That Such Men Lived: Chris Kyle Day

Last Friday, while speaking at the Texans Veterans of Foreign Affairs Convention, Governor Greg Abbott declared February 2, 2015 Chris Kyle Day in honor of one of the most decorated snipers in American history.

“In honor of a Texas son, a Navy SEAL and an American hero—a man who defended his brothers and sisters in arms on and off the battlefield—I am declaring February 2nd Chris Kyle Day in Texas. We will commemorate his passing, but more importantly, remember his answering of the call of duty,” Abbott said.

Today marks the second anniversary of Kyle’s death at the Rough Creek Lodge in Glen Rose, TX where he and friend Chad Littlefield were gunned down while trying to help a fellow soldier coping with PTSD.

Friend and co-blogger, Proof, posted a great article here at PCP after he had gone to see the now indisputable box office smash American Sniper.  According to Screen Crush, the movie has grossed over $248.9M since its opening on January 16, 2015.

Last Friday, I took the opportunity to see the movie.  It was explosive and sorrowful.  I sat still throughout the film reacting only at the end when director Clint Eastwood included video clips of the 10-mile long funeral procession that traveled the 200 miles from Midlothian to Austin where Chief Petty Officer Chris Kyle would be laid to rest.  Thousands lined the route on a cold, rainy day to pay their respects as the white hearse carrying his remains drove past.

Eastwood made certain that moviegoers knew unequivocally that Chris Kyle was a man of faith by showing the importance of the little Bible he tucked into his flak jacket for each of his four tours of duty. 

The Bible makes several appearances in the film.  In the book, Kyle wrote, “I’d carried a Bible with me.  I hadn’t read it all that much, but it had always been with me.”  At one point in the film, Kyle tells his C.O. that he doesn’t know what a Qur’an looks like. But he can spot a Bible, and he knows what’s important about it without bothering to find out what it says.

Eastwood’s use of the image of the little Bible was a powerful testament to who Chris Kyle was.  When he was learning to hunt, his dad scolded him to never leave his gun in the dirt.  The last image we see of his final tour in Iraq shows both his gun and the little Bible left behind in the dirt as a choking sandstorm overtakes the landscape.

At the end of the film, everyone sat motionless, gathering themselves after seeing the horror of war and the mental torment it inflicts on our brave warriors.  Everyone filed out of the auditorium in perfect silence.  They were thinking what I was thinking:  That such men lived.

“I consider it an indispensible duty to close this last solemn act of my official life by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God and those who have the superintendence of them into his Holy keeping.” — General George Washington at Valley Forge

Michael Moore: Doughboy Princess Gasbag

Leftist lard ass Michael Moore injects himself into every conversation he can because he has descended into irrelevancy.  Over the weekend, after American Sniper shocked Hollywood with its box office blowout, smashing virtually every available record raking in $108.7 million to date and counting, Moore began tweeting about the movie:

My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 18, 2015

But if you're on the roof of your home defending it from invaders who've come 7K miles, you are not a sniper, u are brave, u are a neighbor.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 19, 2015

Hmm. I never tweeted 1word bout AmericanSniper/ChrisKyle. I said my uncle killed by sniper in WWII; only cowards would do that 2 him, others
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 19, 2015

It got nasty for little Mikey and he had to turn off the alerts on his phone and decided to turn to his Facebook page:

Lots of talk about snipers this weekend (the holiday weekend of a great man, killed by a sniper), so I thought I'd weigh in with what I was raised to believe about snipers. My dad was in the First Marine Division in the South Pacific in World War II. His brother, my uncle, Lawrence Moore, was an Army paratrooper and was killed by a Japanese sniper 70 years ago next month. My dad always said, "Snipers are cowards. They don't believe in a fair fight. Like someone coming up from behind you and cold cocking you. Just isn't right. It's cowardly to shoot a person in the back. Only a coward will shoot someone who can't shoot back." 

So I sent out this tweet today: 

https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556914094406926336 

And then I sent this: 

https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/556988226486169600 

But Deadline Hollywood and the Hollywood Reporter turned that into stories about how I don't like Clint Eastwood's new film, "American Sniper”. I didn't say a word about "American Sniper" in my tweets. 

But here's what Deadline Hollywood posted (note how they changed "snipers" to "shooters" in their headline):

http://deadline.com/…/michael-moore-american-sniper-oscars…/ 

Hollywood Reporter has since corrected their story: 

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/…/michael-moore-blasts-ame… 

If they wanted to know my opinion of "American Sniper" (and I have one), why not ask me? 

So here's what I think about "American Sniper": 

Awesome performance from Bradley Cooper. One of the best of the year. Great editing. Costumes, hair, makeup superb! 

Oh…and too bad Clint gets Vietnam and Iraq confused in his storytelling. And that he has his characters calling Iraqis "savages" throughout the film. But there is also anti-war sentiment expressed in the movie. And there's a touching ending as the main character is remembered after being gunned down by a fellow American vet with PTSD who was given a gun at a gun range back home in Texas -- and then used it to kill the man who called himself the “America Sniper”. 

Also, best movie trailer and TV ads of the year. 

Most of us were taught the story of Jesse James and that the scoundrel wasn't James (who was a criminal who killed people) but rather the sniper who shot him in the back. I think most Americans don't think snipers are heroes. 

Hopefully not on this weekend when we remember that man in Memphis, Tennessee, who was killed by a sniper's bullet. 

The doughboy princess gasbag has every right to say whatever he wants.  He lives in America where free speech is still the law of the land and good men like Chris Kyle fought to preserve that right.  By the same token, I and everyone else, has the right to call him what he is and even mock his ass unmercifully with a degrading Photoshop™.  Yep.  Now that makes me happy.

  

Empty Chair Day

The good professor at Legal Insurrection, noting that a reader alerted him that there seemed to be an effort underway to make Monday Empty Chair Day, is asking everyone to send him your “empty chair” photos and he would run them.

This is my submission.  Play Clinty For Me.

Can You See It Now?

On the final evening of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, during the 10 o’clock hour, Clint Eastwood took the stage.  There with him was an empty chair. 

With his hair disheveled and his voice halting, he spoke of the hope this president promised.  He turned to the empty chair and theatrically had a conversation with it.

Many of my brethren in the dextrosphere felt Eastwood behaved like a “crazy old uncle” or that he appeared to be rambling and incoherent.  Some even said they found his Q & A with the invisible president “painful to watch.”

One blogger wrote, “What followed was a rambling, bizaree (sic), disjointed, jarring, seemingly off-the-cuff performance. It was almost like the ghost of Bob Dole had appeared.”

One commenter added, “This was embarrassing.  It killed the energy of the party and the people looked puzzled at times who witnessed it, and I felt they felt they needed to applaud but weren't sure when. I felt sorry for Clint Eastwood.”

Please do not mistake what I am saying here.  I am not being critical of that blogger or anyone else who shared his thoughts on the performance; on the contrary.  I merely seek to have those who share that insight view that seminal moment in a different light.

The empty chair was the Right’s Rule 5 taken directly from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.  Eastwood’s roughest mockery of this regime has the Left seething over it to the point of being irrational.

If you are not familiar with Rule 5, it states, "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."

The single most vital point to remember when conservatives attempt to utilize Rule 5 is to never use it in anger.  For ridicule to be effective it has to be done calmly and usually with a sense of humor. His searing scorn was even-tempered and light-hearted.  It drew blood.

If you want to understand the role that ridicule plays in the Alinsky method, and particularly in the way in which the Obama Administration uses Alinsky, you need look no further than Sarah Palin. From the moment that she was introduced as John McCain’s running mate, the Alinsky machine within Obama’s campaign flew into action at full speed to find ways to mock, denigrate, and ridicule her. Obama’s campaign dispatched a slew of vultures to descend on Alaska in an effort to dig dirt, stir trouble, and uncover any malcontent who might have the tiniest bit of salacious information on the Governor.

“The messages and tactics of Alinsky, long the monopoly of the Left, have been discovered by the Right,” writes J. Christian Adams.

“After Eastwood obliterated Obama and reminded everyone of the lost hope of 2008, Romney’s positive vision gave Americans something that has been lacking for three years—a constructive, positive alternative vision for America. The vision reminds people of an age before Obama, when the entire nation watched Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon.  Pride and confidence are the alternative to diminishment and fear.”

[snip] 

"In 2012, the Romney campaign recognizes what it is up against, and last night made it clear they know how to fight."

And so I’ll ask you, can you see it now?

Eastwood's Chair VS Obama's Chair

I don’t care what the Left, whose hair is on fire right now, says about Clint Eastwood’s Q & A with an invisible POTUS last night at the RNC Convention.  I don’t care.

This thin-skinned, crybaby of a president has Clint Eastwood in his head.  All the evidence anyone needs is that the errand boy sent by grocery clerks responded on Facebook and Twitter saying, “This seat’s taken.”

What’s puzzling about Eastwood’s empty chair is why Obama felt he had to respond to the whimsical superstar?  The only answer is he feels threatened.  What we see is an actor’s roughest mockery of a politician and the politician lacking the discipline to let it go.

The Left is struggling to end the conversation about “You didn’t build that.”  They are powerless.  “This seat’s taken” was a petulant response and is definitely not going to be the last word.

The man on the stage, Eastwood and his chair, directed the 35,000-plus at the Tampa Bay Times Arena to reply to the famous Dirty Harry line, “Make my day.”  That made Eastwood the winner and Obama the whiner. 

Eastwood reminded conventioneers and viewers, “I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen.  Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we own this country.  We, we own it.  It is not you (looking down at the empty chair) owning it and not politicians owning it.  Politicians are employees of ours.  And, so they are just going to come around and beg for votes every few years.  It is the same old deal.  But I just think it is important that you realize that you’re the best in the world.  Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whether you’re a Libertarian or whatever, you are the best.  And we should not ever forget that.  And when somebody does not do the job, we’ve got to let them go.”

Eastwood: Every Which Way But Obama

In what could be another “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, one of Hollywood’s most respected actors and directors of our time, officially endorsed presidential hopeful Mitt Romney at a fundraiser near Sun Valley, Idaho on Friday.

Eastwood has always been open about being a Republican and in 1968, attended President Nixon’s landslide victory celebrations along with fellow actors, John Wayne, Charlton Heston and Glen Ford.

The errand boy sent by grocery clerks’ turned 51 today.  I’m fairly certain that he feels insulted that all he got from the Republicans was a defiant cake sent to him with the words, “Happy Birthday Mr. President.  You didn’t bake this.”

'We do know that hard working, smart entrepreneurs across the country join us in wishing the president a happy birthday and hoping that next year he has more time for baking so the country can get back to job creating,” RNC spokesman Tim Miller told Yahoo News.

The cherry on top was Eastwood’s endorsement saying, "He's going to restore a decent tax system that we need badly so that there is fairness and people are not pitted against one another of whose paying taxes and who isn't.  Also we don't want anybody taking away the Olympic medals, tax wise, from the Olympic athletes. The government is talking about getting a couple of nickels."

I don’t think we have to worry about Eastwood’s career being jeopardized over the endorsement.  If the Progs get anywhere near him he’ll simply say, “Get off my lawn.”