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.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP7okqpFd0A

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.

Now the Army has admitted that the program needs work — and they’re planning to revise it.  The following comes to us courtesy of the Stars and Stripes:

Confronted by a recent survey that shows soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are fighting for their lives in hand-to-hand combat with insurgents, U.S. Army officials are revamping their basic combatives training to better equip American forces to defend themselves.

…More than 50,000 soldiers have completed the Army Combatives Level I course since its inception in 2002, according to an Army release. The training is divided into four levels.

Until now, Level I and II Combatives training focused on ground fighting. But the new Level I and II training will include punching, kicking and grappling by soldiers in “full battle rattle,” Lopez said.

“They’re trying to incorporate more stand-up, more full-gear fighting in Level I and Level II,” he said. “Weapons fighting is becoming more important [in the early stages of Combatives training].”

The changes in the program came about after the Army interviewed more than 900 soldiers who saw hand-to-hand combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to an Army news release.

…[T]the change in focus of the Combatives program is also a reflection of the directive from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to reduce the use of lethal force in Afghanistan.

In other words, the Army has reluctantly admitted that the focus on BJJ is not a realistic approach… but it wants to further muddy the waters by “reducing the use of lethal force.”

God save us from politically correct wars.

Central to GOA’s ire is that the NRA has managed to “carve out” an exemption for itself from the bill. The GOA and various Tea Party organizations, to name only a few, aren’t exempt, and thus their ability to engage in grassroots efforts for or against specific candidates is being infringed.  Worse, according to the GOA, is the fact that the political maneuvering over the NRA’s exemption signals, wrongly, that the Bill of Rights is “subject to negotiation.”

The NRA’s Executive Director, Chris Cox, issued a statement in response that flatly denies these charges:

The NRA has never supported — nor would we ever support — any version of this bill… The restrictions in this bill should not apply to anyone or to any organization. My job is to ensure they don’t apply to the NRA and our members…

…The NRA is a single-issue organization made up of millions of individual members dedicated to protecting the Second Amendment. We do not represent the interests of other organizations. Nor do all groups fight all issues together…

Rather than focusing on opposing this bill, some have encouraged people to blame the NRA for this Congress’s unconstitutional attack on free speech. That’s a shame…

In other words, the position of the NRA is that it fought, and secured, an exemption from the bill in order to continue fighting for your Second Amendment rights.  Other organizations that believe they, too, should be exempt are responsible for fighting their own battles.

This is not, indeed, support for the bill, but it does not constitute opposition to it either.  While I can understand the position of the NRA in this matter, I think it’s short-sighted to believe your work as an advocacy group stops at the front door to your offices.  A bill that affects other pro-liberty organizations is bad for the country and everyone in it, regardless of whether they have the power and the political acumen to remove themselves from the blast radius of the Democrats’ latest unconstitutional bombs.

Download Shorthand Empty Hand, Second Edition here.

One of our forum members, Bryan Cannata, is offering a “Street Kali” folding knife seminar.  If you’re local in Georgia, we strongly encourage you to attend.

Hello, readers of The Martialist!  After seven years it was time to perform a major site overhaul.  We’ve got pages in two different formats as it is, and that’s just not good enough, so we’re upgrading the entire website using WordPress to power our content.  Please bear with us while we get everything converted over… and enjoy your holidays!