What Is To Be Done: Confusing Motion With Progress

In a previous post, I described the situation of contemporary American no-compromise gunowners as follows:

- We're screwed

- There's gonna be a fight

- Let's win

Assuming for a moment that the reader accepts the first two premises and rejects the option of submission, attention then shifts to a viable definition of "win".

And there the real fun begins - at least for anyone with their eyes open.

Compared to many, I am a relative newcomer to the Second Amendment struggle. As such, I can now look back at the first few years of my exertions as being sincere but largely misguided attempts to "awaken the sleeping masses."

The most important lesson that I learned during those times is that most people - especially including so-called "activists" - are largely incapable of following an upsetting thought through to its logical conclusion.

An example:

- Person X decides, based on his read of the socio-political situation here in the Oughts of the 21st century, that he needs to learn how to shoot a rifle with some degree of competence.

- The actual task of achieving moderate competence having been achieved, Person X purchases a couple thousand rounds of ammunition and several mags, cleans his rifle, and resumes his "normal life",

- while at the very same time acknowledging that the socio-political forces that originally motivated him to learn basic longarm skills have deteriorated significantly since his training began.

That observation about others and myself led to the second phase of my activism - the "Chicken Little" clippings and musings that have formed the backbone of this blog.

I truly thought, for a good long time, that if only people could be made to see what is happening around them:

- the growing depredations of a metastasizing American surveillance/police state,
- the slow but perceptible movement towards a global socialist "paradise", and
- the deliberate beggaring of future generations to sate the slavering "where's mine?" benefits-craving mob,

they would awaken from their stupor and stop the madness.

Even when I acknowledged that "we simply do not have the votes" as freedom-lovers to prevail against willing slaves and aspiring slavemasters in a voting contest, I thought that there still was a way to rally fellow Americans towards the ideals of individual freedom and political liberty, even if that meant conflict against superior forces.

I know now that I was wrong.

This documentary, the premiere of which I attended this evening, rests on the same shaky hypothesis as have my Second Amendment efforts - to wit, if people really knew what was going on, they would (of course!) work, and if necessary fight, to change things.

The wholly-unpalatable truth is that the majority of people in this country
- DO know what is going on,
- they like it (or at least don't dislike it enough to work to change things for the better), and
- they want more of it now.

That's how we got in the mess we're in.

Politicians acted to expand the power of the State by bribing taxpayers with their own money.

More recently, non-taxpayers have been cut into the gravy train.

Voters liked how those bribes felt and demanded more, even for folks who don't pay taxes, a la the recent stimulus check.

Politicians were only too happy to oblige, thereby further increasing the levels of debt, taxation, and State power.

Lather, rinse, repeat - since 1936, at least.

Consequences be damned.

More government?

More please, Sir - especially those yummy transfer payments/stimulus packages/subsidies. Please also to include, thank you very much, an extra helping of those earned income credits.

More surveillance, on a path towards that in the place where Great Britain used to be?

Fine, as long as Holy Mother Government keeps us feeling like we are safe from all of those, in the words of Bush '43, "terrists".

More regulations?

Of course, for without more regulatory intrusions on behalf of local, state, and Federal government, we might ripped off by those greedy capitalists, bankers, and other private-sector miscreants as we pursue our quest for ever-greater somethings for nothing.

Reasonable gun control?

So long as you pay proper homage to the Heller shibboleth of "individual rights", you can do pretty much anything - just as Scalia suggested. We're only being pragmatic, after all.

More gubmint-created jobs?

Oh yeah - especially with those above-market benefit and retirement packages. Give Daddy lots of that sugar.

More political power aggrandizement by the lifetime-tenured, unelected, and unaccountable Federal judiciary at the trial, appellate, and SCOTUS levels?

You betcha. Who better that a cadre of Robed Masters from the nation's elites to prove that the Founders' genius in creating a series of checks and balances can indeed be thwarted?

More taxpayer money thrown down the rathole of your local government school system?

Damned straight. You don't think an electorate is born this ignorant and addled, do you? No, my friend - to reach this level of thoughtful civic engagement requires at least 13 years of government school lobotomizing:



And we in the RKBA/Second Amendment community think that by adding our daily personal scrawl to the RKBA blogosphere of maybe 25,000 people, we are actually accomplishing something meaningful to offset the overwhelming political power of literally scores of millions of fellow citizens like those in the video?

Or is what we call "activism" simply motion, rather than progress?

I'd humbly propose that for true freedom lovers, the most rational definition of "win" in the upcoming struggle is to be free from all interference from most of our fellow Americans, both within and without the various levels of government.

That objective, combined with a vigorous and frequently-employed enforcement mechanism, is something that can be accomplished, as opposed to the Sisyphean task of trying to educate greedy, amoral ignoramuses out of their greed, amorality, and ignorance.

I've thought a great deal about who most of my countrymen are and what they believe, and I have to tell you - I'll take my chances on my own, thank you very much.

That's not a bad idea at all for a new path, as Mary Chapin Carpenter sang:

I took a walk in the rain one day on the wrong side of the tracks
I stood on the rails till I saw that train
Just to see how my heart would react
Now some people say that you shouldn't tempt fate
And for them I would not disagree
But I never learned nothing from playing it safe
I say fate should not tempt me

I take my chances, I don't mind working without a net
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

I sat alone in the dark one night, tuning in by remote
I found a preacher who spoke of the light but there was brimstone in his throat
He'd show me the way according to him in return for my personal check
I flipped my channel back to CNN and I lit another cigarette

I take my chances, forgiveness doesn't come with a debt
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

I've crossed lines of words and wire and both have cut me deep
I've been frozen out and I've been on fire and the tears are mine to weep
But I can cry until I laugh or laugh until I cry
So cut the deck right in half,
I'll play from either side.

I take my chances, I pay my dollar and I place my bet
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get
I take my chances, I don't cling to remorse or regret
I take my chances, I take my chances every chance I get

I take my chances....

Bottom line: The FDR/Wilsonian/Lincolnian/Hamiltonians have the ball, their rabid hometown fans are howling, there's 3 minutes left in the 4th period, and the Jeffersonian/Henry/Jackson/Lee team is down by 23 points, with their best shooter fouled out.

A rational Jeffersonian in the audience would be asking where the best post-game party is, and who's bringing the girls and party favors.

That game buzzer's about to sound.....