Safe is Death

In 2004, the Tampa Bay Lightning won hockey’s Stanley Cup.

During the season, Lightning coach John Tortorella had a sign made and hung in the locker room that read simply, “Safe is Death.”

The slogan summed up Torts’ philosophy. Don’t ever sit back and protect a lead. Always play aggressively. Always take the game to the opponent, pressing for offensive momentum. In a nutshell, trying to play it safe and protect a lead would inevitably lead to a loss. The idea shares philosophical turf with the football mantra, “The prevent defense merely prevents you from winning.”

Tortorella took the helm at Tampa Bay during an era when defense ruled supreme. Most NHL teams played with a defense first mentality, employing the dreaded neutral zone trap. The idea was to smother the opponent, and then capitalize on a mistake or two to score goals. If played right, one or two biscuits in the basket were enough to earn a victory. The New Jersey Devils perfected the strategy, riding its trap to a pair of Stanley Cup championships. It was effective hockey, but dreadfully boring.

Torts decided to rewrite the script. He built the Lightning to score goals. Defensemen were encouraged to jump into the offensive zone. Forwards were encouraged to shoot the puck and crash the net. And he wanted the Bolts constantly on the forecheck, cycling the puck and creating offensive chances. The Tampa Bay skipper knew the team would give up some odd-man rushes and goals from time to time, but he believed that by maintaining offensive momentum, his team would control the game, outscore its opponents and win more games than it lost. The other guys simply would not be able to stem the onslaught.

It worked.

In fact, it worked so well that the Lightning struggled to win games when they deviated from the philosophy. Playing safe really did prove deadly.

I think Torts’ philosophy carries over into life in general. When you sit back and live defensively, you miss out on a lot of life. Granted, it’s easier. Defense doesn’t require much risk. You just sit back and let life come to you. A “Safe is Death” mentality is for risk-takers. How’s the old saying go? “Nothing ventured, nothing gained?”

That’s why I don’t have a lot of patience for people who tell me that nullification is too risky. I hear a lot of that. And these folks can quickly list a litany of fears.

“If we defy the feds, they might cut off our funding.”

“If the sheriff arrests a TSA agent for groping a little girl, it might create a confrontation with the federal government, or they might shut down our airports.”

“If we try to nullify the health care act, the IRS might come along and collect the penalties anyway.”

Might. Might. Might.

You know what?

They might.

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And in some cases our efforts might fail. In fact, they probably will at times. Nobody ever promised this would prove easy. The Lightning didn’t win every game in the 2003-2004 season. In fact, they lost 22 in the regular season, and seven during their playoff run.

In reality, we don’t know what will happen if we try to follow the path of nullification to liberty. But we do know what will happen if we continue slinking along in the scared, defensive posture we’ve adopted.

The federal government will continue to grow. It will continue to ignore all constitutional restraint. It will continue to violate basic civil liberties. It will continue to spend our children, our grandchildren and our great grandchildren (and on and on) into debt. It will continue to wage unconstitutional wars.

It will continue to tell you what plant you can grow in your back yard, what kind of light bulb you can screw into your fixtures and how much water you can have in your toilet. It will continue to micromanage your life. And it will continue to operate as if we the people don’t even exist.

Safe is death.

Mike Maharrey is the communications director for the Tenth Amendment Center and the author of "Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty"

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Comment by Louise Strauss on December 31, 2012 at 12:36pm: Remember our founding fathers. They pledged everything including their life for what they believed in. If you're not willing to fight for your beliefs, you are not worthy of freedom and liberty. God help you.

Comment by Neil Thomas Goeckerman on December 31, 2012 at 8:49am: I am curious as to how we ( The Tea Party) organize a siege on the Capitol. I was there in March 2010 for a rally opposing the passage of the "affordable health care act." There were only about 40,000 of us. We were polite and clean unlike the left wing counter part OWS. Yet we were accused, falsely, of making racial slurs and spitting on members of Congress. I was there, it never happened. I mean I was right there when the incident in question occurred. Chanting "Kill the Bill" the Tea Party lined the path the congress took to make the final devastating, republic ending vote to pass this awful legislation. Remember the Iron Boot of Communism? This is it. The time is now. I am eager to grab a pitchfork and head towards the Capitol. When Obama levels guns at his own people will they compare him to Assad?

Comment by John Wiant on December 31, 2012 at 3:16am: Just last night I was commenting on the brilliance of the name for the tiny little "smart car" and laughed about how it must have been inspired by the LEFT / Progressive movement. It's so obviously a stupid idea, their way to get it sold is to simply name it a SMART car. They know its stupid, they know we'll call it stupid, so they just named it smart. This brings us to ObamaCARE. It's anything BUT "care" although they can't deny it came from Obama.....so they call it Obama CARE. They know we'll see tremendous evidence Obama DOESN'T care, and they know the more it gets implemented, the more we'll realize that Obama really only cares about himself and his supportive elites, so they had to name it something / the reverse of what it is and what it does; demonstrate caring. This TREND is what also has taken off in the Liberal media; they spin the truth all day long to say exactly the opposite of what most of us call TRUTH, and then they find more and more elaborate ways to state the OPPOSITE of the truth. This is something I'm starting to see so common, so prevalent, and so easy to identify, I'm laughing a lot more lately. It used to totally stress me out until Obama got re-elected and I realized the majority of our population is now falling for this constantly, so now it's so sad it is kind of funny. If nothing else, it's starting to make me feel like they have a mental virus and somehow (probably because of web sites like this one) I'm immune to it.

Comment by Carol Williams on December 31, 2012 at 12:37am: THANK YOU, Mr. Maharrey! I have often opined that the major plank in the Republican platform is to avoid getting one's shirt wrinkled! I see too many bringing that mindset to the Tea Party - "don't break parlor protocol, someone might think ill of you."

The fact is our 'parlor protocol' was attacked and broken to smithereens back in the '60s and it's only gotten worse since then. I've been mad as hell about it ever since and keep wondering why everybody isn't!

If we want to win this ideological war we're going to have to get off the defensive and start demanding our culture back! If it means closing a few airports maybe people will finally start feeling some fire in their belly. Maybe some low-information voters will start seeing things the way they really are and get involved! Cut off our funding? Isn't that pretty much what we're protesting anyway, depending on the gov't to take care of us?!! What business did the feds ever have collecting our money to dole back to us anyway?!

Nullify? You betcha, my friend. Let the games begin!

Comment by steven kerr on December 30, 2012 at 10:58pm: I'm already on the fore-check!!! Nullify now. Right Now!!!

Comment by Michael Maharrey on December 30, 2012 at 9:12pm: Nice to "meet" another hockey fan Thomas Carroll!

Yes! The TAC put on the Nullify Now tour. We are working on some dates for the coming year!

Comment by Lisa Kinney-Wildemann on December 30, 2012 at 9:09pm: My word has been "STAND" for so long as we've been, in our way&as a metaphor,"sitting;doing nothing", or if we have been active, I fear it may have been left too late. My fear has been that the 'Community Organizers' and those they've been misleading for so many years have gained too much power&control and now have shown they're all too eager to 'bludgeon' the sane among us with the "armed power" they've attained. I'm truly afraid.

Comment by Linda G on December 30, 2012 at 9:04pm: I am afraid Gregory is right. I will not be around for the worst of it, but my children and Grandchildren will. I wish I knew what to do.

Comment by Gregory Deyermenjian on December 30, 2012 at 8:43pm: Speak up, or some years in the future historians will be saying of early 21st Century Americans what they now say of the German people of the 1930´s.

Comment by Michael Doyle on December 30, 2012 at 8:38pm: The longer we wait to go on an aggressive offense, the more gruesome the battle will be. Turning the other cheek and playing the politically correct game has allowed the progressives to gain some ground every year. Keep in mind that a Progressive is nothing more than an under the radar Communist. I agree with the coaches philosophy. It works on more than just hockey. How many football games have you seen lost when the leading team quit doing what was working and went into a "prevent" defense?