Here is an inspiring story of courage in the face of corruption and oppression. In August 1946, in McMinn County, Tennessee, a group of GIs recently returned from World War II determined to overthrow the county's entrenched, corrupt political machine by winning at the ballot box. They put together a non-partisan slate of veterans to run for office and campaigned on a well-received platform of county reform.

The machine tried to protect its power by cheating, stealing the ballot boxes to "count" votes behind the closed doors of the jail, out of public view. The veterans responded by going to the jail. When the deputies inside fired at the GIs, the GIs returned fire, ultimately using dynamite to drive the sheriff and his men to surrender. Miraculously, no one was killed or permanently injured during the confrontation, which came to be known as the Battle of Athens.

Here is an excerpt from An American Story, a 1992 Hallmark made-for-TV movie which presents a fictionalized version of the Battle of Athens.

More about the Battle of Athens:

Battle of Athens, Wikipedia article

The Battle of Athens, American Heritage magazine, February-March 1985

The Battle of Athens by A. K. Pritchard, a summary of a major report in JPFO's Firearms Sentinel, January 1995.

Contemporary press reports and chronology of the battle, by Don Hamrick

A forwarded email on the importance of gun ownership and our 2nd Amendment rights:

Why Grandpa carries a gun

PEOPLE ASK  WHY?

Why Carry a Gun?

My old grandpa said to me 'Son, there comes a time
in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and
starts bustin' caps and usually it's when
he becomes too old to take an ass whoopin.'

I don't carry a gun to kill people.
I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I  don't carry a gun to scare people.
I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I  don't carry a gun because I'm paranoid.
I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don't carry a gun because I'm evil.
I carry a gun  because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.

I don't carry a gun because I hate the government.
I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don't carry a gun because I'm angry.
I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend
the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone.
I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed,
and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
 
I don't carry a gun because I'm a cowboy.
I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a  cowboy.
 
I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man.
I carry a gun because men know how
to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
 
I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate.
I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don't carry a gun because I love it.
I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

Police protection is an oxymoron.
Free citizens must protect themselves.
Police do not protect you from crime,
they usually just investigate the crime after it happens
and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die
and too old to take an ass whoopin'.....author unknown (but obviously brilliant)

A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control.
From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

In 1911, Turkey established gun control.
From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Germany  established gun control in 1938 and
from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were
unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.

China  established gun control in 1935.
From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Guatemala established gun control in 1964.
From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Uganda established gun control in 1970.
From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Cambodia established gun control in 1956.
From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people,
unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated
in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million. 

An editorial in the December 5, 2011, Wall Street Journal, reports that Communist China's attempt to stimulate the economy with a building spree has not only failed but made matters worse:

China is a poster child for the Austrian school of economics' theory of the business cycle. After undertaking the biggest stimulus program the world has ever seen in response to the global financial crisis, the country is drowning in unproductive investments financed with credit....

Now comes the hangover. The public works projects are winding down, unleashing a wave of unemployment and an uptick in social unrest. The banks' nonperforming loans are rising, and local governments are insolvent. The country is littered with luxurious county government offices, ghost cities of empty apartment blocks, unsafe high-speed rail lines and crumbling highways to nowhere.

One effect of negative real interest rates was a nationwide bubble in private housing, with the average price of an urban apartment reaching eight times the average annual income. Real estate is the most popular investment for the wealthy, according to a central bank survey in September. Millions of luxury apartments are vacant, even as there is a shortage of affordable housing for the poor....

There is no easy way to avoid the bust that is coming. The silver lining is that China's increasingly state-led growth model will be discredited, and a debate will begin on restarting the reforms that stalled in the mid-2000s. A financial sector that allocates credit based on politics rather than price signals led China into this mess. Popular pressure to dismantle crony capitalism is building, and the Communist Party would be wise to get in front of it while it can.

Radio talk show host Neal Boortz, the self-described "high priest of the Church of the Painful Truth," wrote a college commencement speech intended as an ice-cold contrast to the usual cozy graduation platitudes. He has never had the opportunity to deliver this speech at an actual college commencement, but he has posted the speech on his website.  In the speech, Boortz deals with the history of American education, liberal feeling vs. conservative thinking, diversity, rights, homelessness and poverty, wealth and envy, and success and sensitivity.

If you'd prefer to watch than to read, here's a video of Boortz giving the speech at a benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation benefit on May 20, 2009.

Some key extracts:

I am honored by the invitation to address you on this august occasion. It's about time. Be warned, however, that I am not here to impress you; you'll have enough smoke blown your way today. And you can bet your tassels I'm not here to impress the faculty and administration.

You may not like much of what I have to say, and that's fine. This isn't the first time you're not going to like what someone has to say … your bosses, for instance. Things change today. There will be a lot less pandering to your every whim, and a lot more demands for performance. You will remember what I had to say though. Especially after about 10 years out there in the real world. This, of course, does not apply to those of you who will seek your careers and your fortunes as government employees … or as college professors.

You've heard the old saying that those who can - do. Those who can't - teach. That sounds deliciously insensitive. But there is often raw truth in insensitivity, just as you often find feel-good falsehoods and lies in compassion. Say good-bye to your faculty because now you are getting ready to go out there and do. These folks behind me are going to stay right here and teach.

By the way, just because you are leaving this place with a diploma doesn't mean the learning is over. When an FAA flight examiner handed me my private pilot's license many years ago, he said, 'Here, this is your ticket to learn.' The same can be said for your diploma. Believe me, the learning has just begun....

So here are the first assignments for your initial class in post-graduate reality: Pay attention to the news, read newspapers – as long as we have newspapers -- and listen to the words and phrases that proud Liberals use to promote their causes. Then compare the words of the left to the words and phrases you hear from those evil, heartless, greedy conservatives. From the Left you will hear "I feel." From the Right you will hear "I think." From the Liberals you will hear references to groups --The Blacks, The Poor, The Rich, The Disadvantaged, The Less Fortunate. From the Right you will hear references to individuals. On the Left you hear talk of group rights; on the Right, individual rights.

That about sums it up, really: Liberals feel. Liberals care. They are pack animals whose identity is tied up in group dynamics and the principal of looting. Conservatives and Libertarians think -- and, setting aside the theocracy crowd, their identity is centered on the individual – individual worth and achievement.

Liberals feel that their favored groups, have enforceable rights to the property and services of productive individuals. Conservatives (and Libertarians, myself among them I might add) think that individuals have the right to protect their lives and their property from the plunder of the masses. ...

We also need to address this thing you seem to have about "rights." We have witnessed an obscene explosion of so-called "rights" in the last few decades, usually emanating from college campuses.

You know the mantra: You have the right to a job. The right to a place to live. The right to a living wage. The right to health care. The right to an education. You probably even have your own pet right - the right to a Beemer, for instance, or the right to have someone else provide for that child you plan on downloading in a year or so.

Forget it. Forget those rights! I'll tell you what your rights are! You have a right to live free, and you have a right to whatever wealth you are able to produce with your labor. You'll be disappointed to learn that you have no right to any portion of the life or labor of another.... 

This "success equals luck" idea the liberals like to push is seen everywhere. One time Democrat presidential candidate Richard Gephardt liked to refer to high-achievers as "people who have won life's lottery." He wanted you to believe they are making the big bucks because they are lucky; all they did was buy the right lottery ticket. What an insult this is to the man or woman who works that 60 hour week to provide for a family.

It's not luck, my friends. It's choice. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was in a book by Og Mandino, entitled "The Greatest Secret in the World." The lesson? Very simple: "Use wisely your power of choice."

That bum sitting on a heating grate, smelling like a wharf rat? He's there by choice. He is there because of the sum total of the choices he has made in his life. This truism is absolutely the hardest thing for some people to accept, especially those who consider themselves to be victims of something or other - victims of discrimination, bad luck, the system, capitalism, whatever. After all, nobody really wants to accept the blame for his or her position in life. Not when it is so much easier to point and say, "Look! He did this to me!" than it is to look into a mirror and say, "You S.O.B.! You did this to me!"

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.