Dump and Run
Because it’s fun to stir shit up and get under people’s skin, and because the blogging will be quiet for the holiday weekend, I just had to link this comment by Bruce Baugh at Obsidian Wings:
I’ve said this before and will again: the very heart of the “widespread gun ownership checks tyranny” argument has been tested and failed completely.
For twenty years or more, political discourse in a whole lot of online forums was swamped by people telling the rest of us how the US was getting ever more tyrannical, and that the day would come when on some flimsy pretext the government would abandon habeaus corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.
It turns out they were right about that part.
They also told the rest of us that when this happened, they would rise up en masse. They would free unjustly held prisoners, put terror into the hearts of agents of tyranny, maybe even overthrow the tyrant him/herself. (As the ’90s went on, the hypothetical tyrant was increasingly likely to be portrayed as a woman.) And did they? Did they hell.
There are no martyrs from the RKBA crowd. Their organizations sometimes join in efforts mostly initiated and staffed by others, but apart from objections to a handful of specific proposed restrictions on gun sales and such, one hears of no RKBA leadership on any of the rest. To the contrary, one hears a great deal of cheerleading for warmaking abroad and tyranny at home as long as all the right people get it, and one hears silence. Where are those freed prisoners? Nowhere. Where are those terrified agents? Nowhere. It was all the purest bloviation.
It’s really very rare for such ambitious claims about what one will do oneself and what one’s allies will do in a moment of profound crisis. But Bush/Cheney gave us all the chance. And all of you going on about how guns keep the republic safe and free are completely full of it. All the things you warned us about came to pass, and where are you? Right here with the bulk of us, and well behind some – there are individual posters here who as single people have done more actual good for American liberty than half the membership of the NRA and such groups.
It’s liberal lawyers, academics, journalists, and the like who are actually pressing the government, pretty much, and liberals at large funding them, while conservatives and libertarians (with way, way too few exceptions) either cheer and keep voting for the tyranny or sigh and shake a finger and then keep voting for it. The RKBA claims about guns’ role in society are demonstrably false for America at the beginning of the 21st century, and no amount of dithering over 18th century will change that. The Second Amendment as constituted is useless not because of then, but because of now, because of you its champions.
PS: It will of course be a glad thing if the bloviators ever do get serious about fighting tyranny, because tyranny is really bad and needs all the opposition it can get. But I’m not holding my breath waiting – it seems like we are instead well into the phase where all the loyal cheering section for the tyrant busily tries to pretend they didn’t say things. I fully expect lawsuits against Google, the Internet Way-Back Machine, and the like from right-wing legally minded folks who wish their embarrassing words better hidden.
But hey, always glad to see clues, if and when they break out.
July 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
When true tyranny really does come that asshat can go ahead and fight it with his pen and see what happens. Hopefully he’ll see that deep down he wants us on that wall, he needs us on that wall, and that true tyranny won’t heed to anything but force.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I seem to remember Robb saying something similar once upon a time (although without the vitriol towards gun owners)
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Let me see if I understand:
1. This person has a definition of tyranny in his mind.
2. He doesn’t personally own any effective weapons because they’re yucky.
3. He wants to know when us gunnies are going to take up arms to battle
what he considers tyranny – thereby putting our butts on the line for for a vision he won’t actually fight for himself.
Isn’t that a little chickenhawkish?
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I guess tyranny is in the eye of the beholder.
July 3rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
It’s not a question of whether people will rise up to throw off the bonds of tyranny, but when. Everyone has their proverbial “line in the sand” that they personally set. Is it when they’re loading your luggage on the boxcar? Or, hopefully, before that? Look up the names Carl Drega or Gary Watson or Stuart Alexander and you’ll see that people do, in fact, reach a boiling point.
It’s funny that the left talks a good game, particularly about RKBA advocates not ‘advancing the cause of liberty.’ That’s not really what its about. The RKBA is in place to ensure a backslide into tyranny doesn’t happen within a free society, not to make sure we all sit around the campfire and sing koombayah.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Sorry, it hasn’t gotten unbearable yet and there’s still plenty of hope for advancing liberty. As TJ said in the Declaration of Independence, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
If it gets bad enough, it will happen.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Perhaps, and I realize this may be an amazing and unbelievable concept to the sort of people who define “neutral” as including the position “opposed against but not spending a majority of their funding in order to oppose”, they were talking about real tyranny.
Maybe?
I’m sorry, but let’s even say for the sake of the argument that this isn’t an new decade version of the people wearing tin foils hats and mumbling about Echelon, Carnivore, Gorelick testimony, and every other paranoid conspiracy out to get *them*. We’ll play pretend that it’s real, it’s evil, and it actually manages to simultaneously give a damn about the “little guy”. We’ll even pretend that the majority of Second Amendment advocates talking about tyranny were actually thinking stuff your commenter’s pathetic strawman were, not about things like banning half of the debate on topics, or something on the sorta lines that actually makes political change through other channels impossible. I won’t even bring up FDR, or suggest that shit like this is a dishonor towards those who lived or live under real tyranny.
Do you realize how often we’ve warned those alarmist pricks to stick to the ballot box until the magazine box is the only option?
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
yes, but they each reach it individually, separately, and at different times. neither Carl Drega nor Gary Watson managed to effect any lasting change, and if the government(s) that pushed them to their boiling points were truly tyrannous — well, then they are still.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I agree with Rob K — there are still ample means of dealing with laws offensive to liberty in ways other than violence.
Votes are still counted and honored in this country, the courts are as neutral as one could reasonably expect any group pf people to be, etc.
Even with the current laws (PATRIOT Act and so forth), Americans still enjoy one of the greatest (if not the greatest) amounts of liberty in the world.
Somedays, I think more Americans should look at pre-Revolution America, Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Iran, Afghanistan, and other oppressive governments throughout history to see what oppression is like. As obnoxious as the laws are today, we still have it pretty good.
Obviously, Americans need to change the laws so they’re not offensive to liberty, but that can still be done “within the system”. The need for violence is not yet upon us.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
“…abandon habeaus (sic) corpus, engage in unlimited surveillance of everyone it felt like spying on, arrest people on arbitrary grounds and then abuse them any way the captors felt like, and so on.”
Pure ignorance on a grand scale. In fact, the trend in this war has been in the opposite direction. Did you hear of the SCOTUS about decision two weeks ago? Does this guy know anything about how the U.S. has treated spies and prisoners in past wars, compared to now? Obviously not.
This guy’s message is basically, “So, you puny and violent little advocates of liberty, why don’t you just start shooting people if you love your damned liberty and guns so much, Huh? Huh? Isn’t that what your stupid guns are for? Huh? Huh? Oh, and; Bush = Hitler!”
Man, were you listening to Pacifica News during the Reagan administration? Exact same shit. Some of it even more ignorant and stupid (this was pre-internet, so they’d spew that crap from college radio stations all over the country with essentially no counter responses). Kids were shouting “Heil! Reagan” and other stupid stuff. I was right there with them for the most part, so I understand these people very well indeed (I’m a recovering lefty, don’t you know).
Interestingly, just this morning I read a report on the FBI’s nationwide crime statistics, showing that violent crime has been dropping pretty significantly over the last decade or so, during a period of gun ownership growing to an all-time high, and the growth of concealed carry.
Wanna talk about that for bit?
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Just curious– During the Clinton administration, when some 75 or so men women and children were burned alive in their Waco, TX home by the minions of Janet Reno, where was Bruce Baugh then? Did we hear a peep out of him, or was he still in diapers? Did we hear a peep out the lefty media about tyranny?
How about when Danny Weaver was shot in the back, and his mother was shot through the head by an FBI agent as she nursed her baby? Was anyone on the left, the current Bush = Hitler crowd, protesting tyranny? Not a peep. Instead, we were treated to docu-dramas on how evil and stupid the Branch Davidians were, and how the Weavers were racist and weird.
That we gun-owning, freedom loving advocates of the American Principles of Liberty have been practicing enormous restraint should be very comforting to the Left. We still believe, or hope, there are peaceful ways, within the prescribed system, to restore liberty and return to a capitalist economy.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
All I can say to author is: Those sour grapes must taste like Hell(er)…
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I notice Bruce is silent about the “Great New Orleans Gun Grab”, the abuses of the runaway BATFE, etc.
Ah, Reagan…of the Constitution-circumventing IRAN-CONTRA Affair, yes?
He also wasn’t too crazy about all those black folks with guns when he was Governor of California, either.
Bruce, the ACLU and Democrats, et. al. that you praise have been too little, too late too often in the fight against tyranny lately.
AZ Rifleman says: “Votes are still counted and honored in this country, ”
*Snort* Yeah, by Diebold, et. al.
Still, the 2nd Amendment and widespread civilian gun ownership has probably ruled out a direct power grab so far. Some of my fellow Leftists unfortunately like to claim that civilian arms would be useless against a modern military force. I think there are some Iraqi and Afghan insurgents who would respectfully disagree with that assessment.
I happen to share the Founding Fathers’ distaste for professional standing armies as a threat to Liberty, which is the main reason the 2nd Amendment exists.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:34 pm
If world history is our guide, people won’t start shooting thugs until things have gotten extremely, physically bad for a lot of folks. By then it’s usually too late. The plight of the Jews in the 1930s and ’40s is one example, and there are many others, even today.
Gun control and confiscations, or attempts thereof, virtually always precede such tragedy.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Except that Habeous hasn’t been suspended, the gov’t isn’t engaged in unlimited surveillance of everyone it want, isn’t arresting people on arbatrary grounds and isn’t abusing those arrested. Other than that, it’s a completely accurate description.
Until recently, the constitution didn’t protect the rights of foreign nationals on foriegn soil. (BTW, what ever happened to the liberal canard that you shouldn’t impose American style gov’t on other people?) Now that SCOTUS has said that the constitution does protect Habeus rights on non-citizens abroad, how much you want to bet that the Administration will comply? They’ve complied with every other ruling so my bets are that they will. That the Executive will comply with the Judicial seems to imply that the Executive has not become tyrannical.
The gov’t is spying on everyone it wants. The police still can’t walk up to my door and search it for no reason. They still have to obtain a warrant before doing so. FISA, please. They could only listen in on calls made from or to foreign nationals on foreign soil, not “anyone they want to”. The Constitution doesn’t apply to them. Additionally, the information gleamed about the U.S. citizen from those calls are inadmissible in a court of law. And don’t think for a second that a court wouldn’t just love to get ahold of a case of abuse of that! So again, the Executive is not being tyrannical.
The gov’t isn’t arresting citizens on arbitrary grounds and abusing them. If it were, why the hell is Olbermann not in some dark prison with the Beastie Boys playing 24 hours a day? Oh, you mean the military. Who can’t “arrest” anyone because they aren’t a police force. They may capture people but they don’t do it under the color of criminal law but under the laws of warfare which are different.
Yep, I see what you’re saying here. The gov’t is just tyrannizing it’s citizenry left and right, except when it isn’t.
You know, maybe when the gov’t starts excluding it’s main competitors from it’s ballots, I’ll start worrying. Oh, wait a minute, that wasn’t the gov’t. Just the Democratic Party so I guess it’s OK.
July 3rd, 2008 at 4:48 pm
There will always be outliers on the curve. Some early adopters will jump into things a little early. Others will be late adopters who drag their feet until they have no choice. When the situation becomes unbearable to a large enough percent of the population, the government will have a hard time keeping control.
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
A friend of mine once said recently:
“America is at the awkward stage where it’s too late to work within the system, and way too early to start shooting the crooks.”
July 3rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
In any case, let’s try and see if things can be worked out without too much bloodshed – it works in our favor, as we don’t have to get tarred as “bloodthirsty gun nuts” if a violent drawn out revolution comes around.
Or you could just overturn Miller and the NFA and see what happens next.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Happy Fourth of July to all of us.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm
There was payback after Waco. The American people aren’t entirely toothless. We just don’t view the current surveillance and imprisonment directed against muslim terrrorists to be either a) tyranny b) something worth dying over.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:10 pm
And I disagree that it is too late to work within the system. What the fuck happened this week in the supreme court? If that isn’t working within the system, I don’t know what is.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:39 pm
John Stuart Mill said it best. “A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
3pct guys. Read the message, and don’t shoot the messenger. Where was the rise up with gun bans in Kali? Or outright total confiscation in N.O.? The NRA filed a piece of paper with the government asking the government to stop what the government was doing. Naturally, it kept doing it and thousands of firearms are still in criminal possession by the government. We must do more…all it takes is 3pct…
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I think the man may have touched a nerve.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Fuck you Bruce Baugh.
Thank you so much for stirring shit up so close to Independence day, tgirsch. Here are a few more martyrs you can reflect on.
Nice to see that to the tgirschs and the Bruce Baughs of the world that we’re dammed if we do and damned if we don’t. Thanks ever so much for the kind words about our remarkable restraint. Come back next week week and remind us that, if you don’t do something about our cosmetically challenged self-loading rifles, one of us will uncontrollably mow down thousands when we don’t get any mambo sauce with our chicken wings.
July 4th, 2008 at 12:26 am
They’re the proverbial “canaries in the coal mine.”
When we get more than one or two Carl Dregas a year, it’ll be a wake-up call to somebody (I hope.)
July 4th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Mike wins the internet!
I’m still trying to figure out how come the fact that I’m not willing to swim to Gitmo and bust a maybe/maybe-not terrorist out of the pokey means that I loves me some Hitler.
July 4th, 2008 at 10:18 am
The actual quote is from Claire Wolfe:
“America is at that awkward stage. It’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”
– Claire Wolfe, 101 Things to Do ‘Til the Revolution
July 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I’m on board wit Tam and Mike. Having Baugh call out the “gun nuts” on not reacting to what he thinks is tyranny is moronic at best. I own a gun because I don’t want nor need a surrogate to protect me. Since Baugh seems to think we should be reacting to his whims, I’d say chickenhawk isn’t the right word, but chickenSh**.
The system does work for the most part though its glacial reaction time to it’s own wrong doing is troublesome. N.O. confiscations were corrected and the backlash from the citizens sent the politicos a message, and codified in the courts that what they did was wrong. They now have president and new law to prevent such activities from happening again.
As for the California gun bans, one needs to remember that the states still have some autonomy. Fixing such problems requires the citizens of those states to react by voting the fools out or using their feet to move to some place that is more to their liking. And from what we’ve all seen in the past decade or so is that more gun freedoms have been forced into place by the vote than gun restrictions. You might not have all the gun rights you like in California, but you can still walk away.
Another thing to think about having an individual gun right is that it is a prophylactic protection against governmental tyranny. It’s an active protection against individual tyranny.
Oh, and nice quote retro. I’ll have to look that book up.
July 4th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
Always brings a smile to my heart to see standard liberal garbage getting ripped apart by reasoned, logical, and often humorous arguments. If I was good at any of that stuff, I would do more than put cheese on my hamburger.
July 5th, 2008 at 1:19 am
I think Jeffrey Snyder already covered this topic with his essays “Walter Mitty’s Second Amendment” and “A Nation of Cowards.”
And Snyder did it much more calmly, sensibly and rationally, and with much less “bloviating,” than did Bruce Baugh in the post linked above.
Seriously, is Baugh actually taking gun enthusiasts to task for not acting like stereotypical hot-tempered redneck gun nuts?
Note that for all his talk about REVOLUTION NOW!!!1!1! Baugh isn’t exactly heading for the barricades himself. I’m tempted to toss his accusations of cowardice back in his face, but…yawn… who cares? Pointing out the hypocrisy of (many) liberals is a waste of time and, when it comes down to it, who among us really wants to reach for the reset button, anyway? Or seriously thinks that that is the only alternative to tyranny that we currently have?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be putting on some music. In honor of Bruce Baugh, I think I’ll be listening to Queensryche’s “Operation:Mindcrime” CD tonight. They too already made Baugh’s point for him…and, again, did a much better job of it than Baugh ever could.
“…Revolution calling, revolution calling, revolution calling you…”
…Baugh probably couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, anyway…
July 5th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
This comment is so full of paranoid leftist/paleocon soundbytes that have nothing to do with reality that it’s hard to know where to start. Habeas corpus? Try Lincoln and the Civil War. Tyranny? Where? The TV is full of leftist idiots claiming on TV that they’re being silenced — and the irony that there they are, saying on TV, and don’t get hauled off to a gulag escapes them.
This guy really needs to go back on his meds.
July 6th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
“Do you realize how often we’ve warned those alarmist pricks to stick to the ballot box until the magazine box is the only option?”
Why, yes, in fact. I do.
I’ve been listening to that rotten horseshit for thirty-five goddamned years. That’s a whole adult life.
What’s your point?
July 7th, 2008 at 1:29 am
I know Bruce personally.
Yea, he expects others to fight for him. He has severe agoraphobia. He makes his living writing gaming stuff … he does support himself, so he gets points for that.
He also has a bunch of “alergies” … mostly his own subconscious creating physical symptoms as an excuse to avoid going outside. If push came to shove, the man is completely helpless.
Not an evil person … but he does have the left’tard disease pretty bad.
July 8th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I think Baugh misses the lessons of history. Or maybe I have. Can anybody think of a time and place where a people or a nation slid into tyranny that the people were armed and roused against the tyrants? (Or did not collude by putting on their own collars?)
M