Jack of Harts

The Texas Rangers are the premier Republic of Texas peacekeepers, trained to keep the peace as their first objective. Their light brown uniforms appear similar to various law enforcement uniforms used over the centuries, but are manufactured out of weapons-grade armorweave to protect their wearer. The white gloves and cowboy hat are similarly designed to emphasize a non-confrontational role while actually being built around hard armored cores. The blue strips and plates appear decorative, but are actually heavy armor that can expand to enshroud the Ranger from armored boots to hat in seconds. Artificial muscles woven throughout the uniform give the Rangers increased strength and speed, and nanoswarm sensors allow them to see and hear clearly from great distances. The Rangers try not to start fights, but they are fully capable of finishing them if someone else chooses to do so.

I’ve addressed my First Principles the last couple days, in response to others asking what I really believe. Basically, I believe in all of us having the freedom to do what we want, and the freedom not to be forced to do something we don’t want. Fairly basic. As long as we don’t harm other people, of course.

So how does that affect my politics?

Well, for one thing, that rules out the Democrats. They are way to comfortable when it comes to working with socialists for me. National Socialists or Soviet Socialists. Nazi or Communist. Fascist or Marxist. Add in the Maoist revolution that created the Chinese Communist Party we all know and love today, and we have a fun little trifecta of crazy that has killed hundreds of millions of people. Depending on who you count as people, I’ve seen estimates as high as a BILLION souls who have been wiped out in the last hundred years. And they would have had children had they lived. The world we live in is far different than the world we could have had if socialism had not arisen. And the Democrats are just way too cozy with them for me to trust them with… well… any position. Including dogcatcher.

Then you have the Republicans, and a disturbing number of them ALSO like to tell people what to do. Though they do tend to rank lower on the Socialism meter, so that is a point in their favor. A point against them is that they love to campaign on all the stuff they will do, and then don’t do it when they get in power. They tend to be a bit too cowardly to stick to their guns when it comes time to put up or shut up. Hence my healthy distrust of the Republican party as well.

I’m far more libertarian than anything else, but the Libertarian party is more Democrat-light and they live in fiscal lala land. The Green party and the Sierra Club are just wingnut crazies, which leaves me closest to the classical Tea Party. A strong libertarian streak that brought a lot of Democrats over, while fiscally-concerned enough to bring in an equal number or so of Republicans. Not to mention a bunch of people in the middle who had long since felt betrayed by both parties. There is a reason the Tea Party did rather well for itself in Minnesota, a socially liberal but fiscally conservative State. But the Tea Party never did get past the “promising newcomer” stage into becoming a genuine major party of its own, and most of their people have gone back to their previous parties or lack thereof.

Which leaves me with socialists to the left of me and cowards to the right of me, with both establishments and their media allies doing everything they can to crush the American middle like all the lovely fascist and communist governments of the past have tried before. Sometimes they have succeeded. Sometimes they have not.

It is my supreme hope that they do not succeed this time. Because they violate basically ALL of my First Principles. Freedom to do what we want. And liberty not to be forced to do stuff we don’t want.