Knives at Ten Paces

Is no tradition safe in this country? While the government cites the growing violent video games and drug use as eroding family values, they have no problem stomping on good old-fashioned family customs.

Two cousins aged 19 and 30 (who remain nameless) arrived at a bit of an impasse when attempting to settle a gentleman’s debt of thirty bucks. While we may never find out what the nature of this high-stakes gamble, we do know that it must have been one of great honor: perhaps a loan for a couple of 30-packs of Miller Lite before the big game or an unpaid 1/8 of Mexican dirt-weed or he lost the bet on who-could-piss-farther-off-the-porch.

Whatever the reason, the older and more worldly of the two men pulled his knife in what is known in some circles as the Michigan Knife Challenge, an intricate display of tribal folklore that is often mistaken for drunken stumbling. After the dance is completed, the challenger issues the traditional “Wanna piece of this?” which is then answered by the challengee with the customary call of “Fuck you, old man!”
Then the duel commences.

There was no transcript for the meeting between these two adversaries so it was not reported how the dialogue commenced. What we do know is that the teen was stabbed in the stomach.

Seems pretty cut and dry to me folks - the older guy gets the thirty bucks and the young wise-ass kid gets thirty stitches, right? No replays, no court, no lawyers, nothing - done and done. Good old fashioned frontier justice.

But NO! Not according to our meddling government who needed to get their weaselly bureaucratic hands into everything. The Macomb County prosecutor’s office is charging the cousins with an anti-dueling law that is well-over 150 years old despite the fact a good old fashioned meat-and-potatoes American family duel steeped in tradition had already resolved the issue.

''He could've done any number of things,'' Sheriff Mark Hackel said. ''He could've called police, he could've fled the area.”

So that’s your answer Sheriff Hackel? Turn like a pussy and run? Your willing to drag this through the courts, to cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars and gunk up the system with what is little more than tiff at the dinner table? You’re willing to take the power away from the family and put it in the hands of the government?
I mean, come on, if you can’t get stabbed by your uncle, who can stab you?

Maybe thirty bucks is a drop in the bucket for some hotshot Mount Clemens Sheriff like Hackel, but to the rest of us that thirty bucks means a hell of a lot more.
And while I’m not exactly sure what that thirty bucks does means, you can be damn sure you can take it from me when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

Read about some real Americans here