Wherefore Art Thou, ar15.com?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:00:00 GMT

From comments on Bill Whittle's Power by "LabRat" (satire, kids):

Ah, you Americans, so simplisme. You understand so little. I will try to educate the cowboy. (SIGH)

Capitalist success is theft, as you can gain nothing under such a system without taking it from someone else. Forcibly taking seventy-five percent or all of your citizens' income in taxes to pay for goods and services they may or may not want or need is not theft, it is social justice.

The idea behind a system determines not only its success or failure but its moral character, which then flows into every action taken. This is why under a hundred civilian casualties in a war is genocide under capitalism, but a hundred million dead during cultural revolution is a forgivable oopsie.

Happiness is an empty illusion of the American devil. This is why you are not actually happy and fulfilled with spending your money the way you want it to; you just think you are. What you REALLY want as a person is security and the warm feeling that comes of being a proper human being. We will hear no argument on this subject: enjoy the gifts of the state.

Morality is intrinsic and historically contextual. This is why a white male American shooting a prowler in his home is morally reprehensible but a subway spree killing by a black man is also the moral responsibility of the white male American because he's angry at the white man, who probably gave him the gun too. Americans overthrowing a vicious regime committing regular atrocities on its own people is morally reprehensible; Arabs can slaughter until the end of time and it will still be the fault of Americans. Your color and creed determine your moral character: your actions are meaningless.

Power and success are marks of inferior moral character. Nations that are failing are always more admirable than those that are prospering. Their failure means they aren't robbing anyone. If their lowest citizens are desperately poor and their government rich, this is the fault of Americans, even if State Department has to look up the country in Encyclopedia Britannica before it can even comment on it.

America doing anything outside its borders is jingoistic. America not doing anything outside its borders is self-absorbed and ignorant of the world and its peoples. Due to the aforementioned historical determination of morality, and Quantum Politics, it is possible for both of these conditions to be true at the same time.

When anyone sells their goods to America for money at a price they set, or works for an American company for pay higher than that they can gain locally, they are being opressed and robbed by America. See above for historical moral context.

Finally, your motive determines whether the results of your actions are "good" or "bad", as long as it's a preapproved motive. This is the other reason why slaughtering millions for communism is forgivable, but raising people out of squalor but making money off it is heinous.

I'd thank you for your attention, but due to your American attention spans you stopped reading this fifteen seconds in. C'est la vie.

Elaine Cassel at Counterpunch - Secret Subpoenas: What Patriotism Means to Ashcroft - more on the disgusting misuse of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act. [grabbe]

You thought the USA Patriot Act was just to be used to prosecute "terrorism"? Wrong! The Patriot Act was an Executive branch power grab that took place in an atmosphere of hysterical reaction to the September 11 hijackings. Ashcroft seized the day, while the Congress slept. The dirty little secrets of the extent of the Administration's intentions for the law are only just now coming to light.

More than likely, you won't know when the law is being used against you. We only know about these subpoenas because a Wired News reporter reported that the FBI contacted him, no doubt trying to get the word out before the gag order kicks in. Secret subpoenas, secret evidence, secret trials. That's patriotism today.

Purva Patel at The Sun Sentinel - Patriot Act requiring people to provide detailed personal information to banks - I wish people would stop calling it the Patriot Act. There's nothing patriotic about it. It is an acronym: U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Time to flee the government banks and start our own, eh? [grabbe]

Passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the law aims to stem money laundering and terrorist financing. The new rules require banks and other financial institutions to gather more detailed information on their clients to prove their identities and make sure they're not on any government watch list, starting today [October 1].

Banks and financial institutions must confirm customer identities with identification that includes a name, date of birth, address and identification number such as a taxpayer identification number for citizens or a government-issued document for noncitizens. It sometimes takes several documents to validate information where a driver's license once sufficed.

"It is both good and onerous," said Jack Trufelli, compliance director for BAC Florida Bank in Coral Gables. "It's a burden, but it's something we obviously have to do."

Devvy Kidd - Chilling Proclamation - The i.r.s. is on record as intending to respond to questions about tax liability with "enforcement actions". Time for the gloves to come off, eh? [grabbe]

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." -- Samuel Adams

ar15.com has been down all week. Their front page (the only page there right now) says they'll be back up today. Hope so. I want to gab about the opening of B&J Guns with my fellow New York ArfCom folks.

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Free State Project Chooses Granite State
Whittle on Power
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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

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.

-- L. Neil Smith

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 bear 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.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair