What To Doby
Michael Gaddy Each week, I receive a large number of emails from readers who ask me to address what they should do when the onrushing totalitarian machine known as the federal government moves to seize firearms from it’s citizens. This is my effort to address that question on at least two levels. I would never be so presumptuous as to advise anyone as to what action he or she should take when this event occurs. This is a most critical decision that requires much thought and consultation with those (family/friends) who would have to live with the aftermath of such a decision. Americans, over the past few decades, have become so accustomed to having decisions made for them by the state, it becomes second nature to ask others to make, or help make, vital decisions. We have lost a great portion of our individualist mentality and morphed into the collective mindset. I wrote in an earlier article "…it is not the gun in the hands of a freeman the tyrant fears, but the spirit of the man who possesses it." The fact a man/woman owns the means of resistance, is, in itself, a tremendous threat to the tyrant who would use his elected/appointed position to steal, that which belongs to others, or to disarm his intended victims. The mindset of resistance to tyranny is much more powerful than any firearm. A freeman, dedicated in his pursuit of liberty, will find a way to resist oppression and slavery. The history of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Sobibor death camp are prime examples. King George III feared the members of the Clergy in the colonies because of their spirit of resistance. He often referred to them as the "Black Regiment." King George did not fear their means of resistance; he feared their spirit and determination, and the followers they could reach with their message of freedom. The government has little to fear from the Clergy today, for most have become shills for the state. The state fears the message of freedom and liberty as much or more than they fear firearms in the hands of true Patriots. The message of individual and economic freedom from those such as Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods, Walter Block, Butler Shaffer, Will Grigg, Karen De Coster, Justin Raimondo and a number of others are more feared by tyrants than you and I with our firearms. The bottom line here is: if you have now, or have ever owned a firearm other than one seen as designated for "hunting," or you have written or been outspoken about the usurpations of the state, when the tripping point is reached, the state will see you as a threat. Of course you may be able to buy yourself back into good favor by "ratting" out your fellow Patriots. A great number will succumb to this temptation, especially those who were more than willing to vote for the lesser of two evils when a man of integrity and liberty, Ron Paul, was the alternative. History teaches, equal or greater levels of paranoia by those in positions of authority always accompany the invasive moves against liberty and the rush to tyranny by the state. The quest for liberty will be seen as a grave enemy to "authority." Anyone in possession of the spirit and means to demand their rights will be dealt with accordingly. Even those who acquiesce to the threats and surrender their rights will need to be re-educated before re-entering the mainstream of what is left of society. While I cannot offer advice as to what actions anyone should take when we who love liberty are seen as the enemy of the state and actions are taken to seize any means of resistance to slavery, I can suggest the examination of history and totalitarianism for possible answers.
~ Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: 1918–1956 March 19, 2009 Michael Gaddy [send him mail], an Army veteran of Vietnam, Grenada, and Beirut, lives in the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. Copyright © 2009 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.
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"And
how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things
have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at
night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return
alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods
of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested
a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there
in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs
door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they
had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs
hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, polkers,
or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time
that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And
you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull
of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there
on the street with one lonely chauffeur – what if it had been
driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very quickly
have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding
all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to
a halt!