Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

I have been an interested observer of the Colorado Rockies baseball team since about 1997, when the radio and a cold Fat Tire were our reward, Cathy’s and mine) after a long, hellish day spent mucking out our flood-ravaged little house in the suburbs. I had never been a sports fan before, or much of a beer-drinker for that matter, but, as they say, “Desperate times call for desperate measures”. It was back in the day of the Blake Street Bombers, Larry Walker, Dante Bichette, Andres Gallaraga, Vinnie Castilla, and later on, the great Todd Helton, whose rookie year autograph my tiny daughter managed to obtain from him before a game we attended.

Despite a long, illustrious roster of superb players (I still can’t believe they let LeMahieu or Gonzales go), the Rockies have always been a hard luck team, pretty much, with bumbling, ignorant, interfering owners firing one manager after another, making lousy trades, sacrificing everything else for primadonna pitchers who never did the team much good. I was annoyed enough to start planning a Win Bear murder mystery, One, Two, Three Strikes You’re Dead expressing my opinions about how baseball ought to be run. I still intend to write it. Whenever anybody asks me for my solution, I always say it’s simple: “Trade the owners!”

The American corporate world is full of idiots making butt-stupid decisions, like the insufferable morons at Dick’s Sporting Goods destroying millions of dollars worth of AR-15s (have the stockholders been informed?), the precise kind of weapon sanctioned by the authors of the Second Amendment, in order to protect the country from the horror of individuals actually excercising their Constitutional rights. If I played tennis or golf, these scumbags would never get another dime out of me. How about you? Do you ski, skate, or participate in any other non-shooting sport? Then find somebody else—somebody who respects your rights—to buy your cross-trainers from. You can always tell “Progressives”: it’s their answer to everything—they can’t do anything but steal and destroy.

Which brings us around to Wal-mart. That once-great compay’s founder, Sam Walton, is dead and gone, so he can’t bitch-slap the smug, smirking, collectivist faces of his offspring, corporate and otherwise, when they imbecilically decide to insult and drive off the very customers who made them obscenely wealthy. Their decision to stop selling “assault rifles” (a meaningless propaganda phrase made up by America’s native-grown communists) and ammunition, effectively accuses you and me as unworthy of being trusted not to mass-murder other people. I’ve spent thousands of dollars at Wal-mart, over the years, but as far as I’m concerned, they needn’t worry about my Deplorable presence in their stores, stinking the place up, ever again.

Australian-born Rupert Murdoch and his family own and contol FOX news, on which I used to rely for something resembling the truth. But patriarch Rupert has never been known as any kind of friend to individual liberty. Now his sad and sorry network is filled to overflowing with leftist vipers, cynically sniping at Donald Trump, his family and their supporters. There are still a few good folks there—the Donald named them in his last two speeches—mostly in the evenings. But before they’re compromised and destroyed by the Murdochs’ despicable duplicity, they should consider taking my advice about baseball.

Last but not least, there is Colt Patented Firearms. Now I have owned Colts from time to time, most of them 1911 .45 automatics—I bought a shining, glorious pair of Gold Cups with my first check from a publisher—and I have a swell little old-fashioned .38 Detective Special that my hero J. Gifford carries in my vampire novels. But Colt has decided, in its infinite lack of wisdom, that I don’t deserve to own an AR-15 (too late, Colt—I bought it from another manufacturer) so I’ll never buy another Colt product again. Many years ago, after I wrote and circulated an editorial, “Smith and Wesson Must Die” when they made a corrupt deal with Waco Willie Clinton, the company went bankrupt and changed hands three times before the dust settled. I’m not saying I was responsible—although media people used to call me up asking for “the man who killed S&W”—I’m just saying.

My sweet and simple baseball-style advice to every American gun owner who wants to keep what he’s got: get behind a Constitutional amendment that will compel all government-chartered corporations to respect and enforce the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, bubbies, no charter.

There’s an old piece of wisdom that philosopher Robert LeFevre used to quote from industrial giant Andrew Carnegie (or was it Unca Scrooge McDuck?): “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” Meaning that a poor but brilliant man may found a monumental undertaking and make himself rich, but then his dumb-ass sons and grandsons will fuck it up and fritter everything away after he’s gone.

Now I think we’re down to two.