One big story that hasn’t yet made it across the Spanish-English divide is the epic of Don Alejo Garza, an elderly farmer who fought a one-man stand against a drug gang. When they gave him a deadline to leave his property or else, Garza sent his ranch hands home and armed himself. There he waited. When the gang came in the dead of the night he met them with a fusilade and killed four and wounded two before the numerically superior drug enforcers finally took him out with gunfire and hand-grenades. The Mexican Marines arrived on the scene to find bodies all over and an old man at the center of it all.
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Garza’s epic stand recalls the efforts of Lance Thomas, a watch dealer in Los Angeles, California who killed five armed robbers in four separate shootouts as they tried to rob his store. On two of these occasions Thomas was himself shot, but kept firing until he was the last man standing. Although Garza is dead and we will never know why he made up his mind to face off against the gangsters, Thomas was asked why he chose to repeatedly fight instead of giving the criminals what they wanted. He answered that if he did that — submitted — then his survival would be someone else’s choice. He wanted to make the call on whether he would live or die.
In so doing both recall one of the great cinematic epics of the 1950s. “High Noon” resonates in part because it depicts the life of a man who we all sometimes want to be when we’re not thinking straight. Every now and again someone actually does the foolish thing. And when they do, we can’t help but sit up and notice, almost as if it is the least that we can do.
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071866/
For me the script reads like Mr. Majestyk.
There are few metrics I am aware of that measure bravery. Certainly our all volunteer armed forces are a testiment to an individuals willingness to go in harms way but how much of that is economically driven. The shoeless men at Valley Forge weren’t there for economic reasons, liberty was their mantra.
I believe it is better to die standing than on you knees. As Caesar said to Calpernia on the way to the forum, Of all the things I yet have herd it seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death , a necessary end, will come when it will come
Amen brother.
That’s the problem isn’t it? The peace officers come after notification that a crime has been committed. Invariably past tense. Law enforcement, as practiced, relies on deterrence. When that fails, lawlessness prevails. Then all bets are off, everyman for himself.
In the country to the south, corruption, coupled with fear has rendered law enforcement ineffective. Martial law, judiciously exercised, can help. Those involved in the criminal activities also sleep. Military resources can determine where that occurs.
How about, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”(?)
Courageous in my opinion.
“Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods!”
From Lays of Ancient Rome – Thomas Babbington Macaulay
Having been a resident of Jalisco State in Mexico for the last five years, I have watched the drug war escalate between the so called Mexican Cartels to a point where they are killing each other off by the thousands. Yes there is some collateral damage to civilians but mostly its the narco’s, policia and the army/marines that are dying. Indeed the Mexican states that border the US have become more dangerous as the narcos fight over their “trap lines” into the US, and there has been some violence with the La Familia in neighboring Michoucan and Guerro States which may be more political than narco related. Senor Garza I suspect had had enough of the narcos, who are often cholos or punk gang members, and decided like Harry Truman from Spirit Lake Lodge as Mt. Saint Helens blew her top, that he’d rather make a last stand at the place he loved.
Mexico is not in total melt down as the US media would have you believe…its actually in an economic recovery mode and has a growing middle class that enjoy most of the comforts that Americans enjoy. It’s the justice system, based on Napoleonic law that’s broken and corrupt. Until that gets fixed it will be a “long war” against the narco’s as the demand for cheap drugs in the US is endless.
O/T with permission requested.
Soon many of us will be celebrating Thanksgiving with family and friends.
Well, I’ like to thank Mr. Fernandez for this site and his administration of it’s content. And so in the beginning of this festive season I would like each of us to paste a sticky note to the refrig that says TIP JAR FOR MR FERNANDEZ and give what you can…he’s earned it.
Safety of Mexico
http://www.simplyvallarta.com/safety-of-mexico/
I recommend High Noon and On the Waterfront to every teenage boy as two of the films that define what it is to be a man.
Unfortunately, too many resemble the townspeople in High Noon. Fortunately the idealist wife, played by Grace Kelly, has a moment of clarity and reality in the penultimate scene.
Marlon Brando is finally transformed thanks to the deaths of an innocent boy and later the murder of his brother and protector, plus the love of a woman, plus the awesome speech Karl Malden makes on the docks, invoking a higher ethic.
Along these lines, I also highly recommend The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. There are so many amazing aspects of that film that I always find something new each time I have my yearly viewing of it.
I pray for the soul of that old farmer, that he rests easy in heaven whilst the men of evil who assailed him find thier just reward in the cold dead grave.
~~~Viktor Frankl ~~~
there are only two races of men, decent men and indecent.
~~~~The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~~~~John Stuart Mill~~~~
I would have been proud to know that farmer.
3. epignosis
You’re right.
Remember..when seconds count the police are just five minutes away
They just fill in the paperwork while your loved one is trundled off to the morgue. Then they investigate…the higher profile the deceased had the harder they dig and the more resouces are use. If you’re a call center worker … oh well….
Habu:
I dont know if economics are such a driver for soldiers. I will admit that it may play a role for a few, but its an awful lot to ask a man to die for a sure paycheck. I suspect that they dont think much about it initially, but a big driver is duty or patriotism or a sense of owing something to those who went there before. After they get onboard, their duty to their brothers is what makes it work.
Now with respect to Sr. Garza and Mr. Thomas, I doubt if they thought too much about it. They knew that when seconds counted the police were only minutes away. So they loaded up and waited. It was their lives they were defending. Their land and their business, as much their children as their flesh. Locke talked about rights to “Life, Liberty and Property”. No-one is complete with one of them taken from you. And no-one has the right to.
W. — Im glad that there are crazy people like this out there. In the comments to the linked article about Garza, someone references Grossmann’s Sheep Sheepdogs and Wolves meme. Sr. Garza illustrates the point that you never know who’s a sheepdog. That is sufficient deterrence to most of the would-be wolves.
Yes, Richard, we know why Mr. Garza stood his ground, and why he fought.
If one has never possessed anything precious enough to fight for, then he has never possessed anything at all.
“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property” (original draft version). Too bad he had to make that stand alone.
Old Salt
Recall, if you will, the Story of Chanuka. The family of Matityahu, the High Priest in the Second Temple in Jerusalem, refused to kow-tow to the Hellenist-supported corrupt Greek governor. Sometimes acts of valor succeed.
I think the reason he fought was very simple. And it is the reason our experience in Southeast Asia is still so distressing.
It’s bad to lose. It’s far, far worse to let the losers win.
The drug gangs are made up of losers, in every sense of the word.
what Sgt. Mom said.
In all history the only bright rays cutting through the gloom of oppression have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in. The day we forget this, the race has had it!–Jeff Cooper
The world is a brighter place for Don Garza having lived.
Valence: The combining capacity of an atom or radical determined by the number of electrons that it will lose, add, or share when it reacts with other atoms
“Liberty Valence” –a great film –the fight to just keep his law books from obliteration –just that –became the hero’s initial reason –more developed –to stand and die if he must.
The liberty valence in the end was ‘zero’ –
(Gene Pitney title song is a classic, too)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDN4L7cAQf0
check out them lyrics!
I am truly sorry that fine Mexican man had to die protecting his property.I understand he killed 4 cholos which is good, but more importantly it is an example to Americans that Mexicans can be heroes too. Maybe not the border jumpers and the narcos, maybe not even the government of Mexico but just plain Mexican business men and farmers. It is a shame that the police weren’t there to protect him and he would have done much better if he had several like-minded friends, but the old man did good. Via con Dios.
For some reason I want to say that his boots were big enough to be a Texan. The only problem is, I don’t want it do sound like I am trying to offend him or his memory.
Garza is an Elfego Baca for the 21st Century.
The real Elfego Baca survived a similar onslaught and then came back in video form on Disney.
Such men exist, but gun control will eventually choke them out.
“I do not know
What fate awaits me.
I only know
I must be brave.
And I must face a man
Who hates me.
Or lie a coward,
a craven coward,
or lie a coward
in my grave.”
Lyrics from the soundtrack to High Noon. Seems to say it all.
re: Survival someone else’s choice.
Wonder how much of this motivates the anger at intrusive search. We want to be able to trust our neighbor, our seatmate, and be trusted by our fellow citizens and their enterprise (airlines, theaters, malls, trains, etc.). And not be treated as felons, untrusted to the degree they must be strip searched when entering prison.
We fight wars to be free and establish the trust required for civil society (and its voluntary associations) to be able to deliver near all of our (domestic) needs. The Left doesn’t get this I suspect – they are willing to trust and even desire the government to be involved in all things. And given that congress directly spends $10B per day and thru the administrative state constrains thru regulation and litigation that limit how we can spend an additional $10B per day, we are pretty much where the Left wants with a remote central government controlling 2/3rds of the economy. Hard to call this “free.”
Thanks to Habu for the last line.
It matters not that you are strong
It matters not that I may live
For life is given for not long
And mine is mine alone to give
I will not grovel at your feet
I will not beg my life you spare
I live so long as my heartbeat
Proclaims I stand with my chest bare
And face you down as well I might
Not let you do as you may please
I may not see the dawn this night
But die I stand, not on my knees
Sensibility of the 60s (apologies to habu & walt’s line) from Catch 22:
Capt. Nately: Don’t you have any principles?
Old man in whorehouse: Of course not!
Capt. Nately: No morality?
Old man in whorehouse: I’m a very moral man, and Italy is a very moral country. That’s why we will certainly come out on top again if we succeed in being defeated.
Capt. Nately: You talk like a madman.
Old man in whorehouse: But I live like a sane one. I was a fascist when Mussolini was on top. Now that he has been deposed, I am anti-fascist. When the Germans were here, I was fanatically pro-German. Now I’m fanatically pro-American. You’ll find no more loyal partisan in all of Italy than myself.
Capt. Nately: You’re a shameful opportunist! What you don’t understand is that it’s better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.
Old man in whorehouse: You have it backwards. It’s better to live on your feet than to die on your knees. I know.
Capt. Nately: How do you know?
Old man in whorehouse: Because I am 107-years-old. How old are you?
Capt. Nately: I’ll be 20 in January.
Old man in whorehouse: If you live.
Captain Nately and the old man in the whorehouse were both right. It is infinitely better to live on your feet than die on your knees, but Garza did not have that choice.
From what I understand, Senor Garza took a stand because the thugs demanded he give them the ranch he had spent his life building. Living in Tucson, I’m glad to hear Sigintel’s take that Mexico isn’t as bad as portrayed.
Here’s an informative blog on the drug wars:
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/
My fiancée and I are outbound from ATL early in the AM, bound for Michigan and Thanksgiving with friends.
The great 19th-20th century rabbi/author/reformer, Solomon Schechter wrote that men must assess what in their lives is so precious that for those things they would die. Those things, then, are the very things for which to live.
To all men of goodwill, a joyous Thanksgiving.
The last two years have put a dent in my feelings of patriotism. I once thought I would be willing to die for my people and for my country.
Now, I’m not so sure. What kind of people would elect a man who bows down to the King of Saudi Arabia? What kind of people would elect a man who bows down to the Emperor of Japan? What kind of people would elect a man who cancels America’s mission to the Moon and tells NASA that its primary mission is to make Muslims feel better? What kind of people would elect a man who spends most of his time apologizing for the last sixty years of American history?
Is the America we fight for one where the TSA ogles and gropes at will? Is the America we fight for one where winning wars is passé but bailing out investment bankers isn’t? Is the America we fight for one that is fundamentally transformed into something Americans can’t even recognize as America?
If electing America-haters is truly what the American people want – or wanted in 2008 – the question comes whether the American people are worth fighting for. If the America we are supposed to fight for is one that sneers at other Americans as bitter clingers, what’s the point?
No, I’m not giving up. Far from it. However, I am also not denying how actions emanating from the Obama presidency are eroding my feelings of loyalty to America’s political system. When domestic anti-Americanism reigns supreme in America, the question will come whether the United States of America is worth keeping. I think it is, but this will require a social revolution, not only in politics, but especially in academe and the media.
As optimistic as I would like to be, I think the last two years have done lasting damage to United States of America, both at home and abroad. Let’s do what we can to make sure our future is not like the last two years.
“He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.”
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.2
Along those lines, I read on MSNBC (ha!) the TSA claims that since the organization was created they’ve “confiscated 4.8 million firearms, knifes, and other prohibited items.”
Which I assume traslates to 4.79999 million nail clippers, 4 sets of knitting needles, a Boy Scout’s pocket knife, and one non-functional Civil War era revolver. But hey, heckuva job there Pistoley.
The problem isn’t just that our official “protection” agencies – the police, the TSA, the Justic Department – aren’t protecting us from real dangers, it’s that they’re becoming dangers themselves. I’m more in danger of going to jail for losing my temper and slugging a TSA screener making my child scream than I am of being blown up by a terrorist. I’m more in danger of losing several hundered dollars to a traffic fine (plus associated increased insurance rates) in a revenue enhancement operation than I am of having my truck stolen.
And any effort I take to defend myself against the real problems in society is viewed by The Authorities as a challenge and a threat – I might be breaking their rice bowl.
It’s not just that our governments (nearly all levels) spends billions on useless things – they spend billions to cause us problems. Senior Garza stood his ground and gunned down a bunch of thugs who thought they had the right to order him off his land because they needed it. Wonder if he ever heard of Kelo?
Alexis, enough Americans believing America is not worth preserving is what will make America not worth preserving. The left will be unhappy until we’re ALL unhappy. Be bitter –but cling!
But yes, i hear ya loud and clear –it’s like having a gangrenous limb that can’t be amputated –you kill the rot or the rot kills you.
JMH/31, you ring a bell with that observation that the gov’t itself is the problem that the gov’t wants you to think that it needs to solve so badly you have to be stalinized.
viz, the Patriot Act that most people blame on Bush and associate with 9/11 actually dates from 1995 –Joe Biden’s name is on it, so i’d imagine some Gambino lawyers helped identify the desired effects.
But point, what in 1995 required the Patriot Act? The Ok City bombing? Required the Patriot Act? It wasn’t ’til a year later in 1996 that bin Laden penned his war declaration, and not til three years later the embassies were AQ’d in east Africa.
Clinton came in in 93, signed Motor Voter as his first Act, in the Rose Garden with Cloward and Piven literally looking over his shoulder –so, the ACORN enabling act, and the movement in finance toward creating the TooBigToFails, and writing financial legislation to hide its real purpose to be proven in reality later, all started with the Clinton Democrats –and now one of ‘em is the frigging Secretary of State –and we wonder what’s wrong with the world?
another bitter clinger here.
What worries me is when in 2012 we vote them out of office, they don’t want to, ala pelosi, leave.
they’ll drum up some ‘emergency’ for emergency powers.
convince me that i’m full of it, please.
Full of it? What about me, who wonders if the Tea Party sensibility ever takes over, do we want to have another election and let this bunch we got now, come back in?
i know –go wash my mouth out with soap.
#29: What kind of people would elect a man who bows down to the King of Saudi Arabia? What kind of people would elect a man who bows down to the Emperor of Japan? What kind of people would elect a man who cancels America’s mission to the Moon and tells NASA that its primary mission is to make Muslims feel better? What kind of people would elect a man who spends most of his time apologizing for the last sixty years of American history?
What kind of people would elect a man they knew nothing about? And what kind of people would do nothing to correct that deficit of knowledge? Just go on and vote for him anyway, because it’s style over substance for the American people.
From the Liberty Valence song: “When the final showdown came at last, a lawbook was no good.”
It’s the eternal conflict. Those who can keep the law don’t need it; those who need the law can’t keep it.
I suppose every society has a certain number of individuals who are brave enough and courageous enough to take a stand for victory or death. Unfortunately we have a government that sees these very people as the bad guys. In the event of a showdown, they have their plans in place. But that kind of showdown won’t happen, so they needn’t worry. BTW, why don’t the TSA employees who’ve been instructed to carry out the naked scanning and pat-down assaults – Muslim women excepted – say to their bosses, “Take this job and shove it!” Or, “Forget it, we’re not treating our fellow Americans this way and you ain’t gonna make me!” Rhetorical question, we know why.
re Rumcrook/10; Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, psychiatrist, and lover of mankind, kept himself alive in the camps by thinking of all the ways he loved his wife –who had already been murdered in another camp. In his postwar practice (search –his website is up, tho he is passed) when a new patient came to him suicidal, his simple first question, “Why don’t you kill yourself?” began their journey back from darkness.
***
…for Don Alejo Garza,
for whom the bell tolls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNv5ZvzTGJw
(song the little bell may have an ad before)
Don Garza has done more in one night to tether civil society to the soil than the entire faculty at Harvard University will in a year.
Rest in peace, my brother.
(in thanks to Walt for all his offerings)
Oh, Don Alejo Garza
A line of funeral cars a
Mile long is lacking to the need
To testify the valor
You displayed at deadly hour,
So gigantic an example is your deed.
Los narcos and las ninas
Are planted like gardenias,
But your life remembered stands by us as friend,
For Don Alejo Garza
You have seeded in our hearts
A need to be all braver, stronger men.
Oh, Don Alejo Garza
A more just world than ours will
Hail you, kindred foe of worldly sin.
Beyond the grande rio
Arrives His grand Torino
To drive you as the saints go marching in.
Gran Torino –in which Clint Eastwood –as a Korean War vet –foreshadows the real world and the end of it for Don Alejo Garza. Luminous, flying squirrel, all luminous.
Don Alejo Garza, they may have taken your life, but your courage and spirit will live with those who cherish freedom and justice. I pray that others will be inspired and take up your stand.
Dormir bien, Soldato valiente
Marine 83 cut to the bone with his quote.
Here is the verbal and visual:
“Do Not Forsake me’—-”
In March (I think, My memory fails me more and more) I decided that I was sick and tired and ashamed that I had not stepped up and got on the line and done what was not only right but needed because of the takeover by the evil parasites of the left.
So I decided that I would not forsake my duty as an American one more day. Only once before had I stood up and got on the line and it had almost killed me, not only in the physical but my soul.
I won’t lie to you, that experience was one to make me shy away from most any other conflict, as I had had enough.
Or so I thought until this past year.
The effort, physical cost and mental re-awaking of the last eight months has made me remember and understand not only that I am an American, A Texan but am bound by duty to my God, My Family and My Country to stand up, get on the line and to fight for our freedom and liberty.
And along my way I found other Texans, other Americans who decided to join me in my efforts, our fight and to…
Not Forsake our families and our Republic.
My enemies were not trying to kill me outright, but they are just as dangerous – so I survived – unlike the brave and determined man of this post, and I am a better man for it and my soul is closer to being at peace now.
Not just because of my efforts but because I have seen and worked with great Americans who made possible the results.
It gave us strength to see and experience the re-awaking of our friends and neighbors to the threat against our Republic.
May each of you have a thanksgiving holiday that will leave you not only full of good food but full of a renewed, determined spirit and resolve.
Liberty for our future generations will only be possible if we stand up, get on the line and fight our enemies.
And utterly destroy those enemies – not only without – but within.
Papa Ray
I refuse to wait for death in a cage or in a gulag. No one will take my property illegally without a fight as the brave rancher did. His government, as in the US, could not protect him.
When my son first went to Iraq with the Army, we went shopping and I bought him a very good survival knife; one he has to have permission to move about with in the Army into combat zones. Go figure. Anyway, I told him the story of the El Salvadorian officer in Iraq, who when his force was attacked, his best friend killed in front of him and he out of ammo, attacked the enemy with his survival knife and they fled in terror from the madman. It is so much better to die in a rush of adrenalin than to wait for death.
One could ask how I know; well when I was in submarines we had an underwater collision and “knew” we were sinking in an area of the ocean where it was near our crush depth. I closed the hatches to my compartment, locking myself away from the escape hatch and performed the other actions necessary to help the boat survive, if that was even possible. I did that with no fear or trepidation, but then I had to stand alone at my damage control station waiting for what I and we believed was our possible slow, cold death. Whenever I think about that situation, I think of the Russian sailors trapped in their accidentally sunk sub on the floor of the very cold Arctic Ocean, all the survivors of the accident lowly dying of hypothermia in the dark.
Yes indeed, it is much better to die in a rush of adrenalin.
Al, how’d y’all get out? Not the Momsen lung i hope !
Alexis,
Even within gaming circles it’s a little known fact that the “D&D = Satanism and kidnapping” meme never started within religious circles but was entirely the product of Dan Rather and 60 Minutes. Reasonably intelligent and sane people saw trusted news figures making absurd pronouncements as unquestioned fact and proceeded to make decisions that would have been both sane and ethical were the premises themselves not insane and venomous. But Old Media was trusted by everyone in those days and there was no Internet by which they could be countered so lies most foul passed as menace most urgent and would doubtless have done even more mischief than they actually did had only the rumormongers more to work with. The election of Mr. Obama follows that same pattern. The lies of the Journolists fell apart but they held together long enough for an election campaign because Old Media lied to those who trusted them. Both they and the Democrats are paying for that now and I suspect they will pay yet more for that in the future. But remember that decisions are often only as good as the information they are based on and you will understand it is not with the American people that the fault lies when it comes to Mr. Obama!