Hard Questions
Bill and Dio ask some hard questions about what wasn't discussed very much yesterday.
Here's the punchlines, IMHO:
1) Waco showed many what the USG would do to those it deemed a threat, as well as proving that a well-executed cover-up is good for a bureaucrat's career.
2) Waco also showed many (on both sides) what they could expect from others in the freedom movement. More recent updates have come from Wayne Fincher and David Olofson.
3) Those of us in the Restore The Constitution/open rifle carry movement have also provided several opportunities in the past twelve months to assess the seriousness of those in the freedom community.
4) The infighting within the community over the past year has provided additional data.
Conclusions?
A) Everyone is on their own; there will be no mass movement.
B) That fact is either threat or opportunity.
C) For those who see opportunity, step one is to accept that you are already dead.
More anon.
posted by Concerned American | 7:15 PM
33 Comments:
Considering the above makes me wonder how we ever succeeded in 1775...
Well said, Pete (I am sorry to say).
Principles are black and white but people who supposedly believe in certain principles actively compromise them away by not supporting others who operate based off of those principles.
It is funny how fragmented the patriot movement is. They eat their own and it's rather sad.
T.
Good ol' Bill. If you don't do everything exactly the way he wants you to do it, you're a frat boy.
Did he see this, written not a month ago?
Did he see this, written two days ago?
Just because you didn't write something on the exact day does not mean that you have forgotten.
Any blogger that sows seeds of division or dissension or discouragement for trivial reasons is helping the statists.
If something is unhelpful, don't post it. Novel idea.
My two cents.
John Parker was one extreme possible outcome.
Waco was another.
Expect to fall somewhere in between.
It's just another datapoint, really.
I wrote about John Parker on the 19th. This in no wise constitutes "forgetting". A picture of the event hangs in my office at work.
"Wolverine" "chest thumping", as Bill puts it, won't save us.
Neither will "Preparing".
Only we can save us.
Will we?
AP
WV= "redwar"
Heh.
Olds98:
"Divisive" isn't necessarily bad.
Unity behind a bad plan is bad.
Freedom is ugly, as are honest debates around reality.
"Unhelpful" is, as you suggest, a good measure.
Waiting for anon.
Holding the constitutional militia movement responsible for not reacting to Waco when it largely did not exist then is demonstrating historical ignorance or amnesia. The movement was largely organized as a result of Waco. Extrapolating from that non-fact, then, is at least incorrect. The militia movement fought, as best we could, a cold war with the Clintonistas after that and the federals became much more circumspect in their behavior.
If you want unity of thought and purpose, become a Moonie or a Scientologist. Leading militia folk, who are inherently, cussedly, independent, God love them, is akin to herding cats and chickens at the same time.
The Founders had their divisions too, although the Internet certainly facilitates poseurs and provocateurs.
The "patriot movement" was from the beginning an artificial construct of the Southern Poverty Law Center to lump in vastly dissimilar, even antagonistic, groups for the purposes of conflationary fund raising. For that reason I have eschewed using the term. To bemoan the "fragmentation" of an artificial construct designed by your enemies as evidence of the failure of like-minded people as a mass movement does not follow.
Likewise, the public disagreements between myself and Kerodin, or even Tom Baugh, is hardly evidence of freedom force fracture or factionalization. That is extrapolating from one small pond and mistaking it for the ocean.
It is far too soon to declare defeat and despond, falling into Kerodin's "kill them all including the babies" mantra.
Of course, it is up to each of you to do what you will, but the rest of us are too busy still fighting to worry overly much about it.
Vanderboegh
I have stood once to defend my beliefs, I will stand again.
I will not stand with those that talk a lot but run when the smell starts to rise.
I have seen several act to step forward, yet none ever hold the line. They tend to find a niche and run with it instead of 'holding the course'.
This isn't a fashion show or an awards ceremony. The winners may end up with statues in their memory but NONE will ever be recognized until 'too late'.
I am no leader, I am simply a person of action. I do what I must but I also recognize a losing proposition when I see one. I prefer to stack the deck in my favor if at all possible. Does that make me 'unpatriotic'? I think not.
Our founders had an opportunity to grab the reins and steal the horses out from under the Brits. They did this. THAT is why our revolution was so successful. They didn't so much start a fight as pushed until the Brits threw the first punch.
They stacked the deck.
Can we do the same?
Can we find leaders within our ranks that can do the same?
Do we have leaders in position to start this thing?
I wonder.
Those who are the willing will just have to make the rest fight-by fighting in their name. Draw your own conclusion...
Would anyone help build a database of the thugs?
Names, addresses, photographs, license plates, etc.
Take the veil off. Hell, let them know they've been put on notice.
Boycott them.
Sons of liberty style.
Mike:
You take things too personally, and you have a continuing habit of announcing that anyone who is not completely down with the Vanderboegh program is somehow not fighting and/or suspect (see here, here, and here for representative, reprehensible examples).
An observation, followed by three questions:
The storyteller Tolkien was both a product and a celebrant of the British culture that also produced the concentration of enemy women and children in disease-ridden camps during the Boer War, the starvation of enemy women and children via maritime blockade in WWI, and the explosive and incendiary bombing of enemy women and children via area bombing during WWII.
1) What was the constitutional militia's response to the Fincher and Olofson cases?
2) Team Freedom in Georgia has
- abolished the Jim Crow era restrictions on concealed carry,
- organized the 4/19 Potomac rally
- supported other OC rallies
- held multiple rifle/pistol open-carry rallies in Atlanta and environs (including one this coming weekend), and
- stood down the Capitol Police and Georgia State Patrol who acted in violation of the new state weapons law.
How's things in Alabama?
3) When's Absolved going to be available?
Enjoy the NRA convention, and while en route, think about the way you treat your friends, supporters, and allies.
It could use some work.
In regards to the "infighting within the community" in the last 12 months, to overcome it, we must determine what exactly has been the root cause of the internecine dissension and infighting?
In my opinion, there are several factors impacting and, indeed, exacerbating the root cause and subsequently affecting 'the community' to a large degree, some individuals more than others.
The 'root cause' is simply this: Purposeful agitation.
Common vernacular: Somebody's stirring the pot.
Who is it? Simple again: OPFOR's agent, whoever that happens to be.
Here's the exacerbating factors I wrote about a few sentences ago:
1 - Our general inability to sift through the overwhelming amount of information to determine what is pretty much crap and what is fact in many, many cases.
2 - Prioritization of tasks and differences regarding those priorities.
3 - Thinly veiled exhortation from various corners in the debate to 'stand alone' and take unilateral action, which aligns nicely with historical agitation of 'lone nuts'.
4 - Misunderstandings regarding the federal system of government as designed and State sovereignty in how to act unilaterally as a State group, but in concert.
5 - Over reliance on Attrition Warfare mindset and unwillinglness to embrace that which works, ie, Maneuver Warfare.
6 - The Alinksyite tactic of demonization of a different point of view rather than have reasoned disagreement, ie, "ad hominem attacks". (See the various youtube videos of the left dealing with young 14 year old girls speaking about freedom or black Americans being villified for standing for freedom as an example of this tactic, and then apply it to 'the movement'.)
7 - Lack of role identification. Operators are not policy makers; policay makers are not operators, and ne'er the 'twain shall meet.
So....point being, gentlemen: Either we determine what we can agree on and go forward, or we plod along as our country continues to unravel before our eyes and bear the eternal shame of losing the country.
For what it's worth (and I have no delusions of grandeur here; my .02 is about as valuable as a puff of smoke...) we might want to collectively take a deep breath, take a step back, and really consider what is the objective we are after, because there is no middle ground on this issue. To use a line from the movie, "Zombie Land", truly, "it's time to nut up or shut up."
Restoration of Constitutional Government as ratified would be my vote.
THAT, in and of itself, is "the commander's intent".
Whoever and whatever project he has that is working toward that objective, blessings upon him and his house!
No matter the scope.
No need to be in group lock-step. No need to self-aggrandize or depricate another who is doing something different.
If, and you can be there are, some people who've gotten inside various AO infrastructures and are traitors, let those AO's deal with them.
The rest of "us" (all those that "us" entails) keep our eyes on the skyline and the objective: The commander's intent.
My .02
Trainer:
While I disagree with one aspect ("purposeful agitation"; I think the issues are far more mundane and human than that) of your sitrep, I am 100% with the rest.
Forward.
Dio-
Good questions.
Good strategy.
The questions about leaders though?
In Iraq, many times when command and control assets were
neutralized, the Iraqi assault/defense/ops fell apart.
No one was the leader, and worse yet, no one took charge. Everyone
stood around waiting for "someone else" to take charge.
Death or surrender result. Every time.
Compare to the US military where everyone understands that they
just might end up in charge. Clear rank structure helps, but
personal initiative counts for more. I have seen ranked leaders crack, and privates step up.
Here's the thing. I cannot tell you what to do, likewise you me.
We have to be our own leaders.
Even if our "patriot messiah" came tonight, with a surefire plan,
people would accuse him of trying to get others to throw their
lives away. Accusations of provocateur, etc. No leader is going to magically appear. Anyone who did would be suspect in everyone's eyes anyway, and likely
attacked.
I agree that a Sons-of-Liberty-esque approach is effective. No one is stopping you from pushing big brother, just like no one is
stopping me. We are stopping ourselves.
We lead ourselves; that is our biggest strength and weakness.
Waiting for a leader is a cop out. One I'm guilty of too.
I'm working and thinking on a few ideas, but what is the point?
Maybe I could do an RTC here in AK.
Maybe I could organize one and march on Washington with my...
thirteen cohorts.
If the weather was nice. And if it fit schedules. And if we could afford it. And if...
Or maybe I could organize an event in DC, like TL did, to have
three people show (I too was not there, so my finger points right back at me, as well).
No, methinks we don't really want a leader. Methinks we don't want
to listen to anyone with an actual plan. Methinks we want to sit upon our fat asses securely upon the "moral high ground", waiting for "someone else" to kick something off so we can bust out our safe queen rifles, run to the front porch and, moral high ground
secured, collapse of a coronary from over-exertion.
Methinks we don't want a leader.
Methinks we want an excuse.
If the shoe fits, wear it.
Free men and women are always free to act at any time, at any place, and in any manner desired in accordance with their ethics and their acceptance of responsibility for all consequences of their actions, both intended and unintended.
They are....free.
Get it?
CA-
That's the quote I was looking for.
Copy, paste, save.
Thanks.
AP
AP:
Please add a comma after "desired"....my online proofreading doth sucketh.
I think I will still wait for anon.
Pete, it better be good.
I am alone. That is what I have learned. I have conversations with people I thought I knew and hear things I can't believe my ears are hearing.
When the SHTF we will all come together or not. Lots of dead. Lots of dieing.
I don't follow nor do I lead. I do what is best for me and mine.
I knew it wouldn't take long before I was tagged as a baby-killer! Now I have what I need for my headstone.
Ultimately it will come down to each Patriot deciding to take singular action. I suspect the time has passed when a Patriot stepping forward would be met with others of like mind coming to his shoulder, as happened on the greens at Lexington & Concord.
How many Patriots live on your street?
Most Patriots today who choose to engage before the collapse will fight and die alone, and be mocked, ridiculed and foresaken in the wake of his or her actions. That is sad. The path of the Warrior is solitary, to be certain, but the path of Patriots should be more populated.
Several folks in our Community are fighting IRS at the moment. Others are fighting local bureaucrats who are ruining businesses. Big Brother is coming at several of us from different angles. Ann Barnhardt has picked a fight and gouged a thumb into Mo's eye (With a noted lack of support from within parts of our own community - pathetic!). In all cases, it is a solitary fight, and patriotic, I might add. Never forget this is a polygonal battlespace, and we all contribute to the effort by fighting our individual battles.
I think AP is dead-on target: If a Patriot Messiah arrived tonight, he'd be struck down by friendly-fire before he ever got on OpFor's radar.
The goal is Liberty, well-articulated by Trainer: Restoration of the Constitution as ratified. We can discuss other options once this bridge has been taken.
To ever take that bridge we'll need interlocking fields of fire and singular focus. Anyone who is not contributing to the goal of Liberty is part of the problem.
How each Patriot chooses to contribute is his own business.
Brace for impact.
Implosion is imminent.
With any luck the die-off will be of sufficient magnitude to make Patriots numerically relevant once again.
Kerodin
III
Alan:
I guarantee it will be worth at least what you paid for it.
:-)
I have to agree with Mike V., "herding cats and chickens" pretty well sums it up. We are still too free to pursue our various lifestyles as we see fit. Nothing has yet happened to any one of us to hit the panic button and look around for a foxhole buddy. Until the SHTF, our attention is elsewhere, even though we know there's an iceberg out there, we're not sinking yet, are we?
Nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to get the peoples attention, until they are in the water, and then will they begin to realize, OH SHIT! I'm gonna die! And for many, it will be too late.
But to organize boat crews today, what for? We're americans, can't happen here!
0321
I know things move faster these days, or seem to at least, but go back and look over the timeline of what happened leading up to the First American War for Independence.
Quite a bit of time elapsed between the first Patriots grumbling about the chains and the shot heard around the world.
Also, a simple shooting war will not solve the problems before us. There will be plenty of that, I'm sure but things are quite a bit more complicated this time around.
If there is one good thing about waiting, it is that I believe each day our numbers grow. Things are becoming more clear for Joe Sixpack and I believe he maybe our best ally when he comes to his senses.
I'm sorry that you're giving any meaningful substance to the so-called armed rallies last year.
In my opinion, there was virtually none.
That's because those attending were essentially unarmed, flags in the actions, no magazines, no vests, no protective masks, and so forth.
At best it was saber rattling, with sound proofing on the sabers. If there was concern by the governments, new laws would have been immediately passed to forbid such displays in the future.
Sorry, guys, but facts are facts.
Pat:
The significance is not on the .gov side, in my mind.
The significance is on the freedom side, where people are afraid to ride their bikes in a cul-de-sac with the training wheels still attached.
Vdb:
" into Kerodin's "kill them all including the babies""
Cite and link or you're a liar.
Trainer:
"The 'root cause' is simply this: Purposeful agitation."
Bullshit. Wait, no, maybe not completely; labelling someone a babykiller probably qualifies. But in general the dissension, such as it is, that I have seen in this corner of the net is absolutely not out of the ordinary for comparatively fringe movements, nor is it inexplicable in the absence of provocation. It is the result anybody with a good understanding of human nature would expect from strong-willed people discussing topics important to them while holding opinions radically different from the mainstream of society. But the government absolutely does not need to lift a finger to produce these disagreements, and even if they were, this is not where such provocation would appear - instead it would be entirely mocked-up sting operations, first convincing someone to "take action", then convincing them to buy the weapon, then convincing them to set up towards the target, with a nice big reception ready to fall on them - with none of it capable of happening had the government agents not stepped in to push things along. That's provocation. That's the sort of thing that was seen with for example the Hutaree. That's how a government agent gets specific things they can point to when bucking for a promotion. Nothing of the sort has been happening around here. None of these disagreements are monetizable in terms of bonuses and raises for a federal employee. Therefore, blaming any of it on provocation is sheer dysfunctional paranoia and denial of simple unpleasant reality.
"and really consider what is the objective we are after"
Ideally? An American populace that is self-reliant, does not WANT someone else to pay for their health care or retirement, takes responsibility for themselves, and exhibits amused disdain for liberalism in all its forms - and also for government agents that explicitly defy their mandates. A leftist government has power only because the people choose to obey it.
Is that achievable? Given the America we have now, is there a way to get there from here? Right now what I see is a number of incremental steps being taken, nibbling at the edges of the problem, which is worthy effort but still has the sense, as Derbyshire put it, of walking east on a westbound boat.
Let's not worry. No plan survives the first shoot out anyway. Will we come together? Does a cat got an ass? We got the knowledge and guts and just plain stupidness to get it done. It always looks like shit when you start. What it looks like when you're done is up to you. When it commences, we will see who has it, and who doesn't. There, fixed it for you. Prepare.
I have said this before and I will say it again. The situation is that we are awaiting a catalyst. We are awaiting an event or happening that will sound the muster. Until something major happens no one is going to stick their neck out to be the first one hacked off.
Grenadier1
For Concerned American:
As I have told Mr. Vanderboegh, you do NOT want me at one of those rallies. While YOU may find Lt. Mitchell to be an honorable man who just needs education, I find him to be a filthy maggot pig who should rot in hell at the earliest possible moment for so dishonoring his oath of office. As far as I can tell, that is NOT what you want at one of those rallies. If that is a misinterpretation on my part, please let me know. Otherwise, please understand the reason some of us do not attend.
VANDERBOEGH: "The "patriot movement" was from the beginning an artificial construct of the Southern Poverty Law Center to lump in vastly dissimilar, even antagonistic, groups for the purposes of conflationary fund raising."
And you couldn't have shared that memo say in 1995? 2000? 2005 even?
It's going to take open warfare in America to get everyone's shit together.
Know that the government will do ALL in it's power to subdue those that rise up against it. We, the PEOPLE, must enforce OUR Covenant with OUR Government, The Constitution.
@stepman; Enforcing our covenent with our government is a problem.
Waiting for election day once a year is not getting the job done. We need to find other more timely avenues of enforcement for "We the People"
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