On Resisting Evil

Please read this essay, written by Murray Rothbard:

How can anyone, finding himself surrounded by a rising tide of evil, fail to do his utmost to fight against it?

In our century, we have been inundated by a flood of evil, in the form of collectivism, socialism, egalitarianism, and nihilism. It has always been crystal clear to me that we have a compelling moral obligation, for the sake of ourselves, our loved ones, our posterity, our friends, our neighbors, and our country, to do battle against that evil.
It has therefore always been a mystery to me how people who have seen and identified this evil and have therefore entered the lists against it, either gradually or suddenly abandon that fight. How can one see the truth, understand one's compelling duty, and then, simply give up and even go on to betray the cause and its comrades? And yet, in the two movements and their variations that I have been associated with, libertarian and conservative, this happens all the time.

Conservatism and libertarianism, after all, are "radical" movements, that is, they are radically and strongly opposed to existing trends of statism and immorality. How, then, can someone who has joined such a movement, as an ideologue or activist or financial supporter, simply give up the fight? Recently, I asked a perceptive friend of mine how so-and-so could abandon the fight? He answered that "he's the sort of person who wants a quiet life, who wants to sit in front of the TV, and who doesn't want to hear about any trouble." But in that case, I said in anguish, "why do these people become 'radicals' in the first place? Why do they proudly call themselves 'conservatives' or 'libertarians'?" Unfortunately, no answer was forthcoming.

Sometimes, people give up the fight because, they say, the cause is hopeless. We've lost, they say. Defeat is inevitable. The great economist Joseph Schumpeter wrote in 1942 that socialism is inevitable, that capitalism is doomed not by its failures but by its very successes, which had given rise to a group of envious and malevolent intellectuals who would subvert and destroy capitalism from within. His critics charged Schumpeter with counseling defeatism to the defenders of capitalism. Schumpeter replied that if someone points out that a rowboat is inevitably sinking, is that the same thing as saying: don't do the best you can to bail out the boat?

In the same vein, assume for a minute that the fight against the statist evil is a lost cause, why should that imply abandoning the battle? In the first place, as gloomy as things may look, the inevitable may be postponed a bit. Why isn't that worthwhile? Isn't it better to lose in thirty years than to lose now? Second, at the very worst, it's great fun to tweak and annoy and upset the enemy, to get back at the monster. This in itself is worthwhile. One shouldn't think of the process of fighting the enemy as dour gloom and misery. On the contrary, it is highly inspiring and invigorating to take up arms against a sea of troubles instead of meeting them in supine surrender, and by opposing, perhaps to end them, and if not at least to give it a good try, to get in one's licks.

And finally, what the heck, if you fight the enemy, you might win! Think of the brave fighters against Communism in Poland and the Soviet Union who never gave up, who fought on against seemingly impossible odds, and then, bingo, one day Communism collapsed. Certainly the chances of winning are a lot greater if you put up a fight than if you simply give up.

In the conservative and libertarian movements there have been two major forms of surrender, of abandonment of the cause. The most common and most glaringly obvious form is one we are all too familiar with: the sellout. The young libertarian or conservative arrives in Washington, at some think-tank or in Congress or as an administrative aide, ready and eager to do battle, to roll back the State in service to his cherished radical cause. And then something happens: sometimes gradually, sometimes with startling suddenness. You go to some cocktail parties, you find that the Enemy seems very pleasant, you start getting enmeshed in Beltway marginalia, and pretty soon you are placing the highest importance on some trivial committee vote, or on some piddling little tax cut or amendment, and eventually you are willing to abandon the battle altogether for a cushy contract, or a plush government job. And as this sellout process continues, you find that your major source of irritation is not the statist enemy, but the troublemakers out in the field who are always yapping about principle and even attacking you for selling out the cause. And pretty soon you and The Enemy have an indistinguishable face.

We are all too familiar with this sellout route and it is easy and proper to become indignant at this moral treason to a cause that is just, to the battle against evil, and to your own once cherished comrades. But there is another form of abandonment that is not as evident and is more insidious – and I don't mean simply loss of energy or interest. In this form, which has been common in the libertarian movement but is also prevalent in sectors of conservatism, the militant decides that the cause is hopeless, and gives up by deciding to abandon the corrupt and rotten world, and retreat in some way to a pure and noble community of one's own. To Randians, it's "Galt's Gulch," from Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged. Other libertarians keep seeking to form some underground community, to "capture" a small town in the West, to go "underground" in the forest, or even to build a new libertarian country on an island, in the hills, or whatever. Conservatives have their own forms of retreatism. In each case, the call arises to abandon the wicked world, and to form some tiny alternative community in some backwoods retreat. Long ago, I labeled this view, "retreatism." You could call this strategy "neo-Amish," except that the Amish are productive farmers, and these groups, I'm afraid, never make it up to that stage.

The rationale for retreatism always comes couched in High Moral as well as pseudo-psychological terms. These "purists," for example, claim that they, in contrast to us benighted fighters, are "living liberty," that they are emphasizing "the positive" instead of focusing on the "negative," that they are "living liberty" and living a "pure libertarian life," whereas we grubby souls are still living in the corrupt and contaminated real world. For years, I have been replying to these sets of retreatists that the real world, after all, is good; that we libertarians may be anti-State, but that we are emphatically not anti-society or opposed to the real world, however contaminated it might be. We propose to continue to fight to save the values and the principles and the people we hold dear, even though the battlefield may get muddy. Also, I would cite the great libertarian Randolph Bourne, who proclaimed that we are American patriots, not in the sense of patriotic adherents to the State but to the country, the nation, to our glorious traditions and culture that are under dire attack.

Our stance should be, in the famous words of Dos Passos, even though he said them as a Marxist, "all right, we are two nations."

"America" as it exists today is two nations; one is their nation, the nation of the corrupt enemy, of their Washington, D.C., their brainwashing public school system, their bureaucracies, their media, and the other is our, much larger, nation, the majority, the far nobler nation that represents the older and the truer America. We are the nation that is going to win, that is going to take America back, no matter how long it takes. It is indeed a grave sin to abandon that nation and that America short of victory.

But are we then emphasizing "the negative"? In a sense, yes, but what else are we to stress when our values, our principles, our very being are under attack from a relentless foe? But we have to realize, first, that in the very course of accentuating the negative we are also emphasizing the positive. Why do we fight against, yes even hate, the evil? Only because we love the good, and our stress on the "negative" is only the other side of the coin, the logical consequence, of our devotion to the good, to the positive values and principles that we cherish. There is no reason why we can't stress and spread our positive values at the same time that we battle against their enemies. The two actually go hand in hand.

Among conservatives and some libertarians, these retreats sometimes took the form of holing up in the woods or in a cave, huddling amidst a year's supply of canned peaches and guns and ammo, waiting resolutely to guard the peaches and the cave from the nuclear explosion or from the Communist army. They never came; and even the cans of peaches must be deteriorating by now. The retreat was futile. But now, in 1993, the opposite danger is looming: namely, retreatist groups face the awful menace of being burned out and massacred by the intrepid forces of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in their endless quest for shotguns one millimeter shorter than some regulation decrees, or for possible child abuse. Retreatism is beginning to loom as a quick road to disaster.

Of course, in the last analysis, none of these retreats, generally announced with great fanfare as the way to purity if not victory, have amounted to a hill of beans; they are simply a rationale, a half-way house, to total abandonment of the cause, and to disappearance from the stage of history. The fascinating and crucial point to note is that both of these routes – even though seemingly diametrically opposite, end up inexorably at the same place. The sellout abandons the cause and betrays his comrades, for money or status or power; the retreatist, properly loathing the sellouts, concludes that the real world is impure and retreats out of it; in both cases, whether in the name of "pragmatism" or in the name of "purity," the cause, the fight against evil in the real world, is abandoned. Clearly, there is a vast moral difference in the two courses of action. The sellouter is morally evil; the retreatist, in contrast, is, to put it kindly, terribly misguided. The sellouts are not worth talking to; the retreatists must realize that it is not betraying the cause, far from it, to fight against evil; and not to abandon the real world.

The retreatist becomes indifferent to power and oppression, likes to relax and say who cares about material oppression when the inner soul is free. Well sure, it's good to have freedom of the inner soul. I know the old bromides about how thought is free and how the prisoner is free in his inner heart. But call me a low-life materialist if you wish, but I believe, and I thought all libertarians and conservatives believed to their core, that man deserves more than that, that we are not content with the inner freedom of the prisoner in his cell, that we raise the good old cry of "Liberty and Property," that we demand liberty in our external, real world of space and dimension. I thought that that's what the fight was all about.

Let's put it this way: we must not abandon our lives, our properties, our America, the real world, to the barbarians.

Never.

Let us act in the spirit of that magnificent hymn that James Russell Lowell set to a lovely Welsh melody:

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah,

Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

Twixt that darkness and that light.

Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet 'tis truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold,

And upon the throne be wrong,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above His own.

The Daily Volk

Oleg underscores the likely fate of those who allow themselves to be disarmed.

Don't ever give up your firearms - no matter what.

More than 100 million people died at the hands of their governments in the last century so that you could have that information.

Tempus fugit.

Quote

Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance.

-Winston Churchill

The Daily Volk

Oleg illustrates a situation that prior generations of Americans would not have tolerated.

Why do we?

The Daily Volk

A contemplative image from Oleg.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Will There Always Be an England?

As the North American "three amigos" continue with their transnational treachery, the almost-completely-disarmed English people are beginning to awaken (albeit far too late) to the coup d'etat in progress by their political Elites via the European Union:

***
England has been wiped off a map of Europe drawn up by Brussels bureaucrats as part of a scheme that the Tories claim threatens to undermine the country's national identity.

The new European plan splits England into three zones that are joined with areas in other countries.

The "Manche" region covers part of southern England and northern France while the Atlantic region includes western parts of England, Portugal, Spain and Wales.

The North Sea region includes eastern England, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and parts of Germany.

A copy of the map, which makes no reference to England or Britain, has even renamed the English Channel the "Channel Sea".

Each zone will have a "transnational regional assembly", although they will not have extensive powers. However, the zones are regarded as symbolically important by other countries.

German ministers claimed that the plan was about "underlying the goal of a united Europe" to "permanently overcome old borders" at a time when the "Constitution for Europe needs to regain momentum"...
***

More coverage here and here, including this essay by a former advisor to Lady Thatcher, entitled "EU's Lisbon Treaty Means Dictatorship":

***
...The new “President of Europe” (it may well be Tony Blair, who did his best to buy the job at UK taxpayers’ expense by agreeing to increase the UK’s tribute to the dismal empire of Brussels by a staggering $50 billion a year) will have all the powers of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The European Commission, like the Politburo to which it is functionally identical, has the sole power to propose and hence to reject European legislation. Like the Politburo, it is unelected and self-perpetuating. Any Commissioner (and it is neither joke nor coincidence that the German word for “Commissioner” is “Kommissar”) has the power to issue an edict which has the immediate force of supreme law throughout the subject territories, no longer known as “member States” but as “regions”—effectively, regional Soviets subsidiary to, and now utterly subservient to, the Supreme Soviet in Brussels. The European Parliament, like the Duma or People’s Congress of the Soviet Union, has no power to propose legislation, and its decisions can be (and often are) overridden by the Kommissars.

The Parliaments of the “regions,” such as the UK Parliament, have no power to amend or reject any of the Kommissars’ edicts, whose undemocratic nature may be deduced from their official name—”Directives.” On 200 occasions in the past decade alone, the legislative scrutiny committee of the House of Commons has rejected European directives, but the functionally-Communist regional gauleiters Blair and [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown have enacted every one of the Directives, regardless of the will of the people’s elected representatices.

As of last December, the power which I once had as a Deputy Lieutenant of London to order the troops on to the streets to assist in civil emergencies or disasters was taken away by order of a Kommissar, and Britain no longer has the legal right put her army on to her own streets without that Kommissar’s express permission. As of this year, under the pretext of compliance with a European anti-terrorist Directive, the right to a fair trial before a properly-constituted and impartial court was abolished in the UK for any criminal case defined as “serious”: and even offences as trivial as dropping litter in public places are now treated by the regional gauleiters as serious. Without a hearing, without the right of legal representation, the gauleiters can imprison any UK citizen for five years at a time, confiscate his house, freeze his bank accounts, close or compulsorily take over any business which he may own, or extradite him to any overseas country (including the most unspeakable dictatorships) even in the absence of any prima facie evidence whatsoever against him.

The news media say little about any of this, for it is now regarded as almost an offense to speak out against the gauleiters or against the European dictatorship, which in any event deploys an annual propaganda budget of $2.5 billion — an amount of which the late Dr. Goebbels could only dream. The BBC alone received $300 million from the Kommissars last year. It very seldom utters a word of criticism against the European Union. What do the British people think about this?
***

Finally, thanks to Billy Beck, two other pieces of perspective.

Relevance, you ask?

Make no mistake - the North American Elites of Mexico/Greater Aztlan, Canada, and the soon-to-be-former United States have precisely this endgame planned for the North American Union and its subjects.

Scoff if you will, but please first review all of the NAU materials here in light of the archival information in the "Myths" section at the left margin of the EU Referendum blog and the UN Small Arms Control site before you make up your mind.

What stands in the way for their plan's fulfillment?

Primarily, the need to move slowly enough so that the "frogs in the pot" don't realize that the very same play being run in the EU is moving along deliberately here in North America.

Oh, and the fact that some 80 million Americans (and a goodly number of their Canadian friends) have more than 200 million personal firearms and literal tons of associated ammunition.

That is why, I predict, you will see an unprecedented push for "harmonized" North American gun control "pursuant to international standards" in the next five years, especially if a Democratic President and Congress are elected in the US in just over six months.

As for England?

We'll leave the Cousins with the stirring words of Habcan, who urges freedom-lovers around the world to hark to "The Muster Drum":

Do ye hear the roll of the Muster Drum
Rattlin' in your brain?
Can ye hear the tramp of Redcoat files
Comin' up your lane?
Rifle and horn and hawk ye have.
Will ye join us in The Fight?
Then find a tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

For they're comin', Lad, they're comin' fast,
Their bayonets agleam.
And maybe we can't stop 'em here
And maybe they'll cross your stream,
To burn your house and barn, my lad,
Put your family out in the night!
Then find a tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

We can harry 'em, harry 'em, in the road,
‘Til they wish they'd never come
To confiscate our powder and arms
And carry off our Gun!
We can show the World we're Free Men
Who'll Stand, Defend the Right!
Now find that tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

A Nation of Riflemen we can be,
If you'll enlist and arm and train!
Our ghosts are waiting for you, Friend,
On range and firing lane.
Can YOU hear the roll of the Muster Drum
By your fireside warm and bright?
Will YOU rise to find YOUR tree or wall
And mark well YOUR bright front sight?

For the need is NOW, my stranger Friend,
And it's urgent and it's plain.
The forces ranged against us
Now have everything to gain.
Take up the Call! Raise high your heart!
Answer the Muster Roll!
Stand shoulder-to with Friend and Friend.
Learn teamwork. Have a goal!

And mebbe, just mebbe, you won't be alone
Some cold and fearsome night
When to live you must find your tree or wall,
And mark well your bright front sight!

Tempus fugit.

The Daily Volk

As Oleg knows, there's no shortage of media hacks waiting to do the necessary dirty work.

For me, I'm up early to teach a mother and her daughter the ways of the Right-Wing Militia Nut Job Tribe - safety and marksmanship branch.

Enjoy your weekend.

The North American Union: Slouching Towards Submission

Go read Jerome Corsi's piece on the meetings this week in New Orleans between American President Jorge W. Arbusto, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Greater Aztlan's Presidente Felipe Calderon.

Then ask yourself why the organizers of this trilateral treachery aren't using the standard Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) logo on your left?

The White House admits that the meeting was in furtherance of the SPP agenda:

***
As he noted in his State of the Union address, the President will be hosting the North American Leaders' Summit on April 21-22 in New Orleans. This fourth meeting of North American leaders since 2005 will continue our work on Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) initiatives. It will also serve as an opportunity for the three leaders to discuss hemispheric and global issues of importance to North America.
***

Might it be because brave folks like Corsi and Phyllis Schlafly have been pointing their spotlights at the SPP and its objectives?

This Kanuckistani think tank seems to think so.

Might it be because the US corporations behind the North American Competitiveness Council don't want you to know their role in this ongoing betrayal of American sovereignty?

In any event, I know everyone will be reassured to know that this meeting between the Three Amigos accomplished some important objectives, essential to the interests of the American people:

***
...PRESIDENT CALDERÓN: (As translated.) We discussed the Merida initiative, a very important initiative that will allow a common strategy that will benefit families on both sides -- on the side of Mexico and on the side of the United States.

I also want to express my appreciation for the work the U.S. government has begun on the problem of arms trafficking. We know that this is a complex issue, we know there is much to be done, but a very important first step has already been made in that direction. (WRSA: emphasis added)

We also discussed the defense of the Mexican administration, of the rights of our Mexican citizens. And we have also discussed the issue of trade and how trade is benefiting both of our peoples. I think that I have made it very clear that as far as I am concerned, trade is an issue that benefits both sides greatly. It is something that generates jobs both on the U.S. side and on the side of Mexico. We have seen an enormous increase in benefits for consumers as a result of trade, as well. We see that the quality of products in general has gone up as a result of increased trade.

And I stress this issue because recently NAFTA has come under criticism, and I do not believe that people are realizing how many benefits NAFTA has brought both to the United States and to Mexico. I can say that hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created on both sides of the border. As far as Mexico is concerned, this increase in jobs has also led to a direct decrease in the amount of immigration from Mexico to the United States. It has generated growth, it has generated jobs, and it is decreasing the flow of immigration.

And we have discussed the defense of the rights of Mexican citizens and the need to increase the way we watch over those rights. This is a very important issue for my administration. We need to continue working on an agenda to find a comprehensive solution for that. I understand that the United States is going through an electoral process and we respect that process, of course. But I do want to point out that it's very important for my administration for us to find a solution to this issue --and a solution that will not just find a way to deal with the immigration problem, but one that will do so with respect and responsibility...
***

Just remember, boys and girls: every single cent spent or to be spent on this fiasco comes either from your tax dollars, or was borrowed and thus added to the more than $9 trillion in national debt currently owed by the US of A.

In other words, you or your children and grandchildren are paying for the chains that are being forged under the auspices of the SPP (or whatever the new name for the same old game becomes).

Tempus fugit.

Be Very Afraid: The Ascendancy of 'Tommy Tactical'

Rivrdog shares his law enforcement experience and views on what he calls the "Tommy Tactical" mentality of many modern police officers, starting with an encounter between a CCW holder, a bad guy, and the responding officers:

***
The worst has happened. You, a CCW permitee who is carrying, are shopping in a store when an emotionally damaged person (EDP) enters with arms and the determination to take many people with him in his grand finale. He fires at you. You return fire.

You have engaged the shooter in a defensive gunfight, and by moving, correctly using cover and sparingly shooting, you have cornered the EDP in an area of the store away from the exits, and shoppers and employees have taken the opportunity to flee. Your role has switched from defensive to "hold your ground" tactics to keep the shooter bottled up so that he can't escape to do more damage outside.

The police finally get there, and entering the active shooter scene, see you first and take you under fire, hitting you. Your days are done. It matters not what happened to the EDP.

Sound extreme for a scenario? It's probably as close as it's going to get to what would actually happen...
***

Read the whole thing, and never forget the attitude of the deputy police chief in the story linked by Rivrdog:

***
...Dean, who described himself as a lifelong gun user and a member of the National Rifle Association (emphasis added), said students with guns could create confusion in a school shooting situation because officers are trained to quickly find and take down shooters.

"If I enter a classroom and there are two people with a gun, who do you think is going to die," he asked. "Both people."
***

"To protect and serve" or "Shoot first, and ask for a bench trial later"?

You make the call.

Tempus fugit.

The Daily Volk

A reminder from Oleg of the hoplophobes' insatiable appetite for control - of guns, of speech, of people.

Make sure your hunting friends (you know, the ones McHilBama and the rest of the RINO-Democrat Alliance are wooing) understand this point.

They'll be the weak link come the political fight against AWB II next spring.

And the likely fights thereafter....

The Progressives' Unknown Coup: Part I

By Tamara K. at View From The Porch, this look at one of the Progressives' changes to the FedGov's structure during the 20th century is simply outstanding:

Decline of the Republic Day

On April 8th in 1913, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution went into effect. To anybody concerned with checks and balances and separation of powers who had actually read the Constitution, it's hard to see how this could be considered a good idea. As a matter of fact, it's hard to see how it could not be seen as undermining the very concept of a federal republic.

I know some of you are clicking for Wikipedia right now, muttering to yourselves "Seventeenth? Is that income tax, or when they let y'all chicks vote? No, it's Prohibition, right?" No, the Seventeenth Amendment is the one that calls for direct election of Senators. What's so bad about that, you ask? (Go on, ask.) Well, let me tell you...

Understand this first: I'm not one of those people who think the Constitution is divinely inspired and the perfect governmental document. However, for setting up a limited federal government with strictly enumerated powers rigidly separated among different branches that acted as brakes on each other, it's really pretty clever. There was a lot of thought put into a careful system of counterweights and oversights, and if you change one bit of it, you can throw something completely unexpected out of kilter. And boy howdy, did the Seventeenth Amendment ever do that in spades.

Firstly, our bicameral legislature originally copied one redeeming feature from the English Parliament. The lower house was composed of representatives directly elected, one per every X number of the population. Because of their (relatively) small constituencies and their two-year terms, representatives had to be very aware of the popular sentiment of "John Q. Public" and respond to it, lest they be replaced. In the English system, the upper house was the House of Lords, with noble members who had a lifetime tenure. Although they couldn't permanently shoot down legislation, they could apply a temporary veto which could be overturned by a determined lower house.

Our upper house was the Senate, whose members served terms three times as long as those of the lower house. Since we had no hereditary nobility (and were prohibited one by the Constitution) each state's two senators were elected by the state government itself. Thus insulated from the constant pressure of needing to worry about re-election and the public whim of the moment, the Senate would serve as a brake against the spasms of popular fads, and prevent asshattery like legislation proclaiming the theme song from Friends as the national anthem or Britney Spears being voted Dictator-for-Life.

The second, even more important, function served by senators, was as representatives of their state or commonwealth government to the federal government in Washington. Whereas a representative from Dubuque or Des Moines would be voting the whims of their respective constituencies, the senator from Iowa was expected to represent the sovereign interests of the Hawkeye State. This has very specific effects on the separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution.

One of the most telling effects comes from the fact that the Constitution specifically delegates the power to ratify treaties to the Senate. This is important both in the nature of our federal system of government and in the nature of foreign treaties at the time the Constitution was written. In the late 18th Century there were no treaties designating United Nations World Heritage Sites or allowable levels of CFC emissions. Treaties involved war and peace, mutual defense, and the setting of national boundaries. By giving the Senate the power to ratify treaties, this was implicitly acknowledging the sovereignty of the individual states. A mutual defense pact with Absurdistan could not be entered into without at least a majority of the states feeling that they had sufficient ties to Absurdistan to make it worth defending. Likewise for treaties setting borders or ending wars; approval by the Senate was the de facto shorthand means of gaining the approval of every statehouse in the federation.

Once senators became directly elected, it effectively demolished the reasons for a bicameral legislature and the division of powers enumerated in the Constitution. The senator was now removed from his or her lofty perch and made as much a weathervane of the public whim as the representative. Further, the senator from certain states, those dominated by a single large city, no longer represented the interests of the state, but rather those of the small portion of the state in which the majority of the populace was concentrated. The Senate, originally a legislative buffer against the popular whim of the moment and the inexorable demographics of urban centers that dominate the House of Representatives, now became the very same thing it was meant to counterbalance, but with a six-year term instead of a two-year one.

In the years since 1913, the effect has become all too obvious. Treaties are ratified based on pressure from the media, not their agreeability to the sovereign states that are bound by them. There is no longer a legislative brake on popular fads or the whim of the moment. We've bounced from New Deal to New Frontier to Great Society to everything short of the Great Leap Forward. Commentators can make mouth noises about "We're not a democracy, we're a Federal Republic" all they want, wingnuts and moonbats can natter about wimmen voters and the Electoral College 'til the cows come home, but this nation became a democracy, for good or ill, with the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment. And we all know what the apocryphal quote says about democracies:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.

Texicans

Vanderboegh's latest, at Chris Horton's place.

Enjoy!

Mukasey's Minion Takes A Peek

One of US Attorney General Mukasey's minions over at the Department of Justice in DC stopped by this evening to take a peek at our reminder about this weekend's Basic Rifle Marksmanship Clinic in Coeur d'Alene.

Must have been a pretty busy minion, 'cuz he or she only stayed for a moment.

Kind of odd, wouldn't you say, that a DOJ functionary in DC was checking out a civil rights celebration in Idaho?

Maybe that Fed will have the same integrity and courage shown by Charlie and Nezumi in the comments to this post, so let me ask the same questions:

- Are you here to learn more about Constitutionally-limited government?

- Are you here to learn about the real purpose behind the Second Amendment and its absolute guarantee of armed citizen oversight over all branches of government?

- Are you here to learn how armed American citizens can work together to withstand the tidal wave of totalitarianism (both hard and soft) currently sweeping the planet?

- Or, are you here for some other purpose? If so, how about dropping us a comment below?

Hope to hear from you soon.

After all, you DO work for us.

UPDATE 25 APRIL 08: From the comments below:

Something important to remember about "duration of visit" is that if I open a link to your blog in a new tab or window, read for thirty minutes without clicking on any of your internal links, and then close the window, the visit will show on your sitemeter as a one second visit.

Same if I come to your blog by visiting via a link from, say, David Codrea's, and then use the "Back Arrow" button to exit after an hour of scrolling up and down and reading. If I didn't click on any other links in your blog while I was there, it's a one second visit.

Good to know....

The Daily Volk

Oleg reminds all Americans of what may await those who refuse to toe the lines continually drawn and redrawn by a metastasizing State.

Of course, nothing bad like that could ever happen here in America.

I mean, it's not like the FedGov and its minions are conducting martial law practice or anything, even as recently as ten days ago:

***
Law enforcement agencies join together for 'anti-terrorism initiative'

By Cindy Wolff
Monday, April 14, 2008

Shelby County Sheriff's deputies arrested 71 people, including 31 fugitives, during a 24-hour street sweep that ended about a half hour after sunrise Sunday.

The sheriff's office and 50 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies pulled over cars, climbed on boats on the Mississippi River and served fugitive warrants as part of an "anti-terrorism initiative," called Operation Sudden Impact.
Special Agent Don Wolfe of the West Tennessee Judicial Violent Crime and Drug Task Force with his dog, Hydro, conducts a search of a tug boat with Petty Officer Second Class Rich Guthrie with the U.S. Coast Guard during Operation Sudden Impact.

It was the first time that many agencies joined forces for such a large sweep, said Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell, whose office coordinated the operation.

Even though Memphis hasn't suffered a terrorist attack, the city is using federal grants to fight crime, which might lead to the discovery of a terrorist suspect. Other cities are using federal money with similar programs.

"Our community is considered an international distribution center and is a possible target for terrorists," said Capt. Dale Lane, commander of the Sheriff's Office Homeland Security Bureau.

The 100 sheriff's deputies working Saturday night and Sunday morning also recovered 12.2 grams of heroin, 19 syringes and seized $1,795. They issued citations for 202 traffic violations.

Information gathered in the sweep will be reviewed by intelligence officers at the local Homeland Security center. The information will be forwarded to the state's Homeland Security center in Nashville.

Other agencies that participated in the sweep will release results from their departments today.
***

Here's another account:

***
Do Tennessee Businesses Have Ties To Terrorism?

Posted: April 14, 2008 08:16 AM

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Federal agencies raided several Memphis businesses in a coordinated effort to find information about possible terrorism ties.

The operation has been named known as "Sudden Impact."

The FBI along with hundreds of officers said they are looking for anything out of the ordinary. Agents take computers and paperwork from businesses. (emphasis added)

One store owner said he was told the agents were looking for stolen electronics. While some business owners feel they are being targeted, law-enforcement officers said they are just trying to track down possible terrorists before something big happens.

"What we have found traditionally is that terrorists are involved in a number of lesser known type crimes," said Mark Luttrell, Shelby County sheriff.

There has been no word on if any of the confiscated goods have led to any arrests.
***

Tempus fugit.

The Daily Volk

Oleg's poster says it all; hat-tip to Yuri at The Real Gun Guys.

Living in an Imperial World: How Far We've Fallen

Given the increased amount of Federal observation around here lately, I thought it would be appropriate to post this link from the American Thinker giving us some "before" and "after" sketches of the ever-accelerating trend towards centralized Federal power in this former Republic:

***
...You know the story. Put a frog in hot water and he'll jump out, but put him in cooler water and slowly raise the heat and he'll stay in even as he boils to death. Are we frogs starting to boil in government stew? In the midst of a Presidential campaign where we seem to be deciding who's universal health care is more universal and who's global climate policy is more global, maybe it's time to check the temperature of the pot we're in.

The nature of the slow boil is that short-term changes are not detectable. So let's look at a longer term to see just how much hotter it's become. Let's look at the last century and compare its beginning with its end and to current time...
***

Please take a few minutes and read the full article; it's filled with hyperlink support for its view that after simmering for more than 90 years, the "frog soup" is almost ready.

Any bets on whether that frog can still jump?

Oh, and those of you wondering about the upside-down US Flag - please go here for an explanation. I'd say we are well within the confines of 4 USC 8(a) at this point in our political devolution.

Tempus fugit.

A Hearty 'Hello!' to Our Federal Friends

Let's all give a friendly shout out to our first Federal visitor today - our old buddy, Donnie DHS:

Then let me introduce two new acquaintances - one from the Army:

and another special visitor - this one from the US Department of the Treasury:



A few quick questions for all of you:

- Are you here to learn more about Constitutionally-limited government?

- Are you here to learn about the real purpose behind the Second Amendment and its absolute guarantee of armed citizen oversight over all branches of government?

- Are you here to learn how armed American citizens can work together to withstand the tidal wave of totalitarianism (both hard and soft) currently sweeping the planet?

- Or, are you here for some other purpose? If so, how about dropping us a comment below?

Hope to hear from you soon.

BFF!

Reminder: WRSA Basic Rifle Marksmanship Clinic - Coeur d'Alene, ID - April 26-27

Details here. Hope to see you this weekend!

The Daily Volk

Oleg illustrates a seldom-discussed aspect of American politics.

It goes something like this:

1) Street criminals want unarmed victims upon whom to prey.

2) Politicians want unarmed voters, with whom they will exchange "government programs" for votes and (hopefully permanent) incumbency.

3) Street criminals exploit the unarmed State dependents created and nurtured by politicians.

4) Politicians, in turn, advocate for more government programs to "fight crime".

5) Those programs, when enacted, usually lead to more crime via increased vulnerability of crime victims, thereby meeting the needs of both street criminals and their elected brethren.

The circle is now complete; reiterate until you are in the European Union:

Politicians want crime victims to be hurt or killed - at least within "acceptable" numbers.

It's good for business.

PS: Hat-tip to Theo for the wonderfully dystopic cartoon.

The Daily Volk

Oleg lays out a better plan for all gun owners, especially those considering which of the three-headed McHilBama incarnations is "better on guns":

***
...If you can afford to do so, give arms, ammunition and training to your friends. Many people cannot afford even the basic defensive tools and your assistance would be appreciated. In the future, these people would help someone else in turn. The ripple effect does work.

Some people look at the gains made by the prohibitionists and wish to stop it through open combat. Those are folks who have not been to war. Civil wars are far more difficult, expensive and nasty than any political effort.

Remember, guns are defensive tools. Their purpose is to keep lawful humans alive and unhurt. For the offensive to re-take our rights, we need stronger weapons: our minds.

If you wish to safeguard your rights, start by doing what you can now. Those who would not make the effort from the safety and comfort of their homes cannot be relied on to take up arms, either. Convince your elected representatives. Convince your neighbors. Support friendly organizations. Teach safety, techniques of firearm use. There's so much you can do that doesn't require killing or getting killed.

We cannot keep our civil rights without defeating the opposition's propaganda, so do not be shy about educating others. Help produce ads and educational materials that support your views and inform the fence-sitters. Please vote for candidates who have consistently supported the Second Amendment in the past. Select a definite goal, such as the repeal of the ban on effective firearms for self-defense in your home state.

In talking to people, please keep other issues out of the discussion. We are in a fight for our way of life: please do not drive away your squad-mates, even if you do not like them personally. That they are on your side is all the recommendation that they need. These people are already our allies: do not drive them away!

If you wish to help but not sure where to start, talk to your allies. Together we can form a plan of action.
***
One caveat: every solid plan has an "oscar sierra" element - that is, what will be done if plans A, B, C, and D fail.

Best think that part through as well.

Tempus fugit.

Why Waco Still Matters

From this article, posted at Bill St. Clair:

***
So long as public opinion regarding such incidents as Waco remains as pro-state as it is, we have a long ways to go toward recapturing the spirit of the American Revolution in this country. The very way that Waco has been remembered indicates the uphill battle. For the last fifteen years, Americans have been in denial of the type of government they live under.

Since 1993, liberals have wanted to believe the Waco atrocity was the fault of the Branch Davidians, and not the fault of the government. Perhaps some official made a minor error, but none of the main blame should fall on government, not on the Clinton administration and not on the very idea of state power. No, the liberals of 1993 thought of government as an institution inseparable from the good society, an institution charged with doing all these great things – collecting taxes to pay for necessary "services," combating inequality, preserving the planet, ensuring economic fairness and defending human rights the world over. The left did not want to see the dark side of the regime they loved. And so, once the Branch Davidians – a true minority (incidentally, about half of them were people of color, as the left never noticed) – were viciously invaded and attacked, dozens of their members slaughtered by the government, most liberals refused to think the worst of their beloved warm-and-fuzzy Clintonian state.

The government of the 1990s was supposed to be the "good government" that liberals never cease to remind us we can have, once again, as soon as the White House is ridden of the Bush family. But George W. Bush didn’t conduct the massacre at Waco. And even if Bill Clinton’s wife blessedly loses the election, Barack Obama gives no guarantee that he will respect the fundamental rights of Americans any better than his predecessors. Certainly, McCain will not temper the police state any more than Bush has after Clinton. More Wacos are always possible in the current political climate.

And so in a sense, the liberals were right that blame didn’t belong squarely with Clinton, just as today’s conservatives are narrowly correct when they defend Bush against selective condemnation. But the modern right too seems not to understand the implications of Waco, or else it would be impossible for it to have taken the positions it has over the police state, including local police, these last fifteen (and actually fifty or more) years. Like yesterday’s liberals, today’s conservatives are just as naïve toward, or at least accepting of, the ugly underbelly of the government they’re proud to live under.
***

Read the whole thing, please.

Then remember your Niemoller.

UPDATE 20 APRIL 08: Please also review the material assembled by attorney David Hardy of the Arms & the Law blog.

The Daily Volk

On this Patriot's Day, let us remember the brave British citizens who, after drilling publicly for several years with their military arms, engaged and defeated elite units of the world's most powerful military and economic machine as those troops attempted to seize their fellow citizens' arms and ammunition.

Never forget: Lexington and Concord (as well as the running gunfight back to Boston) were gun confiscation raids - which were utterly defeated by a defiant armed citizenry.

Remember too the brave Jewish men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto, whose courageous stand against incalculable odds began this day in 1943.

Finally, remember as well the souls of the men, women, and children in the Branch Davidian compound, who were murdered this day in 1993 by police and paramilitary units of their own American government.

Oleg reminds us that we, the right-thinking Americans of the early 21st century, simply have no excuse in not seeing what the forces of transnational socialism have planned for us.

And even less excuse in not facing those threats with the same defiant courage shown in Massachusetts and Poland by our forefather freedom fighters.

Never again.

Vanderboegh: "Judendienstordnung" ("Jews Who Keep Order")

"Judendienstordnung"
("Jews Who Keep Order")
By Mike Vanderboegh
18 April 2008

Of False Flags, Judas Goats and Judenrats

“False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time. . . While false flag operations originate in warfare and government, they also can occur in civilian settings among certain factions, such as businesses, special interest groups, religions, political ideologies and campaigns for office.” -- Wikipedia

“Sen. Obama will be a strong voice, an unabashed voice, for America's hunters and shooters and it is with great pleasure that we endorse his candidacy...." -- Ray Schoenke, President, ”American Hunters and Shooters Association.”

Two days ago, the presidential candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama was endorsed by a "false flag“ operation called the "American Hunters and Shooters Association.” Despite their name, the American Hunters and Shooters Association has no interest in defending the Second Amendment rights of American gun owners. The fact that they endorsed Obama, the most liberal member of the United States Senate who has previously endorsed such “reasonable” gun control measures as the government seizure of all handguns from private citizens and abolishing the private sale of arms at gun shows should tell you that much.

Yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama was endorsed by that other famous, pro-American liberty group, Hamas:

“Hamas' top political adviser, Ahmed Yousef, embraced the Obama campaign Sunday in an interview on WABC radio, saying, ‘We like Mr. Obama. We hope he will [win] the election.’ He compared the Illinois senator to President John F. Kennedy, saying he was a ‘great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance.’” -- ”Obama hit with obstacles on trail,” Christina Bellantoni and S.A. Miller, Washington Times, 18 April 2008

Obama rejected the Hamas endorsement and embraced the one from the ”American Hunters and Shooters Association.” Of course Hamas is a well-known terrorist organization with the blood of many innocents – including Americans – on its hands. The AHSA, on the other hand, is an organization pretending to be one thing while actually being another.

The AHSA are Judas goats. Worse, the AHSA is a "Judenrat." The AHSA is, to the gun control tyrant wannabes, "Judendienstordnung" in waiting. More about those last two terms in a moment.

“A Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse and in general animal herding. The Judas goat is trained to associate with sheep or cattle, leading them to a specific destination. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter, while its own life is spared. Judas goats are also used to lead other animals to specific pens and on to trucks. The term is a reference to the biblical traitor Judas Iscariot. The phrase has also been used to describe a goat that is used to find feral goats that are targeted for eradication. The Judas goat is outfitted with a transmitter, painted in red and then released. The goat then finds the remaining herds of feral goats, allowing hunters to exterminate them”. – Wikipedia.

Why do I say that AHSA is a Judas goat? Well, what would you call a self-proclaimed "gun rights group" whose founding president, Ray Schoenke, ran for Governor of Maryland as a Democrat and has given "millions" to Democratic politicians and causes according to a January 19, 1998 Washington Post article. He also gave $5,000 in 2000 to the gun-banning advocates of Handgun Control, Inc. among other gun confiscation groups. It uses the same dulcet-toned lies as the anti-firearms left, including the Nazi concept of "sporting purposes."

From AHSA's website:

"Sportsmen overwhelmingly support reasonable gun safety proposals. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of hunters support proposals like background checks to purchase guns, keeping military style assault weapons off our streets and the elimination of cop killer bullets. In recent years, extreme political positions purporting to support gun rights have jeopardized our sport and have hurt the image of responsible gun owners. Unless the sporting community can become unified behind an organization that fights for safe and responsible hunting and shooting practices and sensible gun ownership, future generations may be unable to participate in and enjoy the shooting sports. Americans who love the outdoors and the shooting sports deserve an organization that represents their views, avoids angry political rhetoric and delivers well thought out, rational programs and policy proposals. We believe sportsmen and sportswomen overwhelmingly agree that an organization that brings the right message to policy makers on such issues as the safe use of firearms, our environment and protecting and training our nation’s first responders is long overdue." "Joseph J. Vince, Jr., a member of the Board of Directors is the former chief of the BATF's crime guns analysis branch. Currently, he is a principal of Crime Gun Solutions. HCI has hired Crime Gun Solutions in order to support numerous gun control laws, to support HCI's lawsuits against firearm dealers and he was a signer on a letter submitted to Congress opposing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act." -- "Sometimes the Enemy Wears Camouflage" - NRA statement on AHSA, August 14, 2005

"Give Me Your Children . . ."

The AHSA is a gun-grabber approved Judenrat -- a Council of Jews. During World War II, the Germans established Jewish councils, called Judenraete (or in the singular, Judenrat). These Jewish municipal administrations were set up to ensure that Nazi orders and regulations were carried out. These were not the brave fighting Jews who fought, finally, in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. These were the "go along, get along Jews" who did their best to stop any resistance.

Some Judenrat chairmen committed suicide rather than carry out Nazi orders. Others, like Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski in Lodz, Poland, urged ghetto residents to report for deportation as ordered. He even gave a speech, on September 4, 1942, which will be forever known as the "Give me your children speech."

"...The ghetto has been struck a hard blow. They demand what is most dear to it − children and old people. I was not privileged to have a child of my own and therefore devoted my best years to children. I lived and breathed together with children. I never imagined that my own hands would be forced to make this sacrifice on the altar. In my old age I am forced to stretch out my hands and to beg: "Brothers and sisters, give them to me! − Fathers and mothers, give me your children..." (Bitter weeping shakes the assembled public)... "Yesterday, in the course of the day, I was given the order to send away more than 20,000 Jews from the ghetto, and if I did not – 'we will do it ourselves.' The question arose: 'Should we have accepted this and carried it out ourselves, or left it to others?' But as we were guided not by the thought: 'how many will be lost?' but how many can be saved?' we arrived at the conclusion – those closest to me at work, that is, and myself – that however difficult it was going to be, we must take upon ourselves the carrying out of this decree. I must carry out this difficult and bloody operation, I must cut off limbs in order to save the body! I must take away children, and if I do not, others too will be taken, God forbid..." (terrible wailing). -- I. Trunk, Lodzsher Geto ("Lodz Ghetto"), New York, 1962, pp. 311-312.

And so Rumkowski ordered his "Judendienstordnung" -- his Jewish Police Force, literally his "Jews Who Keep Order" -- to begin collecting the children by force. They were trading the lives of their fellow Jews for their own.

THIS IS THE SAME LOGIC OF THE AHSA.

Though I'm sure only a fraction of the AHSA's members are Jewish, this what they mean in present day:

"You may keep the right to own 'sporting weapons,' your shotguns, but surrender other people's rights to the weapons you have no interest in -- those evil semi-automatic assault rifles, those fifty caliber cannons, those cop-killer bullets. You must be 'sensible' and 'responsible" lest someone come and take all your guns."

Tell me if you think that the anti-freedom advocates of the AHSA are so functionally different from Rumkowski and his craven Judenrat. If somebody told Schoenke or that former ATF hack J.J. Vince to become Judendienstordnung -- Jewish Policemen -- and help round up your guns, do you really think they'd balk at the idea? They've already made the leap of logic to give up your liberties for theirs.

Why not your guns? Why not your children?

This -- THIS -- is the banality of evil that Hannah Arendt was talking about when she referred to Adolf Eichman. These are the "Judendienstordnung" and the "Sonderkommandos" -- pushing their neighbors along, first to disarmament, then to the ghettos, then to the camps, then to the ovens -- bargaining other people's liberties and lives for theirs.

To call these slimeballs "Judas goats" is actually to give them too much credit, for a Judas goat in truth does not understand what he is doing. These are modern day Rumkowski stooges, playing the orchestra music on the slippery slope toward the would-be tyrants they truly serve.

And when Wagner begins to play at the train station again, we are ALL Jews.

Listen to the 21st Century Rumkowskis of the AHSA -- to the "Jews Who Keep Order" -- at your own peril.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

Living in an Imperial World: The Feds Begin DNA Collection

The Washington Post has the story:

***
...The U.S. government will soon begin collecting DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal crime and from many immigrants detained by federal authorities, adding genetic identifiers from more than 1 million individuals a year to the swiftly growing federal law enforcement DNA database.

The policy will substantially expand the current practice of routinely collecting DNA samples from only those convicted of federal crimes, and it will build on a growing policy among states to collect DNA from many people who are arrested. Thirteen states do so now and turn their data over to the federal government.
***

I'm sure it's for the children.....

Tempus fugit.

The Daily Volk

Oleg says it eloquently.

As Passover approaches, along with the anniversaries of Lexington & Concord, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and Waco, consider that eternal truth.

Then make sure you have the tools, both external and internal, necessary to keep your freedom.

Vanderboegh: When It Comes to Gun Confiscation, All is Nothing

From a entry last year in The Lookout Post:


May 16, 2007

"Covenants without swords are but words." -- Thomas Hobbes

"Son, let me explain something to you. You don't poke a wolverine with a sharp stick unless you want your balls ripped off." -- Grandpa Vanderboegh's Rule of Life #32.

My grandfather was a Michigan farmer, mechanic and bus driver who worked hard and knew much of life. He met my grandmother one day when he was helping build a road past her house in Baroda Township. They married, raised a bunch of kids, most of whom went on to successful lives away from farming. He outlived her and died, as I think he would have wanted, in a tractor accident in his eighties. When I visited the farm during the summers of my youth Grandpa would always have pearls of wisdom such as the one above. Like Thomas Hobbes, he was a blunt man who spoke of the world as he understood it in unvarnished words. If I remember right, when Grandpa told me Rule of Life #32, he was trying to explain why you didn't cross Grandma when she was on a tear about something. It was good advice then, and in a much larger sense, it is good advice now. Let me explain.

Chris Seck, writing in the Stanford Review, advances the theory that in order to prevent future Virginia Tech massacres it is "All or Nothing." Eschewing the "reasonable restrictions" argument that gun banners have been feeding us since the National Firearms Act of 1934, Seck posits that either all guns must be banned or any law-abiding person must be allowed to carry firearms for their own (and society's) protection. Obviously, we gunnies believe that the latter is what the Founders intended with the clear language of the Second Amendment. Mr. Seck, however, proceeds to lay out the liberal position in great detail as an intellectual exercise, which it isn't, not to us liberty-loving gunnies at any rate:

"Liberals are correct in making the almost tautological statement that having fewer guns will lead to fewer gun-related crimes. Indeed, many countries have benefited from tight gun control laws. In Singapore, for instance, it is illegal for civilians to own firearms, and even soldiers do not take their guns home—they leave them in the army camps. This rigorous enforcement of anti-gun laws has brought excellent results: Singapore enjoys one of the lowest crime rates in the First World, and it is safe to walk on her streets at night. Liberal arguments for disarmament have worked in other nations, and will work for us if we copy what they do. . ."

Seck then proceeds to tell us what will be required to achieve Singapore harmony in the United States:

"If we decide that more anti-gun legislation is the answer—a solution popular in this corner of America—we must recognize that gun control must be absolute in order to work. Half-measures like restrictions on 'non-sporting' firearms, extended registration periods, or increased background checks are insufficient. We will require a total ban on civilian ownership of guns because if our gun-control laws are rigorous, but not absolute, the vast majority of innocent people will be completely defenseless against the few criminals who manage to procure guns. Half-hearted gun control laws will be broken too easily; they are insufficient against determined criminals. However, in order to enforce such absolute gun control, severe penalties, including lengthy jail terms and huge fines, will need to be imposed on illegal gun owners. Moreover, active measures will need to be taken to disarm existing fugitives, outlaws, and gang members who already own guns. This may prove to be a very difficult task politically. The process of enforcing a total disarmament of our population will be costly and may require draconian measures. It may be necessary to modify parts of the Second Amendment. And given the political influence of the National Rifle Association and pro-gun Republicans in Congress, it will almost certainly be difficult to pass such stringent gun control legislation. But if our leaders could pull off such a legislative feat, our streets would be as safe as Singapore’s. Gun control is one of those rare issues where extreme solutions, not compromises, are needed. Disarmament would work. Deterrence would work. But anything in between will not."

Mr. Seck's intellectual exercise reflects a recent "all right, let's cut the crap" attitude of sincere gun grab advocates which I find remarkably refreshing. Seck is hardly alone in his absolutist framing of the question. For example, Benjamin Wittes, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote recently in The New Republic that we should "Ditch the Second Amendment". Former Ambassador Dan Simpson, writing in the Toledo Blado, also advanced a modest proposal entitled "The Disarming of America" which gives us a vision of the future identical to Seck's:

"The disarmament process would begin after the initial three-month amnesty. Special squads of police would be formed and trained to carry out the work. Then, on a random basis to permit no advance warning, city blocks and stretches of suburban and rural areas would be cordoned off and searches carried out in every business, dwelling, and empty building. All firearms would be seized. The owners of weapons found in the searches would be prosecuted: $1,000 and one year in prison for each firearm.

Clearly, since such sweeps could not take place all across the country at the same time. But fairly quickly there would begin to be gun-swept, gun-free areas where there should be no firearms. If there were, those carrying them would be subject to quick confiscation and prosecution. On the streets it would be a question of stop-and-search of anyone, even grandma with her walker, with the same penalties for 'carrying.'" -- The Toledo Blade, Wednesday, April 25, 2007

We gunnies have long accused liberals of wishing total gun confiscation, and they have always denied it, calling us "paranoid." It is heartening to find that they have finally gotten in touch with their true inner tyrant. At least they can stop referring to us as paranoid now, having declared themselves to be our real enemies. All of this new honesty has understandably rubbed the nerves of gunnies quite raw. As an acquaintance of mine reacted to the Simpson column: "Hell, let's just start shooting the bastards. Let's get this crap over with while I'm still young enough to march in the victory parade down Pennsylvania Avenue."

David Codrea, whose War on Guns blog I greatly admire, dubbed Ambassador Dan as "Homer Simpson's dumber brother." I agree, because opinion pieces such as his and Seck's make the stakes clearer for us armed citizens than they have ever been. We understand that liberty without the means to secure it is, as Hobbes wrote, merely a word. Thus, waving the bloody shirt of gun confiscation in our faces is more likely to get the waver a felony conviction under the Law of Unintended Consequences. Is it impolite here to remind them that WE are the ones with the GUNS? And there are a heck of a lot more of us than there are policemen and soldiers in this country, even if they could get all of them to go along with their scheme, which they couldn't.

Look, in the spirit of "let's cut the crap", may I explain how any gun confiscation scheme will go?

Oh, I could give Simpson, et al, all sorts of high-falutin' arguments about the Founders and their vision of the Republic, with examples from our history and footnoted discussions of the God-given inalienable rights that the Founders delineated and that we gunnies still cherish. But let me make this as simple as possible.

1. If someone is sent to take our firearms, we will kill them in righteous self defense.

2. After we have killed them, we will track down and kill those who sent them.

They will find, if I may paraphrase Mr. Seck, that when it comes to gun confiscation, all is nothing. Misguided efforts to produce a "peaceful" nation will simply ignite a civil war which will send those who started it packing (those who survive, anyway) to some liberal safe haven. Singapore, perhaps?

If anyone wishes to confiscate our means of self defense and resistance to tyranny, they should get those airline tickets ready before they start. It will be a bargain if they get in before the rush, and they need only purchase one-way trips to their exile.

A successful exit strategy and a good pair of running shoes are necessary when tempting fate by poking a wolverine with a sharp stick, especially a whole bunch of ARMED wolverines. Better yet, the gun confiscationists should simply drop that stick right now and back away slowly.

If, that is, they value their testicles.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com