Saturday’s post, Statolatry was a quick and dirty cut-n-paste from a rather long comment I left over at Facebook. I don’t know what the current readership of this blog is, but I imagine it’s in the low two digits these days, so instead of doing my normal extensive linking to all sources, I just left it. I noted the original inspiration for the piece was not my own work, but I did not specify the author or give a link to the original Facebook post or even my share of it.
So of course I got my first Instalanche in a few years. (Thanks, Sarah Hoyt!)
As soon as I saw that, scrolling through Instapundit.com, I ran into my computer room and edited the piece, mentioning both the author’s name, Michael Smith, and linking to his Facebook post. Then he left a comment linking to his Substack copy, so I changed to that.
Now if you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I link exhaustively to my source materials normally. The one time I didn’t….
So I’ve decided to edit the piece again to put in all the links.
Sorry for neglecting this place for so long. I’ll try to do a little better this year. I ran across something the other day that I shared over on FaceBook. If you’ve been a reader for a few years, you’ll know that I’ve come to the same conclusions as the author of the piece, Michael Smith. In fact, I said in the share, “This distills down what I’ve learned since I first awoke politically in 1994. 190 proof.” Please read:
If you are shocked by the Democrats panicked response to the probing of President Trump’s Emissary of Justice, Elon Musk, there is a way to frame it that makes it understandable.
First, we need to come to terms with the fact that contemporary Democrats, no matter what they choose to call themselves, are socialists at best and full-blown Marxists at worst.
In the same way a drug addict denies their addiction until they come to terms with what they are, Democrats have progressively increased their intake of various degrees of collectivist dogma until they are fully addicted. The gateway to collectivism is the idea of the “greater good,” from that they move on to socialism, then to Marxism, then finally in the end stages, communism – just as Marx prescribed and predicted.
Not only does this addiction have physical ramifications, but it also changes their mental state.
There is a word we all should know. That word is statolatry.
Economist Ludwig Von Mises coined the word to describe the literal worship of government. He said: “People frequently call socialism a religion, It is indeed the religion of self-deification.”
Statolatry is about worship for the state to replace a God they have rejected, a relationship with some entity more powerful than themselves to which they swear their love and fealty, the goal of which is to receive blessings (which are drawn the public till).
The people on the statolatrist left have landed on a toxic mixture of statism, politics, mysticism, and atheism rolled up into a loose ball called “progressivism” as a substitute for Judeo-Christian theology. Progressivism is as much a religion as Catholicism, it just replaces a Pope with government, counting on the senior leadership of the Democrat party to be their High Priests.
And in the process, this new religion became a very curious mix of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!) and the Flagellants, the 13th century group of Roman Catholics who practiced mortification of the flesh by various means. Statolatrists find pleasure in their self-inflicted pain but really enjoy dosing it out to non-believers as well. It is also the harshest of mistresses – if a believer questions any tenet, there is no force on the planet that can protect them from the fury of the scorned. If they show less than total subservience and compliance, they are declared apostates and excommunicated immediately.
The problem is that no one really knows the rules of this new religion – they change to meet the needs of the moment. Often You can be right and wrong at the same time. What you can say or think and who you can say or think certain things about changes every minute – what was acceptable yesterday is not acceptable today and that random asymmetry makes it very difficult to fight on an individual level, so one must attack where the asymmetry is less and where their power resides, where it is concentrated.
With that framing, it becomes clear why Democrats have lost their minds about Elon and the DOGE Boys.
It is not just that their religion is being attacked, their god is under assault, and it is being attacked inside one of its temples no less – the House of USAID.
These temples are the repository of Democrat power, money and influence.
They also know this is only the first wave. President Trump intends to send his Muskian warriors raging and rampaging through the rest of the temples – Department of Education, the DOJ, the IRS, the Federal Reserve, and others – stripping them naked and laying them bare in public for all to see. Once and for all, the intent is to raze the temples to the ground and scatter the priests, acolytes, and minions to the four winds thereby ending this religion forever.
They also know the boldness, aggression, and Blitzkrieg-like fury of President Trump’s offensive has drawn even former enemies to his cause, he has massed a cadre of leaders from across the spectrum, some former priests themselves, all with a shared goal – to do what is right for the people, not the priests.
This is an existential event for statolatry, and perhaps even the Democrat Party.
And it is beautiful.
I had you read that as an introduction to this. A former coworker (a dozen years ago) is a full-blown Lefty. We’ve exchanged several comments regarding our different positions on FB. Here’s his response:
Complete and utter horseshit.
When pressed for detail, he came back with:
If you honestly believe that there is equivalency between religious autocracy and democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens, you need to brush up on your history lessons of ancient Athens.
And if you don’t see benefits in the “greater good”, you need to get out more often. What is killing this country is economic inequality, which is making the losing side more desperate and ready to blame “Someone”. Along comes Trump who tells the losing side who to blame and they swallow it hook, line, and sinker. The so-called reforms that Trump and his handlers are blitzing will make life nearly unbearable for those without the financial resources to fight their way through it. The Rich will get richer, and the Poor will be defenseless and voiceless.
Most progressive countries are living better than the US. We are no longer a progressive county. We are a complete oligarchy heading rapidly towards a totalitarian oligarchy. Trump doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together but nobody seems to care because, oh, we’re whipping the libtards.
Let me simplify. Democracy is not a religion.
I told him that his response rated a real rebuttal, but at 9PM on my phone was not the place or the time. So today I fulfilled my promise. His response in italics, other quotes in bold.
“Democracy is not a religion.”
The idea of it, no. In practice, however the modern Democrat Party has become a cult, the cult isn’t “democracy,” it’s “Progressivism.”
“If you honestly believe that there is equivalency between religious autocracy and democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens, you need to brush up on your history lessons of ancient Athens.”
If you honestly believe that the modern Democratic Party practices “democratic principles, discourse, logic and public debate among citizens,” you are a part of that cult.
“And if you don’t see benefits in the ‘greater good,’ you need to get out more often.”
Who decides? How are these decisions reached?
“What is killing this country is economic inequality, which is making the losing side more desperate and ready to blame ‘Someone’.”
I think that’s simplistic, but as a first-order approximation, it’s OK.
“Along comes Trump who tells the losing side who to blame and they swallow it hook, line, and sinker.”
Who does he say is to blame? Please provide examples. He pointed out that our tax dollars are being wasted, that the government is spending money it doesn’t have on things the public didn’t agree to DEMOCRATICALLY, and he promised to put a stop to it. Only two weeks in, and… WOW.
“The so-called reforms that Trump and his handlers are blitzing will make life nearly unbearable for those without the financial resources to fight their way through it.”
So your cult says. During his first four-year term Joe and Jane Average saw an increase in their income and buying power. Not so much for the last four.
“The Rich will get richer, and the Poor will be defenseless and voiceless.”
As occurred between 2020 and 2024, when HUGE sums were transferred to the wealthy, largely through government coffers, occurring UNDER A DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION. This was, of course, shortly after the previous tremendous transfer of money to the wealthy after the collapse of 2008, laid directly at the feet of the Federal Government.
“Most progressive countries are living better than the US.”
Then find one you like better and MOVE THERE. We’re busy trying to fix THIS ONE.
“We are no longer a progressive county.”
If you capitalize “Progressive,” I certainly hope so. “Progressivism” is anything but.
“We are a complete oligarchy heading rapidly towards a totalitarian oligarchy.”
Nice of you to finally fucking NOTICE. The Ruling Party – made up of Democrats AND Republicans, AND the ultra-wealthy and their sycophants – has been gaining more and more control over the hoi polloi since the 1960’s. The recent exposure of the abuses of USAID illustrate that they long ago learned that they could undermine “democracy” using our own tax dollars to control The Narrative™, to stifle opposition, even to attempt “Regime Change.” Oh, and to also enrich themselves – you know, “The Rich get richer, the Poor, poorer.”
“Trump doesn’t have two brain cells to rub together but nobody seems to care because, oh, we’re whipping the libtards.”
He’s beating the Ruling Party like a drum set. What does that say about their vaunted intellectual capabilities?
You know when I figured out that you guys had become a religious cult? It was 2008, when it was explained to me in a fascinating book that the media was the Priesthood of the Left, standing between the Church of State and the laypeople, handing down Government’s edicts. It fit everything I’d learned up until then.
Michele Obama in a 2008 speech at UCLA said, “We have lost the understanding that in a democracy, we have a mutual obligation to one another, that we cannot measure our greatness in this society by the strongest and richest of us, but we have to measure out greatness by the least of these, that we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I’m here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, that before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.” If that’s not religious iconography, I don’t know what is.
Or how about this from Albert Gore Jr. in a 2010 NYT op-ed, “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change” – “From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.”
That’s what ESG is – an attempt to legislate human redemption. Redemption for what? For Original Sin. What is that Original Sin? Depends on your particular sect of Progressivism. For the Environmentalists, it’s “Raping Gaia.” For many it’s Colonialism. For others, Capitalism. Look at the activist to find their particular favorite Sin.
Also in 2008 I read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism from which came this quote:
“Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem” and therefore is defined as the enemy.”
That too fit perfectly what I was observing. Note the use of “common good” here, semantically equal to “greater good.” And it was about this time that I understood that whatever it was the Left was accusing its enemies of, it had either done, was doing, or desperately wanted to do – thus the unending accusations of “FASCISM!”
He also wrote:
“Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don’t matter. It also highlights the real fascist legacy of World War I and the New Deal: the notion that government action in the name of “good things” under the direction of “our people” is always and everywhere justified. Dissent by the right people is the highest form of patriotism. Dissent by the wrong people is troubling evidence of incipient fascism. The anti-dogmatism that progressives and fascists alike inherited from Pragmatism made the motives of the activist the only criteria for judging the legitimacy of action.”
That, too fit my observations.
In 2016 a poster at Reddit wrote an eloquent explanation of the Left’s reaction to Trump’s election, “Why Hollywood is really freaking out over Trump.” Of course it was quickly yanked from the site, but the Wayback machine still has a copy. From that essay:
“Blue Team Progressivism is a church, offering you moral superiority and a path to spiritual enlightenment. As a church it’s got a lot going for it. It runs religious programming on television, all day every day. Every modern primetime program is like a left-wing Andy Griffith show, reinforcing lessons of inclusion, tolerance, feminism, and anti-racism.
“Watching a 90-pound Sci-Fi heroine beat up a room full of giant evil men is as satisfying to the left as John Wayne westerns were for the right.
“The Blue Church controls the HR department, so even if you don’t go to church, you have to act like a loyal churchgoer in every way that matters while you’re on the clock. And off the clock, on any kind of public social media platform.
“Jon Stewart and John Oliver are basically TV preachers. Watching them gives the same sense of quiet superiority your grandma gets from watching The 700 Club. The messages are constantly reinforced, providing that lovely dopamine hit, like an angel’s voice whispering, “You’re right, you’re better, you’re winning.”
“Hollywood award shows are like church talent shows – the skits and jokes aren’t really funny, but it’s fun to look at the pretty girls, and you’re all on the same team.”
Spot. Fucking. ON. And you’ll notice that – democratically – Hollywood is failing these days.
You belong to a cult, Bill. You believe that you are good and pure, and that taking money from other people and giving it to the needy is noble and righteous, and anyone who questions that is obviously stupid. (See “two brain cells” above.) Your ideological brethren, however, don’t believe they’re stupid or ignorant. They believe anyone who opposes them must be EVIL. You’re still willing to engage because you still think that “discourse, logic and public debate among citizens” is what the Democrat Party is all about.
It’s not. And when they find out you still do, you might be excommunicated like all those who have #WalkedAway. And you know what you’ll discover? The difference between Progressivisim and all other religions: There is no redemption in the Progressive Church. They may take you back, but they’ll never trust you again.
You believe that Government is Good. It’s not. Government is a NECESSARY EVIL, best kept small and watched closely. Our elected representatives are not morally superior to the rest of us, in fact far too many of them are sociopaths with some very dark secrets. The Professional Managerial Class that makes up the bureaucracy? They are not our betters to whom we are supposed to kowtow, they’re supposed to be our employees carrying out our wishes.
Donald Trump is the result of the government failing to carry out the wishes of the MAJORITY for far, far too long. He may be the proverbial bull in the China shop, but hopefully it will be “creative destruction” that leaves behind something better, leaner, and more closely aligned with the Constitution.
I’m not holding my breath, but there’s no fucking way what we’ve been doing for the last sixty years can continue.
Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment, by David Samuels in Tablet Magazine. Given the recent admissions by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal that Joe Biden’s mental incapacity dates back a couple of years and everyone knew it, this piece is especially relevant. Excerpt:
The unspoken agreements that obscured the way this social messaging apparatus worked—including Obama’s role in directing the entire system from above—and how it came to supplant the normal relationships between public opinion and legislative process that generations of Americans had learned from their 20th-century poli-sci textbooks, made it easy to dismiss anyone who suggested that Joe Biden was visibly senile; that the American system of government, including its constitutional protections for individual liberties and its historical system of checks and balances, was going off the rails; that there was something visibly unhealthy about the merger of monopoly tech companies and national security agencies with the press that threatened the ability of Americans to speak and think freely; or that America’s large cultural systems, from education, to science and medicine, to the production of movies and books, were all visibly failing, as they fell under the control of this new apparatus. Millions of Americans began feeling increasingly exhausted by the effort involved in maintaining parallel thought-worlds in which they expressed degrees of fealty to the new order in the hope of keeping their jobs and avoiding being singled out for ostracism and punishment, while at the same time being privately baffled or aghast by the absence of any persuasive logic behind the changes they saw—from the breakdown of law and order in major cities, to the fentanyl epidemic, to the surge of perhaps 20 million unvetted illegal immigrants across the U.S. border, to widespread gender dysphoria among teenage girls, to sudden and shocking declines in public health, life expectancy, and birth rates.
Until the fever broke. Today, Donald Trump is victorious, and Obama is the loser.
THERE’S a neologism that ought to stick. From @CliftonDuncan on X:
The Bluegeoisie can never come back to the center.
Everyone is now fully aware of how contemptuous, how bereft of common sense, how dishonest and incompetent they are. It won’t work.
They can never build “their own Joe Rogan.” The notion is ridiculous–not just because it evinces their tendency toward top-down control, but because their cult renders intellectual, political and philosophical exploration outside of narrow ideological parameters impossible.
These people have psychotic meltdowns, blacklist peers, and cut off relatives over politics. They’re incapable of empathizing with anyone outside their congregation.
For all their fetishizing of credentials, their masturbatory exaltation of their educations, they’re violently allergic to intellectual curiosity–how on earth COULD they “build” their own Rogan, or a Lex Fridman, whose curiosity and openness are part of their brand?
How COULD they lower themselves to understand why they’re so despised?
Look at these people now, a month out from the election. They’re losers who are still lost, liars who keep lying. They’re throwing tantrums. Pointing fingers. Doubling and tripling down. The lack of reflection is astonishing.
They haven’t learned anything because they can’t learn anything. Learning would threaten their careers, reputations and relationships. Learning would require them to abandon the hubris that defines them.
They’ll never do that.
And even if they did, who would believe them, or be willing to listen, after they spent decades calling everyone racists and sexists, fascists and Nazis? Who’s going to forget such long-term abuse and slander?
We know power corrupts. The pendulum has now swung forcefully in a different direction. We need strong, sensible, rational opposition to check the excesses of those now assuming power.
Joe Rogan recently had tech billionaire Marc Andreessen on his podcast. I strongly recommend you listen to the entire episode. Andreessen discusses at length what the government is doing to us by manipulating business and industry. Here’s a transcript of a short excerpt starting at 2:49:40.
Marc Andreessen: “There used to be this thing I called ‘The Deal’ – with a capital ‘D,’ and The Deal was, you could be – and this is what I was – you could be a tech founder, or you could start a private company, or you could create a tech product. Everybody loved you, it was great, glowing press coverage, the whole thing. You take the company public, it employs a lot of people, it creates a lot of jobs, you make a lot of money. At some point you cash out and you donate all the money to charity and everybody thinks you’re a hero. Right? And it’s just great.”
Joe Rogan: (Laughing) “Right!”
MA: “This is how it ran for a very long time. And this was The Deal and Clinton and Gore, 100% support of that, and they were 100% pro-Capitalism in this way and 100% pro-Tech. And they actually did a lot to foster this kind of enviroment. And basically what happened is the last fifteen years or so of Democrats, culminating in this administration broke every part of that deal for people in my world. Every single part of that was shattered, right? Where just like technology became presumptively evil, and if you were a business person you were presumptively a bad person, and technology had presumptively bad effects, and dot dot dot. And then they were going to regulate you and kill you and quash you, and then the kicker was, philanthropy became evil.
“And this is a real culture change in the last five years that I hope will reverse now, which is philanthropy now is a dirty word on the Left because it’s the private person choosing to give away the money as opposed to the government choosing the way to give the money.”
JR: “Oooh.”
MA: “So I’ll give you the ultimate case. Here’s where I radicalized on this topic. So you’ll recall some years back Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla, they have a ton of money in Facebook stock, they created a non-profit entity called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative which the original mission was to literally cure all disease. And this could be like $200 billion to cure all disease, right? Big deal. They committed to donate 99% of their assets to this new foundation.
“They got brutally attacked from the Left, and the attack was ‘They’re only doing it to save on taxes.’
“Now, basic mathematics (laughing) you don’t give away 99% of your money…”
JR and MA: “…to save money on taxes.”
MA: “Right? But it was a vicious attack. A very, very aggressive attack. And the fundamental reason for the attack was, ‘How dare they treat that money like its their own? How dare they decide where it goes?’ Instead tax rates for billionaires should go to 90-something percent, the government should take the money, the government should allocate it, and that would be the morally proper and correct thing to do.”
JR: “What do you think is the root of that kind of thinking?”
MA: “Utopian… This is utopian collectivism. You know, it’s…”
JR: “Socialism that works.”
MA: “Socialism, yeah. The core idea is socialism. The core idea is this sort of radical egalitarianism. ‘Everybody should be exactly the same, all outcomes should be exactly the same, everything should be completely fair at all times.'”
JR: “At some root of it has to be in envy.”
MA: “Yeah, of course. Envy, resentment. Neitzche had this great term he called ‘ressentiment.’ It’s like turbocharged resentment, and so the way he described it was ressentiment is envy, resentment and bitterness that is so intense that it causes an inversion of values.”
JR: “Ooooh.”
MA: “And the things that used to be good become bad, and the things that used to be bad become good.”
JR: “Philanthropy becomes bad.”
MA: “Philanthropy becomes bad because it should be the State operating on behalf of the people as a whole who are handing out the money, not the individual.”
JR: “I was not aware of that blowback. I would have loved to read some of those comments. (Laughing) I would like to go to their page and see what else the commented on.”
MA: “I’ll give you another example. Here’s another radicalizing moment. So my friend Sheryl Sandberg who I worked with very closely for a long time at Facebook, and by the way, Democrat, Liberal, by the way endorsed Kamala, like very much not on the same page as me on these things – she actually worked in the Clinton administration, dyed in the wool Democrat – she wrote this book called ‘Lean In’ about twelve years ago. It’s this sort of Feminist Manifesto. And the thesis of ‘Lean In’ was that women in their lives and careers could ‘lean in’ – she said that what she observed in a lot of meetings was that men were leaning in to the table and sitting at the front while women were like leaning back and waiting to be called on. She said that women should lean in. It became a metaphor for her for women should like lean in on their careers, they should aggressively advocate for themselves to get raises and promotions…”
JR: “Like men do.”
MA: “Like men do. They should basically, women should basically become more aggressive in the workplace and then, therefore, perform better. It was a manifesto to women saying ‘Be more confident, be more assertive, be more aggressive, be more successful.’
“I read the draft of the book when she was writing it and I said ‘You realize you’ve written a right-wing manifesto?’ She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, because she’s a life-long Lefty, and she says ‘What do you mean?’ I’m like, you, this book is a statement that women have agency. This book is a statement that the things that women choose to do will lead to better results. But that’s what people believe on the Right. On the Left the people believe that women are only, always and ever victims, and if a woman doesn’t succeed in a career it’s because she’s being discriminated against. So I predicted that when this book comes out Right-wingers are going to think it’s great, and you’re going to get a t-, like the Left is going to come at you, ’cause you’re violating the fundamental principle of the Left which is ‘Anybody who does less well is a victim.’
“In that case that’s exactly what happened. By the way, the reviews were all by women, and they tore into her. In every major publication they completely ripped her. They were like ‘How dare this rich, entitled woman be telling us, telling women that they’re not victims and that they have all this agency. This is denial of sexism, denial of oppression.”
You take a conventional man of action, and he’s satisfied if you obey, eh? But not the intellectual. He doesn’t want you just to obey. He wants you to get down on your knees and praise the one who makes you love what you hate and hate what you love. In other words, whenever the intellectuals are in power, there’s soul-raping going on. – Eric Hoffer
This is one of the most horrific things I think I’ve ever read, but more people need to read it, all the way to the end. To Shatter Men’s Souls – John Carter’s Substack
I wrote this one six years ago – “What are the origins of gun control/the anti-gun movement? How, and why, did it start?”
Historically? Settle in, this will take a few minutes.
Despite the brilliant and inspiring words of Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, prior to the establishment of the American form of Constitutional Republicanism governments were not instituted among men to secure their unalienable rights. Instead, governments were established to protect and expand the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged – and for no other reason.
As Mao observed in the early 20th Century, “all political power grows from the barrel of a gun,” but prior to the invention of firearms political power still sprouted from coercive force and the tools of that coercive force. In order to maintain and expand the power and privilege of the powerful and privileged the concept of a monopoly of the legitimate use of force was conceived, though it wasn’t codified until the late 16th or early 17th Century. The book World History of Warfare notes:
One frequently quoted letter from the second invasion (of Korea by Japan) comes from Asano Yukinaga, who wrote to his father in Japan in 1598 after surviving a bitter siege by Chinese and Koreans in Uru-san: “When troops come [to Korea] from the province of Kai, have them bring as many guns as possible, for no other equipment is needed. Give strict orders that all men, even the samurai, carry guns.” Despite these progressive sentiments, the forth stage of Japanese warfare emerged when, starting with Hideyoshi and carrying on through the rule of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616), who was proclaimed shogun in 1603, firearms were forcibly withdrawn from general use. In fact, in a series of stages, Japan was disarmed in order to create a strong central government without fear of rebellions and at the same time preserving a sharper distinction between samurai and farmer. Hideyoshi originally issued the order for a “sword hunt” in August 1588 with the overt intention of building a vast Great Buddha but actually intending to disarm the country: “The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements [of war] makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings….”
So “gun control” has a long and storied history, as does its implementation by deceit. Not long after the establishment of the United States, one of the foremost legal minds of that day wrote a review of American Constitutional Law, giving homage to a similar work done in England by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England published in 1765. St. George Tucker published his American expansion on Blackstone’s Commentaries in 1803. It became the go-to text for American law schools. In Tucker’s Blackstone he wrote about our right to arms:
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.
“Gun control” is now sold as a public safety issue, though we know from history what a world without guns is really like – it’s run by large men with other weapons, and is not particularly safe, free, or equal. If guns are restricted only to government, well, that makes the collection of taxes much easier, and the powerful and privileged get to keep (and expand) their power and privilege without concern for the feelings of the peasants.
As the meme goes, “I saw a movie once where only the government had guns. It was called ‘Schindler’s List’.”
“Gun control” isn’t about guns. It isn’t about “safety.” It’s about control.
