Knox the Younger Responds

Here:

Philosophical Wars
Written by Jeff Knox
on 10-30-2008 14:19

As expected, and intended, my latest Knox Report column has upset some in the, "All is lost; let's start a shooting war" camp.

It is mind boggling to me that intelligent people could be so short sighted and misguided as to think that killing people and blowing things up is somehow going to make things better for our grandchildren. They seem to think that because only about 5% of the populace supported the idea of seceding from the English Empire back in 1776, that their "magic number" is 3% and they think they have that because some survey suggested that 3% of the population thinks violence against the government is justified or could be justified today.

What they fail to take into account is the "bluster factor" of people who will agree with such a statement, but who don't really mean it, and the radical other side - the people who support the terrorist tactics of the Animal Liberation Front and radical Leftists like Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.

What I want to know is, where are the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adamses and Hancocks? Who do these Bozos think is going to lead the new America out of the ashes and back to its Constitutional glory, and why aren't these giants running for public office and leading the political revolution? What do they think China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea are going to be doing while their merry little band of terrorists is busy crippling our nation and trying to foment rebellion? What exactly do they expect the "end" of their rebellion to look like? How are our children and grandchildren going to be better off?

Revolution is like cannibalism; it can be justified, but only when there is absolutely no other choice for survival. Anyone who talks revolution but isn't actively and diligently working hard every day to elect quality people to office at every level and to educate the elected officials already in office about their core responsibilities, is just a bag of hot air who would rather talk about sacrificing everything - and possibly act on that talk - than do the hard work and make the sacrifices necessary to solve the problems within the system our founders created.

When our forefathers revolted against English rule, they were in an untenable situation. They had no vote in the legislative body. They had no say in their government. They had no voice in regulatory matters. They were mere subjects and had no means of redressing wrongs.

That is not our situation today. We have a voice. We have a vote. We have the means to talk directly to our elected officials and our fellow citizens, and we have the means to fire politicians who don't listen to our council and to replace them with politicians who understand their jobs.

It is not easy and it is often frustrating, but it is not impossible and our situation is not hopeless. Things might be headed further in the wrong direction with the coming elections, but such swings are part of a pendulum and that pendulum will swing back in our direction again - unless some self-proclaimed freedom fighters screw it all up and convince the majority that liberty is too dangerous and freedom too costly. That's exactly what happened in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh decided that he was going to get the revolution rolling by blowing up a federal building in Oklahoma City. The pendulum was already swinging back to the right. The public was fed up with the federal government's anti-liberty actions and had sent a large crop of, mostly very conservative, mostly firs-time politicians to Washington to start straightening out the mess. The "far right" was building and growing and, while there was a loud "lunatic fringe" element to the militia movement, the overall motion was in the right direction - until McVeigh took his action.

The destruction of the Murrah Federal Building caused a backlash that continues today. Where once "unorganized militias" and groups calling themselves "patriots" with a focus on the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, suddenly there were empty shells and the name "patriot" became tainted and remains suspect to this day.

Timothy McVeigh - and the gun show philosophers who fueled his misguided sense of patriotism - did more to hurt the cause of liberty than Janet Reno and Bill Clinton could have ever dreamed. One misguided moron with a rifle can do more harm to the fight to restore our gun rights than a thousand Barack Obamas or Hillary Clintons.

So I say to Mike Vanderboegh and those who believe as he apparently does: If you want to start a violent revolution, go do it in Iran, or Cuba, or Mexico, but don't bring you destructive, self-defeating, chest beating into my fight for the Constitution and liberty. If the time comes when we must resort to violence to restore our republic, I will be in the vanguard, but until that time comes, I will dedicate my life - as my father dedicated his life - to using the Constitution, and the rights and limits it illuminates, as the most powerful weapon for preserving it and the republic.

----------------

Be sure to read the column by clicking here and Mike Vanderboegh's rebuttal by clicking here. As America slips into a dark period, it is important to realize exactly who our enemies are on both sides of the political spectrum.

Dear Jeff:

To answer, briefly, your questions below:

...What I want to know is, where are the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Adamses and Hancocks? Who do these Bozos think is going to lead the new America out of the ashes and back to its Constitutional glory, and why aren't these giants running for public office and leading the political revolution? What do they think China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea are going to be doing while their merry little band of terrorists is busy crippling our nation and trying to foment rebellion? What exactly do they expect the "end" of their rebellion to look like? How are our children and grandchildren going to be better off?

1) The brave men and women in the realist wing of the RKBA movement are indeed the spiritual equals of the Founders, who, as the shooting part of the First AmRev began, were also considered dangerous radicals and seditionists by their peers. In addition, the realists I know have spent years and many of their personal dollars fighting the political "soft war".

The difference between we realists and you pragmatists is that we have the intelligence to recognize when our tactics are not working and the humility to change course upon that realization.

Moreover, today's members of the Restoration Movement have an advantage the Founders did not. We have the benefit of the Declaration, the Articles, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, each as written, to guide us along the way, as well as the painful experience of what happens when the American people allow their political elites to deviate from, and ultimately completely invert, charters that were designed to cage Leviathan, rather than Leviathan's masters.

That hard lesson will be taught, in painful detail and multiple iterations, over the next several years. Collaborators such as yourself - and, sir, you have richly earned that moniker with your McVeigh smear and your closing sentence - will only increase the agonies.

I pray that enough Americans will remain intact at the conclusion of those lessons to ensure that the Beast of unfettered government never again rises.

2) I'm surprised that a lifetime observer of the American political scene such as you still honestly believes that our political system is capable of meaningful reform. I thought you were smarter than that. Perhaps next Tuesday's lessons and their consequences will better illuminate modern America's polity for you.

Perhaps not.

3) As for America's foreign enemies, they will be doing exactly what they already plan to do: exploit to their benefit every aspect of the American Empire's demise. Are you so naive as to think that mass murderers such as the leaders of the countries you named will be deterred from pursuing their national interests by good little citizens such as yourself continuing to play the rigged American political game?

4) Rather than castigate Americans who dare to publicly proclaim the same principled defiance of tyranny expressed by the Founding Generation, why don't you look around at the hordes of domestic enemies slavering to tear flesh from Liberty's carcass?

Why don't you admit that despite the vaunted Heller victory, the lower Federal courts continue to uphold patent infringements of the God-given human right of armed self-defense?

Why won't you see that any "Constitutional right" which is routinely violated pursuant to both Federal law, as well as state and local law in California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, and scores of other jurisdictions is in fact no "right" at all, but instead a mere whim of those jurisdictions' applicable executives, legislators, and judiciary?

Why can't you understand that the massive amounts of voter fraud being perpetrated in favor of today's collectivist candidates means that each rights-oriented vote is voided on a one-for-one basis?

Why won't you concede that the arc of American freedoms since 1968 has been catastrophically compromised by the collectivists and their facilitators, who counsel at every turn "reason" and "patience" and "working within the system"?

Why won't you admit that you're too scared and too comfortable to stand up to the people who mean to cage you?

5) You ask about the end state sought by the Three Percenters and their allies. I speak for no one but myself, but I can tell you the causes for which I am willing to bleed, and if necessary, die:

- Individual freedom in all aspects, limited only by the same personal and property rights possessed by my neighbor;

- Extremely limited government, with power for all but national/space defense retained and guarded zealously at the state and local level;

- Economic freedom, whereby I keep all but a very small portion of the value of my productivity for myself and my family; and

- To ensure that never again will the most venal of our species gain control over my country, my property, and my freedom, a virtually unlimited right to keep, bear, and use any arms whatsoever, subject only to the caveat of full responsibility for all damages caused by their use.

To these goals inherent in the Restoration of the American Republic, and to the welfare of my American brothers and sisters who have the sand you so sorely lack, sir, I pledge my property, my life, and my sacred honor, so help me God.

In the final analysis, Jeff, it's pretty simple.

Many people will cringe and submit to a whirlwind of indignities simply to preserve their pitiful lives.

Many others, such as the Three Percent, will never do so.

You've made your choice.

Now live with it.

Alea iacta est.

III