Speaking of Sipsey Street, Mike Vanderboegh reminds us of what we’re talking about when we talk about taking our country back by force of arms:
Pictures from the War on Drugs, by the way, over in Mexico. This is what an open border policy invites in.
Son of a gun.
No sooner had I posted my “elevator pitch” for liberty, but Billy Beck points me to Wendy McElroy’s excellent expansion of the idea, “A Legal Presumption of Competence.”
A core principle of the Nanny State is that people do not know their best interests and must be treated like children with the State acting as guardian. Indeed, that’s where the word “nanny” comes from. The Nanny State proceeds from the presumption that you are incompetent to administer your own life. Even fully-functioning adults are deemed unable or unwilling to make wise decisions and, so, the state rushes in to fill the void with extensive regulation of every individual’s personal health and safety.
How much transfat or salt can be in your fast food burger? You are too obese, too nutritionally ignorant, too addicted to McDonalds to be trusted. Should you smoke, drink, or chow down on sweets? Of course not! But if you do, then, like a good parent, the State will force you to bear the cost of irresponsibility by uber-taxing your minor vices and imprisoning you for the major ones.
The “wise parent” list scrolls on and on: wear a helmet while bicycling, don’t use saccharine, no public nudity, don’t loiter in parks, monitor your words to coworkers, don’t download porn, take a urine test at work, don’t drive too fast, take only approved drugs and only in the prescribed fashion, strap on your safety belt, pay a tax for the error of fast food, no smoking in public places, register your handgun, don’t use incandescent bulbs, recycle, homogenize all milk, buy health insurance. . . . And, recently, Maine was pushing to eliminate sex-specific bathrooms because separate “men’s” and women’s” rooms discriminate against your gender rights. Yes, where you take a piss is now a matter of state to be debated by legislatures, and all because they want to protect you. Happily, Maine has backed away from politicizing toilets.
It gets better. Read it all.
But especially read this:
There is a word to describes the situation in which another party claims ownership over the body of another: it is “slavery.” As such, the Nanny State is misnamed. Although it would like to project the image of a wise guardianship of children — a sort of stern Mary Poppins who uses a “spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down” — a more accurate image is that of a slave owner. One hand of the Nanny State may be wagging an admonishing finger at you but the other hand is holding a whip at-the-ready.
Slavery. That’s really what we’re talking about here.
Oh, and that’s not all from Beck:
The entire effect — if not the purpose — of a jaywalking statute is to strip the individual of that which he is born with: the principal device with which humans are able and naturally authorized to make their ways through the world.
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Me? I know how to get across a street. My parents saw to that at an early age.
As usual, Beck gets right to core of the thing, and you should read every golden word.
This was his comment over at Radley’s Agitator article concerning a woman who got punched in the face by a cop over a jaywalking ticket.
John Venlet was talking about “Fort Sumters”, and I was talking about small individual actions, “candles not forest fires”.
This, folks, is what candles look like.
Also notice in the video that damn near every person in the crowd had a phonecam out. No effort to arrest the guy making this video, it would have been futile.
Imagine the woman quoting the Constitution, the law, the Declaration, Locke, Paine, Henry, Jefferson, or, hell, Beck, making a principled stand against a minor tyranny.
Now imagine everybody in that crowd with a gun on their hip, nodding their heads at every word she says and scowling at the cops.
Imagine that freedom, liberty itself, was politically correct.
Hahahaha! What a ridiculous idea! I slay myself sometimes.
John Venlet, he of Improved Clinch, writes of possible “First Shot Justifications” for a Fort Sumter, a group military action in defiance of the government.
What action, or further restriction of freedom, individual or otherwise, instituted by the federal government, would justify taking up arms against the United States government, crossing that line in the sand, firing the first shot?
This is a troubling thought to consider. I, for one, would prefer that taking up arms against the United States government need not be resorted to, but what will open the eyes of Americans to the fact that their freedom is under assault. What will be America’s Broken Arrow? Is there one freedom restricting action that could be instituted by the federal government that would awaken Americans to the systematic destruction of freedom taking place in America, causing Americans to rise up and say “No More?”
I’m hoping that never comes; I’m too old to survive a civil war. Instead, I’m hoping for a gradual awakening, for increasing numbers of individual resistance actions, and for increasing willingness of groups to engage in, not Fort Sumters, but simple quiet displays.
In comments at Clinch, I wrote, somewhat disjointedly,
Fort Sumter was preceded by a huge propaganda campaign, and many smaller actions, which inflamed the people of the South to support the opening shots. We are not there yet.
As noted by the Mercenary, there have already been two actions, Ruby Ridge and Waco, that might have qualified, but I think they didn’t work because the individualist right had not yet awakened. A similar action now might have very different results.
Had the Hutaree been massacred, that might have triggered it. Instead, the public reaction from the right was swift, loud, threatening, and the case against them has been mostly dropped. Five years ago, they would have disappeared without a trace.
Had Heller gone for D.C., that might have done it, or if MacDonald goes for Chicago, that might. (I know some are derisive of Heller and MacDonald, even of the SC itself — “Nobody tells me what to do.” I believe, though, that those cases are about tracking the government’s willingness to slip the leash, not about what we the people can and can’t do.)
Passive disobedience won’t yet work, I think, because it receives almost no coverage, and what little coverage there is is not encouraging. The media is not interested, is in active opposition, and is so ignorant they don’t even know what questions to ask. Nobody wants to go down unnoticed and alone.
As far as group actions go, I like the Open Carry movement, which sees opposition even in states where it’s legal. Gets attention, though, at low risk for participants.
Elsewhere, unarmed Holster Carry gatherings just see derision, but they’re few and far between. They might gain respect if they become widespread.
I believe the Tea Party movement must adopt a policy of OC or HC at public gatherings, just to get the media and the public at large to notice that we think something is wrong. People have got to get over the idea that staying quiet and being polite to the point of self-effacement no longer works. An OC Tea Party is practice, that’s all, as much or more for the Partiers as for the public.
These are small things, which I often see derided by the more committed, but the very first thing that needs to happen is for the non-committed to get accustomed to asking, politely and respectfully, to exercise their rights. Many don’t even realize they have rights that are being taken away. Should we have to ask? No, of course not. But we’re talking about folks accustomed to asking for the salt and pepper just to be polite, not because they actually need permission to season their food to taste. They’ll do no less for their rights at this stage of the fight.
However, the stagnant stink of tyranny and defeat wafting from Obama is being noticed by his followers, now. They’re beginning to notice they were lied to about exactly what kind of change they were getting. His fellow Democrats are getting nervous; see the reluctance to face town meetings, and Etheridge’s panicked battery of a student videographer. That last is evidence that simply asking polite questions, on record, is enough to provoke an ugly response. If you want a Fort Sumter, we need to see a lot more of that first.
We need small, quiet, individual actions. Lots of them. Candles, not forest fires.
The Change Wind is rising. Small gusts, fitful, weak, but so the storm begins.
I am not optimistic, but I am hopeful.
Over at the Anti-Idiotarian, LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An, has the rules of war that govern blockades. Guess what? Turns out Israel isn’t a rogue state after all.
The Hamas pseudo-government in Gaza, on the other hand….
Is there a state of belligerency between the Palestinian authorities who govern Gaza and the State of Israel?
Yes. The Palestinian government of Gaza has repeatedly declared itself to be at war with Israel, conducted attacks on Israeli territory, civilians, and armed forces. It has refused to negotiate with the government of Israel. If you accept that the Palestinians govern Gaza, they are at war. If they do not govern Gaza, then the area and its inhabitants are pirates, bandits, etc. and are outside the laws of nations.
And again:
If Palestinian Gaza is a state, which is at war with Israel; as a non-signer of the Hague and Geneva Conventions, neither those in arms against Israel, nor their civilian counterparts are covered by them. If Palestinian Gaza is NOT a state, and is not under the jurisdiction of a state [and no one I know of claims them] they are at best “unlawful combatants” and more like “hostis humani generis“.
That status accrues also to foreign nationals who act on their behalf as part of their war effort.
Incidentally, I’d never run across the term “hostis humani generis“ before; it translates as “enemy of all mankind”.
The attempt to divert or capture (52a) the blockade running flotilla was in fact what was required by international law as a first resort. They were attempting to exercise military control (52b) as allowed under the laws of naval warfare in maintaining a blockade. Since the blockade is in place to bar offensive weapons, especially rockets and missiles, from reaching Gaza to prevent further firings on Israeli civilians, a refusal to allow inspection or diversion does raise a reasonable assumption that it is carrying weapons, regardless of what they claim. That makes them a legitimate military objective (52c).
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Israel had every legal right to declare the blockade, to enforce it where their judgment of military requirements says to place the blockade line, to stop, to board, to search, or to divert any ship attempting to approach the blockade line. Under international law. And under that same international law, once there was resistance or refusal; they had every right to sink those vessels. And they still do for the next wave coming at them, and any after that.Yes, international law grants rights and protections in war zones to innocent civilian traffic. But to keep those rights and to not be re-classified as a target, it also imposes responsibilities and duties of compliance. Failure to fulfill those responsibilities, or comply with directions means you are no longer an innocent civilian, but rather an enemy belligerent, subject to treatment as such.
Well worth your time and study.
It always strikes me that most people think the Geneva Conventions mean, more or less, that America and Israel must not defend themselves, that we are forbidden any but the most cautious self-defense.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, the sense I’ve gotten from my own study of these Conventions, cursory as it’s been, is that vigorous self-defense, and unrelenting pursuit of outlaw nations, was regarded by the Convention authors and early signers to be necessary for the maintenance of peace and the rule of law among nations.
“Plastic wrapper” raises an important point in response to my post below about “Jews in the Attic”.
On the other hand, while you’re doing your best to protect your Jews in the Attic, what if your neighbour is hiding a Bomb in his Burkha, and detonates himself killing you and the Jews in your Attic?
Liberty is hard.
Liberty is messy.
Liberty is not safe.
It’s just that tyranny is so very much worse, on such a very much larger scale.
When I say I’m prepared to die for liberty, it doesn’t just mean with a gun in my hands on the barricades.
It means I’m willing to get hit by a drunk driver who wasn’t caught by a road block. (But if they catch him, I want him charged with manslaughter, at least.)
It means I’m willing to see my niece raped by a thug whose lawyer had his last case dismissed “on a technicality”. (But if he’s convicted, I want him convicted of rape, not “assault”, and locked away for a long time, and I want my niece to be able to arm and defend herself in the first place.)
And it means I’m willing to let myself be blown up by my neighbor — but I want his motives honestly appraised, I want his associates honestly investigated, and if he was backed by a foreign organization, I want them hunted down and destroyed.
I also want my borders defended, and if a person commits a crime, and a check shows he’s here illegally, I want his punishment to be quote enhanced unquote accordingly, and if he survives his punishment, I want him deported — possibly by being driven across the border in leg irons and pushed out the door at speed, or by being flown over his home capital, and dropped out the bomb bay with a JDAM package strapped to him and targeted for his ruler’s hot tub.
What I do not want is citizens and legal immigrants harassed, arrested, and punished for violating rules meant to prevent them from having the tools and opportunity to commit crimes. In short, I want the law to be reactive, not proactive.
And thanks, PW, for raising the question, which is at the very heart of the debate.
Joe Huffman provides a clarifying filter:
To the best of my knowledge I am the originator of this test and the name I use to describe it.
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People tend to understand the importance of freedom of speech and the freedom of the press pretty well and some of the other rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But the Second Amendment was and is viewed as unimportant and perhaps even counterproductive by many in today’s society. I explained to the others in my little band of activists that I looked at all laws that restricted freedom with a view to the impact it would have in a worst case scenario of our government run amok. Will this law make it difficult or impossible to protect innocent life from a government intent on their imprisonment or death? Although I pretty much made everything up on the spot I told them I called this test my “Jews In The Attic Test”. Furthermore I told them that if it fails this test no further discussion is really needed, the law must be opposed in the most vigorous manner possible.
Some laws that fail the test and why:
- Government mandated ID cards and the authority to demand them at any time. The oppressed class will be unable to masquerade as a member of the neutral or oppressor classes.
- Searches without probable cause. Imagine you are attempting to smuggle your “Jews in the attic” to a safer hiding place. If the police at the roadblock can search all vehicles then you and your precious cargo are headed to the “work camps”.
- Government monopoly on medical care. This is a bit surprising — isn’t it? If it is illegal for you to pay someone for anonymous health care then how can your “Jews in the attic” receive health care?
- Firearm or firearm owner registration. The registration information can be used to confiscate the firearms used to protect innocent life — as it was under the 1938 Weapons Control Act in Nazi Germany.
- Elimination or severe restriction of anonymous financial transactions. The purchase of food and other supplies for your “Jews in the attic” would show up in the records as being excessive compared to what your needs were. Just as power consumption records are used today to catch home marijuana growers.
I’ll note that the recent Arizona illegal immigrant law likely fails this test; I’m not terribly happy about that because I think we’ve got to control our borders.
New York Times writes approvingly of armed defense.
Someone had called to say the Ku Klux Klan was coming to bomb Robert Hicks’s house. The police said there was nothing they could do. It was the night of Feb. 1, 1965, in Bogalusa, La.
Associated PressRobert Hicks in 1965, the year of a sit-in by blacks at a cafe in Bogalusa, La., where he lived.
The Klan was furious that Mr. Hicks, a black paper mill worker, was putting up two white civil rights workers in his home. It was just six months after three young civil rights workers had been murdered in Philadelphia, Miss.
Mr. Hicks and his wife, Valeria, made some phone calls. They found neighbors to take in their children, and they reached out to friends for protection. Soon, armed black men materialized. Nothing happened.
Less than three weeks later, the leaders of a secretive, paramilitary organization of blacks called the Deacons for Defense and Justice visited Bogalusa. It had been formed in Jonesboro, La., in 1964 mainly to protect unarmed civil rights demonstrators from the Klan. After listening to the Deacons, Mr. Hicks took the lead in forming a Bogalusa chapter, recruiting many of the men who had gone to his house to protect his family and guests.
Mr. Hicks died of cancer at his home in Bogalusa on April 13 at the age of 81, his wife said. He was one of the last surviving Deacon leaders.
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The Deacons, who grew to have chapters in more than two dozen Southern communities, veered sharply from the nonviolence preached by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. They carried guns, with the mission to protect against white aggression, citing the Second Amendment.
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By 1968, the Deacons had pretty much vanished. In time they were “hardly a footnote in most books on the civil rights movement,” Mr. Hill said. He attributed this to a “mythology” that the rights movement was always nonviolent.
Read the whole thing. Make sure the Times knows that those of us who value the Second Amendment as much as the First want to see black folks, other people of color, and oppressed minorities generally, legally armed for self defense against tyranny and crime.
Heck, we even want to see gays defend themselves against bashing.
The Deacons were the very embodiment of the “well regulated militia” spoken of in the Second Amendment.
I originally saw this obituary in the dead-tree Houston Chronicle, but I cannot find it on line.
This is a good time to remind ourselves that, as Clayton Cramer has documented, gun control in the United States is firmly rooted in racism, in the desire to “disarm the Negroes“, as well as Indians and even white indentured servents of the ability to defend themselves against oppression and genocide.
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