This Day in History: February 12

STATEN ISLAND February 12, 1780
Inhabitants from Spanktown make excursion to Staten Island and bring off a Tory captain and seven loyal inhabitants.

Bloody Damned Hypocrite

How does he get by doing anything from a DC address?

[Via Vinnie and Raven's Beak]

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE

ACADEMICS FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT
IN SUPPORT OF THE RESPONDENT

Per David Hardy, it's now online.

Go. Read.

Waiting to Get Shot

On the newspaper’s Web site, Ms. McNichols said she had looked up to see a police officer shot in the head, then saw the gunman shooting at a public works official. “After that, I was on my stomach under the chairs,” she said. “I laid on my stomach waiting to get shot. Oh, God, it was a horror.”

Hey, just give 'em what they want.

[Via Brillianter]

Enforcing Existing Gun Laws with NRA's Rachel Parsons

An NRA representative agreed with Conley, and more.

"We think that cities should take it a step further and prosecute these people in federal court and send them to federal prisons with longer sentences, and no parole, no plea bargains," said spokeswoman Rachel Parsons.

Thanks, Rachel.

Just so I'm clear: When I went to that NRA California/DoJ Registration Fest a few years back, and tore up their form and told them that was the only one they'd get from me, and then retained ownership of my previously lawfully-purchased firearm in defiance of the new edict, is it NRA paid management's position that I should have gone to prison with no parole or plea bargain had I been convicted as a "gun felon"?

As opposed to following NRA paid management's contention that "honest, law-abiding American[s]" would turn in their guns? Where you even provide the escort service?

And it's in my interest to support "The Winning Team" why again?

[Via 1894C]

A Wolf in the Fold

Thirdpower gives us the his take on AHSA's Heller brief...*

Judas Bob warned us it was coming.

David Hardy characterizes it as a "'false flag' operation."

Why would anyone deliberately choose an acronym that began "AH"...?

[*Via Say Uncle]

Pro-Gun Democrats Sign Heller Brief

Montana Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester are among nine Senate Democrats who signed the brief.

Daniel Barnett sent this to me, and added "Be sure to listen to the MP3 accompanying the article as well. Would that the Democratic Party could clone this guy - that would be one way to give Feinstein and Schumer a permanent case of heartburn."

No question, it would be an improvement, but I do note GOA gives Tester a "B" and Baucus a "D." I don't know why, so if you do, feel free to educate us.

I know Daniel is reaching out, and I don't want to discourage that--but my problems with his party as a whole is I just can't figure what part of their platform even remotely respects the clear limitations imposed by this. Of course, I could say the same thing about the modern "Big Tent" Vichy Conservative faction that's taken over the Republicans, too.

As an aside, note the characteristic ignorant assumption of the "Authorized Journalist" reporting this story:

They want the court to rule the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns for their protection.

How the hell are these morons supposed to be watchdogs for Liberty when they don't have a clue as to what rights are?

The Snitch Militia

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.

Ah, "public/private partnerships."

Well, it's The Progressive, so I'm going to take that last line with a grain of salt. But I'll also hold onto some other grains in various measures...

[Via SameNoKami]

Meanwhile, Over at the Cult of Set...

How does a cult figure, in the eyes of some something akin to a messiah, make the transition to a political frontrunner - president even - where disappointment will soon crush what seemed to be a journey to a promised land?

Looking into the faces of a more than 16,000-strong crowd in a basketball stadium in Hartford, Connecticut this week, the Mandela magic I'd seen before was there too. Black and white, and the youth; they appeared in a state close to rapture watching Obama speak. Here and there one could see women crying and the some men wiping away tears too.

I'm surprised nobody was speaking in tongues and rolling in the aisles.

This wasn't a political rally, it was a gathering of Thulsa Doom followers.

I talked about the mindlessness here, where I neglected to mention one of the YouTube commentators credited Obama with giving her the strength to flush her cigarettes down the toilet. Can the laying on of hands be far off?

These are, of course, the first people to bristle and hiss like the snakes they worship at any hint of Judeo-Christian values in the public discourse. If it doesn't issue fatwahs, worship Gaia, or revel in the carnal, it deserves no tolerance...

Obama is not a political phenomenon. He's a mystical one. And that ought to scare the hell out of us.

300

The Saturday event organized by Democratic state Sen. Don Perata had enough funding to take in 300 guns for $250 a piece but ran out of money as people arrived to turn in trunkloads of assault weapons.

This...is...OAKLAND!!!

Earlier in the day, two men were fatally shot outside a house in East Oakland, bringing the city's homicide total this year to 16.

I guess their killer didn't hear about the "buyback"...

[Via Jeffersonian]

We're the Only Ones Setting Our Sights on You Enough

When peaceful protesters gathered in Lima, Ohio last month to denounce the SWAT raid in which police shot and killed 26-year-old Tarika Wilson, and wounded her one-year-old son, the local police department apparently stationed snipers from the same SWAT team on the roofs of the buildings overlooking the protest. It’s been six weeks, now. And we still don’t know what happened in that house, or why the unarmed woman and her child were shot.

The Agitator presents a "Police Militarization Roundup," featuring the finest in "Only Ones" vs. The Rest of Us citizen-scopin', door-smashin', flash-bangin' fun. At least that's what the vet in the video says they looked like they were having...

[Via RyanMG]

The Revolution Has Been Cancelled

From reading the comments I see a lot of chest thumping and calls for action. This reads like so much keyboard commando nonsense. Refighting the American revolution is not going to turn the tide, even if it could be won. The mob has become far too accustomed to bread and circuses to want such a change. This slavery has daycare, convenient shopping, and basic cable.

Brillianter has an "Awkward" moment.

It would be easy to get upset with his conclusions here, but when you consider the sorry state of most of our countrymen, including most "activist" gun owners, I'm afraid that would be a bit like killing the messenger. Still, I don't buy into the defeatism--we have no idea what the future holds, nor what will happen if there is a huge disaster--natural, economic, political-- precipitating areas of anarchy, with the attendant need to find out what we're made of, and with the leadership examples and pressures to organize that would necessitate...

This Day in History: February 11

You cannot conceive what a weight these kind of people are upon the Service, and upon me in particular, few of them have any knowledge of the Branches which they profess to understand, and those that have, are entirely useless as officers, from their ignorance of the English Language. I wish it were possible to make them understand, when Commissions are granted to them, that they are to make themselves Masters of the english Language in some degree, before they can be attached to any particular Corps.

"A True Conservative"

John McCain is a "true conservative," President Bush says...

Well, hey then...

The "Vote freedom First" President says it, I believe it, that settles it.

I'm glad we got that settled. Besides, who doesn't welcome another soothing glass of Kool-Aid?

Guest Editorial: "Awkward"

So, When Should We "Shoot the Bastards?"
by Mike Vanderboegh

9 February 2008

(More along the line of grim thinking inspired by

government misconduct in the Olofson case.)

When the 23rd Regiment was finally back in Boston after the ordeal of April 19, adjutant Frederick Mackenzie wrote in his diary, "I believe the fact is, that General Gage was not only much deceived with respect to the quantity of military stores said to be collected at Concord, but had no conception the rebels would have opposed the King's troops in the manner they did." -- General John Galvin, The Minutemen, Pergamon-Brasseys, 1989, page 244.

"Where to draw the line?"

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." - Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution

Libertarian Wolfe made her famous observation above in the mid-nineties. Now here we are more than ten years later, even more isolated and politically disenfranchised, and we must ask the question: how far do we have to go to get past "awkward?"

History never exactly repeats itself and thus is an imperfect guide. Studying history "we see through a glass, darkly." Still, there are patterns in history that deserve our close attention, so we may better understand how to act in the present and to enable us to better predict the future. Through history, we understand that no idea, bad or good, ever truly dies. We are also shown that people, being human, repeat the mistakes of their ancestors, over and over again. Indeed, there is no one blinder than a historical amnesiac.

So when we consider the question suggested by Claire Wolfe, that is, when are we past the awkward stage and into the day of "shooting the bastards," we must consult history for examples to guide us. I offer firstly a lesson in waiting too long from William Sheridan Allen's outstanding study, The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town (Franklin Watts/Grolier, 1984):

And yet, one has to ask the question, what happened to those who had sworn resistance? What happened to the Reichsbanner, which had repeatedly asserted, in the years before Hitler came to power, that when the expected Nazi coup came they would be able to defend the Republic? In Northeim, at least, the Republic was destroyed without a single blow struck in its defense. The Reichsbanner, with all its plans for instant mobilization, had its members struck down one by one, its leaders imprisoned, beaten, hounded from their jobs and their homes without any resistance from the organization as a whole. Perhaps the basic reason for this was that there was no Nazi coup d'etat. Instead there was a series of quasi-legal actions over a period of at least six months, no one of which by itself constituted a revolution, but the sum of which transformed Germany from a republic to a dictatorship. The problem was where to draw the line. But by the time that line could be clearly drawn, the revolution was a fait accompli, the potential organs of resistance had been individually smashed, and organized resistance was no longer possible. In short, the splendid organization was to no avail; in the actual course of events it was every man for himself. (Allen, p. 191)

Even after reading Allen's work, I have often wondered why the German opposition just laid down without a fight. Back in the nineties, I was talking to Aaron Zelman of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and one of us (I recall it was him, he thinks it was me) made this observation: "If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had possessed a Mauser rifle, 20 rounds of 7.92mm ball and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would have been an obscure footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic." True enough, whoever said it. But as Grant Hammond observed about Colonel John Boyd's seminal theories of warfare:

"There is another trinity in Boyd’s strategic catechism as well. It is a concern for what he lumps together as moral-mental-physical aspects of opponents. Most definitions of war define them as contests in physical violence. Boyd sees them mainly as moral struggles won as much by mental as physical prowess. But he sees the complex—moral-mental-physical—as a single entity, a synthesis that can be broken down analytically but must be understood as a composite whole. It matches another Trinitarian composite, that of people first, ideas second and things third. This happens to be the opposite of the way most militaries approach problem solving by focusing on technology, platforms and weaponry first, ideas about their employment second and people—who are largely interchangeable and ultimately, are expendable—third. This way of thinking has little utility in Boyd’s Way and in fact, may be the seed of many a defeat." (Source: Grant T. Hammond, The Essential Boyd, found at http://www.belisarius.com/modern_business_strategy/hammond/essential_boyd.htm)

Many Americans, especially us small "r" republicans, take heart when we recall that the American citizenry possesses more small arms than most of the world's armies put together. And as Clausewitz observed, in military affairs quantity DOES have a quality all its own (just ask any Korean War veteran about his first experience with a Chinese human wave assault). Still, as Napoleon insisted, "The moral is to the physical as three is to one." We cannot be protected by our possession of a hundred million rifles if we lack the will use them. Iraq was an armed society, yet the Saddam dictatorship had little trouble tyrannizing that country for decades. And it cannot be doubted that there are many American gunowners who would, at the first command of an American tyranny, turn in their weapons simply because they are "law-abiding" people who "don't want any trouble" -- simply because, in fact, they have forgotten what it is to be free. They have grown used to doing what the government tells them to do. And perhaps that was the problem with the Weimar republicans:

The Northeimer Reichsbanner itself was ready to fight in 1933. All it needed was an order from Berlin. Had it been given, Northeimer's Reichsbanner members would have carried out the tested plan they had worked on so long -- to obtain and distribute weapons and to crush the Nazis. But (the local Reichsbanner) would not act on its own. The leaders felt that single acts would come to grief, would possibly compromise the chance when it finally did come, and would, in any event, be a betrayal of discipline. They felt that their only hope was in common action, all together, all over the Reich. Hadn't (their national leaders) said that only a counterattack should be made? So they waited and prayed for the order to come, but it never did. And while they waited the Nazis began tracking them down, one by one. (Allen, p. 191)

The Germans, wholly indoctrinated in obeying orders, were incapable of acting without them. Because their would-be tyrants represented "the government" and cloaked their wolfish actions in "legal" sheepskin, because their own "leaders" could not or would not give the order, they all ended up in a concentration camp -- leaders and followers -- without ever having struck a blow. I am again reminded of Boyd's "moral-mental-physical" dynamic by this observation of Allen's:

"This situation, where even heroism was denied the men of the democratic Left, came about in no small measure because of the failure of the Social Democrats to understand the nature of Nazism. Just as their basic premise in the years before Hitler came to power was the erroneous assumption that the Nazis were essentially Putschists who could not possibly attract a mass following, so their basic premise after Hitler came to power was the equally erroneous assumption that his would be a government similar to the others of the Weimar period." (Ibid, p. 192)

Because of their inability to see the enemy for what he really was (and if ever there was an enemy who delighted in shouting his intentions to the rafters it was Hitler) they went straight from the "awkward stage" to the concentration camps without ever firing a shot.

Thinking and Acting before Feeling.

Now, contrast the behavior of the Germans to that of our Founding Fathers. This is best illustrated by reading Gordon S. Wood's The Creation of the American Republic, 1776 - 1787:

In the American Revolution, Wood wrote, "there was none of the legendary tyranny of history that had so often driven desperate people into rebellion. The Americans were not an oppressed people; they had no crushing imperial shackles to throw off. In fact, the Americans knew they were probably freer and less burdened with cumbersome feudal and hierarchical restraints than any part of mankind in the eighteenth century. To its victims, the Tories, the Revolution was truly incomprehensible. Never in history, said Daniel Leonard, had there been so much rebellion with so 'little real cause.' . . . The objective social reality scarcely seemed capable of explaining a revolution . . .

As early as 1775 Edmund Burke had noted in the House of Commons that the colonists' intensive study of law and politics had made them acutely inquisitive and sensitive about their liberties. Where the people of other countries had invoked principles only after they had endured 'an actual grievance,' the Americans, said Burke, were anticipating their grievances and resorting to principles even before they actually suffered. 'They augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.' The crucial question in the colonists' minds, wrote John Dickerson in 1768, was 'not, what evil HAS ACTUALLY ATTENDED particular measures -- but what evil, in the nature of things, IS LIKELY TO ATTEND them.' Because 'nations, in general, are not apt to THINK until they FEEL, . . .therefore nations in general have lost their liberty.' But not the Americans, as the Abbe Raynal observed. They were "an 'enlightened people' who knew their rights and the limits of power and who, unlike any people before them, aimed to think before they felt."

(Source: Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, UNC Press, 1969, pp. 3-5)

The Founders were people who believed in "preserving the spirit of resistance." To take Abbe Raynal's words to their conclusion, the Founders aimed to think AND act before they felt. Unlike the Germans, their "awkward stage" ended at Lexington green, and ultimately led to liberty. In the light of recent events such as the Olofson case, it seems plain that our own "awkward stage" may be perilously close to drawing to an end. There are those who still insist that such unconstitutional outrages perpetrated under color of law deserve nothing more than verbal condemnation or further attempts at legal redress in a "justice" system rigged against us (as if these thugs pay attention to the law anyway). Used to inaction and afraid of even voicing the threat of justifiable self-defense, these timid souls, these "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots," would have us wait for true tyranny before acting. This was not the way of the Founders. They understood that tyranny is best strangled in its unholy infancy, before it becomes a raging beast. They understood the threat, they prepared to meet it and, in the end, they defeated it. The Germans of the 1930s did not, and they were devoured.

I say we would do well to emulate the Founders rather than the Germans, to think and ACT before we feel, when it will be too late. This is important not only for those Americans who wish to remain free, but for those on the other side who unthinkingly seek to rob us of our freedoms and for those in the middle who (ignoring the Law of Unintended Consequences) sit idly by, content to watch the destruction of the American republic on television while thinking it has nothing to do with, and can have no effect upon, them. If we small "r" republicans do nothing else, we should let the rogue elements of our own government know that in addition to outnumbering them, we still preserve the spirit of resistance, despite have been marginalized politically by the two major parties. Perhaps, if everyone understands that, the Redcoats (now wearing black raid gear) will not once again blunder and unknowingly march out from Boston into an unexpected but perfectly predictable butchery contest.

By our words, our preparations, our training and our actions we, the armed citizenry of the Republic of the United States of America, still have the opportunity to convince them of our unyielding determination to remain free. It may be our last best hope to preserve uninterrupted both our God-given liberties and the domestic peace we have come to love too much. While it is better to be "awkward" than to be dead, it is better still to die fighting than to be enslaved without a fight. Just ask the Germans of the Weimar Republic. So THINK and ACT before you FEEL. The Founders did.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

More About Mike Vanderboegh at WarOnGuns

More Walthamstow Bullet Points

I received the following email in response to "The Thing That Menaced Walthamstow":

I did enjoy reading your blog, and can see how the bullet story must have been amusing. I'm afraid you are seeing the issue entirely through the eyes of a gun control debate, which has little relevance here: I hope this series of sources/articles will be of interest to you, and provide you with the all important context you didn't have about Walthamstow and what it might mean that bullets are turning up in the street. (There is little gun crime to speak of here, but some very dangerous people have been living among us, and still may be).

Best regards,

Julian

Here are the links he included with his email:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6670903.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4784919.stm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2630899.ece

http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/january03_index.php?l=52%82%22=0

http://moonbatmedia.com/mosqueofterror/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/08/13/nplot113.xml

http://prisonplanet.com/articles/August2006/110806_b_suspects.htm

http://infowars.net/articles/August2006/110806plots.htm

I get that the UK now has a culture within a culture, and there is a clash, if I may understate, between the two. I assume Julian's concern is that a loose round could be indicative of potential armed terrorist activity, and thus the reaction of the shopkeeper who found it is more prudent than hysterical.

With no other considerations, I could concede that point. But here's the thing: When you have two disparate peoples with competing and often antagonistic ideologies occupying the same territory, the historical probability is that hostilities will erupt--especially when some newcomers, through their vocal proponents, have advocated taking over their host land.

The appeasers running the UK appear to have no threshold, no line from which they will not back down. From official proclamations that jihad-inspired acts of terrorism be renamed "anti-Islamic activities," to that basest of Quislings the Archbishop of Canterbury advocating establishment of Sharia courts (where's the infamous Tower of London chopping block when you really need it?), it's clear that denizens of the "green and pleasant land" will be the ones to suffer if worst fears come to pass.

And their government's reaction? Mandate their helplessness. Then punish those who won't go gently into that good night. The gun control debate indeed has relevance.

With all due respect, Julian, I would prefer the reaction of a peaceable citizen of the UK, from whatever background or religion, upon finding an unspent cartridge on the ground, to be the same as mine would be: "Hmmm--it's not like me to be so careless as to drop these things and leave them lying around...I'd better make sure everything I own is secure and under control, right now."

With all the implications such a reaction would suggest...

The Art of the Possible

"Politics is the art of the possible," I've been told, generally by those critical of my "absolutist" orneriness as they justify yet another compromise.

"The perfect is the enemy of the good," they are quick to point out.

What I've never been clear on is how people who refuse to push the envelope, and choose the path of appeasement and flexible principles, can consider themselves authorities on what's possible. That's determined by those willing to go to the wall, sometimes climbing over, sometimes breaking through, and sometimes ending up dashed and broken in front of it.

But they went to the wall.

And I don't know any mortal claiming perfection. But I also don't see where someone aiding and abetting evil can claim goodness. The axiom is misleading, and at the very least should be rephrased "The perfect is the enemy of the expedient," just so we're all clear on what we're really buying into.

Winning Without Winning

Restoring Constitutional order to America will not take one day, not even one decade. We have decades of long, hard work ahead of us. Ron Paul has said it again and again, and I am just repeating what he said.

If we want to make sure Ron Paul wins this – if we want to ensure liberty wins – then, no matter how disappointed we feel right now, we must not quit.

Israeli Libertarian makes some points I don't disagree with--I never thought Paul would be a magic pill and always understood that tremendous effort, risk and sacrifice would be required from each of us if we expected to actually change anything.

So I'll be receptive to anyone who comes up with a plan to help guide us out of the swamp. But what I have to question is, why should anyone, right now and from this day forward, think that such an effort will be best served by continuing in a direction the candidate himself has ceded will lead us to a dead end?

I'm just not ready right now to hear about how we're winning on some greater principle. I'd like to believe it, but it's just not what I'm seeing, especially and particularly from people who are ostensibly "liberty activists."

Napolitano at Reason

Click on the title link to access a video of Judge Andrew Napolitano's speech.

What are the chances this guy would ever be nominated for SCOTUS, or make it through the advise and consent gauntlet if he did...?

[Via HZ]

We're the Only Ones Exploring Enough

During the same investigation, the Turlock Police Department is saddened to say that the same 17-year-old victim was sexually assaulted by one of their officers, Officer Jorge Cruz, while participating in the "Turlock Police Department Explorer Program."

Cruz was then arrested on counts of rape, sodomy, and kidnapping charges and has also been placed on administrative leave.

Do they give badges for that?

[Via Plug Nickel Times]