It may surprise some of you to hear me admit this, but I believe questioning
Mike Vanderboegh's letter to the editor is an entirely appropriate discussion to be having in the RKBA activist community. No, I'm not going soft--at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I believe Mike will agree with me.
But
what happened the other day was uncalled for, hysterical and ugly. And it points to a greater issue that must be addressed and faced--the widening gulf between majority "pragmatists" and we happy few "principles freaks."
I personally would not have used Mike's approach with an edge-of-the-pool audience. My goal there would be to persuade them to stick their toes in, perhaps wade around a bit.
But Mike did not share goals with me in this instance, and that's fine, too. He wanted to introduce a concept most had never thought about: What happens if "they" keep pushing and "we" say "No"? What rule says all letters to the editor must be geared to "win hearts and minds"? By what authority does anyone presume that public warnings of dire consequences have no place? How about letters that inspire some of us, and let us know we're not alone, or letters that give those doing the pushing pause to consider there may be an "or else" with personal consequences attached to the "Stop it now"?
That's legitimate. It needs to be considered. And I really see no difference between the letter Mike wrote, which has received such reactionary disapproval, and
Charlton Heston, whom the same people revere, holding up a gun and proclaiming "From my cold dead hands!"
They both presuppose an unjust attack by government precipitating forceful resistance. Just what the hell is the Second Amendment ultimately supposed to be about, if not this? Why is everybody acting like this is some kind of big secret to be kept from the public?
Instead, Mike's letter has been presented in a fundamentally dishonest way--that he is advocating initiating violent revolution, shooting government agents and cops, fomenting civil war. People claiming this are either intentional liars, or just plain ignorant as to the facts and irresponsibly willing to spread malicious information without verifying it.
The corollary to this is Mike's a coward--a loudmouth from the sidelines, a fool who has no clue as to the implications of mass insurrection, urging others to do his dirty work and shed blood while he stays safe. Since the first claim is untrue, this is a mere fabrication based on false assumptions. And hypocritical projections, when you consider how so many of those leveling the charge of cowardice post under aliases.
I also see arrogance and foolishness on the part of Mike's rude critics--their way is the only proven way, anything else is counterproductive. Their presentation is the only one (!) that works. Any other is a diversion of resources and "makes us all look bad."
That's a pretty historically unsubstantiated stance to take. It reminds me of nothing so much as military maneuvers of centuries past--everyone marching in rigid lines into a hail of enemy fire. There's no room for asymmetric guerrilla warfare--political, propaganda or otherwise--in this unimaginative worldview.
There
are other niches to be filled than the political, you know, other tactics to be employed than marching in lock step. Of course there's a place for political activism--if that's where you want to direct your efforts. But ultimately, the way it's being practiced, everything depends on majority rule democracy. Which means anyone living in a major urban area or blue state is screwed. (Unless you file a lawsuit, which the pragmatic leaders initially did everything in their power to sabotage.)
I notice these same people are strangely silent on undeserved NRA ratings given to gun-grabbing politicians. I see them lining up to prove there is no betrayal they will not accept and reward with a "lesser of two evils" vote, as they level ridicule, contempt and blame at anyone who suggests voting on principle.
What I'm really seeing here is hatred--I'm seeing a hatred for those who advocate no compromise that is even fiercer than that which they direct at out-and-out gungrabbers. Wrap your head around that for a moment, and what it means. And this is illustrated by one comment poster on another blog who says he "would shoot the yahoo first," meaning a radical gun owner fighting the government. What's really telling is, not one "pragmatist" chastised him for it.
And it's a greedy hatred. The pragmatic political compromisers have the megaphone in this debate. They are the ones who have the loudest voices, the farthest reach, the most financial backing. The voices of men like Vanderboegh are mostly confined to echoes at wilderness outposts. Blogs like this one hardly make a dent except for a thousand or so daily readers. Most others where Mike's work appears get even fewer.
Yet, as I've said before, and as this latest example illustrates, there are those who begrudge us even this small portion. They demand nothing less than to silence us altogether. There is no room in the debate for men like Mike, men like me, and if you're one of the WoG regulars who believe as we do, men like you.
They want us to shut up. They want us to go away. Here's substantiation, from two gun blogs much more popular than this one:
Get on board, or get your f*cking shed in Montana and start living up to your words. If you aren’t ready to start storming the gates, so to speak, then deep down, you believe that something can be changed inside the system. Get to work now, or shut the hell up and get off the internet. You’re clogging the tubes for people who really want to organize.
and
It is important that law-abiding, patriotic, and SANE/RATIONAL gun owners silence these fools (giving them no platform), because they make us all look like we’re a bunch of paranoid delusionals.
Their way or the highway.
Sorry. I don't think I want to trust my freedom to such as these, so if they don't mind, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. And if they do mind, I'd say they have a problem.
