End the War on Freedom

Gold, Silver and Lead... Freedom's precious metals. -- Anonymous

I played the bass line for a couple of Christmas duets at the office holiday party. That's me on the trombone and my manager on the euphonium.

Bill St. Clair at Metroland - To Arms! - Metroland printed the letter I wrote last week. 100,000 Albany area readers will see it. No noticeable changes except the title. Will likely move here next Thursday.

To Arms!

To the Editor:

You were right to warn us about Poindexter's Total Information Awareness system and no-fly lists ["O Big Brother, Where Art Thou?," Dec. 5]. But when you discussed guns, you missed the boat. If we want to be safer against terrorists, we need more, not fewer, guns, and it needs to be easier for people to arm themselves, not harder. Had only a couple of passengers on each of the 9/11 flights been properly armed, the Twin Towers would still be standing and three thousand victims would be celebrating with their loved ones this holiday season.

The Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, the law of the land, does not allow you to implement any system to close any imagined "loopholes" in the existing, blatantly unconstitutional gun laws. The Second Amendment is very simple, very clear: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You can argue all you want, but what this means, in the words of L. Neil Smith, is that "Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon--rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything--any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission."

And why may you not close those loopholes? Mr. Smith again: "Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bears arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers 'the security of a free state'? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings."

The reason our Constitution has a Second Amendment is not well known, anymore. Yes, it affirms our right to hunt. Yes, it affirms our right and duty to defend ourselves, our families, and our communities against criminals and terrorists. But the major reason for the existence of the second amendment is to guarantee that we always have at our disposal the tools to overthrow the government, should it become necessary. With the recent passage of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the Fatherland, er . . . Homeland Security Act, it's getting mighty close to necessary.

There, that should get me on the no-fly list.

Bill St. Clair
New Lebanon

Bill Whittle via Rachel Lucas - Guns and Freedom - I haven't read all of this yet, but from the first few pages, it looks worthwhile.

When I was a little kid, I asked my dad (who had served in the latter days of WW2 in Europe as a U.S. Army intelligence officer) about images I had seen of really huge numbers of prisoners being marched to their execution, guarded by perhaps five or ten men with rifles. I wanted to know why they didn't just rush the guards? I mean, it's one thing if they were heading to another crappy day at work camp, but these people were being marched off to be killed. I mean, for God's sake, what did they have to lose?

I was six. My dad looked at me. He'd been to the camps, seen some horrible things. When I asked him why they didn't fight back or run for the woods, he said, without any arrogance or pride or jingoism, "I don't know Billy, I can't figure that one out myself." Then there was a long moment. "But I can't imagine Americans just walking off like that, either."

Now before the combined military might of the European Union unites against me with a very harshly worded letter, let me clarify something: When he said he couldn't imagine Americans marching off to their deaths, he meant, obviously, Americans like the ones he knew. Kids who grew up hunting, kids who got a BB gun for their fifth birthday (never Christmas though --- you could shoot your eye out!). Likewise, it's impossible to imagine thousands of Brits (circa 1944) or Norwegians.

Freedom is preserved by free people. Free people know in their heart that they are free. Back to the idea of an unarmed, culturally rich, bathed in literature and opera, non-simplisme culture like 1940s Germany: I also asked my father what would happen if the Gestapo came for us one night. He said he couldn't stop them from taking us, but he could damn sure take a few of those bastards with them, and I decided right there that I'd do the same thing.

...

Maybe the time for real evil like that has finally gone. I hope you are right, I really do. I don't want to go fight those bastards; I'd rather barbeque and watch the Gators. I'm sure the Jews in 1930 Germany thought such things could never happen again, not in a place as "civilized" as Germany. I'm sure every bound and beaten musician, surgeon, philosopher and painter being lined up at the side of a ditch thought exactly that.

Try and understand this about Americans like Rachel and me and most of the rest here: We are not going out like that. Get it? We'll put up with handgun murders if we have to, but we are not going down that road. As a general rule, we are quiet, peaceful, decent people with better things to do than referee endless bloodbaths abroad. But it is possible to get our attention. And believe me, you have it now, and I believe the time will come when you will regret calling us cowboys and Nazis and idiots, not when it comes time to fight us, because that day will not come, but rather when you once again need the help of people like Rachel and me and my late father, fighting forces you ignore not from superior sophistication but from sheer moral cowardice.

The Progressive - Protesters Detained in Milwaukee - more experience with the f.b.i.'s no-fly list, or is it the t.s.a.'s no-fly list? Noone will say. [smith2004]

Stephen W. Carson at LewRockwell.com - Why Do They Hate Him? - apparently, J.R.R. Tolkein was not popular among the intelligentsia in Great Britain. A long piece exploring this. [smith2004]

The theme of The Lord of the Rings is that the Ring, the ring of power that is so tempting, must be resisted. If it is not resisted than the individual who gives in becomes a ringwraith. "...people make themselves into wraiths. They accept the gifts of Sauron, quite likely with the intention of using them for some purpose which they identify as good. But then they start to cut corners, to eliminate opponents, to believe in some 'cause' which justifies everything they do. In the end the 'cause', or the habits they have acquired while working for the 'cause', destroys any moral sense and even any remaining humanity. The spectacle of the person 'eaten up inside' by devotion to some abstraction has been so familiar throughout the twentieth century as to make the idea of the wraith, and the wraithing-process, horribly recognizable, in a way non-fantastic."

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