Choices!

by Tim Case
by Tim Case
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"In brief, a part of these colonies now feel, and all of them are sure of feeling, as far as the vengeance of administration can inflict them, the complicated calamities of fire, sword and famine. We are reduced to the alternative of chusing (sic) an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice."

~ Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, July 1775

I usually don’t read too many antigun articles for the simple reason that rarely are they anything but illogical emotional ramblings. The commentary, "Haven’t we had enough?" is another such criticism but two items in this editorial struck me as interesting.

First, the author actually admitted she was completely ignorant concerning firearms. "I don't like guns. I've never handled a gun. I was not raised in a family that hunted." Okay, so this is another hysterical plea for weapon confiscation predicated on fear; at least Ms. Larsen acquiesces to the obvious.

At the conclusion of her impassioned appeal I found a point on which Ms. Larsen and I would agree. "It's a health issue, and it's a safety issue." She claims. I completely concur; it is a health and a safety issue. Weapons have always been at the center of physical and mental wellness.

Sadly, modern society has become so affluent that it is taken for granted that others will supply the daily needs of food and clothing which once were supplied by the use of weapons including firearms. However, it is either cowardliness or sloth which drives one to demand that others put their wellbeing on the line for those too timid to protect their own lives or the lives of their family through the use of arms.

Ms. Larsen unwittingly reveals the wretchedness of her argument when she asks: "…[W]hat about my right to be safe?" Let me be as succinct as humanly possible. You have no right to be safe by requiring others to jeopardize their own lives, wealth, or safety! Frankly, there is nothing more disgusting than those who willfully put themselves and their loved ones in the position of being victims, whine about it, and then demand that others save them.

"One cannot legislate the maniacs off the street..." wrote Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Cooper, "these maniacs can only be shut down by an armed citizenry. Indeed bad things can happen in nations where the citizenry is armed, but not as bad as those which seem to be threatening our disarmed citizenry in this country at this time."

Those that are infected with the utopian virus of a weapon free society are also the same people that will stand timidly by and with a clear conscience justify every heinous crime perpetuated by the state, which is an all too familiar result of this social attitude.

"Democracy," wrote Frederick Engels in 1847 "would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat."

There are twelve "measures" Engels states as being necessary but we are concerned with his third point: "Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people."

Translation: We will force all insurgents (anyone who disagrees with us) to be equal victims, along with the rest of society, by the confiscation of all your property – especially your weapons. Shades of Ms. Larsen’s appeal but without the attached amoral sobbing?

There is nothing draconian in pointing out that amorality is the mark of a sociopath. I have even heard individuals who cannot tell right from wrong aptly called "moral imbeciles."

Let’s be frank, antisocial behavior is not something you catch from a public toilet seat. It is the natural result of a cold calculated decision to reject incontrovertible truth, fundamental purpose and productive principles and replace them with unspecified change, idealistic dreams, and historical myths.

Don’t believe me? Ruminate on this statement from Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope: "Implicit...in the very idea of ordered liberty," [is] a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or 'ism,' any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course...." (Emphasis mine)

Ordered liberty? Does he mean liberty that is arranged, controlled or well-organized? Isn’t that what Ms. Larsen was wishing for in her statements? Isn’t "ordered liberty" self-contradictory and a false proposition?

Shhhh, don’t tell anyone but we have holding the reins of state one whose unspecified "change" is continuing to destroy a social, and economic order which has brought prosperity wherever it has been tried; only to reinstitute idealistic dreams and historical myths which benefit a few, leaving multitudes languishing in poverty.

Those who claim, L’État c’est Moi (the state, it is I) are always problematic but especially so when Americans ignore or haven’t learned the lessons of history. It is the age-old axiom: The doltish are always led by the boorish in supporting the authoritarian.

The façade of "hope" which was recently perpetrated on Americans, resulting in the election of the present administration, was doomed to be revealed.

The sine qua non being that those who are enamored with power over others; feel secure in their prestige and status, think they are incapable of making mistakes; make no moral distinction between right and wrong, will eventually reveal their true nature.

In a blunt July 2009 NRO.com post titled "I still hate you Sarah Palin" David Kahane satirically states, "If you just think of us – liberal Democrats – as Capone you’ll begin to understand what we’re up to."

Mr. Kahane continues, "…we men of the Left are perfectly comfortable lying, cheating, and stealing… in order to attain and keep political power. Not for nothing is one of our mottos, ‘By Any Means Necessary.’ You see, we’re the good guys, and for us the ends always justify the means. We are, literally, shameless…"

It would be easy to write Mr. Kahane off as some deluded crank if his words weren’t firmly grounded in historical fact and plucked from current headlines.

At the moment there is no reason to again recount the events surrounding the first year of the present administration’s term. What is important is to state the historical operational maxims of oligarchs – which of necessity include the present administration with its cohorts in or out of Congress: First, the people are stupid; second the people are evil and third when in doubt see the second principle.

So, I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I read that the Obama administration was to continue Bush’s policy of "targeting selected American citizens for assassination if they are deemed (by the Executive Branch) to be Terrorists." Certainly this was generally in keeping with and a natural result of the paranoia and antisocial behavior exhibited by DHS in June of 2009.

I was tickled when Roland Martin, of CNN fame, recently made the point for me. "Obama's critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics," Mr. Martin wrote. "So, fine. Channel your (speaking of Obama) inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let 'em know that if they aren't with you, they are against you, and will pay the price."

However, it was Josh Sugarmann who took the cake. As the Executive director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, DC, Mr. Sugarmann thought to make a plea for gun control by exposing himself to the entire world. His appeal rested on black murder statistics but his intent was to suggest that all, starting with the Black people, should be disarmed.

Mr. Sugarmann is evidently historically challenged since America tried that once. It was called slavery and it still is! Irrespective of whom is being disarmed. I really wonder if the Black people of this nation would like to return to the collectivist utopia of beatings, forced labor, "cross burnings" and random lynching? Just how many times do we have to repeat history before all communities learn that disarmament benefits the masters and not the subjects? It would be fun to read Mr. Martin’s feelings on the matter. It is without doubt he supports moving the collectivist agenda forward by any means necessary.

With the Congress’ turning the National Guard into the Praetorian Guard in 2006, the United States entered, for all intents and purposes, a state of martial law. Now, serving at the president’s pleasure, the National Guard is attached to the US Northern command whose stated mission is "Defending the Homeland" and this includes working closely with domestic law enforcement.

This by itself may not seem objectionable but coupled with the more ominous December 2009 decision of the Supreme Court, that there are those who can be deemed and treated as "non-persons" one has to wonder just how far removed we are from those good ol’ days of public floggings and forced labor.

For those skeptics who would say that the recent Supreme Court ruling designates "non-persons" as only those "terrorists" who are captured on a foreign battlefield. Let me remind you that it is a very short step between the Court’s ruling and those deemed "terrorists" by DHS here in this country also being classified as "non-persons."

Communist, fascist, Nazi, socialist, progressive, etc., are complex ideologies which each, in its own way, produce only one thing – a police state. Anyone following the events that have been unfolding since 9-11-01 should be left with the inescapable conclusion that, indeed, we are living in a verging police state. Give it whatever title you like it is the most common condition of mankind in human history.

There are two reasons why we should view our present circumstance as approaching police state status. First, the apparatus needs to be established and given the cover of "law" which has been almost completed. Second, it needs a maniacal authoritarian to put it into operation.

Some would argue that the present administration meets the second criteria but I am not convinced that Obama’s criminal actions are any worse than George W’s, Woodrow Wilson’s, FDR’s, or Abraham Lincoln’s to name a few.

No, we are witnessing what in broad terms should rightfully be called a sub-revolutionary police state. This stage of social/political decay is not aimed at overtly overthrowing the present structure but rather at modifying or undermining the traditional sociopolitical apparatus.

It is precisely because we are in this state of sociopolitical atrophy that firearms are still tolerated in society. The state does not fear firearms, as such; it is well known that a firearm is nothing more than a tool. What the state fears more than anything is the public’s willingness to use firearms in the defense of their lives, property and traditional values.

This was evident when in 1942 the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) commissioned the production of the "Liberator Pistol" (official designation FP-45); a smooth bore 45 caliber single shot pistol that was intended to be disturbed in occupied Europe for use by Resistance groups. This cheaply produced stamped handgun (some might even say "Saturday Night Special") had one purpose and that was to enable the holder to kill a German soldier and acquire his weapons.

While there is no record of any mass distribution of the "Liberator" in France or the rest of Europe during WWII the idea had merit and shows that even statists are aware of the power inherent in the human will.

History is a witness that the present government cannot remain benevolent or even civil. Sooner or later someone is going to pull the dictator lever and government will turn ruthless. When it does woe unto the party that isn’t in power.

What are all the factors that cause a state to morph into state-sponsored terrorism, turning against its own citizens? Well, that is anyone’s guess but I have no doubt rising national debt and the failing economy will be major contributing issues.

Just as with the Roman Emperor Diocletian who, faced with a monetary crises in 301 AD, announced that, "It is our pleasure that anyone who resists the measures of this statute shall be subject to the capital penalty (death) for daring to do so…" It is not hard to imagine similar events occurring again but this time in the United States as the government, under the weight of its own ineptness, continues its hegemonic orgy, ultimately culminating in inexorable brutality (Waco on steroids).

Nor is Diocletian an isolated instance. "Shortly before the Soviet empire collapsed," William Grigg reminds us, "its ruling elite imposed the death penalty for violations of its currency exchange laws…"

It is time we come to grips with the fact that governments murder their subject strategically, after coming to a "rational" conclusion, that it is necessary to accomplish a presupposed "ordered liberty."

In the final analysis waving the Constitution, while sniveling "We have rights," is nothing more than the desperate act of the damned. What keeps the statists at bay is not solely the ownership of weapons but rather the certainty that many people, as a last resort, would be willing and able to effectively use them.

We have the same choices as did Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson in 1775.

February 19, 2010

Tim Case [send him mail] is a 30-year student of the ancient histories who agrees with the first-century stoic Epictetus on this one point: “Only the educated are free.”

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