IFC Warrior Wednesday EP65 – IFC Educator Academy
IFC Board Member, Richard Rogers with IFC’s first Educator Academy reflection. Special guest and student of the IFC Educator Academy, Nathan Tillotson.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Be Ready At All Times – A ChiCom Red Dawn in 2024?
“BE READY AT ALL TIMES” is a common South African Professional Hunter statement when you are in the bush and on the trail of an animal. How does that apply here in Iowa, and across the USA these days? I’m not just talking about being ready to defend yourself from criminal assault.
First, let me set the stage:
Have you seen the 1984 movie RED DAWN by John Milius? It was based on a fictional invasion of the United States by the then USSR and how a bunch of high school kids had to grow up overnight and became partisans.
Today we have an intentionally uncontrolled US-Mexico border where literally millions have crossed into the US illegally since the start of the Biden Administration. Many of whom are military-age males of Chinese descent.
China’s Covert War
Continued harassment of US Forces in the South China Sea by the CCP Navy and Air Force, a reconnaissance balloon that flew over the US, and the feckless ( Compromised?) Biden Administration did nothing until it cleared our mainland and had completed its mission. That same CCP is behind the loss of over 100,00 American young people per year to fentanyl poisoning. Our Intelligence agencies are reporting that COVID-19 was made in a lab. What would you do differently if you were looking to weaken your opponents around the world than what the CCP has done with COVID? Seven million people have lost their lives because of a genetically modified virus from a ChiCom Bio-lab. We have daily cyber hacking attempts out of China on America’s critical infrastructure, and rifle fire attacks on electrical power transmission stations. Widespread intelligence operations across America using CCP-provided tools and technologies and even secret CCP Police Stations here inside our borders.
China set out to dominate the world in 1949 and has been engaged in Total War against the US ever since.
Some argue that China is a Dying Paper Dragon…but that cornered dragon appears to have the goods on America’s POTUS and his minions. Chairman Xi knows that demographics are against his and his predecessor’s desire to dominate the world by 2049. The one-child policy has propelled China into having the fastest aging population in the world. In less than one generation, by 2050 his population will be a fraction of what it is today. To make this dream possible, they must control the first island chain in the Pacific Ocean.
Why does this matter to us? Chairman Xi knows he has a small window to retake Taiwan. That window is closing because of the lessons learned in the war in Ukraine, the likely replacement of our indecisive POTUS in the 2024 election, and the world slowly waking up to the CCP’s threat to the Post WWII order.
When war or a blockage starts around Taiwan, America should expect attacks on our major capital ships, Pacific bases and our west coast ports. I’d fully expect hundreds, if not more, of two to four man Chi-Com Special operations teams to simultaneously start Mumbai style attacks and sabotage across the US and Canada. It’s stupid to think that a high percentage of the number of Chinese military age males walking across the US-Mexico border are not Chi-Com saboteurs — one intelligence analyst reports that as many as 10,000 of them are CCP Army soldiers.
Not unlike the first counter-attack on 9-11 being conducted by a small group of brave Americans on United Flight 93. The difference between a successful CCP attack might very well be armed American’s stopping those ChiCom Special Forces dead in their tracks on American soil.
Be Ready At All Times, because we live in interesting times.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
Family, Education & Second Amendment
Family, Education & The Second Amendment: The demise of the nuclear family, together with technological changes and socialism taught in schools, threatens our future and our Rights.
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Family First
Long, long ago, in a galaxy far away…I grew up in a nuclear family. Our first home, off the Base, was a poor neighborhood, but all the kids played together. I learned firsthand about domestic abuse and alcohol abuse, living in that neighborhood; it was part of my education. I went to regular schools and had good and bad teachers, who were authorized to use corporal punishment (usually a whack with a ruler).
The focus at school was reading, writing, arithmetic, science, art, music, and – importantly – American history. Other than spelling words and multiplication tables, there was very little memorization. To ensure our knowledge and understanding, our tests were predominantly essay form, not multiple choice. The emphasis was on learning the material and incorporating it into your understanding of the world. Developing critical thinking skills. In our family, we talked about ideas and argued over points of view. With civility.
My Dad served in the Army and had firearms, but I rarely saw them—except when we went deer hunting. But in junior high schools and later in high schools, the parking lots were filled with old pickup trucks, the obligatory rifle in the rack along the back window…the side windows open. Those guns were never stolen (you didn’t mess with someone else’s property). Schools taught hunter safety classes. Kids even brought “cool” firearms to Show and Tell. Firearms were an accepted and normalized part of our lives. We NEVER had a shooting incident at any of the schools I attended, which were several because we moved. A lot.
Fundamental Change
This trip down memory lane is not for the sake of nostalgia. There is no way to compare my childhood experiences to those of children today. The world has changed dramatically. We have a rover on Mars! (I was thrilled when we landed on the Moon!) Technological and biomedical advances are impressive. But the nuclear family, with two parents and 2.2 children is a rarity now, especially in large cities.
Following higher divorce rates in the 1960s – 1980s, more young adults are now choosing to remain single, or childless. More people live in non-owned housing; the dream of home ownership is either out-of-reach or impractical because people are more mobile – “you go where the jobs are”.
How we entertain ourselves has changed too, from interpersonal connections to media interaction. Church socials, town-square events, and potlucks with the neighbors are no longer common (except maybe in Iowa!). We don’t know our neighbors. People don’t “look out” for others as in the past. Walkable neighborhoods are rare and not well-used; joggers carry personal alarms. Instead of reading, people watch television, play video games, and surf the internet. This consumes our waking hours and diverts our attention and willingness to engage with each other. Wealthy people are purchasing robots for companions!
The Results Are In
I’ve watched as our country has made tremendous strides and enormous advances. Simultaneously, I’ve watched as it has descended into a “what’s in it for me” avaricious culture that has hardened our hearts as much as our arteries. Our children are being raised by instructors who, instead of teaching children to think, indoctrinate them in favor of socialism (or communism). Kids interact through social media, video games, and the internet. They lack social skills and are not being taught to have an “educated heart”, or to care about others.
They are also not taught to have an educated mind. Instead of teaching our children how to think critically for themselves, they are rewarded for memorizing “facts”, and for “participating” and behaving a certain way. Instead of teaching them to strive to be the best, they are taught that everyone is a winner, if they just show up. In short, they are being taught to conform and to rely on others. To me, this is the greatest crime, and the greatest failing, of our society, our families, and our schools. It is a consequence of the death of the nuclear family, the infiltration of wokeness and socialism in our schools, and the lack of consequences for bad behavior. The impact on our collective consciousness, morals, and the way we behave is palpable. It is a huge societal problem.
So What Does This Have To Do With The Second Amendment?
If you do not truly know this country’s history, you cannot understand why our founding fathers were so hell-bent on drafting the Bill of Rights, despite the significant personal cost to each of them. Being a brand-new country whose citizens had endured tremendous hardships, they did not stop with the Constitution. Every one of the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights was one that the founders had lost, or that England had threatened. They KNEW the true value of those rights. They were compelled to include the Second Amendment because, without it, they knew their hard-fought freedoms would be fleeting.
Our challenge today is to re-instill a deep understanding of why our Constitution and Bill of Rights are critical to our survival. That understanding comes from a knowledge of American history, embracing American values, and an appreciation for the uniqueness and fragility of this grand American experiment.
I fear that with the demise of the nuclear family, the erosion of traditional values, the profound changes in our technological environment, the socialist infiltration in our children’s education, and the intense focus on immediate gratification and the distraction of endless entertainment, our grand experiment — and our Rights — are at risk like no time prior.
Join the fight with IFC – The Good Guys With Guns
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE
Those Dangerous, and Clueless, Quacks
Those dangerous, and clueless quacks are still proposing their perilous ideas. The latest comes from writer Alan Goldstein in a Special to The Desert Sun titled “Let’s Get Serious And Repeal The Second Amendment.” Why am I not surprised that this article comes out of San Francisco?
His piece is so bad I almost don’t know where to start. Here is the first question I have for Mr. Goldstein; Did you not learn anything from the evil perpetrated upon Six Million Jews by Adolph Hitler? When the Nazis swept into power in the 1930’s the first thing they did was register all the guns. Then they took them from all of the law-abiding people of Germany, giving the Nazis a monopoly on power. But I suppose in his Pollyanna view, getting rid of the Second Amendment will only bring rainbows and unicorns to the world.
This quote from his article lays out just how out of touch his idea is:
“Getting serious means repealing, or drastically amending, the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court has decided that “a well-regulated militia” includes gang bangers and wild-eyed loners with a grudge. They say the Constitution makes it impossible to pass the gun laws that an overwhelming majority of the American people want. But the Constitution is not a suicide note. The Second Amendment can be amended, even repealed.”
I’m not sure where Mr. Goldstein found in recent decisions that gang-bangers and loners are singled out to remain fully armed. But I have news for him, criminals by definition commit crimes, and that’s why disarming honest Americans will not stop crime.
He further lays out how this repeal would happen, starting with leftist States like California and New York, then spreading throughout the country. Apparently, Mr. Goldstein has not bothered to read about how to amend the Constitution. But the primary way is to get it through Congress first, then send it out to the States to ratify. Good luck with that bucky…
His entire article reeks of elitism, and does not address the serious issues surrounding crime, mental illness, monopolies of power, and breakdowns of the family and communities. He clearly does not see how this, and other leftist policies have exacerbated these issues everywhere they have been tried.
More importantly, his idea would clear the way for a police state, which is what his tribe wants.
A B747 Captain I flew with as a young pilot at Northwest Airlines had a great phrase that has stuck with me since the day I first heard him say it.
“The clueless always are.”
Let’s not let the clueless and dangerous quacks vote away our God-given right to self-defense. Join or renew your IFC membership today here.
Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.
Dave Funk
President, IFC
2023 Iowa Legislative Reflection
The 2023 Iowa legislative reflection is offered in the following summary.
This is being written shortly after the announcement that Iowa legislators have adjourned for the year and are unlikely to return to the Capitol until January. Unfortunately, this first session of Iowa’s 90th General Assembly leaves IFC and all Iowans who value the ability to freely exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms bitterly disappointed, if not without hope. While not a single major priority in IFC’s legislative agenda was enacted into law, most of them were passed by the House in HF654, the Safer Families Act, and remain alive in Senate File 543 as “unfinished business”. SF543 can be taken up by the Senate in the next session without having to go through the committee process. Since the Senate seems unwilling to accept the House version without amendment, whatever the Senate passes will need to go back to the House for further debate. IFC will be working with our members and friends from now until January to make crystal clear to our Senators and Representatives the great importance we place upon these various initiatives.
The legislative session began with great promise for Second Amendment advocates, as only two months earlier more than 65% of Iowa voters approved the Freedom Amendment to Iowa’s Constitution. Shortly after that election, IFC and NRA representatives met with leading Second Amendment allies in the House and Senate to firm up our plans for the new General Assembly. We were confident that the massive victory for the Freedom Amendment would convince legislators that pro-2A measures are political winners in Iowa. The carefully crafted bills that came out of this meeting were intended to:
- Reduce the number of phony “No Guns Zones” in Iowa, including school driveways, public and employer parking lots, and casinos (and the Iowa State Fair, in the original draft)
- Better align Iowa’s weapons laws with the intent of the Freedom Amendment and the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal recent ruling in N.Y.S.R.P.A. v. Bruen
- Provide support for schools that wish to select and train armed staff, having realized that having personnel who are willing, able (trained and equipped), and present is the best way to protect our children
- Eliminate some obsolete or confusing statutes
- Correct for an error and some unintended interpretive consequences of the enactment of permitless carry (HF756) in 2021
- Provide basic firearms safety education in elementary school and make hunter safety education available to students in middle or high school
- Prohibit the investment or expenditure of public funds with entities that discriminate against important, lawful, and moral businesses (including firearms-related businesses, agribusiness, animal husbandry, etc.) through “woke” ESG (environmental, social, governance) scoring
IFC knew that a few specific provisions of these bills would draw opposition among some members of the majority party. (We didn’t realistically expect any support from the minority party this year, with the exception of very limited support of the bi-partisan sponsored bill on firearms safety education in schools.) While a handful of Representatives were hesitant about allowing persons with a Permit to Carry Weapons to be armed in their vehicles while dropping off or picking up at schools, the biggest stumbling block was the provision prohibiting private employers from firing employees who lawfully possessed firearms or ammunition in their locked private vehicles on employer property. The Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) lobbied heavily against this provision, as they have in previous years. IFC certainly recognizes the property and other rights of employers, but we firmly believe that the place to draw the line between those rights and the competing rights of employees – especially the expectation of privacy in one’s personal vehicle – is at the locked door of that private vehicle. Nevertheless, too many members of the House majority believed this provision to be an improper mandate on private employers and it was stripped from HF654 by amendment before the bill was passed and sent to the Senate. IFC and NRA were deeply disappointed, but the bill remained very worthwhile.
Unfortunately, another problem became apparent just before the bill passed the House. The insurance industry suddenly began to lobby heavily against the measure prohibiting insurance companies from canceling property insurance coverage for schools that choose to train and arm staff. While last-minute amendments to this section of the bill were suggested in the House, none were filed. By the time the bill made it to the Senate, however, concerns about this provision – and a related issue with insurance coverage on the campuses of community colleges and Regents universities – caused Senators to balk at passing the House version of the bill. On the other hand, if the Senate were to amend the bill, there was a real question as to whether the House would be willing to take it up again, especially with so little time remaining in the session. IFC realized just over a week ago that it would take a miracle to get SF543 passed in this session. That miracle didn’t happen.
Fortunately, as mentioned above, SF543 remains on the Senate calendar as unfinished business and thus will still be a “live round” when the legislature convenes again in January. IFC will be working to help our members communicate effectively with their Senators and Representatives on this bill and related issues, though it is beyond frustrating to have been unable to finish this important work this year. Much of our difficulties arose from the fact that our legislation was considered only after numerous other controversial matters this year. The delay until the end of the session exacerbated the effects of the combination of big-business opposition to key portions of our agenda and friction within the majority party, as well as between the House and Senate, as fatigued legislators struggled to wrap up business and return to their homes.
IFC will work with our legislative allies to perfect this bill and seek its quick passage in January. We will need your help. Please stay in touch with IFC through our emails, website, YouTube, and Facebook. There is more to do to protect your right to keep and bear arms here in Iowa!
-Richard Rogers – IFC Lobbyist and Board Member
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