The Guerrilla’s Tocsin

     What’s that? You think the cautionary sentiments in the pieces you’ve read here are excessive, alarmist, hyperbolic? You say we should calm down? You’re sure “it can’t be all that bad?” Sorry, Gentle Reader. It’s war to the knife, and there are no non-combatants:

     Roger Stone’s wife was attacked by a leftist goon while walking her dog in her neighborhood on Thursday.
     Nydia Stone was attacked so viciously that she was hospitalized and will require surgery....
     “It is true that Nydia Stone was attacked by a leftist on a bicycle in front of their home and that she was already convalescing from a very bad dog bite sustained the week before and reported Broward County animal control. This re-opened a gash in her knee which required a visit to the emergency room,” [spokesman Rev. Randy] Coggins said.

     Do you have a spouse, children, or a home, Gentle Reader?

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     If you know the term guerrilla warfare, you probably associate it with insurgencies that are too weak to confront their targets in open battle. Historically, that was the principal significance of the term. However, guerrilla tactics can be applied to any combat situation. They’re especially effective against an opponent that has a lot to defend and can’t defend all of it all the time.

     Terrorism is a variant of guerrilla warfare. While the terrorist may have aims that go beyond simply defeating his opponent militarily, his tactics are parallel to those of the “conventional” guerrilla. The terrorist selects a target unlikely to be defended. He musters just enough force to do severe damage and strikes the target by surprise. If possible – it isn’t always – he gets away while his target is still reeling from the strike. The differences between the terrorist and the “conventional” guerrilla are motivational.

     The attack on Nydia Stone qualifies as left-wing terrorism by guerrilla methods. The tactics were as described above. The motivation was and is to terrify major figures in the Right into silencing themselves.

     Strategically, the Left seeks to destroy as many of us as it can, and to compel the rest to go into hiding. For the moment, at least, Leftists cannot do that openly, with the force of the law at their backs rather than against them. Until their strategists are certain that “law enforcement” will not act against them, they’ll rely upon stealth ambushes and vandalism.

     Anyone in the Right with a significant profile could become a target.

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     As I’ve written before, no one has ever won a war by remaining on the defensive. When there are so many people and things to defend, the terrorist/guerrilla has a huge advantage over his opponent – especially if the defense, such as it may be, is centralized.

     Centralized defense – defensive forces organized along conventional military or law-enforcement lines – will always lose to a diffuse, guerrilla-style threat. That’s the why of terrorism: it inflicts damage on the opponent without incurring open-warfare battles that would allow a centralized defense to use its forces effectively. Even if the damage is relatively slight, its emotional impact is significant. It imbues the opponent with the conviction that no one is safe.

     The Left’s guerrilla tactics have been getting them what they want. Not only are they inflicting damage on the Right, at this time the media are more on their side than otherwise. Successful tactics tend to be emulated. Clearly, they must be countered, swiftly and devastatingly...but how?

     The Israeli approach is to militarize the whole of the populace: “Every Israeli is a front-line soldier.” It’s a grim way to organize a society, but a small nation surrounded by a legion of blood enemies that seek its destruction has no alternatives. Israelis may not be “safe” in the customary sense, but they are armed, ready, and aware of the threats to them individually and nationally.

     Abraham Lincoln spoke of something similar in his 1838 “Lyceum Address:”

     At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

     At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

     The “nation of freemen” of which Lincoln spoke was a nation of armed men. In his day Americans understood that “to be free” means “to be armed.” Men habitually went about with a gun near to hand. They were not inherently violent, but they were prepared for violence. An attacker had to reckon with the high probability that he would lose his life in the attack. Moreover, the man who took it from him would be hailed as a hero who had done his community an important service.

     Sad to say, things are no longer as they were in Lincoln’s time.

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     We speak all too easily of our rights. We lament what’s been done to them these past few decades. But a right cannot be maintained unless it is defended against those who would infringe, abridge, or destroy it. And too many Americans think that defending their rights – including their right to life – is someone else’s job. But it’s not that way and never has been.

     If we wish to be free, we must once more become an armed society: one in which every able-bodied adult is presumed to be armed, ready to defend himself and others, at all times. Needless to say, our political class dislikes the idea. Armed men, jealous of their rights and aware of the threats to them, would have no truck with 99% of what the political class has done to us this century past. Besides, the attitude of dependency upon “law enforcement” to “protect us” is exceedingly useful to the Establishment. It conduces to the steady increase of the Establishment’s power over us.

     Yes, there will be costs. But no one ever said that freedom comes for free, nor that it can be maintained at no cost. If you don’t think the costs are worth paying, ponder this:

     My wife works for the Catholic Church. Recently, several of the nuns with whom she works have received anonymous threatening phone calls that ran something like this:

     “We know you’re a Republican. Unless you change that, you won’t be voting any more.”

     Such calls have been received by nuns in New York, Florida, and elsewhere. The tocsin is sounding loud and clear.

     Have a nice day.