I had to let this segment of my mini-manifesto simmer for a while. For one thing, it would be presumptuous of me to counsel other conservatives and libertarians, so many of whom are far more knowledgeable about guns than I, on what weapons to acquire and how best to become proficient with them. I mean, just because I own my own Abrams tank and 155mm howitzer doesn't make me an expert, now does it?
But seriously, it really, truly is vital that freedom-minded Americans get armed for bear. Few of us are Louis Redmond or Christine D'Alessandro types capable of wiping out a regiment with nothing but a pocket knife and a sneer. Besides that, when the citizenry becomes visibly more interested in acquiring and using firearms, it makes the bad guys -- private and public -- very, very nervous. Sometimes they actually stop to think about the possible consequences of their planned predations.
So allow me to repeat something I said at Eternity Road, back when:
[I]n all places and times, restricting private citizens' access to weapons has made them less able to defend themselves, and thus more fearful of threats real or imagined, and thus more dependent on the State to defend them...and thus more vulnerable to the oppressions of the State.As has been said many times before, "gun control" is not about guns but about control: control of the sovereign citizen, aimed at reducing him to a helpless subject of an unopposable State. It has nothing to do with the superiority of State power as a defensive force. In point of fact, the State cannot and will not defend you from predation; at most it will step in after you've been violated and pursue those who presumed to arrogate its privileges. Indeed, there have been state and federal court decisions to the effect that no level of government is obligated to defend anyone with its police powers -- that whatever defensive actions the State's police might undertake are out of the generosity of its masters.
Every tyranny in history has made disarming the people its first priority. Don't take your Curmudgeon's word for it; familiarize yourself with the history of the tyrannies of the Twentieth Century and decide for yourself. The most "successful" tyrants have simultaneously promoted massive fear among the disarmed: fear of Jews; fear of "counterrevolutionaries;" fear of "imperialists;" fear of external enemies they declined to name. And once the people had been shorn of their weapons, who remained but the Maximum Leader to "protect" them all?
Arm yourselves as heavily as you can. If yours is a right-to-carry state, get a concealed-carry permit and buy a handgun. No matter where you live, stock at least one long arm for every adult member of your household. Instruct your children in firearms discipline, and invite them along when you go to the range. Try to interest your neighbors as well; shooting sports are a way to build both the sense of community and the sense of obligation to community defense. And make sure everyone you know is familiar with the citizen's obligation, as a militiaman, to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That having been said, allow me to pass, with some relief, to my real subject for today: weapons we can employ freely right now, without first having to declare an actual flying-lead revolution.
Among the reasons Mike Hendrix remains one of my favorite DextroSpheric commentators is a column like the following, which is his response to this ugly column by David Sirota of Salon:
...no matter how much ground you cede to them, the PC thought police will never, ever be satisfied. And anyone who isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool, Obama-sucking neoMarxist is always going to be smeared as a racist.Well, fuck them, fuck Sirota, and fuck every single last liberal-fascist douchebag who ever beslimed the earth under their little webbed feet.
Know what, David, you whiny, slope-shouldered reprobate? I AM A FUCKING RACIST. By your flexible, ever-changing standards anyway, I damned sure am. Only my “racism” has nothing whatever to do with skin color or ethnicity, and everything to do with culture and ideology. So you get together with your twee little pals in whatever godawful urban coffeeshop you prefer and recoil in horror all you like; I promise you I will not care....
I hate you. I hate people like you. I hate what you’ve done to my country. I hate that I’m expected to shut up and bow down before “experts” who are supposedly smarter than me, but couldn’t find their own ass with both hands, a compass, and a fucking map, and prove that to be so on a routine basis.
I hate people so smug, so badly overdosed on presumption, that they think they have the right to dictate to me–in America, goddammit–about light bulbs, toilets, shower heads, cigarettes, whiskey, internet porn, music, movies, cars, motorcycle helmets, seat belts, and whether I must work in a union shop or not. I hate people who fly surveillance drones over my head to look in on me when I’m in my home bothering not one living soul. I hate people who want to tell me how to raise my kid, how she should be educated, and whether she’ll be exposed to some goddamned green-weenie EPA crotchrot or government instruction manuals rather than Huck Finn (GASP) or Catcher In The Rye. I hate people who litter my cities with surveillance cameras to keep tabs on what I might be doing when I have the temerity to venture outdoors.
I hate people who talk about Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, or Bill Ayers as if they were blemish-free heroes, and run Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Adams down because they were white, male, and owned slaves in an era when that was generally accepted practice, abhorrent though we all now know that to be. I understand they used to do a lot of things we find repellent nowadays, like public floggings, bundling, putting scarlet letters on women, and brushing their teeth with charcoal. Slavery is no doubt not in the same league as those others, but we got it straightened out eventually, at cost of quite a lot of spilled blood and spent treasure. That’s greatly to our credit, since you seem to need that bit constantly pointed out.
I am for freedom, the Constitution, limited government, a solidly competent, well-trained and -equipped military, a foreign policy that doesn’t slink around shamefaced and apologetic in the face of slimeballs, kleptocrats, and dictators, and free-market capitalism. Any nigger, spook, spic, spade, wop, dago, Mick, Harp, cracker, Kike, taco-bender, Hebe, Kraut, wog, dink, gink, chink, honky, redneck, wetback, raghead, or Muzzie who feels likewise is a-OK in my book. They’re my friends. Those who don’t…fuck ‘em. They’re my enemies. The same also goes for broads, bitches, bints, cum-dumpsters, whores, lezzies, dykes, flat-rockers, carpet-munchers, pole-smokers, dope-smokers, cock-gobblers, rump rangers, and faggots. Also Polacks. And Native Americans. I don’t know of a single proper conservative/libertarian/classical liberal who doesn’t feel the exact same way about it. Not one.
This is almost exactly the right approach:
- Turn your outrage into fuel for your mission;
- Fire back as if ammo were unlimited and free.
Moreover, by seemingly "going to excess," Mike exhibits the most important quality one can have in the political combats of our time: defiance. Refusal to be cowed, to accede to others' standards about what one may and may not say or think.
Deny them the power to wound you.
A smart fighter never shows weakness -- and the best way to avoid showing a weakness is not to have it.
That strikes many as solely a defensive weapon, but in fact it can be put to potent offensive use: merely "owning" the epithets and employing them cheerfully is enough to send the tender-eared types on the Left into a terminal tizzy:
Why, yes. I am a racist, sexist, homophobic oppressor of retards and cripples. And if I can't get out on a Sunday afternoon to do it myself, I like to enjoy it televised. That's a part of what I love about America: not only does this mick-wop papist get to be a happy bigot to the extreme dismay of wimps and pussies such as yourself; he and his kike wife can enjoy the company of the similarly minded. Why, just last week we and some of our pole-smoking, carpet-munching friends got together to laugh at you. No, we don't personally approve of their bedroom antics, but then, we don't have to: they don't demand that we join in. Besides, you can't imagine the confusion when they start to camp it up at the rifle range!
Nothing beats a hot return of serve to the backhand, Gentle Readers.
But I did say "almost exactly the right approach," didn't I? There is an improvement available, though Mike can certainly be excused for not employing it in the case above:
"The devil...the prowde spirit...cannot endure to be mocked." -- John Milton
Laugh at them. Go beyond reaction; take the initiative: Ridicule them. They have a huge weakness we haven't yet exploited to any measurable depth: They're completely unable to laugh at themselves.
No nation ever won a war by playing defense. We must get on the attack -- and we must target their areas of greatest sensitivity. That, to my eyes, is their excessive opinion of themselves, revealed by their inability to laugh at themselves and their absolute unwillingness to laugh at their political or cultural icons.
Ridiculing one who takes himself too seriously is like touching a pin to an inflated balloon: a tiny amount of effort releases a great deal of tumult and noise. When you've awarded yourself the palm of unchallengeable moral and intellectual superiority, any indication from any source that your pretensions are nothing more than that is enough to make you explode. If you've ever wondered why Muslims riot over cartoons or jests that mock Muhammad, you have the answer.
The commentators who did the very best work over the ridiculous "Occupy" protests were the ones who pointed out how laughable they were: children of privilege, granted every imaginable comfort and freedom from toil or care, were throwing public temper tantrums over not getting iPads for Christmas! More, they expected the rest of us to take their complaints and demands seriously! We who, if we were ever to stop turning civilization's crank, would condemn them either to slavery or to death by starvation without lifting a finger!
They hated that, Gentle Reader. It made them foam at the mouth to be mocked. The more mockery they received, the smaller and less obtrusive they became, until one day, "Occupy" was nothing more than a risible memory and a few dumpsters' full of trash.
As I said in the first of these essays:
- Reinforce your successes;
- Don't throw good money after bad;
- Don't impede your enemy when he's making a mistake.
Therefore:
- Take note of what works and do it harder, until you reach the Point of Diminishing Returns;
- Don't bother repeating what hasn't worked -- i.e., arguments from history and logic -- as it probably never will;
- Stay out of the way of the other side when it's making a mistake: for example, when it baselessly vilifies persons of great accomplishment and stainless reputation, or praises villains with blood on their hands, responsible for the sufferings of many.
Be consistent about those rules. They will never fail you. If you observe them faithfully and flexibly, you will prevail on all the critical battlefields of political discourse.
Hey, you might even help to save the country. Not a bad memory to take to your grave, eh?
And as I've said before, though perhaps not often enough:
Be not afraid.
That'll do just fine as my manifesto. Thank you Francis.
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