Plenty of comments have been made already about the bombing in Boston and the government response, so I won't add any more here. I will, however, ask a very basic question. Where would you rather live?
1) A town where your neighbors cheer the police as they point their guns at you and request you "voluntarily" allow them to search your home?
2) A town where your neighbors would back you up with suitable firepower if you refused?
Government actions in Boston make it clear that where you live really does matter if you value your Liberty. You are each free to choose how you want to live, of course, but the Citadel is looking more and more like a good choice if you don't want to have to "volunteer" at gunpoint to give up your Constitutional rights.
VJ
Monday, May 6, 2013
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Citadel Update
Our thanks to VJ, who has done a wonderful job as President of the Citadel Steering Committee.
As you all know we stopped using this blog as our primary means of communicating with the public almost immediately after Matt Drudge linked our project. We went into a complete media blackout since Drudge linked us that wonderful weekend many months ago. We weren't ready for it, but it was wonderful. We still have not worked our way through all of the emails that came in during that period! We will, we promise!
Applicants and Founders have been communicating in the Citadel's private forum, away from the media spotlight. If you are an Applicant and have not received your invitation to the private forum, send an email to SteeringCommittee@IIICitadel.com and we'll get you into the forum. If we have missed you we apologize, the deluge of the Drudge link was epic.
The weather is becoming favorable and we will break ground on the Citadel Beachhead within the next 45 days!
We have had more than 2 dozen media production companies request the Rights to the Citadel story, to produce a documentary series as we build our community, and the requests continue to come into our team. Our Steering Committee has decided that we will choose by the end of this week which company we will permit to produce the Citadel series - if any. We may ultimately decide that we should control our own media message, rather than surrender our voice to a third party. But one way or the other, we will decide by the end of this week.
We have hundreds of families relying upon our Steering Committee, families that are waiting to make life-altering decisions. We take that responsibility very seriously. The concept of the Citadel began less than a year ago, and it has only been about six months since we began accepting reservations. Our future is bright and we will continue to move forward very fast. The sooner we are able to build our community and begin re-establishing the values we hold dear, the better.
Remember the cornerstone of the Citadel is III Arms, being masterfully run by President Jim Miller. In just a few short months we conceived of the Citadel, of III Arms, and today President Miller is working on a stack of orders and making his way through them. He is perfecting our very custom design for our AR lowers, and running the engine that is the heart and soul of the Citadel. Even though some firearms parts are nearly impossible to obtain in the current 2A environment, Jim is getting it done. And, of course, the most important parts of our firearms will be made from scratch - we don't depend on others for our frames, slides, uppers, lowers and essential parts. III Arms products are not merely assembled from parts made by other companies. III Arms are custom crafted Fighting Arms, built for Patriots, by Patriots. Keep up with Jim and III Arms at the Facebook page, and remember the best way to help advance the Citadel is to place your order for a III built AR or 1911.
We published our first edition of the III National Gazette, proudly and respectfully following the format of Thomas Jefferson's National Gazette. You can find online copies here: Page 1 and Page 2. If you would like to buy a physical copy of this piece of Citadel history, the PayPal link is below. We will not be printing any more copies of this edition - once they are gone, they are gone. We expect that one day these newsprint hard copies will be a valuable piece of the Citadel story.
This blog will continue to be relatively quiet, as our Applicants and Founders will continue to talk privately in our forum, away from the distortions of the media and the attacks of our ideological enemies. I just wanted to take a moment to publicly reveal that we are proceeding on schedule and we will be breaking ground in Idaho in mere weeks!
Thank you all for the support you have shown us!
Holly
III
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
It's Just Business
When you get past all of the CommieNaziFascistRacistRightWingGunNutExtremist accusations that are thrown at us and look at the basic project, the Citadel is actually very simple to understand. It is a group of people who want to build a planned, gated community and lease residential and commercial property to a particular clientele. At its core, it's "just business", like so many businesses around the country.
Leasing residential and commercial property is a common practice. Nobody thinks they are giving up their Liberty or being taken advantage of when they sign a lease. They have simply evaluated the cost vs. benefit and decided that the lease makes the most sense for their needs. Even the fact that we are planning to serve a specific clientele isn't at all unusual. Many specialty businesses have a particular group of people that they tailor their goods or services for and those can be very specific groups, depending on the business.
This isn't to diminish the underlying purpose of the Citadel, only to point out that, at its core, it is a very common, even mundane, business model. The clientele is unique, but if it wasn't for that we would be so ordinary that we would barely make the local news. What we are doing isn't such a "wild and extreme" or "never been done before" concept. There have been successful large scale real estate projects like this done all over the country. It's "just business" and, like every other business, if it is well run and serves the needs of its clientele, it should be successful too. We are going to do our best to make sure it is.
VJ
Leasing residential and commercial property is a common practice. Nobody thinks they are giving up their Liberty or being taken advantage of when they sign a lease. They have simply evaluated the cost vs. benefit and decided that the lease makes the most sense for their needs. Even the fact that we are planning to serve a specific clientele isn't at all unusual. Many specialty businesses have a particular group of people that they tailor their goods or services for and those can be very specific groups, depending on the business.
This isn't to diminish the underlying purpose of the Citadel, only to point out that, at its core, it is a very common, even mundane, business model. The clientele is unique, but if it wasn't for that we would be so ordinary that we would barely make the local news. What we are doing isn't such a "wild and extreme" or "never been done before" concept. There have been successful large scale real estate projects like this done all over the country. It's "just business" and, like every other business, if it is well run and serves the needs of its clientele, it should be successful too. We are going to do our best to make sure it is.
VJ
Thursday, April 11, 2013
TEOTWAWKI
The End Of The World As We Know It - TEOTWAWKI.
People have been fascinated with this idea for as least as long as there has been recorded history. Many volumes of fact and fiction have been written about it. When I was a kid the usual culprit was nuclear war. "On the Beach" and "Alas, Babylon" are two of the classic fictional novels on this theme. In modern times, economic collapse seems to be the disaster of choice to set the stage, although there are many other choices, up to and including, alien space bats ("Dies the Fire").
For factual information, Selco (http://shtfschool.com/) about Sarajevo and Ferfal (http://ferfal.blogspot.com/) about Argentina are good sources about what it's like to live through a collapse in modern society.
The question is, what do you do about it? TEOTWAWKI, that is. For the majority of people the answer is "nothing". Ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, hope it doesn't happen. This is the least expensive approach in the short run and potentially the most "expensive" one in the long run.
The next step up is to make some basic preparations - buy extra food, water and supplies, maybe buy a firearm and learn how to use it. Even a couple of months of food is a huge improvement over a few days supply if the grocery shelves run bare for any reason.
A much more radical approach is to move out into the country, grow your own food and become self sufficient. This is appealing even if nothing bad ever happens. However, Selco and Ferfal will both tell you that an individual or a single family is very vulnerable in a collapse scenario. That leads to the next logical step, commonly referred to as intentional communities, where a group of people with some common interest or philosophy choose to create a deliberately organized community together in a house or farm or something larger.
Last summer, the suggestion was made to form a large scale intentional community of Patriots who would support Rightful Liberty and build a resilient community that would be prepared for TEOTWAWKI. Additionally, the suggestion was made to form a firearms company to provide an economic base for the community. Thus began the Citadel and III Arms Company. In a matter of weeks we will see boots on the ground in Idaho and the suggestion becoming a reality.
For an excellent reference on building resilient communities, go to John Robb's web site www.resilientcommunities.com and check out what he has to offer. Local production of food, water and energy as well as local manufacturing are what he prescribes to build a resilient community and those are the things we are going to do. If you haven't checked out his ideas and information, you are missing out on something very special.
That's the place we will build - a community that can survive and thrive no matter what the future holds. That's all we want, a place that is comfortable, resilient and safe, populated by Patriots who share our belief in Rightful Liberty. A place where we can stop looking for that certain "something" that seems to be missing almost everywhere else, finally put down permanent roots, and call it home.
VJ
People have been fascinated with this idea for as least as long as there has been recorded history. Many volumes of fact and fiction have been written about it. When I was a kid the usual culprit was nuclear war. "On the Beach" and "Alas, Babylon" are two of the classic fictional novels on this theme. In modern times, economic collapse seems to be the disaster of choice to set the stage, although there are many other choices, up to and including, alien space bats ("Dies the Fire").
For factual information, Selco (http://shtfschool.com/) about Sarajevo and Ferfal (http://ferfal.blogspot.com/) about Argentina are good sources about what it's like to live through a collapse in modern society.
The question is, what do you do about it? TEOTWAWKI, that is. For the majority of people the answer is "nothing". Ignore it, pretend it doesn't exist, hope it doesn't happen. This is the least expensive approach in the short run and potentially the most "expensive" one in the long run.
The next step up is to make some basic preparations - buy extra food, water and supplies, maybe buy a firearm and learn how to use it. Even a couple of months of food is a huge improvement over a few days supply if the grocery shelves run bare for any reason.
A much more radical approach is to move out into the country, grow your own food and become self sufficient. This is appealing even if nothing bad ever happens. However, Selco and Ferfal will both tell you that an individual or a single family is very vulnerable in a collapse scenario. That leads to the next logical step, commonly referred to as intentional communities, where a group of people with some common interest or philosophy choose to create a deliberately organized community together in a house or farm or something larger.
Last summer, the suggestion was made to form a large scale intentional community of Patriots who would support Rightful Liberty and build a resilient community that would be prepared for TEOTWAWKI. Additionally, the suggestion was made to form a firearms company to provide an economic base for the community. Thus began the Citadel and III Arms Company. In a matter of weeks we will see boots on the ground in Idaho and the suggestion becoming a reality.
For an excellent reference on building resilient communities, go to John Robb's web site www.resilientcommunities.com and check out what he has to offer. Local production of food, water and energy as well as local manufacturing are what he prescribes to build a resilient community and those are the things we are going to do. If you haven't checked out his ideas and information, you are missing out on something very special.
That's the place we will build - a community that can survive and thrive no matter what the future holds. That's all we want, a place that is comfortable, resilient and safe, populated by Patriots who share our belief in Rightful Liberty. A place where we can stop looking for that certain "something" that seems to be missing almost everywhere else, finally put down permanent roots, and call it home.
VJ
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Enlightened Self Interest
I wish I knew where I first heard that term so I could give proper credit.
Everyone knows what self interest is. Enlightened self interest adds a longer term view to self interest, as in, a current sacrifice will result in a better future. It also adds the element that in many circumstances, helping someone else may be the most beneficial thing you can do for yourself.
One of the best examples of this is the old fashioned community barn raising. Members of the community came together to construct a barn for one of their neighbors. The immediate benefit to the community was a family better able to contribute to the overall prosperity of the community. One longer term benefit was a more cohesive community. Another was the building of good will so your neighbors would be willing to help you in the future if you needed it.
The Citadel is an example of enlightened self interest on a grand scale. We want to be able to live in this community that we have envisioned. The only way for that to happen is to make it possible for many others to live in that community as well. By doing the work and making the sacrifices to create a future for thousands of other people, we make a place for ourselves.
Rightful Liberty has a strong element of enlightened self interest, as well. By respecting the Rightful Liberty of those around you, you make it much more likely that they will respect yours.
Rightful Liberty and enlightened self interest will make the Citadel a successful, prosperous community. Our willingness to work now, to sacrifice now, to help each other now, will make for a far better future than any of us could create on our own. Everything we do to strengthen and improve our community makes a better place for all of us to live. The Founders and applicants who take the first, most difficult steps with us, will be building a future for thousands of others and by doing so will create a secure home and a better future for themselves and their families. Enlightened self interest, rather than the short sighted selfishness that pervades our society today, will create the life that we want to live in the Citadel.
VJ
Everyone knows what self interest is. Enlightened self interest adds a longer term view to self interest, as in, a current sacrifice will result in a better future. It also adds the element that in many circumstances, helping someone else may be the most beneficial thing you can do for yourself.
One of the best examples of this is the old fashioned community barn raising. Members of the community came together to construct a barn for one of their neighbors. The immediate benefit to the community was a family better able to contribute to the overall prosperity of the community. One longer term benefit was a more cohesive community. Another was the building of good will so your neighbors would be willing to help you in the future if you needed it.
The Citadel is an example of enlightened self interest on a grand scale. We want to be able to live in this community that we have envisioned. The only way for that to happen is to make it possible for many others to live in that community as well. By doing the work and making the sacrifices to create a future for thousands of other people, we make a place for ourselves.
Rightful Liberty has a strong element of enlightened self interest, as well. By respecting the Rightful Liberty of those around you, you make it much more likely that they will respect yours.
Rightful Liberty and enlightened self interest will make the Citadel a successful, prosperous community. Our willingness to work now, to sacrifice now, to help each other now, will make for a far better future than any of us could create on our own. Everything we do to strengthen and improve our community makes a better place for all of us to live. The Founders and applicants who take the first, most difficult steps with us, will be building a future for thousands of others and by doing so will create a secure home and a better future for themselves and their families. Enlightened self interest, rather than the short sighted selfishness that pervades our society today, will create the life that we want to live in the Citadel.
VJ
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Framework
One of the most common questions we get asked is, "are you going to provide ______?", with the blank being any one of many possible goods or services that you would expect to find in a typical urban area.
In most cases, the answer is no. That doesn't mean it isn't going to be there, however. We are free market capitalists. What we are providing is a secure, Liberty oriented framework for Patriots to use to build their own life and future. The free market is a far better mechanism for providing goods and services than any other system and is the only system that fits with Rightful Liberty. The goods and services that people want will be provided by our residents who start and operate their own businesses.
We already have a number of individuals that have specific businesses they want to start. Things like a farmer's market, a brewery and an RV park. Others have specific stores they would like to open, such as a sewing or knitting shop or a bakery. We also have medical professionals who want to live in the Citadel and provide our medical services. Wherever there is a demand, there will be someone who is willing to provide the goods or services.
There may be a few specific businesses or services that it would make sense for the Citadel operation itself to provide. A medical center might be one, as it is a rather large undertaking. Something like a resort lodge and/or community center is a possibility. However, even these facilities would probably be better operated as private, independent entities.
The temptation to run other people's lives is always there. You see it all around you in our society and especially in every level of government. You see it in many of our comments where people say, "you HAVE to provide this, or you HAVE to make people do that" in order for this project to work. Even when done with the best of intentions, it is the wrong path to take and eventually leads to tyranny.
Rightful Liberty involves a significant amount of self control and restraint to avoid giving in to that temptation. We will create the framework then let people build their own lives as they see fit.
VJ
In most cases, the answer is no. That doesn't mean it isn't going to be there, however. We are free market capitalists. What we are providing is a secure, Liberty oriented framework for Patriots to use to build their own life and future. The free market is a far better mechanism for providing goods and services than any other system and is the only system that fits with Rightful Liberty. The goods and services that people want will be provided by our residents who start and operate their own businesses.
We already have a number of individuals that have specific businesses they want to start. Things like a farmer's market, a brewery and an RV park. Others have specific stores they would like to open, such as a sewing or knitting shop or a bakery. We also have medical professionals who want to live in the Citadel and provide our medical services. Wherever there is a demand, there will be someone who is willing to provide the goods or services.
There may be a few specific businesses or services that it would make sense for the Citadel operation itself to provide. A medical center might be one, as it is a rather large undertaking. Something like a resort lodge and/or community center is a possibility. However, even these facilities would probably be better operated as private, independent entities.
The temptation to run other people's lives is always there. You see it all around you in our society and especially in every level of government. You see it in many of our comments where people say, "you HAVE to provide this, or you HAVE to make people do that" in order for this project to work. Even when done with the best of intentions, it is the wrong path to take and eventually leads to tyranny.
Rightful Liberty involves a significant amount of self control and restraint to avoid giving in to that temptation. We will create the framework then let people build their own lives as they see fit.
VJ
Friday, February 8, 2013
Liberty Repair Tools
There was an interesting comment on our forum about how some people were reacting to our web site and blog by saying, "it's all about guns" or, "they are gun nuts".
If that is the message you get from our web site and blog, then you don't understand who we are, what we are doing or why we are doing it. Worse, if you actually believe the term "gun nuts" applies, you have accepted the Progressive lie that guns are inherently evil. If you believe guns are evil, then you will believe that defending yourself and your Liberty with them must be evil. If you believe defending your Liberty is evil then you have surrendered your Natural Rights without a fight. You have already accepted that you only have privileges handed out by the powers that be at their discretion. Only those who will defend their Natural Rights, by force of arms if necessary, will ever be able to keep them.
Guns - firearms, are tools. A person who restores antique cars and spends thousands of dollars on automobile repair tools isn't called a "tool nut". That's because automobile repair tools don't threaten the anti-Liberty agenda, so there is no need to demonize them or their owners.
Firearms are Liberty Repair Tools. They provide the last resort to defend and repair our Liberty. Therefore they and their owners must be demonized if Liberty is to be crushed.
If you look only at the tools in our hands, not the priceless object we are working on, you miss the whole point. That beautiful antique, Liberty, when restored to its full glory, will bring joy to us and our posterity. Our firearms, our Liberty Repair Tools, are simply a means to an end - Liberty.
VJ
If that is the message you get from our web site and blog, then you don't understand who we are, what we are doing or why we are doing it. Worse, if you actually believe the term "gun nuts" applies, you have accepted the Progressive lie that guns are inherently evil. If you believe guns are evil, then you will believe that defending yourself and your Liberty with them must be evil. If you believe defending your Liberty is evil then you have surrendered your Natural Rights without a fight. You have already accepted that you only have privileges handed out by the powers that be at their discretion. Only those who will defend their Natural Rights, by force of arms if necessary, will ever be able to keep them.
Guns - firearms, are tools. A person who restores antique cars and spends thousands of dollars on automobile repair tools isn't called a "tool nut". That's because automobile repair tools don't threaten the anti-Liberty agenda, so there is no need to demonize them or their owners.
Firearms are Liberty Repair Tools. They provide the last resort to defend and repair our Liberty. Therefore they and their owners must be demonized if Liberty is to be crushed.
If you look only at the tools in our hands, not the priceless object we are working on, you miss the whole point. That beautiful antique, Liberty, when restored to its full glory, will bring joy to us and our posterity. Our firearms, our Liberty Repair Tools, are simply a means to an end - Liberty.
VJ
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