Sound familiar? It certainly should! Subsequent to horrors of 9/11, those very tactics took a president with a 49% approval rating – danger point for any smart politician with an eye on history – and launched him to highest approval ratings of any president in American history. It enabled passage of abomination called PATRIOT Act (quickie review here: "Label it unpatriotic to question . . .") which gutted our Constitution and ended our way of life forever. It brought average American on street (who is a fundamentally decent human being) to support bombing of a barren and helpless 10th century country right into submission in order to punish sins of a few evil fanatics.

And, of course, those tactics also made old dream of an Afghan natural gas pipeline a reality.

Dubya may be pushing limits with his planned attack on Iraq. He is running out of time – and approval. Nevertheless, those tactics bought him best eleven months of any president in history. If he failed to use them wisely, that does not diminish usefulness of overall plan. But Dubya didn't invent tactics he used to such good advantage.

Dubya's daddy used them with enormous success in Gulf War. Do you remember all stories about Saddam's troops snatching babies from incubators and throwing them on hospital floors in Kuwait City? It seems now that they were completely fabricated. It simply never happened, but it gained an awful lot of popularity for a war that never had a thing to do with us! It also gained a lot of popularity for a president who looked America in eye, said, "Read my lips." – and lied.

Dubya learned well from his daddy. Adolf Hitler used similar manipulative tactics very successfully in years leading up to World War II. He demonized Jews, Gypsies – everyone who had committed hideous sin of being born other than "Aryan" – which handily distracted German citizens from horror of their economy at time, and then he invaded Poland and started some serious whupass. Despite determination of most of world to stop him, his own people worshipped him almost as a god right up until bitter end.

Subsequent to Pearl Harbor (and some believe prior to Pearl Harbor), Roosevelt used similar tactics with great success in early days of our entry into World War II. They continued to carry popular support right into last days of war, when Truman made decision to use bomb.

The earliest description of tactics such as these that I have personally read can be found in writings of Julius Caesar, but I am sure that even earlier soldiers and thinkers used them to control unruly masses and get an unpopular job done.

Why did these leaders resort to these tactics? They used them quite simply because they work. I should also mention that they also work especially well for leaders who are losing support – or who never had much support in first place.

Are you taking notes? Good. Because tactics of this type don't just apply to nations. They work for any identifiable group that is opposed to any other identifiable group.

Another quick review here. What are elements? (1) Failing popularity or support for your group, (2) find an enemy group, (3) demonize that enemy, and (4) kick some you-know-what. Result? Fantastic popularity, loyalty, support, ad nauseam.

This morning, I had misfortune to read an ad for August issue of Whistleblower magazine with some excerpts from theme – how Paganism is destroying America by fostering "New World Order." Normally, when I read material as ridiculously false as this, I just wonder about intelligence and/or education of author.

Today was different.

Right now, I am especially sensitive to use of manipulation of public opinion in this manner to gain power and money. So what might have gone unnoticed by me yesterday rose up and smacked me in face today.

I do not ascribe this sort of nonsense to sincere Christians. Sincere Christians are not insecure in their faith. They have no need to play games with manipulation.

He was wrong this time.

He should have said that a male victim is a contradiction in terms.

Heinlein may be forgiven, though. No writer is perfect, and it is a common mistake to confuse ideologically committed pacifist with chronic, or professional, victim. Heinlein himself was a pacifist, although I do not believe he ever realized it, but he was never a victim – and he certainly had no shortage of testosterone!

This subject has been very much on my mind for last day or so.

I have a lifelong and very dear friend who is utterly and absolutely opposed to everything I stand for concerning firearms. I am aware of this, and I have tried and tried to accept it. I am seldom too terribly shocked by what comes out of his mouth, but this time he caught me totally flat-footed and left me completely speechless.

He related to me just yesterday that a couple of years ago, his thirty-year-old daughter came to visit him. He was talking to her as she was unpacking in guest room of his home, and when she got to bottom of her suitcase, there was her little handgun that she traveled with.

He was shocked and enraged. He informed her that he had not only never fired such an abomination, he had never even touched one, and he insisted that she remove that instrument of Satan from his home immediately and leave it in her car.

Unfortunately, she did as he asked without a murmur. I would have removed pistol also, but I would certainly have removed myself as well, both from his house and from his life. Permanently. Then again, I may have misjudged his daughter just a bit. It’s true that she’s never come back for another visit. Smart girl.

I wonder if my friend has any idea of what that little tale that he related to me with such glowing and self-righteous pride reveals about him, and about his feelings for his daughter? Let’s take a closer look.

First of all, and most obviously, it is very, very clear that he does not love his daughter. I have a bit of insider knowledge there, as I was aware that he had made no effort to see her in twenty years, but I would have realized this particular fact anyway.

He actually considered his blind terror of an inanimate piece of hardware to be more important that his daughter’s safety, and she had just driven from California to Texas to visit him!

As an aside, my own father loved me very, very much. If my father had ever learned that I had made such a trip without a firearm, he’d have tanned every scrap of hide right off my backside, thirty years grown or not! As a matter of fact, he’d have raised holy un-shirted hell with me for leaving it in bottom of my suitcase and not in my purse or pocket!

Not Harry. He was able to pull his soul out and polish it and tell himself what a wonderful Christian he was, and he’s been patting himself on back for it ever since.

Sadly, my friend Harry is a professional victim. He subscribes to pseudo-morality that says that it is better to suffer any indignity – even die – than to use force in your own defense or defense of another. If he is ever mugged or robbed, I am quite sure that I will have to attend his funeral, because he will not lift a finger to help himself.