Real Mountain Men

I see that the movie “The Revenant” is up for 12 Academy Awards. Evidently, it’s a very popular movie. For those unaware, this movie is about the famous mountain man Hugh Glass who survived a grizzly bear attack and killed the bear with a Green River knife. People say it was a “bowie knife”, but I would tend to think it was more along the lines of a Green River since that was the one the mountain men carried. But, ok, moving right along. America loves mountain man movies. Why? Stick with me here. “The Revenant” is up for 12 Academy Awards. Evidently, it’s a very popular movie. For those unaware, this movie is about the famous mountain man Hugh Glass who survived a grizzly bear attack and killed the bear with a Green River knife. People say it was a “bowie knife”, but I would tend to think it was more along the lines of a Green River since that was the one the mountain men carried. But, ok, moving right along. America loves mountain man movies. Why? Stick with me here.

Now, back in 1972, we had the mountain man movie “Jeremiah Johnson” come out starring Robert Redford. That movie alone sent counter-culture hippies scurrying to the gun shops by the droves looking for themselves a permit, hiking without a backcountry pass, shooting game out of season, selling wildlife parts, trading meat without a food handler license, operating a business without a license, firearms violations, possession of weapons in a gun-free zone, shooting in a gun-free area, failure to pay income tax, failure to pay business tax, failure to collect sales tax, buying liquor and tobacco from unlicensed sellers, trespassing on federal lands, and on and on it’d go. Yes, if ol’ Jed Smith had gone into a time tunnel and emerged in 21st century America, he’d be cooling his heels right now in federal prison as a possible “right wing terrorist.”

See, the great American heroes that the American people genuinely want to emulate (and often do) were not people that kissed the bootie of the government every chance they got. They were people who abandoned the entire System and went out to make their own way. THAT is what we truly admire, if we love the idea of genuine freedom. We admire genuine freedom, not some half-baked system of byzantine laws that each one of us is in violation of ten at any given place and point in time because there’s so dang many. I think we’re all getting tired of being told what to do, think, say, eat, buy, read, believe, and own. I know I am. We need to go through the law books and start using those papers at patches for .54 caliber round ball and go shoot us some supper. Imagine they gave a government and nobody came? Take me home for real this time.

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