This is a small exercise in ethics and the massive expansion of criminal activity we now find in America, largely due to this corrupt, immoral and far too permissive society we’ve allowed to manifest itself in our midst, giving way to the worst aspects of human nature and leaving destruction and shattered lives in its wake.

Most people are sure to disagree with me, but it’s been a decades long journey for me to arrive at this point. I full well believe that under certain extreme situations, the law is inadequate, ineffectual and totally useless; and, in order to shame the powers-that-be for so gross an inadequacy, it is necessary to act outside of the normal parameters of the law to pursue natural justice – vengeance if you must name it.

Maybe when I’m dead and gone my efforts in this world will have meant something, but for the moment, I’m just a simple man fighting my own war – sometimes alone and in silence – just as so many other good men are doing, and sometimes out in the thick of things and the throngs of concerned citizens, in order to ensure and create a better future for those whom we leave behind.

The evil man is capable of committing proves to be boundless and without limits. Each time I think I’ve seen everything, something even more despicable and heinous emerges in the morning’s news, things once thought unimaginable now very nearly commonplace and accepted as a “normal part of life”. And at each sunset, as dusk draws nigh, I find myself wishing there was a hangman and an executioner with a fine rifle or woodsman’s axe on every street corner, able to smell or sense evil before it strikes, leaving its harm, devastation and death in its wake.

Back in my younger days, out in the cities, towns and rural areas of Tennessee, and many other parts of America too, I figured the law was like that endless sky – vast, reliable, always there to shield the righteous. But life’s got a way of closing in tight all around a man before he knows it. I’ve seen friends and kin battered by the storms of human evil, and I’ve felt the – robberies that left scars deeper than the skin, assaults that shattered trust, and a system that turned a blind eye or worse, let the human wolves into the fold unbidden and unwanted. And all of this came to mind, as I watched poor Anna Zarutska, standing there at the State of the Union, tears carving silent rivers down her face, and thought of old Mrs. Nancy Guthrie, snatched from her home for God knows what horrors, her family left in a grief that echoes like a hollow wind.

The rhythm of life, not just here in Middle Tennessee but all across America has shifted far and away from anything I would have ever called “normal” or accepted as a way of life – the quiet neighborhoods only ever disrupted by the laughter of children or young boys shouting and playing a raucous game of backyard football, the familiar faces, and the sense that things should hold steady. But lately the rhythm has faltered – faltered over the past two decades.

I was twenty-one when my “best friend” at the time tried to rape a close friend of mine, and by the blessing of God and a stroke of amazing luck, I happened upon them just as he had started to assault her. The scene was an ugly episode in my life I wish I could forget, but long story short, there was a fight, which I ended just as fast as I could end it, leaving him where he lay, while I helped her gather her things and got her safely home. I tried to get her to call the police, but like so many young girls of the day, she was simply too appalled and embarrassed and feeling a shame that was not hers to bear. And the hardest part of this came later, as he went on to become a sheriff’s deputy in Franklin, Tennessee.

Yes, life isn’t fair. It’s downright mean too often and too often deals a great many of folks a bad hand all the way around.

I guess I’m made of some pretty hard clay, can’t say for sure, but I stopped being worried by nightmares many long years ago, and despite the horrors of this world, I can still lay down and sleep like a baby at night, knowing that I’ve always tried to do that which is right.

The man lying awake at 2:17 a.m. is not fantasizing about conquest. He is calculating response time. He is thinking about exits and angles and legal thresholds. He is weighing what constitutes immediate threat versus provocation, and the difference between self-defense and murder. He is considering not only how to survive an encounter, but how to live with its aftermath.

Just as ol’ Billy Ivey didn’t deserve to be castrated for being a womanizer and an adulterer by the cuckolded men, back in 1972, in an act of revenge, so too, those three men didn’t deserve to be murdered, but all three died by way of a shotgun blast, another act of revenge, which is different from vengeance in that vengeance acts in a righteous manner to punish someone who has harmed the innocent, In this example, none of these men were innocent of wrongdoing.

Yep, ol’ Billy kilt ’em deadr’n hell, for sure, and everybody knew it was him. But the law never could prove it was him, try as they might again and again.

For so many other Americans, the unstable and uncertain situations, extreme crime events and disruptive, dangerous political environment have them experiencing sleepless nights more often than not, bad memories stirring through the house like unwelcome guests, waking them, the cat and even the mouse. And today, I suspect many an intelligent, well-read righteous man lies there in the dark thinking about how character is fate and the manner in which a man shapes his destiny through choices and values; and he asks himself what choices remain when the system that once promised protection now seems complicit in its own unraveling – waking that morning to the news that another woman has been stabbed to death by another career criminal after being released early from prison with nary a slap on the wrist.

A man lies awake and counts not sheep but grievances: crimes left unpunished, officials unmoved, neighbors frightened into silence.

And of course, for anyone paying good attention, it isn’t hard to understand that illegal immigration and illegal alien invaders are playing a troubling, chaotic part in the unraveling of our country, bringing to mind the prophetic story weaved by Jean Raspail, in 1973 in ‘The Camp of the Saints’, that foretold of Europe being overrun and overwhelmed by illegal immigrants, of white Europeans being replaced by Asians, Africans and Arabs, and to see Eurabia manifest itself in our lifetime, just as America’s traitors seem intent on implementing the displacement and the replacement of White Americans. We see our homeless, ordinary and Veterans too, pushed out of shelters to make room for illegal aliens who are very often handed residence in posh hotels, particularly so in Democrat communist controlled states and cities, while young college girls and even preteens are raped and murdered by evil, demented, deviant illegal alien invaders and left like so much garbage, nude in the woods along a trail or nude and tied to a pillar under a bridge, as happened to poor little Jocelyn Nungaray who was only twelve years old.

Not even God will be able to help the man who harms a child, if I can ever get him in my grasp, short of the Good Lord striking me dead on the spot.

These aren’t distant tragedies; they’re symptoms of a broader sickness — a society that welcomes in forces hostile to its foundations, releases predators early, and leaves ordinary people to face the consequences.

These aren’t just stories: they’re the raw wounds of a society inviting its own demise, welcoming in folks who hate what we built and hold values that spit on America’s foundations. When the badges sworn to serve and protect go remiss, a man starts eyeing his rifle with a different intent. One that cries out rage, necessity and vengeance, as a good man turns guardian, aggressive and unyielding, even violent if need be, to shield, protect and defend his own when the law falters – holding the thought in the back of his mind that says if vengeance is the Lord’s, let me be His right hand to carry it out and deliver it to those most deserving of being struck dead from the face of the earth.

And judgement is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity and equality under the law cannot enter.

Just as the sunrise comes each morning and the moon has its sky, a man has his loneliness, often mistaken for pride. He carries it quietly, and it hardens his resolve. Just because officials proclaim order doesn’t make it true.

People promise change but seldom deliver; they hide truths, let folks down, over and over. A man learns early – perhaps as a kid – that belief in empty words leads nowhere. So he decides to change his path, rather than stay passive. If you beat a dog long enough, it goes crazy. The good dog never returns. Prolonged exposure to injustice does the same to a man. He lives with pain long enough, he starts missing it when it’s gone – because at least pain means vigilance. Memories of wrongs don’t just haunt; they become the devil he sees in the mirror, redeemable only through righteous acts.

And just like Hector and Henry Standing Bear in the fictional television series ‘Longmire‘, when someone has watched crimes go unpunished, or has seen authority exercised unjustly, anger does not dissipate easily. It searches for outlet; and it usually releases in a torrent of vengeance.

And then enter those who would tell me that I must turn the other cheek and love and forgive my tormentors and attackers and enemies. I never have quite taken to the concept of turning the other cheek, nor have I ever really been to forgive serious crimes against me or someone I love. No, I’ve been more of an eye for an eye and then some sort of guy, all my adult life, setting aside “forgiveness” and turning the other cheek for the commie Democrat women – those with penises too – who try time and again to tie our hands from exacting punishment from those most deserving of it, while they coddle and praise and coo and slobber all over the poor “misunderstood”, “downtrodden” murderous psychopath and march and protest in the streets as they seek his early release, much as we recently witnessed in the Luigi Mangione, soulless, arrogant, entitled, cold-blooded murder who should be shot dead on sight himself the first day he ever tastes freedom again, if that day lays in the cards for him.

Many have often tried to tell me that vengeance is an emotional response. Not the way I deliver it. I take my time, consider all aspects and all known facts surrounding the matter and the depth and severity and extreme nature of any egregious wrong done against me or someone I love. And then I exact my vengeance upon them with extreme prejudice in tenfold fashion, without any pang of conscience or remorse.

I execute great vengeance upon them as I curse them to the hell they have earned, and they know my fury as I exact my vengeance in its full measure.

Still, I try to stay a righteous course, no matter how fiercely I am beset all around with the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. And across my life’s journey, I have always tried to be the Good Shepherd in my community, helping those in need in their darkest hours, and yes, striking down those enemies-from-within who attempt to harm and destroy those whom I cherish and love.

Some offer me the well known quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Me? a monster? I think not.

My actions are never any different from those Knights Templars who protected and defended Christians along the roads, no different from Pastor Lassiter who would preach a fire and brimstone sermon on Sunday and still beat a woman abuser’s ass on Monday – give him a blistering dressing-down – and then go to the local truck stop for three scrambled eggs, a waffle, bacon and a bottomless pot of coffee.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s the job of every able-bodied man – his duty – to save innocent Americans from unnecessary and unacceptable suffering and harm. And if I have to kill a thug to prevent one of those innocents from being robbed, raped or murdered, so be it – God’s will be done.

I do not ask for your poor or your hungry. I do not want your tired and sick. It is your corrupt I claim. It is your evil, who will be sought by me. With every breath I shall hunt them down. Each day I will spill their blood till it rains down from the skies. Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal. These are principles which every man of every faith can embrace. These are not polite suggestions. They are codes of behavior and those that ignore them will pay the dearest cost.

And when I vest my flashing sword and my hand takes hold in judgement, I will take vengeance upon mine enemies, and I will repay those who haze me. May the Good Lord raise me to be His right hand and count me as one of His saints here on earth. [yes, I took poetic license with this Scripture]

Whosoever shed last blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For immunity of God make he the man. Destroy all that which is evil. So that which is good may flourish. And I shall count thee among my favored sheep. And you shall have the protection of all the angels in heaven.

Never shall innocent blood be shed. Yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river. And I will present my battered and bloodied arms and torso and be the vengeful striking hammer of God.

Maybe we don’t get to pick the things that fix us. Maybe purpose comes from the strangest places. Maybe a man becomes a warrior not because he seeks battle, but because battle finds him.

I have to do whatever it takes to protect the ones I love.

Some men get to live the family life. Some men get to protect it.

This is not a hierarchy of worth. It is a division of roles. Every society needs builders, healers, teachers – and yes, protectors. But when the protectors are told to stand down, when their instincts are pathologized, when their warnings are ignored, society becomes vulnerable.

When danger rises, we must stand up and walk again toward our chosen destination. Many times that will include defending ourselves, our loved ones and homes and our country from the enemies-from-within and the monsters who walk among us all in the light of day, in every nook and cranny of society but especially so in the dark of night on side streets and in alleyways and even our homes they invade to rob, rape and murder.

And it is this filth, this scum of humanity, that must be purged and eradicated from decent society by every and any means necessary, never to be seen or heard from again.

Not a vigilante. Not a monster. A guardian.

Keep those rifles and pistols handy, men. And crank up those chainsaws, meatgrinders and woodchippers.

March 26, 2026

~ the Author ~
Justin O. Smith Has Lived in Tennessee Off and on Most of His Adult Life, and Graduated From Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, With a B.S. And a Double Major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – Minors in Military Science and English, for What Its Worth. His Real Education Started From That Point on. Smith Is a Frequent Contributor to the Family of Kettle Moraine Publications.