Bob Carson, the painfully left-wing podcast “radio” host who has such a high opinion of himself, is apparently still annoyed that we at The Martialist think he’s not a very good interviewer.  Remember that Bob blocked me on Twitter after we exchanged some unpleasantries there?  Well, I figured he wouldn’t be able to resist taking a shot at this site on his podcast, and I wasn’t disappointed.

During the segment of his show in which his new Best Friend Forever (BFF) Frank Dux answers listeners’ calls and e-mails, Carson oh-so-subtly segued into a discussion of the Internet and discussion about [mixed] martial arts on the Web.  If you ask me, it sounds like (and this is speculation only on my part) that Carson and Dux discussed how best to work the topic into Dux’s segment, because it doesn’t seem to flow naturally from the conversation that comes before it.

(Tangentially, I note with interest that Carson claims he stopped visiting online MMA forums “three years ago.” This is the same man who, in his arrogant e-mail to me, told me, “Go on any MMA forum and ask people who they think is the best interviewer of all time — it’s me, sir.”  This begs the question of just how Mr. Carson would know such a thing, and relate it with such conviction, if it has been years since (in his own words) since he last checked such forums.)

Now, put yourself in Bob’s position. If you wanted to take a shot at me and The Martialist, but you didn’t want people who don’t already know about the site to to visit it out of curiosity, thus giving me free publicity, what would you do?

Carson lobs Dux a softball about Internet discussion, and Dux runs with it, invoking the tag line for this site.  Our motto has been, since The Martialist‘s inception, “For Those Who Fight Unfairly.”  This is an important concept because it acknowledges that there is no such thing as a “fair fight” in self-defense.

Anyone who knows about The Martialist will make this connection. Anyone who has visited us before who heard Dux’s comments knew exactly to whom he was referring (especially given our recent interview with him).  Here’s a transcript of the discussion, which starts about ten seconds short of 23 minutes into Carson’s 21 July 2010 podcast:

Carson: Mmm-hmm.  Mmm-hmm.

Dux: You know?

Carson: Absolutely.  There is, and, uh, it gets worse when, when you go on forums, Internet forums, where everybody’s an Internet Tough Guy and everybody’s an expert.  I stopped, honestly, I stopped going on MMA forums about three years ago. I just, I, I don’t know how anybody can spend their time on an Internet forum.  But people do, unfortunately, you know, people do, and I think it’s, I think it’s to the detriment, but, by the same token, Frank, I mean, who am I to complain. And Carson’s Corner wouldn’t be a good show, or wouldn’t be, we wouldn’t get any listens if it weren’t for the Internet.  I mean, this is an online radio show so obviously we depend on the Internet, we depend on the forums to give us our listenership, but… I, I just think that it, it’s a double edged sword, it’s… you know.

Dux: Well, here, here’s the thing.  If you’re on a forum, here’s a real good tool.

Carson: Mmm-hmm.

Dux: Find out if the guy’s really using his real name or not. If a guy’s using his real name it means he’s not hiding something. Um, you know, I believe in accountability, and accountability… is equivalent to being honorable, you know? And what are you going to learn from somebody who isn’t honorable?

Uh, one of the worst things I see going out there, and I’m not going to mention any names, but there’s a guy out there, promoting, you know, uh, ‘You’re a fool if you don’t… if you fight fair,’ or something like that.  What he’s really saying in the subtext, if you really pay attention, is the ends justify the means philosophy.  And that’s just not the case.  There’s some things that you have to be willing to stand up for and sacrifice yourself for, and there are certain principles, um, you know, that, that we all hold dear in this country and this country was founded upon.  So to, to kind of push that philosophy, for me, is uh, totally, for one thing, totally against martial arts, because martial arts… training is all about self-discipline, respect for self, respect for others, and being a service to others. And you can’t be of service to others when you’re sitting there and operating under a philosophy of the ends justify the means.

Carson: Frank, well said, we’re going to leave it there. Thank you, once again, for answering listener e-mails…

I’m not sure exactly what principles of our Founding Fathers’ vision for America we’re violating here at The Martialist, where we believe strongly in the Bill of Rights (particularly the First and Second Amendments) and in strict construction of the United States Constitution.  Setting aside this, it’s offensive on many levels for Dux to stammer through his high-minded, altruistic vision of what the martial arts are supposed to mean while claiming that WE, of all the sites on the Internet, are “one of the worst things” he “sees going out there.”

What is a fair fight?  It’s a fight with rules — a duel in which both parties agree to obey those rules, mutually.  It’s an exchange in which either party, at least in theory, has an equal chance of winning the engagement.  This is the concept behind mixed martial arts bouts, boxing matches, and any other martial sport.

It is NOT self-defense.

A martial artist who forgets that his martial art is, first and foremost, a means of delivering force to an assailant has forgotten what he’s trying to accomplish. When you defend yourself and, more importantly, when you defend your family, you must NOT accept the assailant’s rules.  You must not play his game.  You must not engage in a sporting duel with him.  You must not, if you can help it, engage in an altercation whose outcome could go either way by equal probability.

No, in self-defense, you seek to stack the deck in your favor, to cheat, to fight as unfairly as possible.  You arm yourself with legal weapons, when possible, in order to be better prepared than is your attacker.  You train yourself to deal with situations with more skill and with a superior mindset than, you hope, your assailant brings to the exchange.  You learn and you practice with the goal of making the fight as unfair as possible — of making it as unequal an exchange as you can possibly contrive.

You hope, when that moment of self-defense comes, that you are much more likely to succeed than he is.  Your goal is different than his; you wish only to protect your family and avoid or escape the altercation.  He wishes to violate you and yours, materially or physically.

Note, also, that while in fighting unfairly you recognize that the attacker has no right to hurt you (and thus you have every right to take every legal, unfair advantage you can as the citizen defender), this is not an “ends justify the means” philosophy.  Over and over again on this site we have stressed legal issues such as parity of force.  We have analyzed cases like the Roderick Scott trial. We have warned you about leftist attempts to legislate into oblivion your right to self-defense.  We have told you countless times never to break the law in self-defense, for you will pay the price for doing so.

What we’ve said so many times is that there is a huge difference between pragmatic, reality-based self-defense and the stylized fantasies of not-so-martial artists who think fighting for your family’s lives (or your own) is some kind of game played according to mutually agreed guidelines.  That is not “the ends justifying the means,” but it most certainly is the recognition that there is no moral equivalence between the attacker and the attacked, between the assailant and the victim, between the rapist and the raped.

Spewing pseudo-spiritual garbage about the martial arts being about “service” or respect for your fellow man may make one feel wise or spiritually enlightened, but it’s nonsense.  It’s precisely the sort of thing that I would expect from someone who talks about “honor” from behind the dubious safety of weasel-words and thinly veiled references to his critics.  The fact that Bob Carson and Frank Dux felt they simply had to fire this little shot across the bow of The Martialist tells me simply that what we do here is worth doing.  If a man is judged in terms of the enemies he makes, I’d say we’re on the right track.