Another Kind of Civil Disobedience
(h/t to Irons in the Fire) Radley Balko has a very interesting piece on someone who is exposing cops who violate the law in the prosecution of the War on (some) Drugs™. Fine work!
Now I’m going to bed.
Tag: Leviathan
Too Tired to Post, But Can’t Pass This One Up
Too Tired to Post, But Can’t Pass This One Up
I’ve got a childish sh!$storm in my comment threads, Rod Blagojevich gets arrested on corruption charges, and David brings us good news on how civil disobedience in California has brought change in that state, and looks likely to do it again.
As I pointed out at Kevin Baker’s place, citing Jeff Cooper, IMO the supposed 3% is probably more like 0.03%, or an upper limit of 26,000 individuals across the US who are prepared to violently resist. In California, we didn’t see one such person. But with a few individuals laying the groundwork, you did see hundreds of thousands — maybe 2-3% of the entire state population — willing to risk an awful lot for less-than-violent action. And it worked!
I feel much better now.
Fantasy Ideology
In August of 2002 Lee Harris published Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology, an essay exploring the “root cause” of the 9/11 attacks. It made a fairly big splash in the blogosphere. Here, for the purposes of this essay, are the key graphs from Harris’s piece:
My first encounter with this particular kind of fantasy occurred when I was in college in the late 1960s. A friend of mine and I got into a heated argument. Although we were both opposed to the Vietnam War, we discovered that we differed considerably on what counted as permissible forms of antiwar protest. To me the point of such protest was simple–to turn people against the war. Hence anything that was counterproductive to this purpose was politically irresponsible and should be severely censured. My friend thought otherwise; in fact, he was planning to join what by all accounts was to be a massively disruptive demonstration in Washington, which in fact became one.
My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason–because it was, in his words, good for his soul.
What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.
And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy–a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent antiwar demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view–for that would still have been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability. Thus, when he lay down in front of hapless commuters on the bridges over the Potomac, he had no interest in changing the minds of these commuters, no concern over whether they became angry at the protesters or not. They were there merely as props, as so many supernumeraries in his private psychodrama. The protest for him was not politics but theater; and the significance of his role lay not in the political ends his actions might achieve, but rather in their symbolic value as ritual. In short, he was acting out a fantasy.
It was not your garden-variety fantasy of life as a sexual athlete or a racecar driver, but in it, he nonetheless made himself out as a hero–a hero of the revolutionary struggle. The components of his fantasy–and that of many young intellectuals at that time–were compounded purely of ideological ingredients, smatterings of Marx and Mao, a little Fanon and perhaps a dash of Herbert Marcuse.
For want of a better term, call the phenomenon in question a fantasy ideology–by which I mean political and ideological symbols and tropes used not for political purposes, but entirely for the benefit of furthering a specific personal or collective fantasy. It is, to be frank, something like the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons carried out not with the trappings of medieval romances–old castles and maidens in distress–but entirely in terms of ideological symbols and emblems. The difference between them is that one is an innocent pastime while the other has proved to be one of the most terrible scourges to afflict the human race.
There seems to be a lot of something much like that going around these days.
The topic of the “Three Percenters” has floated to the surface again. See here, here, here, and here. My previous posts on the subject are The Threshold of Outrage, Freedom, Hope, Outrage, Bright Lines, Revolutions and End Times, and Philosophy, Revolution, and the Restoration of the Constitution. And yes, the pieces are as long as the titles would suggest. You really need to read these links if (somehow) you’re unfamiliar with the background of this topic.
SayUncle states:
I would try to engage them and point out that maybe scaring the white people isn’t the best policy decision. That their efforts are better spent being politically active instead of engaging in mental masturbation all over their keyboards. Or, as Sebastian said: If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force. But, like reasoning with the birds, it’s a fruitless endeavor. It will waste my time and probably annoy the birds. After all, these are guys who accuse other bloggers of cowardice for not drawing a clear line in the sand, while pointing out their own lines have been crossed while they do nothing but engage in a New World Order induced circle jerk.
Linoge says:
After wasting considerable amounts of time reading their writings, the only conclusion I can come to is that they do not give to farts about America’s liberties and freedom – they only care about their own liberties and freedoms, and whatever perceived slights or affronts to them they see the government doing. They do not care that their writings (such as the letter to the editor) have almost undoubtedly done more harm than good by alienating readers. They do not care that there are political and social means and methods for airing their grievances, making changes in the governmental system, and making headway in terms of liberties and rights… and doing it all peaceably and without fomenting armed rebellion. They do not care that their proposed, poorly-thought-out actions have no clear-cut termination or resolution. They do not care that those actions would result in the deaths of many, many innocent people – people who had no interest in the situation, people whose choices were made for them by a merry band of “three percenter” misfits, people who might have supported them politically. They do not care that they do not have public support now, and they sure as hell would not have public support were they to follow through on their threats. They do not care that public support is the only way to make permanent, lasting changes in the American governmental system. They do not care that they appear to have absolultely no plans concerning what to do with the smoldering and shattered remains of the country after their glorious revolution (which indicates an admission of having no hope of success). They obviously do not care about standing up and fulfilling their useless promises in the past, when Americans’ Second-Amendment-protected rights were being “further restricted” (much less other rights going out the window). They do not care about all this, and more.
They don’t care, because they’re taken with a fantasy–a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. They want to take part in order to confirm their ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling themselves among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.
The fact that it won’t accomplish their stated goals – is antithetical to them, in fact – is irrelevant.
Fits pretty good, doesn’t it?
Several people have quoted Sebastian on the topic, Uncle did so in the excerpt above. Let me repeat it:
If 3% of gun owners were as involved in political activism as they supposedly are at preparing for civil war, we’d be an unstoppable political force. There would be no need to argue about where the line is, because it would be political suicide for any politician to get anywhere near it.
I want to bring up Billy Beck again:
You know you’re talking about Carl Drega, right?
Every now and then, I see someone going on about “totalitarianism”. The misgrapplings surrounding this subject are rife. All the classic literature has gone far to foster them. (Arendt did damned fine work on it, but…) It just about never occurs to anyone that the root of that word can descend on any given individual, to the effect that “political scientists” always project over the whole culture, but without destroying the whole culture.
The destruction of Carl Drega was, nonetheless, “total”, and it was only the logical end of the very first claim that the state ever laid on his life. After that, it was all only degrees of application until the end.
And what difference did it make?
I’ve been so near the end of my goddamned rope that, for years now, I’ve harbored a half-baked plan to set myself on fire on the steps of the Capitol. Go ahead and make fun of it. Am I any more far-gone than the rest of you? What difference would it make if I was? Here is the central problem surrounding what you people are talking about:
There is no coherent and cohesive philosophy underpinning it. Everybody’s pissed off, but you all have your varying degrees of what you’ll settle for. Someone like me comes along to suggest something like starving the Beast out of existence by not paying for it, or withdrawing the overt political sanction by not bloody voting — like I’ve been doing for years to general laughter — and, suddenly, nobody is so pissed off anymore. There is something everyone can agree on: “Beck’s a kook.”
Beck concludes (read the whole piece, it’s worth your time):
But you people are talking about blowing the place up, whether you know it or not. That’s the only way it can go, as things are now, because there is no philosophy at the bottom of what you’re talking about. Once the shooting starts, all bets are off.
I’m pretty damned sure I’d rather not live to see that.
Realistically, neither would I. I’m not wrapped up in a fantasy ideology. Oh, I have my own personal line in the sand – my doorstep – but I don’t believe that 3% of the gun owning population will rise up against the eeeevil Feds when the next Assault Weapons Ban is passed. Or the next Wayne Fincher gets arrested.
Are you familiar with the “Free Wayne Webring”? Members of this webring want to bring attention to the case of Hollis Wayne Fincher, a man who put his ass on the line for what he believed. Mr. Fincher now, I believe, 61 years of age decided that being a citizen of the U.S., and the Second Amendment to the Constitution meant that he should be able to possess fully-automatic weapons and a short-barrelled shotgun without having to jump through the hoops of the 1934 National Firearms Act. Mr. Fincher was a founder of the Militia of Washington County, Arkansas. He quite openly built up some Sten submachine guns and some Browning 1919 light machine guns and, as Syd at Front Sight, Press put it, “formally notified the governor of Arkansas what he was doing.”
The BATF was not amused. Hollis Wayne Fincher was arrested for possession of post-’86 unregistered machine guns and an unregistered short-barrelled shotgun and was convicted in January of 2007, Second Amendment be damned. As I noted at the time, the verdict was completely unsurprising. Mr. Fincher made his argument in the 8th Circuit where there was already precedent on a similar case, U.S. v. Nelsen. Remember, this was long before D.C. v. Heller. So Mr. Fincher was convicted and sentenced to 6½ years. And, of course, the revocation of his right to arms forever.
This, of course, pissed off the gun nuts, and most especially the “Three-Percenters.”
But nobody shot a Fed. After all, their doorway wasn’t crossed.
Sebastian says that if he could get 3% of gun owners to become politically active – do the dull, grinding, irritating, necessary work involved in living in a Representative Democracy, then the possibility of this kind of thing ever occurring again would be nil.
OK, say you’re just not into envelope-stuffing, knocking on doors, writing letters to your Congresscritters, writing letters to the Editor of the local birdcage liners, calling your local TV and radio stations, showing up at the local office of your Representative or Senator and asking questions (or volunteering to help their campaign – if they’re on our side – or volunteering to help their opponent, if they’re not) or even running for office yourself as Clayton Cramer recently did.
Change the paradigm.
We don’t need a Free Wayne Webring, we need a JOIN Wayne Webring. Civil disobedience worked for Gandhi. It worked for Black civil rights.
I’ll be right up front with you: I’m not volunteering, I’m just proposing the idea.
Hey, if 3% of the gun-owning population is willing to saddle-up and go kill (as Mike Vanderboegh puts it) “the bureaucrats and politicians who decided to start the war? And, like Clinton, should we target the media talking heads and newspaper editors who clamored for it in the first place?” wouldn’t those same people be willing to clog the courts and even further overstuff our prison systems in the name of peaceful change?
I suspect not. After all, the point isn’t to actually alter the minds of other people or persuade them to act differently. The whole point is what the fantasy ideology does for the three-percenters.
I now expect a comment sh!#storm of my very own.
UPDATE 12/7: Will Brown comments cogently. I’ll have more to say about that post, if I have any energy left after work tomorrow.
What HE Said!
What HE Said!
Thanksgiving dinner was a success. The two-hour 20 lb. turkey was perfect, and the rest of the meal was pretty damned good, if I do say so myself. My lovely bride took over the cleaning chores after the fact, since I’d cooked (and cleaned) all day. Hell, I may do this again at Christmas.
Did a little postprandial web-surfing, and found this: Free in Idaho‘s “It is NOT My Fault.” An excerpt:
The Republican Party has presided over the largest growth of government, the most reckless spending, and some of the most blatant abuses of the Constitution this country has had to endure in many years. Led by George W Bush it has walked further and further away from conservative ideals. Don’t tell me Bush just wasn’t a good communicator, or that he just didn’t articulate the conservative message well. He DOESN’T BELIEVE those things, so how can he communicate them? And when faced with the obviously most Leftist opponents the Dems have ever run, and in spite of the evidence of the surprising support that someone as “not ready to be President” as Ron Paul generated on his message alone, the GOP runs a guy who threatened to jump parties a few years back and as lately as last summer pushed for something not even a majority of “moderates” wanted . . . I’m sorry, blaming conservatives for not joining the team and thus costing them the win is more stupid fingerpointing. Give me one good reason to support the very things we don’t believe in. And “at least he isn’t a Democrat” is NOT the right answer.
There’s a lot more where that came from, and I agree with damned near every word, and I’m not really a conservative. (Oh, I put an “X” next to McCain’s name, and I’d have preferred him to the Dali-Bama, but I never liked McCain as a candidate, and the only reason I voted for him was because it was him or HillBama. As the bumper sticker said, McCain was the least repulsive Democrat on the ticket.)
I’m not a true conservative, but I concur with BillH’s post-election day statement, (minus the bible reference, of course):
Individual liberty.
Personal responsibility.
Honesty.
Free society.
Private property.
Small government.
Strong defense.
Capitalism.
Stewardship.
Charity.
The Constitution for what it says.
The Bible for what it says.My list looks the same this morning. How about yours?
Oh, and the first excerpt in this post is Friday’s Quote of the Day. Tomorrow is dedicated to reloading, reading, and writing, but not necessarily hitting the “Publish Post” button.
Enjoy your weekend!
Except That Future Might be Dystopian
I saw today in a waiting room while I was having some work done to my truck, a “motivational poster.” (No, not one of these, one of the “real” ones.) This one was a beautiful image of natural stone arches against a gorgeous blue sky, with the appellation “Destiny.” The quote was from Eleanor Roosevelt:
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Judging from the result of the last election, Eleanor might well be right, and the future does belong to those people. But I cannot forget this poster on the same topic:
It’s a beautiful dream, one people just keep believing in. But it leads to dystopia. I’ve quoted James Lileks before:
Personally, I’m interested in keeping other people from building Utopia, because the more you believe you can create heaven on earth the more likely you are to set up guillotines in the public square to hasten the process.
This, to me, seems the only prudent course, but we’re surrounded by people for whom the philosophy cannot be wrong! And they must Do it again, only HARDER!
But the dream is so beautiful . . .
Quote(s) of the Day
Quote(s) of the Day
From Billy Beck:
At the moment, I have two general things to say:
1) That was the capstone of twentieth century American politics. That catastrophe is complete now.
2) It was the most profoundly foolish thing that American voters have ever done. As a matter of justice, it might be interesting to see how many of them discover this fact in the next four or eight years. It won’t make any difference, however, to the price that comes with the lesson. This event will hobble Americans for whole generations. It is very much an open question to me whether anyone will learn anything in the wake of this. I am very much afraid that that capacity is on its way completely out of American civil life. I’m not kidding.
All bets are off.
ObamaNation
ObamaNation
Catastrophe defeated Disaster. Well, that answers one question – can a black man be elected President of the U.S.?
And another – no, there were apparently no “celebratory riots,” thankfully.
The Democrats now have at least 56 Senate seats – not 60 (also thankfully), but not far off. They may have as many as 256 House seats.
For that which The Change we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful . . .
Here’s hoping that Markadelphia isn’t wrong about everything.
Archived for Posterity
I think Judge Andrew Napolitano will be an early candidate for re-education given this WSJ op-ed that I will archive here due to its excellence:
Most Presidents Ignore the Constitution
The government we have today is something the Founders could never have imagined.By Andrew P. Napolitano
In a radio interview in 2001, then-Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama noted — somewhat ruefully — that the same Supreme Court that ordered political and educational equality in the 1960s and 1970s did not bring about economic equality as well. Although Mr. Obama said he could come up with arguments for the constitutionality of such action, the plain meaning of the Constitution quite obviously prohibits it.
Mr. Obama is hardly alone in his expansive view of legitimate government. During the past month, Sen. John McCain (who, like Sen. Obama, voted in favor of the $700 billion bank bailout) has been advocating that $300 billion be spent to pay the monthly mortgage payments of those in danger of foreclosure. The federal government is legally powerless to do that, as well.
Legally powerless, but that hasn’t stopped them.
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt first proposed legislation that authorized the secretary of agriculture to engage in Soviet-style central planning — a program so rigid that it regulated how much wheat a homeowner could grow for his own family’s consumption — he rejected arguments of unconstitutionality. He proclaimed that the Constitution was “quaint” and written in the “horse and buggy era,” and predicted the public and the courts would agree with him.
The case here was Wickard v. Filburn, and it represented the first really egregious abuse of the Commerce Clause.
Remember that FDR had taken — and either Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain will soon take — the oath to uphold that old-fashioned document, the one from which all presidential powers come.
Actually, as Senators both have already taken the oath. McCain violated it most blatantly with the McCain-Feingold incumbent protection “Campaign Finance Reform” Act. Obama hasn’t spent enough time in the Senate to have a record, but it appears the country is about to put him in the Big Chair where he can redistribute wealth to his heart’s content. Also without the legal power to do so.
Unfortunately, these presidential attitudes about the Constitution are par for the course. Beginning with John Adams, and proceeding to Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush, Congress has enacted and the president has signed laws that criminalized political speech, suspended habeas corpus, compelled support for war, forbade freedom of contract, allowed the government to spy on Americans without a search warrant, and used taxpayer dollars to shore up failing private banks.
And the American people haven’t gotten out the rope or the tar and feathers, more’s the pity.
All of this legislation — merely tips of an unconstitutional Big Government iceberg — is so obviously in conflict with the plain words of the Constitution that one wonders how Congress gets away with it.
Simple. We let them. And now the majority of the public is so ignorant of the basis and the workings of their own government, they don’t know any better! They think it’s supposed to BE THIS WAY!
In virtually every generation and during virtually every presidency (Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland are exceptions that come to mind) the popular branches of government have expanded their power. The air you breathe, the water you drink, the size of your toilet tank, the water pressure in your shower, the words you can speak under oath and in private, how your physician treats your illness, what your children study in grade school, (my emphasis) how fast you can drive your car, and what you can drink before you drive it are all regulated by federal law. Congress has enacted over 4,000 federal crimes and written or authorized over one million pages of laws and regulations. Worse, we are expected by law to understand all of it.
The truth is that the Constitution grants Congress 17 specific (or “delegated”) powers. And it commands in the Ninth and 10th Amendments that the powers not articulated and thus not delegated by the Constitution to Congress be reserved to the states and the people.
What’s more, Congress can only use its delegated powers to legislate for the general welfare, meaning it cannot spend tax dollars on individuals or selected entities, but only for all of us. That is, it must spend in such a manner — a post office, a military installation, a courthouse, for example — that directly enhances everyone’s welfare within the 17 delegated areas of congressional authority.
And Congress cannot deny the equal protection of the laws. Thus, it must treat similarly situated persons or entities in a similar manner. It cannot write laws that favor its political friends and burden its political enemies.
Well, not legally. (There’s that word again.) Hasn’t stopped them.
There is no power in the Constitution for the federal government to enter the marketplace since, when it does, it will favor itself over its competition. The Contracts Clause (the states cannot interfere with private contracts, like mortgages), the Takings Clause (no government can take away property, like real estate or shares of stock, without paying a fair market value for it and putting it to a public use), and the Due Process Clause (no government can take away a right or obligation, like collecting or paying a debt, or enforcing a contract, without a fair trial) together mandate a free market, regulated only to keep it fair and competitive.
It is clear that the Framers wrote a Constitution as a result of which contracts would be enforced, risk would be real, choices would be free and have consequences, and private property would be sacrosanct.
The $700 billion bailout of large banks that Congress recently enacted runs afoul of virtually all these constitutional principles. It directly benefits a few, not everyone. We already know that the favored banks that received cash from taxpayers have used it to retire their own debt. It is private welfare. It violates the principle of equal protection: Why help Bank of America and not Lehman Brothers? It permits federal ownership of assets or debt that puts the government at odds with others in the free market. It permits the government to tilt the playing field to favor its patrons (like J.P. Morgan Chase, in which it has invested taxpayer dollars) and to disfavor those who compete with its patrons (like the perfectly lawful hedge funds which will not have the taxpayers relieve their debts).
Perhaps the only public agreement that Jefferson and Hamilton had about the Constitution was that the federal Treasury would be raided and the free market would expire if the Treasury became a public trough. If it does, the voters will send to Congress those whom they expect will fleece the Treasury for them. That’s why the Founders wrote such strict legislating and spending limitations into the Constitution.
Everyone in government takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. But few do so. Do the people we send to the federal government recognize any limits today on Congress’s power to legislate? The answer is: Yes, their own perception of whatever they can get away with.
And we, the public, are at fault for not stopping them.
If you have not read it before (and perhaps even if you have) I recommend the story Davy Crockett vs. Welfare as an illustration of what Judge Napolitano was talking about. (Please ignore the fact that it’s on LewRockwell.com. The story is the point, not the source.) I also recommend you read The Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp.
When looking for the Crockett piece, I found this quotation I think is apropos, but far too late:
Government, wherever it exists should be heavily shackled and released only to perform a very narrow function. When government is out exercising its power, there should be men of honor and valor, armed and waiting to subdue it at the slightest provocation. – Difster
A Good Question
A Good Question
Reader DJ comments:
Way back in October of 1995, my wife and I attended a trade show in Paris. What is relevant about that trip is an event that happened on the way back.
We flew back on a TWA L-1011 from Paris to JFK in New York. We sat in seats 1 and 2 in row 53, in that small section of about ten rows all the way in the back. That little section of about 90 or so seats was filled with Russian immigrants. My nose told me emphatically that their trip, so far, had been a long one, and we had a long way yet to go.
Right across the aisle sat what appeared to be a middle aged couple traveling with a granddaughter about five years old. The were a stereotype right out of Life magazine. He appeared to have worked hard, his faced burned by the sun and frozen by the wind, and her cheeks a bright red as they peeked around the kerchief that was knotted beneath her chin. He was wearing a well worn tweed suit coat that might have fit about 25 pounds ago, and she was wearing a cotton dress over her dumpy frame that was more patches than original fabric. She carried the child while he carried a small bundle of boxes that were neatly stacked and carefully tied together with a ribbon.
What made it memorable was what happened as they took their seats in all the hubbub and confusion of immigrants who don’t speak the language of air travel. She picked up the child and sidled into their seats, after which he slid into his seat next to them and on the other side of the aisle from me. They sat down, stowed their bundle, and got the child belted in.
Then, when all was ready for flight, he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. Then he let it out and slowly, ever so slowly, slumped forward until his forehead was against the top of the seat back in front of him. Then I noticed his eyes were closed and his hands were shaking. He sat there, slumped over, his hands still shaking, for a full two minutes. Then he slowly straightened, leaned back, and I noticed tears in his eyes and hers.
What had they been through to get where they were?
I’d have given a month’s pay to know his thoughts at that point, but I didn’t intrude. As the flight progressed, it became apparent that they didn’t speak English, only Russian.
That was thirteen years ago. I can’t help but wonder what these people think of Obama. I have thought of them often as more and more of the reality of Obama has come to light.
Do you suppose they’ll defend the freedom they came so far to find?
I think I know the answer Mrs. Ly Chho would give.
Philosophy, Revolution, and the Restoration of the Constitution
(*sigh*)
Vanderboegh is at it again.
Oldsmoblogger is convinced that Mike Vanderboegh is the Thomas Paine of modern times. I’m not so sure.
He’s not shy, though.
The latest excrement-storm stems from an op-ed penned by Jeff Knox, or “Knox the Younger” as characterized by Mr. Vanderboegh. That op-ed, entitled “Mutual Assured Destruction” spells out the situation as Knox the Younger sees it. I’ll excerpt, but you really should read the whole thing:
Don’t expect average Americans to rise up in revolution because the government is playing fast and loose with the Bill of Rights or because taxes get too high. That’s not the way modern Americans think, nor is it the way the world works today. Armed revolt in America would not lead to a renaissance of Jeffersonian liberalism; it would lead to the destruction of our nation and the guarantee that whatever replaced it would be worse than what it replaced.
Like nuclear deterrence, it is the threat that saves the world, not the execution.
—
While this is all accurate and works well on paper, just like Marxism and Amway networks, the whole thing falls apart in practice because people never do what you want them to do or what they ought to do – even when doing so is clearly in their own best interests. During the Revolutionary war, a full 40 to 45% of Americans actively supported the revolt. Today, less than 6% of gunowners are even minimally active in political activism. Gunowners turn out for elections at about the same rate as the non-gun owning public.
If gunowners and supporters of liberty can’t even agree on a presidential candidate, what makes any of them think that they will be able to agree on a revolution? The threat of armed revolt must be maintained, but like the mutual assured destruction of nuclear war, its implementation must be avoided at all costs. If we have the numbers and the commitment to win a revolution then we should easily be able to win an election.
Mr. Vanderboegh of course disagrees. His piece is printed at Western Rifle Shooters Association and is entitled “An Open Letter to Jeff Knox: Destruction? Yes. Mutually Assured? No!” Again, read the whole thing (I’ll be saying a lot of that), but here’s some pertinent excerpts:
“Armed revolt” will come about because the leviathan will one day pick on the wrong guy, and a large number of them will be killed by this one guy. They will be shocked, they will be horrified and they will want blood. This individual case of resistance will cause a violent reaction on their part, lead to more onerous laws, confiscation, etc., which in turn will lead to even more incidents, and again, and again, until you get your “Red Dawn” or the ATF equivalent of it. As to whether it would lead to the destruction of our nation or the restoration of our republic is a matter of military argument. Don’t wave your white flag just yet – you might be embarrassed.
—
(Y)ou’re saying we have the ability but not the will. If we begin shooting, won’t we run out of targets before they will? Oh, I forgot, you and yours aren’t going to come to the party, so sad. One other thing. We’re not talking about nuclear weapons, Jeff, we’re talking about aimed rifle shots. Nothing indiscriminate about that. Which ought to make the gun-grabbers even more queasy, unless of course they’re falsely reassured by your cowardly pap. One wonders indeed which audience you are writing this for.
—
We don’t even need 6%. All we need is 3% — less than that really — to provoke the response that forces you, Knox the Younger, and your ilk to submit, or fight.
—
You fool. You don’t have to agree with us. In fact, we’re counting on your type folding at the first shock. People don’t AGREE on revolution, they are FORCED into it by events. And there are enough of my kind, the three percent, to create the events. Have you learned nothing from history? It is made by determined minorities. We may be a minority but we are determined. If you want to hang onto ANY of your guns or other liberties, you will HAVE to fight. We will make sure of that.
It goes on like that.
Knox responded in another piece entitled “Philosophical Wars.” (Yes, read the whole thing.) Excerpt:
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 arent 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.
And, of course, Vanderboegh rebutted, in a piece he titled “Reply to Knox the Younger.” (You know the drill by now.)
The first sentence of his counterpoint deliberately mischaracterizes the reality we face. I say deliberately because he is otherwise a reasonably intelligent chip off the old Knox. (And I daresay that if his daddy ain’t rolling over in his grave, he is at least restive at his son’s latest foray.)
—
The predicate for armed conflict in this country will be made not by us, but by our would-be tyrants, who will pass more laws stealing our traditional liberties and seizing our property. It will be our enemies who, having read Knox’s soothing missive, ‘Let’s get real, no one’s going to resist the Leviathan,’ will take it as evidence — a professional opinion from ‘one of them’ — that they can plunder us and, if necessary, kill us, without risk of retaliatory violence.
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Knox spends much of his rebuttal belittling the number who he thinks would resist. Again, he offers no statistics, merely gratuitous opinions which may be as easily refuted.
Who indeed cares what the real number would be? It would still be enough.
He should recall how many cops tried to find the DC snipers – two mokes who were not very bright, had no support network, and a one-trick pony MO. They still managed to freeze the DC area for what, how many weeks? More then a month wasn’t it? Two morons — with the entire resources of the federal government and the local police looking for them, it was just two morons.
But why would the Leviathan go down this path in the first place?
BECAUSE THE JEFF KNOX’S OF THIS COUNTRY HAVE ALREADY TOLD THEM THEY CAN, THAT NO ONE WILL RESIST, THAT NO ONE SHOULD RESIST.
It is at this next excerpt that I will start commenting:
Knox asks what our traditional enemies will be doing when the three percent (who he calls “terrorists”) are “busy crippling our nation and trying to foment rebellion?”
I reject the notion that it will be we who will cripple our nation and foment rebellion. He has us confused with the Leviathan. This decision is entirely up to our would-be oppressors. Of course our enemies will take advantage of such a situation. All the more reason why the Leviathan should not push us into this corner.
Vanderboegh may reject the notion of placing the blame, but he cannot reject the reality of the fact that he just described the crippling of our nation in the face of our foes.
Next excerpt:
Then Knox asks, “What exactly do they expect the ‘end’ of their rebellion to look like?”
Gee, I don’t know. Maybe the country I grew up in without the stain of segregation and racial discrimination?
Once they start this dance, if they want to get out of it with their lives, the Leviathan will have to dial back to a time when they didn’t control so much of our lives. It’s either that or they lose their lives. Which way do you think they’ll vote when they understand that?
Knox next criticizes us for advocating “revolution”, when it is really Restoration that we are seeking. We want the constitutional republic of the Founders back. We want it restored.
It is the collectivists who have infested and infected every corner of our government with the statism and corruption of their nanny regime.
They are the revolutionists.
They are the cannibals.
And now it’s my turn.
One quote I like very much is this one by Ambrose Bierce:
Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
The number of “successful” revolutions – ones that accomplished their stated intents and actually brought liberty and freedom to the oppressed can be counted on one hand with fingers left over.
Here’s another quote, this time by Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal.
Jeff Knox described that “cult of material well-being” in a line from his first piece:
The fact is that only those who have nothing to lose (and nothing to live for) are willing to give up everything – including their lives – in a symbolic gesture of defiance. The rest of us, those with families – kids, grand-kids, vulnerable parents – and homes, jobs, and lives, are not interested in ditching the house, refrigerator, and HD-TV in exchange for a prison cell or a mountain cave.
That’s part of it, but it’s the symptom, not the disease.
Vanderboegh is convinced that his 3% can drag – perhaps kicking and screaming, but drag – a significant (and, more importanty, sufficient) portion of the population into the fray in support of the 3%.
I’m not so certain. In fact, I’m severely doubtful.
Here’s why.
It all goes back to philosophy. Billy Beck has pulled his hair out over the topic:
(Y)ou people are talking about blowing the place up, whether you know it or not. That’s the only way it can go, as things are now, because there is no philosophy at the bottom of what you’re talking about.
Neither Knox nor Vanderboegh addresses the subject directly.
We’re in an ideological war, once described thus:
The heart of the conflict is between those to whom personal liberty is important, and those to whom liberty is not only inconsequential, but to whom personal liberty is a deadly threat.
Vanderboegh dismisses Knox’s objections with respect to voting:
Knox also condemns us us for talking “revolution” but not “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.”
What does he think we’ve been doing these past twenty years of more? Does he think we just jumped into this thing and started threatening people?
I was doing political work on behalf of the Second Amendment when Jeff Knox hadn’t sprouted short and curlies. The real question is how long do we continue to labor in those fields when the collectivists keep dumping Agent Orange on our work?
We have sacrificed in the political arena, we have fought and spent and argued ourselves half to death with the struggle.
And yet – here we stand today on the precipice.
And why? Because one philosophy has predominated in this country over the last 100 years. Vanderboegh also wrote:
The Constitution is a piece of paper if its spirit does not live in the hearts of men. If it is despised, disregarded and prostituted against the Founder’s intent, then it is so much toilet paper.
Indeed. And that’s very much what it has become – because the philosophy of the Founders has been replaced.
And revolution won’t restore it.
I hate to say it, but I think Ambrose Bierce was right. And Billy Beck’s prediction of “The Endarkenment” is pretty much the way it’s going to go.
Reader Mastiff left a comment here not too long back:
To win this fight, we need to reform the institutional structure of government–create structural incentives for specific actors in government to want to defend our freedom. Otherwise, in a long-running fight between a government that wants to expand its own power and a populace that doesn’t know what it wants, the government will win.
Gramsci works both ways. If in the space of a hundred years, an ideology alien to our traditional mode of politics was able to dominate our intellectual class, there is nothing stopping that process from working in reverse. IF people settle in for the long haul and start laying the groundwork.
Unfortunately, the Publick Edumacation Sistim stands athwart any effort to reverse Gramsci.
And the Endarkenment Approacheth, in part because – 3% or not – there’s a bunch of people who will not go gently into that good night, and have the means and the will to make it painful. Whatever results will not be “the country I grew up in without the stain of segregation and racial discrimination.”
UPDATE: David Codrea commented on the kerfuffle first.
UPDATE: William comments.
UPDATE: Oldsmoblogger comes out of hiatus and comments as well.