BAD DEEDS Wins CLFA Book of the Year 2014

I am delighted to announce that my second Dylan Hunter thriller, BAD DEEDS, just won the Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance “Book of the Year 2014 Award.”

Given the quality of the finalists — books by prominent, bestselling authors Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt, and Mackey Chandler — I sincerely didn’t think my thriller stood a chance of winning. But thanks to Dylan’s devoted fans, the book won the final vote.

I want to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to all of you who have made my stories and characters a part of your lives. I am touched and grateful to you for your loyal support, and my special appreciation goes to those of you who voted for BAD DEEDS. Thanks to you, this award will bring the book and its unique vigilante hero a lot more attention — and that is why I entered it in the competition in the first place.

The Narcissist and The Narrative

He is, above all, the consummate narcissist. 

Consider: By his own admission, he spent most of his youth chasing girls, in a self-indulgent marijuana haze. In school, he used his long-honed tactics of glib, manipulative, arrogant "charm" to coast through, getting grades that, to this day, he has refused to release to the public. He learned to sweet-talk his way through life, also learning early on that white liberals were only too eager to serve as slavish Enablers for a bright, handsome black kid who made them feel noble about themselves.
 

Along the way, he learned how to con people with narratives, with stories that embodied the liberals' own fantasies and self-flattering aspirations. His biggest narrative con was about himself: He concocted a black kid's Cinderella story. Liberals just ate that up. With precious little effort on his own part, they lined up to elevate him up each political rung of his career ladder, pushing him toward the Narcissist's ultimate objective. He helped mainly by seeking out positions that kept him in the public eye, in front of cheering crowds. He became very, very adept in front of crowds, practicing and refining his narratives till they were polished. Though he could be a slick orator, he added a bit of informal, boyish, countrified charm, strategically dropping "g's" at the ends of words -- you know, so that he'd be "talkin' about changin' the country." He did that only occasionally: Like most of his studied tactics, he could turn these on and off like a faucet, as needed.

In each political position he held along the way, he never actually bothered to do the job. He never left behind any legislative footprints, any actual accomplishment. To him, winning the political position was the accomplishment: It was an end in itself -- an affirmation in his mind that he was loved, noticed, and approved of by thousands. But it was never enough: He wanted that universal affirmation from millions. So, he never stayed more than a few years in any political job. They were only stepping stones to his ultimate objective.

 
His big break was when throngs of white liberals put the skinny kid from Chicago on stage at the Democratic convention in 2004. He had just won his Senate race, and was now the new black poster boy for white liberals. I saw that speech on TV. I saw how the white liberal crowd responded and ate it up. Do you know something? At that instant, I knew. And I began to work a Barack Obama character into the storyline of the original Dylan Hunter novel that I was then planning, as the first black man to run for the White House. Yes, I knew even then that that was exactly what he was after, and where this adoring crowd of liberals was propelling him.

At that time, his only qualifications for the White House were a couple of faux "memoirs" that advanced his phony, self-inflated biographical Narrative. That. Was. IT. The rest of his resume? A Harvard law student whose grades nobody ever talked about. A figurehead occupant of the position of "Editor" of the "Harvard Law Review," where he never wrote and contributed a single article himself. A Chicago community agitator. A part-time, adjunct college instructor. An ambitious schmoozer and schemer who ingratiated himself into the Chicago political machine. A state representative who, backed by the Machine, used hardball tactics to get elected -- then never did a damned thing in office except run for his next position. Ditto as a one-term occupant of the U.S. Senate while he immediately began running for the White House.

Then, as a candidate whose vacuous political speeches matched his resume: empty odes to "hope" and "change," whatever those things were supposed to be. Barack had learned that all you needed were moral-political narratives, built on vague generalizations, and a personal biographical Narrative, built on the univerally appealing Cinderella story. People would want to believe in those stories; so they would grant any candidate embodying their mythology a free pass from close, critical scrutiny. Nobody would bother to notice that he was just an empty suit: They would fill that empty suit themselves, with a Somebody of their own imagination and aspirations -- all to make them feel good about themselves.

And so The Narcissist was elevated to become President -- any narcissist's ultimate symbol of self-congratulation and universal adulation. That was the goal. That was the objective. He had reached it. Not for any specific things he could actually accomplish; oh, sure, he had a leftist wish list of goals, and he surrounded himself with other hard leftists. But the real pleasure was the ability to wander the grand rooms of the White House; to be saluted getting on and off Marine One and Air Force One; to be able to jet anywhere on the taxpayers' tab; to ride around Washington in The Beast, surrounded by a motorcade of Secret Service agents; to put his feet up on the historic desk in the Oval Office (there are photos of him doing this); but mostly to preen in public before nests of cameras and thickets of microphones, soaking in the attention.
 

The actual work of the job bores him. Actual work always bored him. He chafes at hanging around in the White House. Sure, it's fun to wander into the Situation Room and be surrounded by nervous generals and fawning lackeys, and to be visited by anxious corporate cronies looking to kiss his ring and get favors, and to chum around with all the Hollywood and sports celebs lining up to entertain him in the evening. But the work is BORING. He just can't wait to get out of the place and away from that damned desk. So, at every occasion, he orders his staff to rev up The Beast, Marine One, and then Air Force One, and get him off to some exotic vacation spot, where he can hang out with his buds on some lush green golf course.

The Consummate Narcissist. That's who America elected -- twice. They still don't understand how they could have been fooled so badly. But Barack understands. He's like another handsome black celebrity narcissist of an earlier generation: O.J. Simpson. Everyone loved The Juice, too, for exactly the same reasons. Why, the two narcissists are virtually interchangeable.

In the end, Barack Obama is merely O.J. Simpson, with intellectual pretentions...and without the knife.

How "The Wizard of Oz" Refutes the Liberal Narrative

I have been pondering for several months how this classic childhood film presents a remarkable metaphor for the failure of the liberal/progressive/statist view of government. Consider the plot:

A group of humble individuals finds their lives disrupted by frightening events beyond their control. Their entire world is literally turned upside-down, and they find themselves in strange, scary new circumstances. Now, they fear they are out of control of their lives, and they are terribly anxious about their future.

One victim of the disaster seeks a return to her normal world. Another believes he hasn't the courage to meet the fearful challenges ahead. A third fears he lacks compassion and dedication. Yet another wonders whether he has the brains to survive on his own.

From a bunch of "little people," they are told about a wondrous far-off city, where a great and powerful wizard will provide them everything they seek and need -- merely by magical decree. Desperate, they embark upon a difficult pilgrimage to that city of power and favors, which is topped by a towering monument. There, acting like craven beggars, they visit and supplicate themselves before the all-powerful wizard, pleading for his aid. And he promises to fulfill their heart's desires.

But there is a catch. The supplicants are told that first they must pay a price for his help: They must agree to go out and do the wizard's bidding, undergoing a host of ordeals on his behalf. The price of his help is servility. Intimidated, they agree to do so. They perform the tasks he has ordered, suffering terribly, but mastering every challenge along the way. 

At last, they return in triumph and insist that the wizard keep his end of the bargain. But he balks and refuses, accusing them of insolence and improper deference to one of his exalted station.

Suddenly, an innocent young pup pulls back the curtain. The Great and Powerful Wizard is revealed to be nothing more than a pathetic old con man: an incompetent fake, who had achieved his power and status over the little people only through his ability to spin glowing Narratives that promised them whatever they wanted . . . and told them whatever they wanted to hear.

In the end, the adventurers come to a shocking realization. Each discovers that, all along, he or she already possessed all the brains, heart, and courage to live happy lives, to produce whatever they needed, and to accomplish great things. They learn that, all along, they could have stood self-reliantly on their own, solving their individual problems creatively and productively, without paying endless tribute to, or accepting endless abuse from, any fraudulent, conniving, self-appointed "wizards" living parasitical lives of luxury in some distant center of power . . . .

 
All right, folks: Having now revealed "The Wizard of Oz" as a highly subversive Narrative of individualism, one that brilliantly mocks and fatally skewers the "progressive" Narrative, I wonder how long it will be before the Regime tries to ban it?