to unmask is to give up their power, which is the power to get behind defenses and slowly, slowly do the exhausting and unglamorous work of actually weakening the walls that stand between us and victory.

Bill, this is why I consider Deep Space Nine to be the best of the Star Treks. It acknowledged, through a sub-organization of the Federation called "Section 31", that even the highest, most perfect human society would still -- despite it all -- need to have a black-ops section in order to survive in the Real, Big Bad Universe.

Not all problems can be confronted head on, face first.

Many should not be -- that may be 'honest', but it's also guaranteed to be the deadliest, most costly, and, in very human terms, the most painful means to victory.

It is directly contrary to some of the most basic maxims that Sun Tzu defined, accurately, many years ago about war:

The worst form of generalship is to take a walled city by frontal assault.
- Sun Tzu -

Generally in war the best policy is to take a state intact; to ruin it is inferior to this. To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
- Sun-Tzu -

At the beginning, be as coy and frightened as a maiden. Then, when your enemy gives you an opening, rush in and crush him.
- Sun Tzu -

There are Paths that should not be taken.
There are Armies that should not be confronted.
There are Fortresses that should not be attacked.
There are Battles which should not be joined.
- Sun Tzu -

The Federation -- the USA -- needs both Black Ops *AND* Cowboy Ops to survive.

Cowboy Ops make fighting less likely by making it clear to all and sundry that we are WILLING to fight. That we don't fear it, even if we prefer to use other means and live and let live.

Black Ops make fighting less likely by sapping the enemies' powers to fight, and this includes going up against **their own** black-ops efforts to sap *our* will to fight.

I think one of my absolute favorite eps of DS9 is In the Pale Moonlight. Sisko finds himself getting drawn further and further across the line which he would prefer to draw between right and wrong, but the alternative is the failure and collapse of all he holds dear. Great ep.

The whole story arc for the 4th-7th seasons is some of the best SF ever done for TV, as the Federation finds itself in a fight for its life against an enemy which was NOT simply attacking with a frontal assault, but with exactly the kind of pernicious "Art of War" attacks we stand against today.

We're better at it than our enemies are -- much, much better, at every level -- but we have to actually stand and fight, and The Left has so sapped our wills that it's not as cut and dried as it ought to be.

If you want to understand where we lost our way -- when The Left turned against us all, I strongly recommend:
What We Lost In The Great War
Long but well worth the read. And we're still dealing with the consequences of that war's massive errors in judgement.

> Bill, in one paragraph you mentioned working against "the treat of Islamic fascism".
>I do not think that word means what you think it means ... 8^)

In keeping with the spirit of October (no, not BEER!), he's making a subtle reference to Holloween -- Either Islamics get the treat of Europe or Europeans get the trick of bomb blasts.

Yeah, that's the ticket...

:^P

.

> Rather, they use it as shorthand for someone who goes off half-cocked and reckless, putting the residents of the town in danger.

As opposed to Neville Chamberlain, who never bothered to cock, even though, as Bill notes in one of his essays, the German generals were so terrified of actually starting a war that a stern grimace would have stopped WWII at the start, with a coup against Hitler.

Sometimes, going off half-cocked is better than not being cocked at all. The world has too many cockless wonders, in every sense of that term.

> These tales of brave-but-unnamed redoubts against the raging hordes of effete, Marx-loving salmonbellys who thirst for the jobs of True Patriots smacks of a (sub)urban legend.

Tyrone, there's this concept called "Tenure" in acadamia. If you reveal, before you gain it, that you are not Of The Left variety, you are almost certain to never see it. And, after a certain point, if you don't see it, it's time to go somewhere else, in acadamia. So it's not as much a Trumpian "You're Fired" as much as a cowboyesque "Get outta town before sundown" attitude.

I can't cite any specific articles, but if you want to read about some of the chicanery which goes on, Mike Adams' columns over at Town Hall mention them often enough. As someone who was liberal but managed to get his head on right later in life, he's got tenure, now, and brains enough to make fools of the charlatans on the left who surround him.

Tenure is a good example, OBH, and I'll cite another one for you. Grant money. Department chairs generally have oversight of how various pots of grant money are distributed. If Assistant Professors X and Y both require funding for their research, and they don't have outside money to undertake it, the full professor who heads the department gets to decide which one will benefit (or benefit the most). In the hard sciences and B-schools, political viewpoints often don't play much of a role, but in the humanities and law schools, they do. If your benefactor came of age at Berkeley in the 1960s and hasn't changed his opinions much, well, it's probably a good idea to toe the line if you don't want to pay out of pocket for your research. What's insidious about this is that it's very hard to document, much less prove beyond a reasonable doubt. So the problem becomes self-perpetuating.

If Helga wants to (and dares) contact a secret sympathizer in Europe, you can send her the e-mail address provided with this comment.

OBH and waltj - thanks for your responses. It seems that you both agree with my contention that no one is out-and-out fired for determinedly declaring that Milt Friedmen is their kind of guy. Rather, it is a more subtle and tenuous attack, a death-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy of denying tenure and/or withholding grant money; a procedure that, by the very nature of its cunning casuistries, proves exceedingly difficult to be documented in its action or proved in its intention.

The trouble is, it is just as hard to disprove. I do not work in academia, but I know people who do; and whilst they have waxed umbrageously upon the leftist campus lockstep, their PC propaganda, and the feral and feline footpads who function as their thought police, they can never actually pinpoint an actual person that this has happened to. There is much "I read online..." or "I heard that..." - and while it makes for entertaining conversation, it's as nebulous as the miasmatic marxist methods allegedly used against them.

Now, as waltj mentioned, we can rule out this apparatchik assault in the old-fort cheddar disciplines, and concentrate on the cottage cheese curricula. It would be interesting to investigate what percentage of this C cubed faculty is right-of-center; how many members of this doubtless doughty but diminutive group have been open about it; a comparison of their budgets and/or tenureship rates with that of the multitude who toe the party line; and finally, to see how many were so oppressed and discouraged by this unfair nickle-and-diming that they resigned their post in dismay and disgust. Next, of both those who left and those who - gritting their teeth in the face of a leeringly unjust fate - socked up and carried on, we would have to determine how many of these cases were perceiving their predicament honestly and objectively. Was their career curtailment really an Imagine All the People application of How-Much-Can-A-(Sans Goldberg)Fascist-Take, or was the complainee actually incompetent, mayhaps endessly antagonistic? Was he doing his job diligently or performing poorly? Did an errant belief in collegial persecution lead to endless bouts of recrimination and hostilities to point of departmental disruption? And so on.

When we have filtered through all of the numbers, examined all of the cases, what are we left with? Five validated victims of vindictive vituperation per month? Per annum? Per decade?

I would be very interested to find out whether this common complaint is rooted in reality, or has been sown in the shadows.

Tyrone,

Okay - I'll play...

My Dad just added "retired" to the title "University Professor", and it is from this perspective that I offer the following insights:

1) New Dee-Arr-Periods do NOT get hired on as Associate Professors anymore - they are tentatively brought in as 'adjuncts'.

2) Adjuncts not only cost less (in fact, are cheaper by the dozen), but the non-status makes it easier - in a litigious sense - to vet for all sorts of criteria.

Over the years I have been regaled with the misadventures of university/faculty life and its inexorable crawl toward both the Left and (coincidentally) the death of its own stand-alone relevance.

The process apparently changes little from school to school...

A new Dee-Arr-Period starts at the university and is invited to attend all manner of extra-curricular function (guest speakers, panels etc).

If the 'new meat' is able to survive some useless, Liberal pap about how womens-issues-affect-penguin-migation-in-a-post-DuBois-society... without visibly retching, he is then invited to participate in something even less relevent, where he is treated to some of the most wildly reality-disconnected dreck available - usually delivered in the triple-decible-range... while simultaneous being given the opportunity to respond.

If the new Dee-Arr-Period is somehow able to suspend his own sense of intellectual honesty during the event, if he has a head on his shoulders, it will affect the way he interacts with people, which capus activities he involves himself in (student organizations may seem more...impertative after that) and, depending of his subject, what he stresses in his teaching (critical thinking, anyone?).

"Tenure" becomes the least of his worries - indeed the LAST thing he has to think about at all...

...because 'adjunct' means "non-renewal-without-cause-spoken-here".

I've seen and HEARD ABOUT the dozens upon dozens of intelligent, articulate and often otherwise excellent teachers ejected from the university because of what was nebulously-dubbed "an incorrect fit" - many, many times in the evenings, amid lamentations from my Dad about having once "worked with giants", and how he was "now" merely treading water, surrounded by carniverous eels who would make short work of him, if only (and how they wanted to) get past the shark-suit.

(having retired after 40 years, he managed tenure long before the lunatics took over the asylum)

Now - is "non-renewal-without-cause" the same as "fired"?

If it were you, would you be able to tell the difference?

- MuscleDaddy

Mr. Slothrop,

I think you should take a look at Mr. Whittle's video re: turning a 3 page piece of legislation into a 400+ page turd.

You can find it at PJTV.com

Regards,
MZ

MuscleDaddy - thanks for your thoughts and those of MuscleGranddaddy - may his retirement prove a lengthy sojourn blessed with health in both body and mind.

Institutes of Higher are certainly not immune to market forces - long term professorial plums laden with benefits have become less commonplace commodities. I should think the current trend of hiring large numbers of adjunct professors would be seen as a positive thing from a right point of view: benefits and obligations are negligible, lack of organization amongst the APs means that it's a buyer's market, and short term contract work allows the various trustee boards to prevent being stuck with paying for ought than the teaching itself while at the same time discouraging complacency. Meanwhile, the AP might get to experience the profitable pleasure of teaching at two or three different schools, introducing them to a diverse melange of potential employers, workplaces, competition, tenured co-workers and ideological viewpoints.

The excellent example you cited of post-DuBoisian-penguin-patriarchy gafflebab is, as I mentioned previously, only an issue in the Humanities/Social Sciences, no? Now, notwithstanding that these departments, deprived of that dear corporate dollar, have been steadily shrinking in size; it's not like right-wing types have been beating down the door to get in, is it? A quick google provided the following stats about the percentage makeup of the Humanities departments amongst twelve institutions:

Moderately Conservative 1989 - 21.2% 1997 - 17.7% 2006 - 19.4%
Conservative 1989 - 6.7% 1997 - 6.7% 2006 - 6.9%

It's not like their dominating the dojo with a Reaganite cant, but the numbers have held steady - and let's be perfectly blunt, shall we? How many red-blooded conservative should we expect to find teaching such sissy stuff, anyways? When you could be memorizing market trends or pulverizing particles, why roll-down your sleeves to discuss ecofeminist perorations amongst nondenominational depressed-income co-dependants?

I cannae ken from which departmental discipline MuscleGranddaddy recently retired (and, after what I wrote above, let's pray it wasn't the humanities) - I've no doubt the whole business filled him with disgust. And no, if it were I, there would seem little difference between "non-renewal-without-cause" and being fired. I've looked, but cannot find, any stats that indicate in any manner the reasons for AP or TA dismissal. In such an environment it's inevitable that an employer's personal preferences will come into play - but with such a high turnover rate amongst the AP's (from what I've read) there would inevitably be a multitude of reasons why a contract was not renewed, including such mundane reasons as shrunken budgets, departmental divestitures and performance problems. It may seem like it should be obvious, but I still don't see any proof that a personal proclamation of standing al derecho would be a primary - or even tertiary - factor in such a revolving door of short-term contracts and plethora of newly sprung positions.

But then again, maybe I'm just clutching at straws.

It's not like their dominating the dojo

Ooooooh, I really hate when I do that.

The eagle need not kill to demonstrate mastery; soaring and sharp vision are sufficient reward for the moment. The peacock remains strutting in full regalia, unable to attain flight. It hardly matters that his shoelaces are tied together.

Posted by: Otto Gass The peacock remains strutting in full regalia, unable to attain flight. It hardly matters that his shoelaces are tied together.

Ouch.

Hone your blade on the whetstone of truth, and e'er shall ye puncture the carapace of calumny and sophistry.

I shall try to learn from this.

Spot on. (And I couldn't hit you or anyone else with a gun if you were standing beside me, at least not with a bullet.)

One more thing for you to consider, Tyrone, is self-censorship or prior restraint that *may* take place among conservative faculty members working in "cottage cheese" disciplines. This journey into what was not said or written would be even harder to prove or disprove than allegations that conservative types don't get tenure or receive grant money at the same rate as their more left-leaning colleagues. The old attempt to prove a negative is as tough as ever. My best friend has worked for many years on the "business side" of a major university. His colleagues from the academic side will often confide in him when they find out he is conservative, but he has not witnessed them doing so amongst themselves (even when he knows that two or more of them in fact have conservative viewpoints). They open up to him, but not to each other, probably because their opinions are not "correct" ones.