Too American
Every morning I crawl on the back of a horse to train for showing in the reining or working cow horse classes. Normally I'm using a hackamore, snaffle bit, half breed or spade bit to train my horse. I've known the lore of training a spanish style horse since I was a teenager. I have forged a number of spanish vaquero bits by hand, the same way it was done 150 years ago. One of my favorite things in life is a straight up bridle horse. You might say I've been immersed in the vaquero method of training horses most of my life. It seems to me that when I carry on a tradition I am honoring my predecessors. Yes, honoring old spanish vaqueros such as M.R. Valdez and Chief Rojas. The other thing that has kept me busy is horse shoeing at many established horse facilities throughout the southwest. Over the years I've had many Mexican horse holders and grooms to help me. Some have become lifelong friends. I'm sure my story can be told over and over again by many horsemen. The fact that the federal government is suing the state of Arizona over SB1070 is just astonishing to me. There is not hardly a rancher or horsemen in AZ that hasn't helped Mexicans in their quest to have a better life. Because the federal government failed to do it's job on the Arizona/ Mexico border a fellow rancher Robert Krentz is killed while helping an illegal alien faking distress. What's disgraceful is that it took this incident to bring this matter to the forefront and the passing of SB1070. Now, we have the federal government and Mexican officials telling us that we are bigoted against Mexicans because we passed SB1070. I'm damn sure bigoted against cowardly murderers. Like it or not the blood of Mr. Krentz is on the hands of all the federal officials that have neglected the border situation. In the vast sea of great minds we have in this country we can't come up with an immigration policy that works for both countries? I'm beginning to believe that many of our elected officials are at the bottom of American ingenuity. Instead of career politicians why can't we just have someone in power with some common sense? Remember, the feds are suing a state that is trying to protect itself from a drug war and criminals raiding American citizens. The feds are also going after one of the few politicians with common sense Sheriff Joe Arpaio for upholding the law. There are also other great border sheriffs as well that are being scrutinized. Aren't we all supposed to be on the same side here? How much time has the President spent on the Arizona border? Thank God, our own Arizona Governor Brewer finally did something right and signed SB1070. Are we too American for wanting the Arizona border with Mexico a safe place to live? That seems to be the message from Washington DC.
Let’s talk a little about New York City and the proposed building of the mosque near Ground Zero. I'll bet you are wondering what this has to do with horses. It has a great deal to do with horses. Have you ever seen all the horses in Manhattan? Yes, in case you haven't been there I saw lots of horses in Manhattan. Police horses are used on a regular basis as are all the carriage horses in Central Park. That's right in the heart of New York City there are lots of horses. Some of the police horses are kept in stables with multiple floors and have to learn to go up and down in an elevator every day. Don't you think those horses remember September 11th? If they are old enough they remember. Once again I was amazed at the audacity of the Muslim folks that wanted to put the mosque near Ground Zero. While there were political fools that thought it was a good idea to build it there the outcry from the public has pretty much quelled the effort. Does it mean that the 70% of the people think that building a mosque there is a bad idea hate Muslims and are too American? Hardly. They just have great respect for the ones that died and the ones left behind. It appears to me that the proponents of the mosque lacked respect. Remember studying about the Crusades lasting over 800 years with the Christians being pitted against the Muslims? The Christians had lots of money and were well equipped, but rode plough reined horses. The Muslims were great horsemen with trigger reined horses that were a great factor in their victories. You think the Christians would have figured that out sooner.
Finally I haven't figured out why our President goes around the world apologizing for America. Here we are, the most generous nation on the face of this earth, so what is there to apologize for? Probably our President thinks we have too many good horses and we should spread them around a little. If I ever got to meet Barack Hussein Obama I'd sure like to ask him his Christian name. Didn't it used to be Barry Sortero? All this is just too complicated for a regular working guy that makes no apologies for being too American!