Buck Sexton and "The Message to Garcia"

November 08, 2013

Writer

Now, Bill de Blasio’s resounding victory this week in the New York City mayoral election, that could be a tipping point for America, not just for the City of New York.

The question is this: Which way will we go, de Blasio’s way, or will we reverse back towards individual liberty? De Blasio’s not your garden-variety Progressive. This is very important to keep in mind. He doesn’t cloak his real intentions. He doesn’t pretend that there’s all this flowery pro-American sounding phraseology.

De Blasio is unashamed of his radically left views, Marxism, Communism. His top priority, as he says quite openly, is battling inequality, that mentality that somehow you are owed something just for existing and just because you live in a country where some people have more than you. And as we know, this creates problems.

It creates more problems than it will ever solve because it turns people against each other. It creates a sense of entitlement. It makes life about cash over character and possessions over principles. And now with de Blasio and others like him, this country’s embracing it. We’re being forced to embrace this, and we’re reaping what we sow in America.

We can just take you to Chicago, for example, where there’s been a rash of audacious flash mob robberies happening. Now, more than likely these thugs as you can see here as they run into these stores and steal articles of clothing that don’t belong to them, they’ve bought into some progressive lie that a fat cat CEO is to blame for their lot in life. So why shouldn’t they just take a few things and even it out, right?

There’s a lot of inequality out there, so just steal from the store owner, steal from the employees there because there’s a fat cat CEO behind all of us, I guess. In Georgia, and you can’t make this stuff up, a 14-year-old punk was arrested after throwing a violent tantrum because he didn’t want to get out of bed to go to school. Yeah, look at that. Now, why bother getting up and going to school and bettering yourself, learning things when it doesn’t matter in the end, right?

If you teach that everyone deserves to be equal and have the same stuff, this, what you’re seeing here, is the logical end result of all of that, a nation made up of entitled slugs like this 14-year-old, who probably thinks he’s somehow oppressed because mommy and daddy don’t give him everything that he wants.

Now, you think that’s oppression? Why don’t we try on the Muslim teens who get shot by the Taliban on bus rides home from school? That’s what happened to this girl, Malala Yousafzai. Now, she had a bounty on her head because she spoke out. The Taliban said we’re going to kill you because you think that girls should go to school. And they tried to, and they shot her.

But when a generation in this country is being taught that they deserve and should be provided with the corner office, a fancy title and top benefits, a nice car, a fancy one, a home, maybe a higher education, all the way up through a PhD program, got to get that Masters in Caribbean literature 1850 to 1950, retirement funds, oh, let’s just stack them up for everybody, we’re going to raise more of the entitled sleepyheaded dopes than the inspirational heroes that we actually need in this country to get ourselves out of this rut and move forward.

It’s not just the kids that are falling victim to this, by the way. Of course, kids are often a reflection of the adults in the society. Adults here are having problems too. Here’s a couple that just lost their health insurance because of ObamaCare, but they decided that instead of standing and fighting, instead of speaking out against the law, doing what they could to get rid of this legislative monstrosity, no, they want to lower their own salaries so that they can qualify for government subsidies.

Now, of course, in part this is a rational response to the administration’s policy of making you increasingly dependent on whatever’s decided in D.C. They set those subsidies up so that people will say okay, I guess I’ll go for the subsidies, and then they’ll say well, I need D.C., don’t I? I’m dependent on them. They create the dependency, and then they bolster it.

We’re finished if we go that way, the de Blasio way, the openly Obama way. Obama, of course, had a lot of happy talk coming in, and we’ve started to see that change now, but before you start beating your chest, this isn’t just a lesson about subsidy-loving Progressives. There are problems with Conservatives too. We complain and rail and pull our hair out, yelling at the screens – I know I do – “Obama lies.”

We know Obama lies. We’ve said it, “He’s lying, he’s a liar, I told you so.” That’s not enough, though. We have to get up off our butts and lead without delay and without excuses. This concept, this message, if you will, it’s not new. The fear and frustration we feel in this country right now, we’ve face down worse before. Never forget that.

But the only reason we were able to withstand and overcome the darkness was because some Americans decided I’m going to get it done, no stalling, no whining, no explanations. Let me take you back a little bit, 1899, Elbert Hubbard, he’s an American essayist. He prints a little copy of an essay in Philistine magazine. He called it A Message to Garcia.

Now, it’s part short story, part call to arms. The back story of the short story is that President McKinley wanted to establish contact with the Cuban rebels during the Spanish-American war, so an Army officer by the name of Andrew Summers Rowan was chosen, and he established a close alliance with General Garcia and his Cuban rebels in the Oriente Mountains.

The essay was wildly popular. It sold millions of copies. It was turned into a book, two movies, and for a time in this country became something of a rallying cry, one we should remember today, about self-reliance, determination and yes, excellence, not everybody gets a trophy. We need those things right now, right now.

And so I wanted to share it with you. I want to give you in full A Message to Garcia.

“In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.
What to do!
Someone said to the President, ‘There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.’
Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How ‘the fellow by the name of Rowan’ took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.
The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ‘Where is he at?’ By the Eternal! There is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- ‘Carry a message to Garcia!’
General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.
No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well-nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.
Summon any one and make this request: ‘Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio’.
Will the clerk quietly say, ‘Yes, sir,’ and go do the task?
On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:
Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don’t you mean Bismarck?
What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?
Is he dead?
Is there any hurry?
Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?
What do you want to know for?
And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.
Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your ‘assistant’ that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, ‘Never mind,’ and go look it up yourself.
And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting ‘the bounce’ Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.
Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.
Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?
‘You see that bookkeeper,’ said the foreman to me in a large factory.
‘Yes, what about him?’
‘Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.’
Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?
We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the ‘downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop’ and the ‘homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,’ & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.
Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with ‘help’ that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away ‘help’ that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.
It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.
I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to anyone else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, ‘Take it yourself.’
Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.
Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.
Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.
I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.
My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the ‘boss’ is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets ‘laid off,’ nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.”

America, we have to get in this fight and stay in it, every one of us, carry the message.

Twitter mob goes ballistic over Father's Day photo of Caitlyn Jenner. Who cares?

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Here's a question unique to our times: "Should I tell my father 'Happy Father's Day,' even though he (she?) is now one of my mothers?"

Father's Day was four days ago, yes, but this story is just weird enough to report on. One enjoyable line to read was this gem from Hollywood Gossip: "Cait is a woman and a transgender icon, but she is also and will always be the father of her six children."

Imagine reading that to someone ten — even five — years ago. And, honestly, there's something nice about it. But the strangeness of its having ever been written overpowers any emotional impact it might bring.

"So lucky to have you," wrote Kylie Jenner, in the Instagram caption under pre-transition pictures of Bruce Jenner.

Look. I risk sounding like a tabloid by mere dint of having even mentioned this story, but the important element is the cultural sway that's occurring. The original story was that a band of disgruntled Twitter users got outraged about the supposed "transphobic" remarks by Jenner's daughter.

But, what we should be saying is, "who the hell cares?" Who cares what one Jenner says to another — and more importantly and on a far deeper level — who cares what some anonymous Twitter user has to say?

When are we going to stop playing into the hands of the Twitter mob?

When are we going to stop playing into the hands of the Twitter mob? Because, at the moment, they've got it pretty good. They have a nifty relationship with the mainstream media: One or two Twitter users get outraged by any given thing — in this case Jenner and supposed transphobia. In return, the mainstream media use the Twitter comment as a source.

Then, a larger Twitter audience points to the article itself as proof that there's some kind of systemic justice at play. It's a closed-market currency, where the negative feedback loop of proof and evidence is composed of faulty accusations. Isn't it a hell of a time to be alive?

These 5 governors are refusing to send national guard troops to the border

CAITLIN O'HARA/AFP/Getty Images

These days, when Americans decide to be outraged about something, we really go all out.

This week's outrage is, of course, the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal immigration along the southern border. Specifically, people are upset over the part of the policy that separates children from their parents when the parents get arrested.

Lost in all the outrage is that the President is being proactive about border security and is simply enforcing the law. Yes, we need to figure out a less clumsy, more compassionate way of enforcing the law, but children are not being flung into dungeons and fed maggots as the media would have you believe.

But having calm, reasonable debates about these things isn't the way it's done anymore. You have to make strong, sweeping announcements so the world knows how righteous your indignation is.

That's why yesterday, the governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut declared they are withholding or recalling their National Guard troops from the U.S.-Mexico border until this policy of separating children from their parents is rescinded.

Adding to the media stunt nature of this entire "crisis," it turns out this defiant announcement from these five governors is mostly symbolic. Because two months ago, when President Trump called for 4,000 additional National Guard troops to help patrol the border, large numbers of troops were not requested from those five states. In fact, no troops were requested at all from Rhode Island. But that didn't stop Rhode Island's Democratic governor, Gina Raimondo, from announcing she would refuse to send troops if she were asked. She called the family separation policy, "immoral, unjust and un-American."

There's so much outrage, we're running short on adjectives.

The governors of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York all used the word "inhumane" in their statements condemning the Trump administration policy. There's so much outrage, we're running short on adjectives.

In a totally unrelated coincidence, four of these five governors are running for re-election this year.

I've made my position clear — separating these children from their parents is a bad policy and we need to stop. We need to treat these immigrants with the kind of compassion we'd want for our own children. And I said the same thing in 2014 when no one cared about the border crisis.

If consistency could replace even just a sliver of the outrage in America, we would all be a lot better off.

Where were Rachel Maddow's tears for immigrant children in 2014?

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

I think we can all agree, both on the Left and the Right, that children who have been caught up in illegal immigration is an awful situation. But apparently what no one can agree on is when it matters to them. This past weekend, it suddenly — and even a little magically — began to matter to the Left. Seemingly out of nowhere, they all collectively realized this was a problem and all rushed to blame the Trump administration.

Here's Rachel Maddow yesterday:

Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to "tender age" shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20, 2018

I seem to remember getting mocked by the Left for showing emotion on TV, but I'll give her a pass here. This is an emotional situation. But this is what I can't give her a pass on: where the heck was this outrage and emotion back in 2014? Because the same situation going on today — that stuff Maddow and the rest of the Left have only just now woken up to — was going on back in July 2014! And it was arguably worse back then.

I practically begged and pleaded for people to wake up to what was going on. We had to shed light on how our immigration system was being manipulated by people breaking our laws, and they were using kids as pawns to get it done. But unlike the gusto the Left is using now to report this story, let's take a look at what Rachel Maddow thought was more important back in 2014.

On July 1, 2014, Maddow opened her show with a riveting monologue on how President Obama was hosting a World Cup viewing party. That's hard-hitting stuff right there.

On July 2, 2014, Maddow actually acknowledged kids were at the border, but she referenced Health and Human Services only briefly and completely rushed through what was actually happening to these kids. She made a vague statement about a "policy" stating where kids were being taken after their arrival. She also blamed Congress for not acting.

See any difference in reporting there from today? That "policy" she referenced has suddenly become Trump's "new" policy, and it isn't Congress's fault… it's all on the President.

She goes on throughout the week.

On July 7, 2014, her top story was something on the Koch brothers. Immigration was only briefly mentioned at the end of the show. This trend continued all the way through the week. I went to the border on July 19. Did she cover it? Nope. In fact, she didn't mention kids at the border for the rest of the month. NOT AT ALL.

Do you care about immigrant kids who have been caught in the middle of a broken immigration system or not?

Make up your minds. Is this an important issue or not? Do you care about immigrant kids who have been caught in the middle of a broken immigration system or not? Do you even care to fix it, or is this what it looks like — just another phony, addicted-to-outrage political stunt?

UPDATE: Here's how this discussion went on radio. Watch the video below.

Glenn gives Rachel Maddow the benefit of the doubt

Rachel Maddow broke down in tears live on her MSNBC show over border crisis.

Obama's tribute center in Chicago will cost taxpayers $200 million

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Progressives think the Obamas are a gift to the world. But their gift is apparently more of the metaphorical kind. It doesn't extend to helpful, tangible things like saving taxpayers money. Illinois has approved $224 million to pay for street and transportation upgrades around the planned site of the Obama Presidential Center. The catch is that Illinois taxpayers will have to cover $200 million of that cost. For a presidential museum.

Eight years of multiplying the national debt wasn't enough for Barack Obama. Old fleecing habits die hard. What's another $200 million here and there, especially for something as important as an Obama tribute center?

That's all well and good except Illinois can't even fund its pension system. The state has a $137 billion funding shortfall. That means every person in Illinois owes $11,000 for pensions, and there is no plan to fix the mess. Unless Illinois progressives have discovered a new kind of math, this doesn't really add up. You can't fund pensions, but you're going to figure out a way to milk the public for another $200 million to help cover the cost of a library?

It's hard to imagine who in their right mind would think this will be money well spent. Well, except for maybe Chicago Mayor and former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who said, "The state's… investment in infrastructure improvements near the Obama Center on the South Side of Chicago is money well spent."

Some presidential overreach lasts longer than others.

The spending has already been signed into law, even though the Obama library has not received construction approval yet. Part of the holdup is that the proposed site is on public land in historic Jackson Park. That doesn't seem very progressive of the Obamas, but, you know, for certain presidents, you go above and beyond. It's just what you do. Some presidential overreach lasts longer than others.

Here's the thing about taxing the peasants so the king can build a fancy monument to himself – it's wrong. And completely unnecessary. The Obamas have the richest friends on the planet who could fund this project in their sleep. If the world simply must have a tricked-out Obama museum, then let private citizens take out their wallets voluntarily.

As the Mercury Museum proved this weekend, it is possible to build an exhibit with amazing artifacts that attracts a ton of visitors – and it cost taxpayers approximately zero dollars.

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