The Fear Weapon

     "Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." [Frank Herbert, Dune]

     Just a week ago, an important article appeared at Chateau Heartiste. It’s a long narrative about an attempted carjacking, in Baltimore, of a white man by a black thug, and it deserves to be read in its entirety. However, for me the most important bit is at the conclusion:

     The experience hasn’t really changed me, but it certainly has honed my resolve, Heartiste. If white men are to take back the cities they built, they will need to use the same weapon on the dindus as they do on us – fear.

     Oh my stars and garters, yes. Mega-emphatically YES! But generalized. For the enemy isn’t just the army of black thugs that have made so many of our urban areas into combat zones. The threat goes well beyond them...all the way to the pinnacle of our political system.

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     There’s a story about Timur i-leng, the Oriental warlord of the Fourteenth Century, becoming so greatly feared that his armies had no need to fight: the mere notice by a sitting ruler that Timur was approaching and would demand his fealty was enough to make several such potentates submit without resistance. While the tale is fanciful and probably mere legend, the lesson it bears is important.

     Fear is, in a sense, the ultimate weapon. He who can create sufficient fear in his enemy can induce the enemy to surrender without fighting: the highest form of victory. Failing that, swords must clash and men must die.

     A few years ago, I wrote at some length about the power of fear. One particular bit seems especially relevant today:

     Today, when the State has become predatory beyond all expectation and its eyes are everywhere, the sense of insecurity among those of us ill-equipped to fight it directly is stronger than ever. The urge to withdraw into anonymity and invisibility can overpower us. And that, of course, is exactly what our political masters want.

     Have a gander at this article, reflect on what it means for the right to keep and bear arms, and ponder: Will that right be undone de facto, by Gestapo tactics of the sort John Filippidis and his family endured? Then have a look at the statistics in this paper, and ponder whether you can master your fears sufficiently to speak out against such tyranny.

     That’s the power the fear weapon in the hands of the State has over ordinary, peaceable citizens: enough to have us all cowering before its agents look in our direction.

     But the fear weapon is indifferent to the identity of its wielder. Is there some possibility that We the People could wield it as effectively against the State as the State has done against us?

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     Here are the material bases of the State’s fear weapon:

• Its agents act “under color of law.”
• The great majority of those agents are effectively protected against any redress.
• The “alphabet agencies” have managed to place themselves “above the law” de facto.
• The laws themselves are so many, and so obscure, that no one can be certain he hasn’t violated them.
• Even an innocent man fears to face an accusation in court, because of the expense and the damage to his reputation.

     There are some lesser (and not entirely material) elements to the State’s fear weapon, but we can neglect them for the moment. What about the material elements private Americans could use to cause the State to fear us?

• We have the numbers.
• Americans are rather heavily armed.
• Without our funding, the State could not survive.

     Those three considerations are what make “the consent of the governed” more than a pretty phrase. However, at this time none of them are being put to effective use. How might that be changed?

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     A lot of ink and a great many pixels have been lavished on a phantasm: the “government shutdown.” Whenever Congress bestirs itself to limit federal spending in any way, we’re threatened with a “government shutdown”...as if the federal government would ever willingly shut down 100%. Note that in each of the “government shutdowns” of recent years, approximately 85% of all federal employees have remained at their jobs, guaranteed to be paid their full salaries.

     The most recent “government shutdown” frightened Americans so little that Barack Hussein Obama had to make it irritating: he instructed Parks Department employees to prevent access to any federal park or monument, even though the Parks Department remained open and functioning.

     Clearly, the “shutdown” wasn’t frightening enough...yet the phrase “government shutdown” remains a scare-staple of the Establishment, particularly among Democrats. They want us to think that calamity of some sort will ensue should we dare to deny them what they demand. It just isn’t so. In reality, the fear runs in the opposite direction: The Establishment and its minions fear that we’ll discover that we don’t need them and in fact would do better without them.

     Doesn’t that stimulate a few fresh thoughts?

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     There’s much more to be said on this subject, but this is enough for now. At least I want to get my Gentle Readers thinking about how we might frighten “our governments” back into the posture of humble submission the Founding Fathers intended that they should occupy. The State has made us cower for so long that turnabout wouldn’t just be “fair play;” it would be the most welcome of all refreshments. Atop that, it might be exactly the remedy for what ails us.