Monday, April 14, 2008

Dangerously Silly

Mike Vanderboegh forwarded me an old email he first sent to an errant editorialist back during the Clinton the First era.

It's still more than relevant today:

Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1998 08:18:55 -0600
From: Mike Vanderboegh, Pinson, AL
To: Rich Hood, Kansas City Star Editorial Page rhood@kcstar.com (Rich Hood)
Subject: Your Dangerously Silly Editorial of 12 April Entitled "Gun Ban Was Needed."

Mr. Hood,

It is a measure of how far common sense and respect for the rule of law have deteriorated in our constitutional republic during the present administration that educated men such as yourself could write such dangerously silly and unconstitutional drivel such as your editorial "Gun Ban Was Needed."

In the past, when I had illusions that legal, moral and historical arguments could sway anti-freedom ideologues such as yourself and the President, I would have mustered a formidable array of facts, cited legal opinions and quoted from the Founders' own lips to refute your wrong-headed opinion that law-abiding Americans need to be disarmed. (Oh, I know you do not say it directly, but isn't that what you're endorsing when you urge "the President should consider stricter prohibitions"?)

Forget that the Second Amendment is, like the First you cherish, both an individual and collective right. Forget, indeed, that it is the Second Amendment that secures all the others, including the First.

Forget that the Founders' didn't write the 2nd Amendment with "sporting purposes" in mind. Forget that the very idea of codifying the right to "keep and bear arms" for the purposes of shooting fuzzy animals would have been laughable to men such as Thomas Jefferson.

Forget that the 2nd Amendment was designed to guarantee the 18th Century equivalent of "assault rifles" to the citizenry so that they might resist tyrannical administrations. Forget that the Clinton Administration has from the beginning used every means at its disposal to strip law-abiding Americans from exactly these kind of previously legal arms of military utility.

Forget that this President has acted like he was King George III himself, not only adopting His Late Majesty's firearms policy, but issuing imperial "Executive Orders" in the middle of the night, when Congress is not in session, contraryto law and Constitution.

Forget all that.

If the law and the Constitution mean nothing to you and your President, let's explain this in terms you will understand. If you want my legal, semiautomatic rifle then I suggest you come and get it. Yourself. Today. Bring the President if he's suddenly caught a draught of courage. Have the strength of your gun-grabbing convictions and come along with the raiding party you are encouraging through your editorial page to confiscate my weapons. Don't send someone else's son to do the job. Don't cry out for the police or military to disarm me while you sit safely at home and cluck your editorial tongue in approval. You want my rifle? Come and get it. Call your gun-grabbing buddies at the BATF, they'll give you directions to my house. You don't even have to call and tell me you're coming.

Of course, I'll bet you won't because you're a smart little editorial writer and you know that you'll likely get killed if you try. And you know what? That's exactly what the Founders had in mind. That tyrants, or their pissant editorial apologists such as yourself, would think twice before trying to disarm the law-abiding citizenry, the final arbiter and guarantor of American liberty.

Mike Vanderboegh

14 comments:

  1. That is awesome. I really enjoy reading Mike's work.

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  2. Now that's an excellent start to my Monday, thanks for bringing it back. It's as relevant today as it was during the Dark Era.

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  3. Bravo! Wonderful, wonderful!

    [clapping virtual hands vigorously]

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  4. That is a fantastic letter. We need to copy that and send it to every editorial board across the U.S.

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  5. Got to hand it to Mike, he has a way with words. I enjoy his articles, even the one I disagreed with some weeks back. Thanks, David, for putting this one at WoG.

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  6. The sad thing is, as you will note from the date, I wrote this ten years ago to the day. And I'm still having to make the same arguments. One thing I will say, though, when the gun grabbers finally do push us over the edge, they can't say we didn't warn them. -- Mike Vanderboegh

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  7. Same reason I vote, and speak, Mike. If they push hard enough that I have to push back I will want a clear conscience for what I will do.

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  8. David and Mike -
    Thanks David for the posting. Mike, thank for sharing the gift you have for expressing and writing what so many of us believe! I'd like to use the words in this editorial response to use as a "go-by" to comment on some of the legislation that is now being proposed in CA and Congress. Just need to charge a few words to make it fit many pieces of new laws and of course, editorial writings.

    Mike, do you have a website where your writings are archived?
    Thanks again for great writing.

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  9. Yeah, Mike, do you?

    It's not like anybody's been prodding you or anything...:)

    Old Soldier, I'm workin' on the guy to archive his masterpieces in a central repository--for ourselves and our posterity.

    Maybe your comment will help push him over the edge--in a good way.

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  10. Count my vote as one who would love to see Mike's letters and writings online.

    It is comforting to see someone be able to put your own exact thoughts to paper in a convincing and intelligent way.

    Come on, Vanderboegh! Share, already!

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  11. To David: Yeah, yeah, yeah . . .I'm workin' on it.

    To Old Soldier: You may use/paraphrase any of my stuff in letters to the editor or politcos. The ideas are hardly my property, even if the phrasing is. That old, "talent on loan from God" thing happens to be true. Any praise for my ability goes to Him. MBV

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  12. Same reason I vote, and speak, Mike. If they push hard enough that I have to push back I will want a clear conscience for what I will do.


    Amen, SA.

    MV has been my favorite author for some time. Back when I first started into the realm of online Waco/Patriot/2ndAmd research, his articles soon became some of the most influential.

    Speaking of sites, I should really create my own. I'd have a sectioned archive of MOST of MV's work.


    C.H.

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  13. Bill & company read that as "Puissant", of course, and accepted the challenge.

    Not.

    Nice in-your-face intimidation.

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  14. Mike Vanderboegh is a modern day Thomas Paine.

    Well said Sir!

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