0 comment Saturday, November 8, 2014 | admin
This is a story I posted over on the Forum a couple of days ago, and which has received little notice. Yet it troubles me in several ways.
Threat in Maine, the whitest state, shakes local NAACP
BANGOR, Me. � In October, the N.A.A.C.P. chapter for northern Maine got shocking news. A man from a nearby town had threatened to shoot "any and all black persons" attending the group�s meetings at an old stone church here, and state prosecutors were worried enough to seek a restraining order.
First of all, please notice the headline the NYT attaches to the story. The fact that Maine is 'the whitest state' seems to carry an implication that this is indicative of a greater propensity for 'hate'. In the New York Times' world, of course, white=hate, so this is not really surprising but still troubling.
Now: before somebody puts words in my mouth, the fact that an elderly (75-year-old) white man supposedly made a threat against the NAACP or black people is not something I intend to defend; although generally I think that if the man has reached 75 years of age and has not heretofore committed violence against others, he is not likely to at this stage of his life.
If, however, he made such a threat, in a credible way, certainly notice should be taken. I don't condone threats, racial or any other kind, from whatever quarter. But the fact is, the man in question has apparently been charged with no crime, although the article says:
This month a state judge signed an order barring Mr. Sawyer from threatening, using violence against or even speaking to any of the chapter�s members. It also requires him to stay at least 150 feet away from anywhere the N.A.A.C.P. meets. A hearing has been delayed for six months while Mr. Sawyer gets medical treatment and counseling, Mr. Harnett said.
And of course Mr. Sawyer has had his firearm taken away. But if he has not been convicted or even charged, how can his gun be taken away? Are our Second Amendment rights so attenuated that it takes merely the word of one witness (in a doctor-patient context) to lose one's right to bear arms? And will Mr. Sawyer's compulsory 'medical treatment' and 'counseling' (read: re-education) involve confinement? Does he have no rights at all, or is he, as an old-stock American, entitled to no such privileges?
It looks as though, judging by the lack of comments over on the forum (save one) I am alone in my concerns about this case. It is about more than just one senior citizen in Maine; it's about the rights of American citizens, especially those of the majority white population. It appears as though 'some are more equal than others.'
How many times have non-whites threatened whites and those of differing races? I suspect there are too many cases to count in an average, say, week in this country. We have seen a number of prominent blacks and Hispanic making very hateful and threatening statements against whites with no consequence whatsoever. For example:
"Go back to Simi Valley, you skunks! Go back to Woodland Hills! Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people, it is your duty to die." Augustin Cebada, Quoted in Barbara Coe, Reconquista, The Takeover of America, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, 1998, p. 20
"We are here to say that violence and racism and hatred of the white man in America is just as American as apple and cherry pie." Khallid Abdul Muhammad, quoted in Las Vegas Review-Journal and Sun, June 14, 1998, pg. 3A
"We have an ageing white America. They are dying. They are ****ting in their pants with fear!� I love it!"-Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, University of Texas, Arlington, from a speech in Jan. 1995, quoted in Coe, 'Reconquista, The Takeover of America
Then there was the speech by ''Dr.'' Kamau Kambon:
A Raleigh activist and bookstore owner told a panel at Howard University Law School on Oct. 14 that the solution to many of the problems faced by black people is the extermination of "white people off the face of the planet." Dr. Kamau Kambon, who taught Africana Studies 241 in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University, also said this needs to be done "because white people want to kill us."
This kind of thing is so routinely spoken by various minority 'activists' that it is met only with yawns from most people. Somehow we dismiss it as venting or just rhetoric. But why does Mr. Sawyer up in Maine not receive the same benefit of the doubt as these 'minority activists'? And the doctor, who is apparently the only witness who asserts that 'threats' were made: who is he? (Oops, of course I mean 'he or she'; how sexist of me to assume the doctor is a man.) But who is the Veterans Administration doctor? A medical doctor? A psychiatrist? What? And do doctors routinely report such conversations as these to authorities?
It may be that these things are happening around America and I just haven't heard of such a case before. I think of the increasing role medical practitioners are being asked to play in gathering information on citizens, supposedly for our own good, of course. Children are being asked questions during doctors' visit about whether or not their parents own guns, or whether there are drugs in their house. When I visit my doctor I am invariably asked about domestic violence, and about whether I am safe in my home. Many of these lines of questioning seem intrusive and one wonders what use is made of the responses; is the government tracking certain data this way?
But to return to the case of Mr. Sawyer, who has been disarmed and ordered into some kind of 'treatment' for his 'sickness', this should be troubling to those who care about personal privacy, freedom, and our Constitutional rights. A number of issues are at stake here. Should anybody lose their right to bear arms, which is a crucial right for a free society, on the strength of one person's assertions? Can one lose one's Second Amendment rights without having been convicted of a felony? Maine's Constitution says:
Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence; and this right shall never be questioned. Article I, section 16.
Can someone be ordered to enter 'counseling' and 'medical treatment' based on their holding or expressing politically incorrect views (such as Mr. Sawyer's purported statement that 'Maine should be a white state)? Another thing which troubles me about this case is that Mr. Sawyer's name and town are mentioned very explicitly. Why? Our media are very scrupulous about not mentioning the names of people involved in various scrapes with the law, or people who are accused but not yet convicted of a crime. The old media are now obsessive about omitting any mention of a suspect's race, even when there is supposedly a manhunt going on, with a dangerous criminal roaming free. They are more careful to avoid any possibility of 'racial profiling' and probably also worried lest the public notice that most of the crimes are being committed by certain groups of people. So they cover the facts up as long as they can. But Mr. Sawyer's name is right out there for the public to see. What's the point of this?
Suppose Mr. Sawyer becomes the target of the racial agitators, like Joe Horn, who shot two burglars in Pasadena, Texas, was. Suppose Mr. Sawyer has an angry mob congregating around his door and making threats? And of course he has been disarmed and left a sitting duck for any self-righteous liberal who wants to make an example of him or 'teach him a lesson.'
So I can see no good reason for publishing Mr. Sawyer's name. Shame on the New York Times. Where are their journalistic ethics? Of course we know the NYT is not the paragon of journalistic virtue they pretend to be, after their many missteps. We all know they have an agenda, and that the Grey Lady is a woman of easy virtue.
A further injustice is that only majority white people are held to rigid standards about 'hate speech' or racial threats. We all know that racial threats are made by minorities on a regular basis, and these are almost never treated as crimes. There is a manifest injustice based on race in the way these laws are applied and enforced. It is evident that 'hate crime' laws are designed to be employed against only one group of people, to benefit another broad category of people. This violates the idea that we are all equal before the law.
And if this kind of thing can happen, and is happening now, we should be very concerned about our rights and freedoms. I am concerned that too few Americans display any zeal for preserving their Consititutional rights and freedoms. With such a passive and apathetic population, the PC tyrants have free rein.
One more thing which strikes me: the name Sawyer has been in New England since the days of the earliest English colonies. The Sawyers are one of the original Mayflower families. It seems Mr. Sawyer is symbolic here of old America, and he is being made an example of. Out with the old, on with the new.
Threat in Maine, the whitest state, shakes local NAACP
BANGOR, Me. � In October, the N.A.A.C.P. chapter for northern Maine got shocking news. A man from a nearby town had threatened to shoot "any and all black persons" attending the group�s meetings at an old stone church here, and state prosecutors were worried enough to seek a restraining order.
First of all, please notice the headline the NYT attaches to the story. The fact that Maine is 'the whitest state' seems to carry an implication that this is indicative of a greater propensity for 'hate'. In the New York Times' world, of course, white=hate, so this is not really surprising but still troubling.
Now: before somebody puts words in my mouth, the fact that an elderly (75-year-old) white man supposedly made a threat against the NAACP or black people is not something I intend to defend; although generally I think that if the man has reached 75 years of age and has not heretofore committed violence against others, he is not likely to at this stage of his life.
If, however, he made such a threat, in a credible way, certainly notice should be taken. I don't condone threats, racial or any other kind, from whatever quarter. But the fact is, the man in question has apparently been charged with no crime, although the article says:
This month a state judge signed an order barring Mr. Sawyer from threatening, using violence against or even speaking to any of the chapter�s members. It also requires him to stay at least 150 feet away from anywhere the N.A.A.C.P. meets. A hearing has been delayed for six months while Mr. Sawyer gets medical treatment and counseling, Mr. Harnett said.
And of course Mr. Sawyer has had his firearm taken away. But if he has not been convicted or even charged, how can his gun be taken away? Are our Second Amendment rights so attenuated that it takes merely the word of one witness (in a doctor-patient context) to lose one's right to bear arms? And will Mr. Sawyer's compulsory 'medical treatment' and 'counseling' (read: re-education) involve confinement? Does he have no rights at all, or is he, as an old-stock American, entitled to no such privileges?
It looks as though, judging by the lack of comments over on the forum (save one) I am alone in my concerns about this case. It is about more than just one senior citizen in Maine; it's about the rights of American citizens, especially those of the majority white population. It appears as though 'some are more equal than others.'
How many times have non-whites threatened whites and those of differing races? I suspect there are too many cases to count in an average, say, week in this country. We have seen a number of prominent blacks and Hispanic making very hateful and threatening statements against whites with no consequence whatsoever. For example:
"Go back to Simi Valley, you skunks! Go back to Woodland Hills! Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people, it is your duty to die." Augustin Cebada, Quoted in Barbara Coe, Reconquista, The Takeover of America, California Coalition for Immigration Reform, 1998, p. 20
"We are here to say that violence and racism and hatred of the white man in America is just as American as apple and cherry pie." Khallid Abdul Muhammad, quoted in Las Vegas Review-Journal and Sun, June 14, 1998, pg. 3A
"We have an ageing white America. They are dying. They are ****ting in their pants with fear!� I love it!"-Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, University of Texas, Arlington, from a speech in Jan. 1995, quoted in Coe, 'Reconquista, The Takeover of America
Then there was the speech by ''Dr.'' Kamau Kambon:
A Raleigh activist and bookstore owner told a panel at Howard University Law School on Oct. 14 that the solution to many of the problems faced by black people is the extermination of "white people off the face of the planet." Dr. Kamau Kambon, who taught Africana Studies 241 in the Spring 2005 semester at North Carolina State University, also said this needs to be done "because white people want to kill us."
This kind of thing is so routinely spoken by various minority 'activists' that it is met only with yawns from most people. Somehow we dismiss it as venting or just rhetoric. But why does Mr. Sawyer up in Maine not receive the same benefit of the doubt as these 'minority activists'? And the doctor, who is apparently the only witness who asserts that 'threats' were made: who is he? (Oops, of course I mean 'he or she'; how sexist of me to assume the doctor is a man.) But who is the Veterans Administration doctor? A medical doctor? A psychiatrist? What? And do doctors routinely report such conversations as these to authorities?
It may be that these things are happening around America and I just haven't heard of such a case before. I think of the increasing role medical practitioners are being asked to play in gathering information on citizens, supposedly for our own good, of course. Children are being asked questions during doctors' visit about whether or not their parents own guns, or whether there are drugs in their house. When I visit my doctor I am invariably asked about domestic violence, and about whether I am safe in my home. Many of these lines of questioning seem intrusive and one wonders what use is made of the responses; is the government tracking certain data this way?
But to return to the case of Mr. Sawyer, who has been disarmed and ordered into some kind of 'treatment' for his 'sickness', this should be troubling to those who care about personal privacy, freedom, and our Constitutional rights. A number of issues are at stake here. Should anybody lose their right to bear arms, which is a crucial right for a free society, on the strength of one person's assertions? Can one lose one's Second Amendment rights without having been convicted of a felony? Maine's Constitution says:
Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms for the common defence; and this right shall never be questioned. Article I, section 16.
Can someone be ordered to enter 'counseling' and 'medical treatment' based on their holding or expressing politically incorrect views (such as Mr. Sawyer's purported statement that 'Maine should be a white state)? Another thing which troubles me about this case is that Mr. Sawyer's name and town are mentioned very explicitly. Why? Our media are very scrupulous about not mentioning the names of people involved in various scrapes with the law, or people who are accused but not yet convicted of a crime. The old media are now obsessive about omitting any mention of a suspect's race, even when there is supposedly a manhunt going on, with a dangerous criminal roaming free. They are more careful to avoid any possibility of 'racial profiling' and probably also worried lest the public notice that most of the crimes are being committed by certain groups of people. So they cover the facts up as long as they can. But Mr. Sawyer's name is right out there for the public to see. What's the point of this?
Suppose Mr. Sawyer becomes the target of the racial agitators, like Joe Horn, who shot two burglars in Pasadena, Texas, was. Suppose Mr. Sawyer has an angry mob congregating around his door and making threats? And of course he has been disarmed and left a sitting duck for any self-righteous liberal who wants to make an example of him or 'teach him a lesson.'
So I can see no good reason for publishing Mr. Sawyer's name. Shame on the New York Times. Where are their journalistic ethics? Of course we know the NYT is not the paragon of journalistic virtue they pretend to be, after their many missteps. We all know they have an agenda, and that the Grey Lady is a woman of easy virtue.
A further injustice is that only majority white people are held to rigid standards about 'hate speech' or racial threats. We all know that racial threats are made by minorities on a regular basis, and these are almost never treated as crimes. There is a manifest injustice based on race in the way these laws are applied and enforced. It is evident that 'hate crime' laws are designed to be employed against only one group of people, to benefit another broad category of people. This violates the idea that we are all equal before the law.
And if this kind of thing can happen, and is happening now, we should be very concerned about our rights and freedoms. I am concerned that too few Americans display any zeal for preserving their Consititutional rights and freedoms. With such a passive and apathetic population, the PC tyrants have free rein.
One more thing which strikes me: the name Sawyer has been in New England since the days of the earliest English colonies. The Sawyers are one of the original Mayflower families. It seems Mr. Sawyer is symbolic here of old America, and he is being made an example of. Out with the old, on with the new.
Labels: Hate Crime, Hate Speech, Justice System, Mainstream Media, Media Bias, Political Correctness, Second Amendment, Thought Crime
0 comment Sunday, November 2, 2014 | admin
Some thoughts that come to mind in light of the recent shooting in North Carolina:
First, it seems that the crime, bad as it is, was given more publicity than this, which was in some ways even more horrific
Why was there the difference in coverage? Because the North Carolina killings fit the leftist media's template; they like to play up 'gun violence', as if a gun in and of itself renders the crime worse. And then there is the race factor: the killer in the North Carolina case is a White middle-aged male, of the type that the media like to dwell on. I leave it to my readers as to why that is.
By contrast, the Massachusetts killings involved immigrants, and nonwhites at that, so the same kind of coverage will not be given to that story.
Likewise, this story involving Laotian and Vietnamese immigrant families who were involved in drug dealing.
White male+gun crime=Sensationalized coverage.
Nonwhites (especially immigrants)+other weapons=little coverage
The message that is received by people especially in other countries is that America is one of the most dangerous places on earth, where murder is supposedly commonplace, while in fact many other countries have higher murder rates and higher crime rates in general.
According to the Time Magazine article linked in the previous sentence, the United States crime rate has been dropping.
I can't count the number of times I have heard from someone that America is the most dangerous place on earth, or that our murder and crime rates are the highest. People outside the United States seem to believe this even more fervently than native-born liberal Americans, who like to believe the very worst about their own nation and people.
I often find it nearly impossible to convince them that the average crime rate is skewed by the fact that we have large numbers of minority groups who commit proportionately more crimes, and we have urban areas where the demographics add up to a very high crime rate.
Apart from these anomalies, America is not a crime-ridden nation, and there are many quiet towns and suburbs where people live in safety. In my county, there are many people who, believe it or not, still do not lock their doors. There is very little crime in the town where I live, as yet, though with the demographic changes that are surely coming, that will not always be the case.
There also seems to be a disturbing trend towards the widespread use of psychiatric drugs which seem to cause violent behavior, and there is no question but that our doctors and medical establishment actively push anti-depressant and other psychiatric drugs on patients, even those who are not seeking help for depression or other emotional problems. Many of these mass shootings seem to be related to these drugs.
And in our stressful and chaotic times, I suspect there are more people who are likely to 'snap', and how can we protect against such behaviors? Can we lock people up pre-emptively? We no longer commit people who are mentally disturbed; thanks to liberal policies, we ended involuntary commitment, so we are compelled to wait until someone has acted out to be able to confine them. Then it is too late, in many cases.
Still, America is nevertheless a great deal safer than much of the Western Hemisphere nations. Our neighbor to the North, Canada, used to be quite crime-free, but now they have been smitten with the diversity mania, and the crime rate will increase, despite their prohibitions against gun ownership.
One of the things that might be said about the safest parts of these United States is that the safest areas, I would venture, are areas where more citizens own guns. Liberal areas, which usually include the large cities and their immediate suburbs, are usually areas with fewer legal guns and more illegal ones in the possession of criminal or criminally-prone people.
So lack of guns does not lead to a peaceful community; just look at Washington, D.C. which has an astronomical crime rate and strict gun laws. Still, it's in the air: the media are on one of their anti-gun crusades, and they are doing that in lockstep with the current regime, which would love to diminish and ultimately do away with our Second Amendment rights.
Here are some facts from a pro-Second Amendment website, which are interesting even if a bit dated:
Americans use firearms to defend themselves from criminals at least 764,000 times a year. This figure is the lowest among a group of 9 nationwide surveys done by organizations including Gallup and the Los Angeles Times. In 1982, a survey of imprisoned criminals found that 34% of them had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim." In about 5 years since enactment of the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban in 1993, there have been 9 "school massacres." Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%.
And from the Second Amendment Foundation's Q & A:
14. Should Guns be Banned?
We believe absolutely that guns should not be banned. We believe that in our constitution, gun ownership is protected just like freedom of speech, and the freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. We believe that the Bill of Rights are interdependent, in other words that you cannot pick which ones to honor, and which ones to ignore. If this is allowed, no civil rights are safe. We also believe that the right to defend one's self is a basic human right, and that banning guns would deprive law-abiding citizens of the ability to defend themselves from armed criminals. We also believe that gun ownership keeps crime down, and that that claim is supported by scientific research. John Lott, Jr., a researcher at Yale University, found that on average, violent crime dropped by 4 percent for each 1 percent increase in gun ownership. Also, firearms are used defensively 2.5 million times every year, more than four times as many as criminal uses. This amounts to 2,575 lives saved for every one taken by a gun. ''
[...]
19. Why do people want guns?
There are as many different reasons for wanting to own a gun as there are guns to own. First, a gun can be a sporting tool. Target shooting is incorporated in many different Olympic competitions. Target shooting has always been very popular in the United States. On the sporting aspect of things, guns are also a vital part of hunting. Hunting, again, is a very popular pastime.
Guns are also a valuable tool for self-defense. A gun is an equalizer. This means that a gun allows a small or un-athletic person to defend themselves from a criminal no matter how big or strong the criminal may be. Guns are also a great crime deterrent. When a criminal thinks you might be armed, he is less likely to choose you as a victim. The right to defend oneself from criminals is a basic human right, and a gun is one of the best tools to protect yourself, as well as your family, from crime. Forty-six percent of gun owners report owning guns for protection from crime.
Finally, the founding father's believed that gun ownership was necessary for a country to truly be free. If the government distrusted the people so much as to disarm them, then that government no longer truly represented the people. In other words, in our structure of government, the power is supposed to lie in the hands of the people. How would it make sense for that government, of the people, to take away the most effective means of self defense from those people? ''
It seems, though, that our homegrown liberals will never come around to seeing the importance of the Second Amendment, and our natural right to self-defense; to the liberal, guns=bad. No argument will persuade them otherwise. Likewise with many of our cousins across the Atlantic who consider us barbaric and backward to even want our Second Amendment rights. If the rest of the world could vote on it, they would vote to disarm us and feel quite virtuous about doing it.
This, to me, is confounding: from where we sit on this side of the Atlantic, it looks as if Europe is about to be overcome by Moslem and other Third World invaders, many of whom have violent proclivities. Why would one consider being unarmed a good thing in those circumstances? Do our European cousins not even consider the possibility of the need for self-defense and basic self-preservation? As we, from our side of the ocean, see French cities burning, and violence in the U.K, along with authorities who are at best indifferent to the lives of their citizens, the situation looks alarming.
And we here in the U.S. are increasingly seeing drug-related violence crossing our ''border'' with Mexico, while our government blames us for supposedly arming them, and hopes to curtail our rights to self-defense, while the same government makes no effort to protect us from invasion. What will happen if the gun banners get their way and we no longer have the means to defend ourselves? We will be easy prey, sitting ducks, as our disarmed cousins across the Atlantic seem to be.
I think any honest, thinking American acknowledges the wisdom of our Founding Fathers; they were a sight wiser than most of today's sorry leaders. And they were absolutely adamant that American citizens ought to be armed, and have the right to self-defense.
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."--Thomas Jefferson
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..." - Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Member of the First U.S. Senate.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." - James Madison, 4th President of the United States, I Annuals of Congress 434
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 29.
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 243-244.
"[S]elf-defense is justly called the primary law of nature� [It] cannot be taken away by the laws of society." - William Blackstone
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation." - Thomas Jefferson
"Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and therefore any state of society in which the sword is all the time suspended over the heads of the people must at last become intolerable." - President James Buchanan
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - Patrick Henry, 1788
"...to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them..." - George Mason
"Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - Tench Coxe, 1788
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms." - Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
"Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest." - Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." (meaning "a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand".) -- Seneca the Younger
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."- Cesare Beccaria, as quoted in Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave". - from "Political Disquisitions", 1774
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..." - Samuel Adams, 1789
The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the *government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage. - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93
[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. " - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders"
The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." - Aristotle
First, it seems that the crime, bad as it is, was given more publicity than this, which was in some ways even more horrific
Why was there the difference in coverage? Because the North Carolina killings fit the leftist media's template; they like to play up 'gun violence', as if a gun in and of itself renders the crime worse. And then there is the race factor: the killer in the North Carolina case is a White middle-aged male, of the type that the media like to dwell on. I leave it to my readers as to why that is.
By contrast, the Massachusetts killings involved immigrants, and nonwhites at that, so the same kind of coverage will not be given to that story.
Likewise, this story involving Laotian and Vietnamese immigrant families who were involved in drug dealing.
White male+gun crime=Sensationalized coverage.
Nonwhites (especially immigrants)+other weapons=little coverage
The message that is received by people especially in other countries is that America is one of the most dangerous places on earth, where murder is supposedly commonplace, while in fact many other countries have higher murder rates and higher crime rates in general.
According to the Time Magazine article linked in the previous sentence, the United States crime rate has been dropping.
I can't count the number of times I have heard from someone that America is the most dangerous place on earth, or that our murder and crime rates are the highest. People outside the United States seem to believe this even more fervently than native-born liberal Americans, who like to believe the very worst about their own nation and people.
I often find it nearly impossible to convince them that the average crime rate is skewed by the fact that we have large numbers of minority groups who commit proportionately more crimes, and we have urban areas where the demographics add up to a very high crime rate.
Apart from these anomalies, America is not a crime-ridden nation, and there are many quiet towns and suburbs where people live in safety. In my county, there are many people who, believe it or not, still do not lock their doors. There is very little crime in the town where I live, as yet, though with the demographic changes that are surely coming, that will not always be the case.
There also seems to be a disturbing trend towards the widespread use of psychiatric drugs which seem to cause violent behavior, and there is no question but that our doctors and medical establishment actively push anti-depressant and other psychiatric drugs on patients, even those who are not seeking help for depression or other emotional problems. Many of these mass shootings seem to be related to these drugs.
And in our stressful and chaotic times, I suspect there are more people who are likely to 'snap', and how can we protect against such behaviors? Can we lock people up pre-emptively? We no longer commit people who are mentally disturbed; thanks to liberal policies, we ended involuntary commitment, so we are compelled to wait until someone has acted out to be able to confine them. Then it is too late, in many cases.
Still, America is nevertheless a great deal safer than much of the Western Hemisphere nations. Our neighbor to the North, Canada, used to be quite crime-free, but now they have been smitten with the diversity mania, and the crime rate will increase, despite their prohibitions against gun ownership.
One of the things that might be said about the safest parts of these United States is that the safest areas, I would venture, are areas where more citizens own guns. Liberal areas, which usually include the large cities and their immediate suburbs, are usually areas with fewer legal guns and more illegal ones in the possession of criminal or criminally-prone people.
So lack of guns does not lead to a peaceful community; just look at Washington, D.C. which has an astronomical crime rate and strict gun laws. Still, it's in the air: the media are on one of their anti-gun crusades, and they are doing that in lockstep with the current regime, which would love to diminish and ultimately do away with our Second Amendment rights.
Here are some facts from a pro-Second Amendment website, which are interesting even if a bit dated:
And from the Second Amendment Foundation's Q & A:
14. Should Guns be Banned?
We believe absolutely that guns should not be banned. We believe that in our constitution, gun ownership is protected just like freedom of speech, and the freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. We believe that the Bill of Rights are interdependent, in other words that you cannot pick which ones to honor, and which ones to ignore. If this is allowed, no civil rights are safe. We also believe that the right to defend one's self is a basic human right, and that banning guns would deprive law-abiding citizens of the ability to defend themselves from armed criminals. We also believe that gun ownership keeps crime down, and that that claim is supported by scientific research. John Lott, Jr., a researcher at Yale University, found that on average, violent crime dropped by 4 percent for each 1 percent increase in gun ownership. Also, firearms are used defensively 2.5 million times every year, more than four times as many as criminal uses. This amounts to 2,575 lives saved for every one taken by a gun. ''
[...]
19. Why do people want guns?
There are as many different reasons for wanting to own a gun as there are guns to own. First, a gun can be a sporting tool. Target shooting is incorporated in many different Olympic competitions. Target shooting has always been very popular in the United States. On the sporting aspect of things, guns are also a vital part of hunting. Hunting, again, is a very popular pastime.
Guns are also a valuable tool for self-defense. A gun is an equalizer. This means that a gun allows a small or un-athletic person to defend themselves from a criminal no matter how big or strong the criminal may be. Guns are also a great crime deterrent. When a criminal thinks you might be armed, he is less likely to choose you as a victim. The right to defend oneself from criminals is a basic human right, and a gun is one of the best tools to protect yourself, as well as your family, from crime. Forty-six percent of gun owners report owning guns for protection from crime.
Finally, the founding father's believed that gun ownership was necessary for a country to truly be free. If the government distrusted the people so much as to disarm them, then that government no longer truly represented the people. In other words, in our structure of government, the power is supposed to lie in the hands of the people. How would it make sense for that government, of the people, to take away the most effective means of self defense from those people? ''
It seems, though, that our homegrown liberals will never come around to seeing the importance of the Second Amendment, and our natural right to self-defense; to the liberal, guns=bad. No argument will persuade them otherwise. Likewise with many of our cousins across the Atlantic who consider us barbaric and backward to even want our Second Amendment rights. If the rest of the world could vote on it, they would vote to disarm us and feel quite virtuous about doing it.
This, to me, is confounding: from where we sit on this side of the Atlantic, it looks as if Europe is about to be overcome by Moslem and other Third World invaders, many of whom have violent proclivities. Why would one consider being unarmed a good thing in those circumstances? Do our European cousins not even consider the possibility of the need for self-defense and basic self-preservation? As we, from our side of the ocean, see French cities burning, and violence in the U.K, along with authorities who are at best indifferent to the lives of their citizens, the situation looks alarming.
And we here in the U.S. are increasingly seeing drug-related violence crossing our ''border'' with Mexico, while our government blames us for supposedly arming them, and hopes to curtail our rights to self-defense, while the same government makes no effort to protect us from invasion. What will happen if the gun banners get their way and we no longer have the means to defend ourselves? We will be easy prey, sitting ducks, as our disarmed cousins across the Atlantic seem to be.
I think any honest, thinking American acknowledges the wisdom of our Founding Fathers; they were a sight wiser than most of today's sorry leaders. And they were absolutely adamant that American citizens ought to be armed, and have the right to self-defense.
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."--Thomas Jefferson
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms..." - Richard Henry Lee, 1788, Member of the First U.S. Senate.
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well-armed, and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." - James Madison, 4th President of the United States, I Annuals of Congress 434
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..." - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 29.
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." - James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 243-244.
"[S]elf-defense is justly called the primary law of nature� [It] cannot be taken away by the laws of society." - William Blackstone
"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation." - Thomas Jefferson
"Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and therefore any state of society in which the sword is all the time suspended over the heads of the people must at last become intolerable." - President James Buchanan
"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - Patrick Henry, 1788
"...to disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them..." - George Mason
"Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ...the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - Tench Coxe, 1788
"One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offense to keep arms." - Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
"Men trained in arms from their infancy, and animated by the love of liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy conquest." - Declaration of the Continental Congress, July 1775.
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." -- Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est." (meaning "a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand".) -- Seneca the Younger
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."- Cesare Beccaria, as quoted in Thomas Jefferson's Commonplace book
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave". - from "Political Disquisitions", 1774
That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..." - Samuel Adams, 1789
The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the *government*, not to *society*; and as long as they have nothing to revenge in the government (which they cannot have while it is in their own hands) there are many advantages in their being accustomed to the use of arms, and no possible disadvantage. - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders", 1792-93
[The disarming of citizens] has a double effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind: a habitual disuse of physical forces totally destroys the moral [force]; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression. " - Joel Barlow, "Advice to the Privileged Orders"
The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." - Henry St. George Tucker
"Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." - Aristotle
Labels: Constitution, Gun Control, Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Second Amendment, Self-Defense
0 comment Saturday, September 6, 2014 | admin
Remember the story last November of the Texas man, Joe Horn, who shot two illegal alien burglars in his yard?
Good news: he's been no-billed. Read it here:
Grand jury clears Joe Horn in controversial Pasadena shootings
... Horn's attorney, Tom Lambright, first heard the news in a phone call from 11 News.
"I'm sure Joe will be delighted," Lambright said. "I think the evidence showed that Joe was, in fact, within his legal rights to do what he did. He didn't want to do it, but he didn't have any other alternative."
Lambright said Horn still feels awful about the shooting and is not ready to comment publicly yet.
He said Horn is very grateful to the people who supported him and stood behind him.''
Of course the so-called 'community activists' see this as 'frightening.' For them, the ''right'' -- of certain groups of people, at least -- to trespass, burglarize, and escape with impunity is paramount, while the castle doctrine, allowing a man to defend home and property, frightens them.
The article concludes by telling us that police went to Horn's neighborhood 'as a precaution.' Precaution against what? 'Community activists' coming in to stir up more trouble?
Last December these same activists received a 'warm' welcome from Joe Horn's neighbors. Remember this video of that encounter? It was quite a shock at that time to see this kind of show of backbone. We have become so used to seeing the other side win every skirmish simply by default, because our side tends to be divided and/or apathetic. Once in a while we see glimpses of life on our side, and it is heartening.
I hope the people of Pasadena, Texas show the same resolute character they showed in the video should Mr. X and his friends return.
Good news: he's been no-billed. Read it here:
Grand jury clears Joe Horn in controversial Pasadena shootings
... Horn's attorney, Tom Lambright, first heard the news in a phone call from 11 News.
"I'm sure Joe will be delighted," Lambright said. "I think the evidence showed that Joe was, in fact, within his legal rights to do what he did. He didn't want to do it, but he didn't have any other alternative."
Lambright said Horn still feels awful about the shooting and is not ready to comment publicly yet.
He said Horn is very grateful to the people who supported him and stood behind him.''
Of course the so-called 'community activists' see this as 'frightening.' For them, the ''right'' -- of certain groups of people, at least -- to trespass, burglarize, and escape with impunity is paramount, while the castle doctrine, allowing a man to defend home and property, frightens them.
The article concludes by telling us that police went to Horn's neighborhood 'as a precaution.' Precaution against what? 'Community activists' coming in to stir up more trouble?
Last December these same activists received a 'warm' welcome from Joe Horn's neighbors. Remember this video of that encounter? It was quite a shock at that time to see this kind of show of backbone. We have become so used to seeing the other side win every skirmish simply by default, because our side tends to be divided and/or apathetic. Once in a while we see glimpses of life on our side, and it is heartening.
I hope the people of Pasadena, Texas show the same resolute character they showed in the video should Mr. X and his friends return.
Labels: Anti-White Racism, Castle Doctrine, Crime, Illegal Immigration, Second Amendment, Self-Defense
0 comment Monday, August 18, 2014 | admin
I think it's easy to guess how this unfortunate story will be used by our media and our current regime.
As we can see in this op-ed piece, all of us on the right are going to be tarred for the shooting of the notorious abortionist, George Tiller. The piece suggests that any of us who oppose abortion, including and especially ''late-term'' abortion, are as guilty as the man who pulled the trigger.
With Tiller slaying, abortion foes lose their moral standing
By midafternoon Sunday, authorities had a 50-something man in custody in connection with the murder of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller, killed while serving as an usher at his church.
So far, we know little about the suspect, other than that he was driving a blue Ford when the cops stopped him outside Gardner.
However, the motive for the crime we can all surmise, given the vitriolic rhetoric aimed at Tiller these past couple of decades by anti-abortion activists.
And if we�re right about that, then we know the identities of his accomplices.
They include everyone who has ever called Tiller�s late-term abortion clinic a murder mill.
Whoever called Tiller "Tiller the Killer."
Groups that fomented hate toward a man who, rightly or wrongly, believed he was serving a noble purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.
Hate. Not heated opposition. Not strong disagreement.
But blind hatred.
The kind of hate that would prompt some maniac to take a gun into a church and shoot a man to death in front of friends and family.
His accomplices know they have blood on their hands, which might explain why they were quick to issue statements expressing disapproval of Tiller�s murder.
When we consider, however, that the left does not accord those of us on the right any moral standing to begin with, I suppose we haven't lost anything really. But we can be sure that this story will be milked for all it's worth to further criminalize the right.
This AP article mentions that the suspected shooter has an Internet history of expressing anti-abortion views. It should give us pause to notice how quickly, in cases like this, someone's Internet history is scrutinized and mined for anything to make them look guilty.
As of now, however, we don't know for certain what the motive was for this shooting, though the AP story certainly makes the suspect look guilty, as does this AP story, which ties him to 'anti-government' groups. It's almost like he was sent from Central Casting to fill the role of the 'terrorist' militiaman, as described by our 'homeland security' people. He even, according to the article, has a 'Christian fish symbol with the word Jesus inside' on his car. Imagine that!
At Vox Day's blog, there is quite a lengthy thread on this incident with many people expressing little sympathy for Tiller.
Vox himself questions what kind of church would welcome this man with his abortion practice. That thought had occurred to me, too, but it seems that he must attend a very liberal, abortion-accepting church. For the church be able to turn a blind eye to someone's having aborted 60,000 babies, as he claims to have done, is rather staggering.
This website documents the long-running protests in Wichita against this doctor's clinic, and the procedures being done there. If you read through the site, you will read of some of the practices which one of Vox Day's commenters alluded to in the thread linked above -- such as the 'extra services' offered, like baptism of the aborted babies, handprints and footprints, etc. How ironic is that? It certainly suggests a kind of brazenness at the very least.
There is also the political question of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's connections to Tiller.
The Sebelius nomination has been stridently opposed by pro-life advocates who have cited her personal and financial ties to the abortion industry, in addition to her pro-abortion record. However, their concerns were not aired in Sebelius' first two confirmation hearings.''
Still, I stop short of condoning the killing of abortionists, no matter how reprehensible we find their activities. This seems to be one of those situations where the Scripture ''vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord'' applies.
It is really regrettable that this incident will not only prove futile in stopping late-term abortions, but will further stimulate the left's witch-hunt against the right. The shooter was a godsend for the left. He embodies everything they hate: a White male, Christian, pro-lifer, anti-government ''militia type," if we are to believe the reports. And the crime was committed with a gun.
The end result will be a more militant left-wing jihad against the right, and against guns in particular. It will probably result in a further curtailment of our freedom of speech and assembly, and more surveillance on the Internet and elsewhere.
This incident was made to order for the left.
As we can see in this op-ed piece, all of us on the right are going to be tarred for the shooting of the notorious abortionist, George Tiller. The piece suggests that any of us who oppose abortion, including and especially ''late-term'' abortion, are as guilty as the man who pulled the trigger.
With Tiller slaying, abortion foes lose their moral standing
By midafternoon Sunday, authorities had a 50-something man in custody in connection with the murder of Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller, killed while serving as an usher at his church.
So far, we know little about the suspect, other than that he was driving a blue Ford when the cops stopped him outside Gardner.
However, the motive for the crime we can all surmise, given the vitriolic rhetoric aimed at Tiller these past couple of decades by anti-abortion activists.
And if we�re right about that, then we know the identities of his accomplices.
They include everyone who has ever called Tiller�s late-term abortion clinic a murder mill.
Whoever called Tiller "Tiller the Killer."
Groups that fomented hate toward a man who, rightly or wrongly, believed he was serving a noble purpose by being one of the few doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.
Hate. Not heated opposition. Not strong disagreement.
But blind hatred.
The kind of hate that would prompt some maniac to take a gun into a church and shoot a man to death in front of friends and family.
His accomplices know they have blood on their hands, which might explain why they were quick to issue statements expressing disapproval of Tiller�s murder.
When we consider, however, that the left does not accord those of us on the right any moral standing to begin with, I suppose we haven't lost anything really. But we can be sure that this story will be milked for all it's worth to further criminalize the right.
This AP article mentions that the suspected shooter has an Internet history of expressing anti-abortion views. It should give us pause to notice how quickly, in cases like this, someone's Internet history is scrutinized and mined for anything to make them look guilty.
As of now, however, we don't know for certain what the motive was for this shooting, though the AP story certainly makes the suspect look guilty, as does this AP story, which ties him to 'anti-government' groups. It's almost like he was sent from Central Casting to fill the role of the 'terrorist' militiaman, as described by our 'homeland security' people. He even, according to the article, has a 'Christian fish symbol with the word Jesus inside' on his car. Imagine that!
At Vox Day's blog, there is quite a lengthy thread on this incident with many people expressing little sympathy for Tiller.
Vox himself questions what kind of church would welcome this man with his abortion practice. That thought had occurred to me, too, but it seems that he must attend a very liberal, abortion-accepting church. For the church be able to turn a blind eye to someone's having aborted 60,000 babies, as he claims to have done, is rather staggering.
This website documents the long-running protests in Wichita against this doctor's clinic, and the procedures being done there. If you read through the site, you will read of some of the practices which one of Vox Day's commenters alluded to in the thread linked above -- such as the 'extra services' offered, like baptism of the aborted babies, handprints and footprints, etc. How ironic is that? It certainly suggests a kind of brazenness at the very least.
There is also the political question of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's connections to Tiller.
The Sebelius nomination has been stridently opposed by pro-life advocates who have cited her personal and financial ties to the abortion industry, in addition to her pro-abortion record. However, their concerns were not aired in Sebelius' first two confirmation hearings.''
Still, I stop short of condoning the killing of abortionists, no matter how reprehensible we find their activities. This seems to be one of those situations where the Scripture ''vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord'' applies.
It is really regrettable that this incident will not only prove futile in stopping late-term abortions, but will further stimulate the left's witch-hunt against the right. The shooter was a godsend for the left. He embodies everything they hate: a White male, Christian, pro-lifer, anti-government ''militia type," if we are to believe the reports. And the crime was committed with a gun.
The end result will be a more militant left-wing jihad against the right, and against guns in particular. It will probably result in a further curtailment of our freedom of speech and assembly, and more surveillance on the Internet and elsewhere.
This incident was made to order for the left.
Labels: Abortion Pro-Life, Anti-Christianity, Christianity, Leftism, Media Bias, Second Amendment
0 comment Thursday, August 14, 2014 | admin
Here is an interesting piece from The American Conservative about the 'militia scares', Terror Begins at Home, the most recent being the MIAC Report, in which the Missouri Department of Public Safety reported on certain kinds of people, for example Ron Paul supporters, being potential 'militia members.'
As the article at AmCon describes, this kind of thing seems to go in cycles; when a Republican administration is replaced by a liberal Democrat regime, there tends to be a phenomenon, in which the media and the liberal regime gin up concerns over 'right-wing extremists' being a danger.
The most recent scare, before the present administration, was during the Clinton years, but that was not the first such cycle.
From 1938 through 1941, the media regularly presented stories suggesting that the U.S. was about to be overwhelmed by ultra-Right fifth columnists, millions strong, intimately allied with the Axis powers. (Actual numbers of serious militants were in the low thousands at most.) Reportedly, the militant Right was armed to the teeth and plotting countless domestic terror attacks�bombings in New York and Washington, assassinations and pogroms, the wrecking of trains and munitions plants. Plotters were rumored to have high-placed allies in the military, raising the specter of a putsch. The ensuing panic was orchestrated by newspapers and radio and reinforced by films, newsreels, and comic books. Historians characterize these years as the Brown Scare.
[...]
However thin the underlying charges, the Brown Scare clearly helped to promote a New Deal agenda at home and interventionism overseas. For interventionists, the Terror Crisis suggested that fascist powers already were attempting to subvert America, forcing the nation to confront the foreign danger. Above all, the scare provided a powerful weapon for defaming anyone on the Right who opposed FDR�s drift to war. Targets included not only isolationist senators and congressmen but also the potent antiwar organization America First, which drew support from a broad and reputable cross-section of public opinion�conservative, liberal, and socialist, Catholic and Protestant. By 1941, though, the antiwar movement was battered by allegations of fascist and anti-Semitic ties. Under Cover portrayed America First as an aboveground front for the most extreme and lethal paramilitary fascist groups. As so often before and since, a burgeoning antiwar movement was crippled by charges that it was covertly allied with the nation�s enemies. So successful was this tarring that in popular memory, America Firsters stand alongside Nazis and Klansmen as traitors, subversives, and bigots. In terms of achieving its goals, the Brown Scare worked superbly.''
Read the rest; it's interesting and pertinent to the present situation.
But when I read it, I thought of a piece from The Atlantic, which was published in the Clinton era, in 1996. I had not read it for a while, but it seems to be apposite these days, in light of the increasing push toward globalization and post-nationalism, and also the re-making of the Army with a whole different role envisioned for our military. The article is titled 'Fort Leavenworth and the Eclipse of Nationhood'
and though it's fairly lengthy, it is interesting to read and to see how closely the script has been followed as we move toward this 'brave new world' envisioned in the 1990s.
This passage in particular seems to fit with the AmCon piece. The writer discusses roundtable discussions at Fort Leaveworth:
GLOBAL reconstruction, or something like it, is more a description -- and a rationalization -- of what we are already halfheartedly doing than a cause behind which Americans will ever rally. Many parts of the world cannot be saved, and the voters instinctively know it. We may have run out of foreign causes that can buttress our own nationhood. Fighting faceless plutonium smugglers, high birth rates in Africa, and tropical-disease pandemics, although clearly worthwhile, will not engender drum-beating patriotism the way fighting Hitler did. Sure, there are always domestic causes to rally the nation -- but for the most part they are best handled as sudden crises. A protracted deterioration involving crime, family life, class divisions, and so on is hard to halt, and easy to deny.
It was with such lugubrious thoughts that I listened to a number of round-table discussions at Leavenworth. In one a group of majors lamented the end of the draft. "People who want the draft back are hankering after a lost golden age," Major Robert Everson said. "The draft is obsolete because of the way warfare is changing. War has become so technological that it takes too long to train people who will only serve for a year or two." The talk switched to Oklahoma City. A Marine in the group, Major Craig Tucker, said, "The minute I heard about Oklahoma City, I knew who did it -- rednecks, the kind of guys from southern Idaho." I had heard similar remarks. The finger-pointing at Middle Eastern Muslims immediately after the blast, while predictable on the basis of past events, reflected a coastal preoccupation with foreign policy and also an ignorance of social upheavals in the heartland, for which people in the military, quite a number of whom are from blue-collar backgrounds, have antennae. Tucker and another officer suggested that "a time may come when the military will have to go domestic" -- as when George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, in 1794. During another discussion a visiting Canadian officer said, "The biggest threat to Canada is the United States collapsing on itself. Canada's problems are out in the open, but the degree of turmoil in the United States is not admitted." Canadians have always sneered at the "disorderly" United States; I noticed that protests from the American officers were muted.''
And while these people were planning for domestic threats from 'rednecks, the kind of guys from Southern Idaho', there were other threats brewing in the United States, namely Islamic terrorism. It would seem they might have done well to focus more on that, and on controlling our borders and restricting immigration. But despite what has happened since 1996, it seems they are more worried about home-grown 'right-wing' extremists than about anything else. Can anything good come out of this attitude?
From the Jenkins AmCon article, again:
In 1996, the Anti-Terrorism Act gave federal agencies all the powers they could reasonably have demanded up until then. The existence of such a potent body of laws gives police and prosecutors a strong vested interest in applying the terrorism label as widely as possible in order to secure all possible legal advantages. If public opinion permits, they will assuredly use anti-terrorism laws against unpopular right-wing sects.''
A rash of recent mass murders by lone gunmen, including the nursing home shooting in North Carolina, will no doubt add further impetus to the calls for gun control.
And the thought of our military, increasingly staffed by people not of American origin, being used to quell domestic upheavals, is very unsettling.
As the article at AmCon describes, this kind of thing seems to go in cycles; when a Republican administration is replaced by a liberal Democrat regime, there tends to be a phenomenon, in which the media and the liberal regime gin up concerns over 'right-wing extremists' being a danger.
The most recent scare, before the present administration, was during the Clinton years, but that was not the first such cycle.
From 1938 through 1941, the media regularly presented stories suggesting that the U.S. was about to be overwhelmed by ultra-Right fifth columnists, millions strong, intimately allied with the Axis powers. (Actual numbers of serious militants were in the low thousands at most.) Reportedly, the militant Right was armed to the teeth and plotting countless domestic terror attacks�bombings in New York and Washington, assassinations and pogroms, the wrecking of trains and munitions plants. Plotters were rumored to have high-placed allies in the military, raising the specter of a putsch. The ensuing panic was orchestrated by newspapers and radio and reinforced by films, newsreels, and comic books. Historians characterize these years as the Brown Scare.
[...]
However thin the underlying charges, the Brown Scare clearly helped to promote a New Deal agenda at home and interventionism overseas. For interventionists, the Terror Crisis suggested that fascist powers already were attempting to subvert America, forcing the nation to confront the foreign danger. Above all, the scare provided a powerful weapon for defaming anyone on the Right who opposed FDR�s drift to war. Targets included not only isolationist senators and congressmen but also the potent antiwar organization America First, which drew support from a broad and reputable cross-section of public opinion�conservative, liberal, and socialist, Catholic and Protestant. By 1941, though, the antiwar movement was battered by allegations of fascist and anti-Semitic ties. Under Cover portrayed America First as an aboveground front for the most extreme and lethal paramilitary fascist groups. As so often before and since, a burgeoning antiwar movement was crippled by charges that it was covertly allied with the nation�s enemies. So successful was this tarring that in popular memory, America Firsters stand alongside Nazis and Klansmen as traitors, subversives, and bigots. In terms of achieving its goals, the Brown Scare worked superbly.''
Read the rest; it's interesting and pertinent to the present situation.
But when I read it, I thought of a piece from The Atlantic, which was published in the Clinton era, in 1996. I had not read it for a while, but it seems to be apposite these days, in light of the increasing push toward globalization and post-nationalism, and also the re-making of the Army with a whole different role envisioned for our military. The article is titled 'Fort Leavenworth and the Eclipse of Nationhood'
and though it's fairly lengthy, it is interesting to read and to see how closely the script has been followed as we move toward this 'brave new world' envisioned in the 1990s.
This passage in particular seems to fit with the AmCon piece. The writer discusses roundtable discussions at Fort Leaveworth:
GLOBAL reconstruction, or something like it, is more a description -- and a rationalization -- of what we are already halfheartedly doing than a cause behind which Americans will ever rally. Many parts of the world cannot be saved, and the voters instinctively know it. We may have run out of foreign causes that can buttress our own nationhood. Fighting faceless plutonium smugglers, high birth rates in Africa, and tropical-disease pandemics, although clearly worthwhile, will not engender drum-beating patriotism the way fighting Hitler did. Sure, there are always domestic causes to rally the nation -- but for the most part they are best handled as sudden crises. A protracted deterioration involving crime, family life, class divisions, and so on is hard to halt, and easy to deny.
It was with such lugubrious thoughts that I listened to a number of round-table discussions at Leavenworth. In one a group of majors lamented the end of the draft. "People who want the draft back are hankering after a lost golden age," Major Robert Everson said. "The draft is obsolete because of the way warfare is changing. War has become so technological that it takes too long to train people who will only serve for a year or two." The talk switched to Oklahoma City. A Marine in the group, Major Craig Tucker, said, "The minute I heard about Oklahoma City, I knew who did it -- rednecks, the kind of guys from southern Idaho." I had heard similar remarks. The finger-pointing at Middle Eastern Muslims immediately after the blast, while predictable on the basis of past events, reflected a coastal preoccupation with foreign policy and also an ignorance of social upheavals in the heartland, for which people in the military, quite a number of whom are from blue-collar backgrounds, have antennae. Tucker and another officer suggested that "a time may come when the military will have to go domestic" -- as when George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, in 1794. During another discussion a visiting Canadian officer said, "The biggest threat to Canada is the United States collapsing on itself. Canada's problems are out in the open, but the degree of turmoil in the United States is not admitted." Canadians have always sneered at the "disorderly" United States; I noticed that protests from the American officers were muted.''
And while these people were planning for domestic threats from 'rednecks, the kind of guys from Southern Idaho', there were other threats brewing in the United States, namely Islamic terrorism. It would seem they might have done well to focus more on that, and on controlling our borders and restricting immigration. But despite what has happened since 1996, it seems they are more worried about home-grown 'right-wing' extremists than about anything else. Can anything good come out of this attitude?
From the Jenkins AmCon article, again:
In 1996, the Anti-Terrorism Act gave federal agencies all the powers they could reasonably have demanded up until then. The existence of such a potent body of laws gives police and prosecutors a strong vested interest in applying the terrorism label as widely as possible in order to secure all possible legal advantages. If public opinion permits, they will assuredly use anti-terrorism laws against unpopular right-wing sects.''
A rash of recent mass murders by lone gunmen, including the nursing home shooting in North Carolina, will no doubt add further impetus to the calls for gun control.
And the thought of our military, increasingly staffed by people not of American origin, being used to quell domestic upheavals, is very unsettling.
Labels: Extremism, Right To Keep And Bear Arms, Second Amendment, The Right