THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

SIEGECRAFT: CHECK OUT YOURSELF FIRST | nationalsalvation.net

"Bob, you really think a lot of yourself, don't you." This strikes me as an odd question.

If you are going to spend your life in the nastiest kind of battles with Communists and anti-whites, just how long would you last if you DIDN'T have a high opinion of yourself?

How would you DARE take on ruthless powers if you really thought you were just your average Joe?

Your main weapon, your fundamental resource, when push comes to shove, is YOU.

If you are going to check out your gun before you go into battle, it makes even more sense for you to check out YOURSELF before you commit yourself to a battle.

This strikes me, not as a matter of pride or humility, but as the most practical matter in the world.

I tend to team up with insightful, brilliant people. And their insights really get to me. I listen. One ally of mine for years, with whom I had shared a lot of beer and talked a lot of trash, suddenly hit me with, "Well, Bob, you are the most conceited person I know."

I was stunned. How could anybody consider me to be conceited?

He clarified: "A lot of people say they don't care what people think of them, but you really DON'T."

He thought about it a bit and said, "No, I don't mean you don't CARE. But it never occurs to you to let anybody's opinion of you make you do what you wouldn't have done."

Once I worked that out in my mind, I understood that could be taken as conceit. Or it could be called stubbornness. I think of it as principle.

I make fun of Tough Guys all the time. Tough Guys say they don't care what anybody thinks. I am NOT a Tough Guy. I get hurt a LOT, all the time.

But I also do as Dennis just said, I go right on without letting the fact that someone hurt me make me lose the trail of my argument. I am proud of my own bravery in this.

The funny thing is that the Tough Guy doesn't know that he is saying that he is NOT brave. Being brave means you have the moral fiber to risk pain and take pain and keep on going.

The Tough Guy is saying he has no feelings to hurt. Take it from me; there is nothing that takes less courage than walking into the jaws of death when you really, sincerely would rather be dead.

A True Tough Guy has no courage. He simply has no feelings.