Posts Tagged → liberty
Independence Day Redux
Tomorrow is America’s July 4th Independence Day, the day Americans celebrate our Declaration of Independence from the tyrannical Great Britain in 1776.
In modern days we tend to take this holiday, and all it stands for, for granted. We enjoy fireworks displays, we grill out with family and friends, we travel and vacation, communities gather together to celebrate. After dark, red flares are lit around the entire circumference of Chautauqua Lake, which is pretty neat to see. All those disparate communities and property owners unified for that one moment. America’s greatest moment, our crowning achievement – God-given Liberty for all people.
What we do not celebrate or take note of today is what ensued after the Declaration of Independence. The long, bloody, wearying, expensive war with Britain and her mercenaries; the lost communities that were divided along loyalty lines, and which self-destructed in mass hangings and reprisals; the lost fathers and sons killed in combat; the bloody raids from Canada deep into Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, that lasted until after the War of 1812 had concluded.
The American War for Independence was, in fact, a civil war, our first civil war. On one side were advocates for political, social, and commercial stability, harmonious continuity, and loyalty to our British benefactors and feudal overlords. On the other hand were a handful of people who believed in something radical, something new, something previously unseen in human experience: Liberty for all, freedom of choice and of association, government devoted to representing the interests of The People, and not just the monarch or his chosen few.
Winning American freedom was very hard, and it cost a lot of lives lost and money spent. The destruction of towns north and south is still legendary. Boston, New York, and even Philadelphia were severely damaged, and with that went economic damage and deprivation that reached everyone.
Yet it was all of this deprivation and tenacious warfare and willing sacrifice that cemented the American spirit of self reliance, true grit, and patriotism for the most unique, freest, best nation on Earth. And yet, as success bred success and material success bred complacency and satiety, Americans began to lose that original spirit. Our material wealth has spoiled us and put many of us to sleep, to the point where we actually have a major political party advocating for the gifting of “free” healthcare to anyone who illegally walks into our country. And none of the current taxpaying citizens here qualify for that same free healthcare!
I do not think it is alarmist to say that America is now in another civil war. The evidence is all around us. Oh, we are not yet fully lined up and shooting at each other. But we are becoming fully lined up along ideological differences and shouting at each other, which is the exact way traditional battles are and have been fought with spears and swords or muskets and cannons. Both sides line up and size each other up, brandish their weapons, make bold declarations, and then charge.
Despite the many violent ANTIFA skirmishes against freedom and free speech advocates, Americans just have not yet charged at each other. This is because while the many normal Americans went to work, paid their taxes, mowed their lawns, volunteered, took their kids to Little League, another segment of the population was working hard at infiltrating and capturing institutions. Once captured, those institutions (Media, academia, education, unions, charitable foundations, all levels and branches of government, the Boy Scouts etc.) have been bent to the purpose of promoting leftist ideas and policies, to mainstream treasonous anti-America policies.
All of this infiltration and capturing has gone on under the feet of the normal Americans, the citizen taxpayers, who are just now beginning to wake up and realize that while they did their duty, others were doing their utmost to gain full control of our political institutions, in order to force a very non-free form of government upon us. A very non-America form of government.
Enjoy your Independence Day, friends. In between the beers and the hotdogs, you should consider talking with friends and family about current events, about how freedom and government accountability can be restored, how America can be brought back from the precipice on which it presently stands.
And maybe talk about an Independence Day redux, too.
D-Day remembrance poses challenge for many people
Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, that incredible re-invasion of Nazi-occupied France from across the English Channel that was the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s cruelly evil “Thousand Year Reich.”
So what do people commemorate this week? Well, the American 82nd Airborne guys put on a live re-enactment of the cliff scaling at Point du Hoc, for one thing. A lot of ships and boats have been traveling across the English Channel for one re-enactment or demonstration purpose or another, as well as planes and I think even some parachuting. The purpose of all this activity is to visually and viscerally remind today’s people of what yesterday’s people did for them, how they sacrificed for them, died for them, gave everything they had so that today’s people could enjoy their lives free of fear, oppression, and military threats.
Problem is, do today’s people really understand or even care about D-Day and the Allied fight against totalitarian German war-making?
Many of us “older” people ask this question because so many of the younger people seem to think human history began with the invention of the iPhone, and that all one needs to be a functioning human being is a smart phone, a cup of expensive coffee, and the latest sloppy looking beanie hat, and that all of life’s successes will naturally follow if you simply appear in public like this.
Amazing examples of clueless disregard for what this week’s D-Day anniversary celebrations are about include Sadiq Khan behaving like a rotten jerk towards the elected leader of the Free World, Donald Trump, who made a lovely visit to England and France this week. Khan is mayor of London, and by any objective measure (crime, poverty, taxes, services, dirt, rats, fires) his politically correct city administration has been a disaster.
Without America’s intervention in World War II, without our nation’s huge sacrifice of young men and taxpayer money, Khan would not have the freedom today to spew his petty, nasty things against President Trump and freedom. Khan was joined yesterday by about five thousand fellow jerks who showed up to protest against Trump, for a “free Palestine,” for communism and against capitalism, for big government control and against individual liberty…an alphabet soup of leftwing causes as evidenced by the signs they waved about while cheerfully beating up two old men whose views they objected to.
So if London today elects an anti-Western Sadiq Khan to be its representative on the international stage, and Khan is full of petty, childish insults for the US president during this week celebrating freedom and democracy gratis America, then what does this say about the citizenry of London? Have they also forgotten why D-Day happened? Have they forgotten the nonstop German bombing of London’s citizenry, the massive destruction of London, the deprivation?
Do they even care?
With an elected representative like Sadiq Khan, it seems they don’t care. They don’t care about history, or the risks of totalitarianism, how we all got to where we are today, or the daily effort we all must make in our jobs, in our homes, and our communities to keep our common civilization moving forward. And in fact, many of Khan’s supporters seem pleasantly ignorant of D-Day and actually intent on bringing down our common civilization. What they plan to replace it with is anyone’s guess.
A natural question for Khan’s supporters is “Will your England be as free and have as many opportunities for self-improvement as the former England?”
Judging by the cruel and violent behavior of Siobhan Prigent against one of the old men, just asking the question of these folks will get you punched in the face.
And it is against this unnatural backdrop of foolish citizens demanding everything be given to them and that they not be asked to give back, that we celebrate the 75th anniversary of an incredibly complex multi-national operation to challenge the military success of an incredible evil, the very totalitarianism that Mayor Sadiq Khan and his followers seem to have in mind for Britain once again.
And so we see that in truth today’s memorialization of D-Day is not in vain, or just for pure history buffs who like pomp and circumstance, but rather to remind us that the same evil forces are unleashed against Britain and Western Civilization once more.
But this time from inside.
Bodies of a totalitarian government’s political enemies piled high at Dachau. This is in Europe, not in some far-off place we Westerners can’t pronounce. This is what happens to normal people like you and me when totalitarians like Sadiq Khan get full control of government
SWORD beach – 6 Jun 1944. This image is taken from a Royal Air Force Mustang aircraft of II (Army Cooperation) Squadron. The Mustang aircraft were made in America and supplied to the British. You can see the chaos unfolding on the beach, as high tide carried some troop boats all the way up to the top of the beach, and subsequent fire support and re-supply boats were stranded way below.
9,000 bodies were etched into the sand at Normandy Beach several years ago, by volunteers who wanted to visually depict the high cost of the opening effort to stop totalitarianism.
Hundreds of dead American and British soldiers along the D-Day beaches in Normandy
An American serviceman helping cover the bodies of the dead. He was raised in a culture of self sacrifice and risk-taking. Do America and Britain still have the same culture that produced these awesome men on D-Day?
London mayor Sadiq Khan’s anti-freedom supporters beat an old guy because he does not agree with their totalitarian views. Democracy is about disagreeing without violence and resolving differences at the voting booth. Sadiq Khan encourages this violence and is therefore against democracy
Another British grandpa is beaten by a mob of London mayor Sadiq Khan supporters. Siobhan Prigent is the blonde
Siobhan Prigent accuses British grandpa of being a “fucking Nazi” because he disagreed with her Nazi-like beliefs and behavior. Look carefully at her hateful face, her evil eyes. This is the face of what D-Day soldiers faced on the shores of Normandy
British grandpa has had enough abuse for simply disagreeing with Siobhan Prigent. A second later he was hit in the face with a mystery liquid and Siobhan and her violent pals kicked him to the ground.
CPAC banning reporter Laura Loomer proves frailty of “conservative inc.”
This past week, just days ago, intrepid and fearless reporter Laura Loomer was blocked from entering the CPAC convention, having already been there for days and having already spent her money on lodging etc. As she handed the security guys her credentials, they took them away from her and prevented her from entering the convention.
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference has been the gathering place for Republicans and conservatives for many years now. It’s a place to air out new policy ideas, air out old grievances, air out old stinky candidates or debut new ones, network, share on-the-ground war stories, and get new ideas for how to advance America-first policies and laws, including how to get conservatives elected.
But like so many other public events, of any sort, people try to make money from CPAC. Especially its administrators. When money and ego become central to the event’s raison d’etre, away go the core principles that once caused people to convene in the first place. Now CPAC has gone full commercial and totally corporate, with all the usual and customary strings attached to corporate sponsorships. Like don’t rock the boat. Suddenly raw and honest debate becomes “uncivilized,” and the “Professional Republicans” move in to correct and santize everything.
God forbid someone says something offensive! The well groomed, serious faced, and utterly hollow “Professional Republican” robots will move in to take you away.
And Laura Loomer did in fact say something offensive. Really really bad. Her big offense was to repeatedly or doggedly ask CNN political activist Oliver Darcy why he uses his celebrity status to drum conservatives out of digital websites and platforms like Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, Venmo, Patreon and so on.
Darcy is a guy who publicly crows every time a conservative is kicked off of some platform and loses their free speech rights, for the huge violation of disagreeing with the radical leftists who own or manage those public platforms. It’s not that the conservatives are doing anything wrong per se, it’s that disagreeing with the liberal book burners and anti free speech control freaks who run Fakebook, Twitter etc is itself a huge violation.
And so Loomer did what real reporters do, or used to do, she found a more-important-than-thou untouchable person (Darcy) and asked pointed questions about their (his) at-best questionable behavior. Darcy then complained to CPAC management and voila, Loomer is scrubbed from his glowing presence. Because being a happy shiny establishment media darling at CPAC is more important than what CPAC supposedly stands for.
See, the bigger question is why Oliver Darcy is even at CPAC, and then why would he expect to be protected from inquisitive reporters there, doing the job that mainstream media activists long since stopped doing. Darcy is opposed to everyone and everything represented at CPAC. He’s not there because he shares the values or principles of the attendees; rather, he’s there to be a mole, to undermine CPAC from the inside.
In any event, as CPAC has become yet another corporate bandwagon, run by “Professional Republicans” who represent “Republican, Inc.” (or “Conservative, Inc.”), the bastardized evil hybrid of political action for individual liberty and limited government with making money. Loads of money. That is what CPAC is now, and Laura Loomer threatened to undermine the shiny happy people appearance that professional GOP functionaries and their financiers value most above all.
Strike another GOPe blow against grass roots citizen activists and reporters, struggling against a big money uniparty made of both Republican and Democrat establishments.
And yet, Laura Loomer emerges as another citizen hero, a sort of Joan of Arc, a Rosa Parks who questions why not just she but all American citizens who rudely (sarcasm here) ask simple questions about the nature of our government and our rights must sit at the back of the bus, or as Oliver Darcy and CNN would have it, get kicked off the bus altogether.
You go, girl! Go get ‘em, Laura.
OK, call me a Whig
For those like me who are bothered by the simplistic, almost child-like identity politics of partisan political party identification, there is always the third way out: Independent.
True to its name, being an Independent means that one is much less driven by one-dimensional partisan interests, and much more broadly politically driven, by more philosophical interests.
Oh please, don’t kid yourself that the Democrats and the Republicans today represent philosophical strands of thought on government involvement in the lives of the citizenry. That is a joke.
Both main political parties, Ds and Rs, are each practically wholly-owned subsidiaries of their respective special interest groups. Because I believe in economic freedom, among other things, I am more drawn to the Rs than the Ds, who have now pretty much openly embraced socialism.
Socialism is the opposite of economic freedom, and socialism requires tremendous inroads into personal freedom to achieve its artificial “income equality” outcome. The Ds have completely thrown in with the communists, the socialists, the chaotic ANTIFA, and the 1%-ers like George Soros who fund all the anarchic, violent, anti-America street melees. If you like your doctor, you will not be able to keep your doctor, as the previous ANTIFA president demonstrated, despite his lies to the contrary. There is nothing here with this group or amalgamation of groups for the average American family trying to get by comfortably and live a simple, happy life.
However, there are plenty of Rs who are D-lite. Call them RINOs, GOPe, whatever, they are part of an established, elite political class who have elevated themselves above the broad interests of the citizen taxpayer. Their interests are narrowly economic and even more narrowly financial. Big corporations, the Koch Brothers, US senator Mitch McConnell’s big and financially rewarding ties to the Chinese government, the various guises of the Chamber of Commerce, etc.; all seeking to funnel as much financial gain into as few big pockets as possible. At the cost of Americans’ freedom now and future liberty.
Like the Ds, this GOPe group also tries to manipulate national policy for personal gain, with open borders and no checks on the el-cheapo labor force that comes with a huge cultural and school tax price tag. Obviously the GOPe has little in common with the interest of The People, either, though more economic freedom can be found here than with the Ds. Nevertheless, the GOPe RINOs are not really committed to defending citizen freedom and liberty.
Thus the demand for the Independent identity. The problem with the Independent Party is that it is frozen out of many states, where there is a bi-partisan death grip on electoral process. If there is one thing both Ds and Rs can agree on, it is that they and they two alone must control, if only occasionally share, political power and outcomes for everyone else.
This is why there is so much collusion and bi-partisan deal making in places like Pennsylvania, where our closed Primary artificially limits voter choice. Being an Independent in most places, like Pennsylvania, means one cannot really vote in a meaningful way in the primary election, arguably when votes matter most.
If the Republican Party of the 1860s was the vehicle for the great Abolitionist movement, much of that great spirit is now gone. Obviously. Oh yes, we have the congressional Freedom Caucus, a refreshing group of patriots and individualists. But they are largely outnumbered by the corporatists within their own party.
And never mind that the Ds demand their minorities aka modern-day slaves remain and vote on the Democrat Plantation, just like they did in the old days. And that everyone else fall in line with their autocratic control schemes. Or else.
I do not identify as a Democrat and probably never will again (to do so would be like gleefully standing by the road screaming “Heil Hitler” in 1930s Germany as the latest Democrat Socialist Messiah drove by), so trying to figure them out is a waste of time.
So, I am now reaching and looking farther back in time for a political identity, back to more philosophical times, to when big ideas had relevance to everyday lives. And in that past I find the old British Whig Party actually captures my current philosophical views.
The Whigs of the 1700s-1800s believed in spreading political power and decision-making to the citizenry as broadly as possible.
The Whigs believed in Abolitionism, the movement to abolish slavery. Plenty of economic and financial gain at stake there, so it was a truly principled stand in the meanest sense.
The Whigs believed in a parliamentary monarchy, which was radical at the time. Though the Magna Carta had been written and signed by the British king so many centuries before, its notions of freedom, representative government, and due process for the average citizen only took a few centuries to refine and percolate up and out to the point where the monarch’s absolute grip on power was actually, truly challenged by erstwhile representatives of The People.
That slow progress also involved a couple civil wars that were spiced nicely with religious feuding. Lots of heads rolling in the streets, families burning at the stake…what the Chinese call “exciting times.”
So given they had witnessed the great evil and cruelty carried out in the name of official religious control and power, the Whigs were naturally against the establishment of all religious tests for citizens, and against an official, established state religion. On this score they eventually lost, as Anglicanism is now the official state religion of Britain.
Similarly, Scotland has the Church of Scotland as its official place of worship. Not that either of these churches are very Christian nor pro-Western today. The Whigs correctly viewed official religions as being against the interests of the People, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Church of England’s official anti-West, anti-freedom do-gooder political meddling.
In short, Britain’s Whigs were non-conformists who believed in a third way: diffuse political power, as opposed to centralized power. They promoted economic freedom and individual liberty for all, including for the lowest slave.
British history and people may appear rather blase and boring to today’s casual reader, but rest assured it was nothing of the sort. An overabundance of violent civil wars resulted in the seemingly placid society one enjoyably visits today.
As a result, the Whig party was transcendent for almost two centuries. With its enlightened philosophical views came maximum freedom and opportunity for the greatest number of Britons, ever. Many Whig views found their way into the American Constitution.
Given the anti-citizen Uni-Party political establishment here in America, the weakness of the Independent Party, and my own Constitutionalist views, I am mighty tempted to join the 1700s Whigs. At least they stand for something real and valuable.
And what does it say that in 2018 we must now reach back to the early 1700s Britain to reconnect with our greatest individual rights and needs in 21-st century America?
Independence & Liberty through Secure Borders
Would you willingly leave your house doors open and unlocked, day after day, night after night, and trust that the people looking to walk in would treat you right?
No, you would not leave your own home open and vulnerable to unauthorized entry, and neither will any country worthy of being a place you want to live. Too many bad people can exploit the open border that otherwise protects you. God knows what they can do once they gain entry.
Just 242 years ago today, America established its new borders, and eventually secured them through a young military filled with brave and patriotic volunteers.
Independence and liberty were established for all Americans through secure borders that kept enemies at bay from that time on, through many wars at home and then abroad, to keep our enemies from fighting us at home.
And lest you think the American Indians had no borders amongst themselves, you are wrong, and you know nothing about their history.
From their own beginning here, American Indians from coast to coast waged brutal war and axe murdered one another over their borders and boundaries, over control of those borders, and they cruelly punished people who crossed them unbidden.
Today America has one political party that has decided our borders should be open to anyone who can walk across them. These Americans and their illegal invader allies they’ve already let in believe the American house should be left unlocked so that more can come in. Anyone. Once they have a critical mass of illegal voters, that political party will convert them into an unbeatable voting force, and force their un-American, anti-Constitution views on all Americans.
This one political party is using democracy to achieve non-democratic ends, to establish complete political control and to end democracy in favor of a laundry list of politically correct policies. Their open borders end result is pure sedition and treason. Their goal is the complete overthrow of America as we were founded and as we have known it.
On this Independence Day, commit yourself to defending America as she was founded, with liberty for all. That means defending our borders, keeping them secure, and deciding who can enter and who cannot, for the good of all the nation, like all other nations do.
For those readers who read this blog because they are intrigued by what other people think, join the #walkaway movement. The Democrat Party of today is not the Democrat Party of your youth. It has become a force for evil, run by people who would destroy the best nation on earth. Everything good you take for granted now as the American lifestyle will be gone if today’s Democrat Party is successful.
On this July 4th, commit yourself to liberty and justice for all, and to secure American borders.
Happy Independence Day, America!
Billy Graham and America’s Christian Imperative
Nobody did Christianity better than Billy Graham, a quintessential American and American icon. He was definitely a man of God, a rare, beautiful thing to see.
Losing Graham last week released a flood of beautiful and well-earned words summarizing his commitment, passion, energy, focus, humility, earnestness, and non-judgmental effectiveness. These are all good things, and taken in context as just one man, they are an impressive list of achievements and accolades few of us will ever have said about us.
But Graham was more than just one good man we looked to for leadership and inspiration. Graham symbolized much of what America was in its golden age, say the 1950s, and also a great deal of the building blocks our nation is based on: Biblical at the base, and big-tent-Christianity at the top.
Graham represents America’s Christian imperative. Meaning, it is imperative that America be a Christian nation, and not atheistic or secular.
America is far better as a Christian nation than an atheistic nation. As a religious nation, America is as America was founded. A common morality, shared values. Even if it falls down, a Christian nation can be, always has the potential to be, a moral and ethical place.
On the other hand, the secular atheist nations have been Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Soviet Union, today’s Red China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and so on. Not good places. Very very bad places. Cruel places. Places with no human rights, no individual liberties, no religious freedom, and unlimited state power.
Unlike Europe, American Christianity in general, and Graham’s faith in particular, did not discriminate nor judge nor exclude. It is an inclusive faith. American Christianity has always been different than the discriminatory Europe, which persecuted, burned alive at the stake, and ultimately drove out the early Protestants, our “Puritans” and Quakers. In Europe, state religions remain, such as the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the various Catholic churches of France and Spain and elsewhere.
You do not have to be a Christian to feel welcome in Graham’s America, or to be an outstanding American, or even to be emblematic of America. That big-tent-Christianity which our Founders believed in, which Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson so well represented, and which Graham came to represent today, is responsible for that openness, that tolerance. If Europe suffered from religious tests and requirements in order for people to fulfill public roles, America was the opposite: Come one, come all, give your best, we are a meritocracy.
Jefferson’s famous 1805 Letter to the Danbury Baptists contains the “separation of church and state” phrase which is so powerful that many people mistakenly believe is part of our nation’s First Amendment. That may be wrong in fact, but the letter captured and set the tone for the kind of religious belief America would come to represent 213 years later. We may not have had an official church, but most of our early leaders were religious Believers, and they carried that moral code with them into their official positions, where it guided their actions. They carried church around in their hearts, and not necessarily on their sleeves. A uniquely American creation.
American politics has always been about shared values, if not shared beliefs. Traditional religious views, call them the Judeo-Christian pillars of America, are that big tent in which the shared values are assembled. So it is on the shoulders of conservative Catholics, evangelical Christians and Baptists, and yes, even Mormons (please leave us out of endless theological debates, or discussions about dogma) to help right the ship of state now, to rally around the shared values, circle the wagons, and protect our most sacred freedoms and liberties.
In this day and age of confusion in the West, with abandonment of basic human traits and life, Christianity is needed more than ever. It is all-hands-on-deck right now. The Christian imperative is more clearly evident now than it has ever been in my lifetime, and Billy Graham showed us all the way.
Why I am a Political Activist
Over the years I have been asked why I am so involved in politics, particularly as an unpaid activist representing my own sense of justice and fairness (as opposed to them being determined or set by corporate or union interests).
More recently, like yesterday, the opening salvo of a campaign to find and elect a primary candidate against incumbent state senator Jake Corman has prompted some citizens to ask me why. And not always so nicely.
That’s OK, because it is rewarding to see any American give a damn about politics, even if their favored elected official is a self-serving creep like Corman.
Folks, it is real simple. I am an activist so that you can enjoy your liberty and freedom, because that is what I believe in. No one pays me to do this. Rather, I take money out of my pockets and spend it so you can make a more educated decision, even if you don’t think you want that information. And believe me, after decades of the Corman clan hoodwinking the good people of central Pennsylvania, a lot of work is needed.
While I am not a member of the Armed Services, I am a member of the American citizenry, where individual political activism is part and parcel of our cultural fabric.
For me, political activism is a love of liberty, inspired by the freedom and promise of America. I feel inspired when I think of these things, and I am willing to fight for them, for you. Even if you don’t agree with my specific views.
Think about it: Most of the people on this planet live under tyranny, with no freedom, no choice, no opportunity, no liberty to express themselves or seek redress for bad political choices. China alone has over a billion serfs. Russia has several hundred million disenfranchised citizens, who are daily watching what vestiges of democracy they had cobbled together crumble.
What we have in America is rare, but here in America we also have so much material wealth and tranquility that our success is now putting people to sleep. People take everything we have for granted, forgetting the incredible amount of work and sacrifice it took to build this nation up to where it is.
We cannot take America for granted. America is not on autopilot, though to a lot of people it sure looks that way. Too much is at stake to have this attitude.
The hard fact is, you simply cannot outsource or delegate your role as a free citizen. No one else cares as much about your freedom and liberty as you care, and no one else will advocate for you as much as you yourself can, or will.
Another way of saying it is that democracy is where you get the form of government you deserve or have earned.
If you the citizen do not stay involved in civics, politics, and voting, then we will all lose what we have. Corporate interests, union interests, corrupt political interests, control freaks will all happily take over running the country for you, dividing it up amongst themselves, and increasingly edge you out of the picture while using you for your tax money.
Examples include Obama’s trillion-dollar Porkulus bill that enriched his allied interest groups; or Solyndra, the fake solar energy company to which Obama gave nearly $500 million of taxpayer money, your money. And then there is the Clinton Foundation, whose principals used government access and influence to generate kickbacks construed as charitable donations. In the Bush II administration, US VP Cheney helped steer a $400 million no–bid contract to his former employer Halliburton to help clean up Iraq.
As an ongoing enterprise, America takes constant vigilance by its beneficiaries – you, the citizen.
In 1787, at the end of the First Constitutional Convention held at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin stepped out from behind the closed doors into the throng of citizens waiting outside.
There, on the same cobblestone streets so many of us are familiar with today, a Mrs. Powel asked him “Doctor Franklin, what was decided, shall we have a monarchy, or a republic?”
To which our good doctor Benjamin Franklin quickly responded “A republic, if you can keep it.”
And that is why I am an activist, because it takes constant citizen activism to keep our republic. It is what our great nation is built on.
Won’t you take my hand, or lend a hand, and help out?
You call that resistance? THIS is Resistance
Over the weekend at a lovely social event arranged by dear friends and populated by wonderful people, I was approached by a well meaning and hell-of-a-nice-guy doctor.
This is a man who has helped my oldest kid with her career choices, and who is always a friendly and pleasant person to spend time with.
So, despite wanting to talk with me about a subject that is beyond passe for me, I stood with him and others interested in this subject, and let him explore the many “common sense” and “reasonable” ways government can steal my liberties.
While trying to stay focused on the wide variety of quality spirits available within arm’s reach, I answered his questions as best I could.
“Why can’t we just take all semi-automatic rifles and lock them up at a range? Then when you want to go shoot them, you go to the range and get your gun,” he proposed.
Then, as an afterthought, the good doctor admitted “I don’t know much about guns, I don’t like guns, and I am afraid of guns, but I am interested in what you have to say.”
In stepped another helluvaniceguy doctor, an organ transplant specialist renowned locally for probably being the most genuinely kind and thoughtful person on Planet Earth.
“I am a liberal, but because my dad hunts I grew up with guns and I can tell you right now, you are not going to eliminate crime by restricting the rights of the law-abiding,” he said.
Having a political ally at a social event is an uncommon and most welcome opportunity for me, so I just sat back and let the two doctors politely muddle their way through the subject of gun control.
Finally, I was again asked my opinion, and with no one else in the circle of drink holders willing to step in or step up, I took a deep breath and said
“If you come for my guns, I will kill you or go down fighting trying to kill you.”
You might guess this caught the nice, inexperienced doctor by complete surprise.
The idea that his long time friendly acquaintance would openly admit such a psychotic goal was shocking, and it showed on his face. He was stunned and uncomfortable.
“Hey, if you were able to implement the gun confiscation policies you just listed, what you call common sense gun control” I said, “then you would have de facto declared war and death on me, my friends, and family. So I am just telling you that we would meet fire with fire.”
It appears that so many people have so much faith in big government, that they cannot imagine what the actual, practical implementation of their ideas would mean.
When someone talks about “common sense gun control,” they are inevitably talking about gun confiscation and the elimination of the Second Amendment liberty on which America was founded. Some activists have become brazenly open about this goal, after decades of pooh-poohing it, denying it, and calling wary gun owners “kooks” for believing they did, in fact, mean to take away guns from law abiding citizens.
Gun confiscation means going door to door and taking away guns, or sending threatening letters to gun owners followed up by home visits from police.
None of this gun control has any connection to crime control. Zero.
In fact, gun control and gun confiscation increases crime, because criminals do not follow the law, they will hide their guns from the police, and they will use their guns to further victimize a now disarmed population.
So, when some well ignorant, intellectually lazy, but well-intentioned person tells me they are going to in effect declare war on my family, by way of invading our home, taking our property, and threatening our life, limb or liberty for some vague purpose, I now simply respond “We will see you at the barricades.”
Or something similar to what I said to the doctor, and what I said after a live TV debate with a pro-gun control police chief (to be accurate, we were behind the stage and I said that if I were driving down the road in his jurisdiction and saw him in duress, I would immediately risk my life and come to his aid, and that if he came to my home to take my guns, I would kill him. He was unfazed and admitted that since moving to Central Pennsylvania, local citizens had said the same thing to him repeatedly).
It really is that simple.
Or as I said to the nice doctor, if you sic armed thugs on me (a law-abiding citizen), I will be an armed thug in response.
Because that is what this gun control issue has come down to. Probably like abortion to some other Americans, who assert they will not comply with laws restricting abortion.
As is otherwise so casually asserted these days, this is actual “resistance” to political interference.
People want to talk resistance?
Try to take my guns. You’ll get to see what real resistance looks like, then.
So can we please talk about something else? This subject has grown boring.
There are no gun grabbing schemes that I am going to agree to. There is no such thing as “common sense gun control,” and no matter how much a person tries to doctor it up and make it sound “reasonable,” there is no way I will go along.
The answer is simply “No.” I will not obey any more such laws.
Now would someone please pass me the bottle of Scotch, no not that one, yes, that one, and some cheese and crackers?