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The Second Amendment: in memoriam

Bastiat:

The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

By accident of birth we were lucky enough to be born into liberty, protected by a Constitution that enshrined into law a Bill of Rights aimed at protecting us from both law breakers and the government itself.

Sadly, the two classes are now indistinguishable — and as that becomes more and more apparent, and society divides into those who will surrender liberty to enjoy redistributed plunder and those who resist it, efforts to destroy the protections granted us in by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights have become the frantic end game of a government that senses just how close it is to wresting ownership of the nation from we the people and granting it to a permanent ruling structure to which we the people will be beneficently subjugated.

Liberty isn’t passed through the bloodstream, as Reagan was wont to remind us. Either we are willing to fight for it or we are not. Me, I’m not ready yet to leave to my children the husk of a once great country.

I’m not certain any longer what form the coming civil war will take. The fact is, it’s easy, during a time of economic growth, to tell people to move — to relocate — and affect the kind of logistically-based soft-civil war that I long ago wrote about (to much opprobrium and some banishment). But today, it’s unfair to tell the put-upon subjects of, say, Maryland or New York or California, to just up and move, because for many, their homes are worth less than they owe, and moving to another state in an economy where the job prospects are dubious is a frightening proposition. They are stuck. We are stuck.

And I’m beginning to believe it’s all been by design, and it’s all been performed in concert.

So what’s the answer?

One idea I keep toying with is relocation within states, then rallying for division from the state proper to form a new state; or if that is not isn’t feasible, to simply form blocs of counties that refuse to recognize the authority of the state government, which in many states, because of a failure to secure our borders and an effort to draw people onto government rolls by way of private sector sabotage through high taxes and onerous regulations, need not be recognized as legitimate or representative: until we can guarantee the integrity of the franchise, we should not assume that the representation we receive is “ours” at all.

This is an idea I know has been toyed with in California, but it never seems to go anywhere. But the truth is, the time is coming that we will need to either shit or get off the pot. To choose liberty or to accept subjugation.

Roll your eyes if you must. Pretend we’re living in the ebb of a familiar historical cycle, and that in the end, all will be fine, working itself out as it always has.

But that’s an illusion born of a contracted overview of history. It can happen here. It is happening here. And what will distinguish us from the rest of history’s cautionary tales, and only potentially so, is what we’re willing to do to stop it.

50 Replies to “The Second Amendment: in memoriam”

  1. Blake says:

    Jeff,

    I am of the firm conviction there is no way to stave off the inevitable collapse.

    The people who think they are in charge have no idea the forces they have unleashed and pretend to think they are in control of events. Sort of like a lion trainer is in control of the lion, right up to the point the trainer is eaten.

    There will be no “barbarians at the gate” to defend ourselves against. The barbarians are already inside.

  2. sdferr says:

    Necessity enters in, eventually. The trouble with necessity, however, is the coercive force sitting upon that throne, and therewith the limits imposed upon choice — and hence, virtue.

    Ol’ Nicolo wrote with an attentive eye to this problem.

    One’s own arms: his motto.

  3. Here in Georgia we already have a natural barrier on which to place the newly severed border between the rural citizens and the urban ballot-box fodder: Interstate 285.

  4. dicentra says:

    According to a rabbi that Glenn Beck was talking to, only 20% of the Israelites left Egypt. The rest of them preferred the security of the devil they knew, even though that devil was slavery.

  5. dicentra says:

    Pretend we’re living in the ebb of a familiar historical cycle, and that in the end, all will be fine, working itself out as it always has.

    Depends on which historical cycle you’re looking at. Most cycles end up with the great nation in ruins, its populace demoralized and impotent, never to rise again.

    Did I say most cycles?

    I meant all of them. Ask Ozymandias.

  6. Pablo says:

    Two words: Molon Labe.

  7. Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair.

    “You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

  8. Somehow I suspect that juxtaposition in my last comment was raaaaacist.

  9. sdferr says:

    The Spartans were some tough sons of bitches — but very few — and happy to die to prove it. Meaner sorts might take a more aggressive tack, refusing to sit still to wait, instead going out to ‘get’ the weapon takers peremptorily, out of the blue before they saw them coming. Of course, those meaner sorts wouldn’t give any notice (yeah, I’m looking at you, Osama — for that matter, you too, Barry).

  10. daveinsocal says:

    Here is yet another sneak preview of the kinds of behavior we can expect leading up to the coming economic and societal collapse.

    And here is a what we can likely expect when the free stuff runs out on the way to that collapse.

  11. eCurmudgeon says:

    I’m not certain any longer what form the coming civil war will take.

    Bosnia, I fear.

  12. sdferr says:

    Hush, you.

    Yes. Well, gender neutrality ought to be supposed to have taken care of that particular problem. Unless it really isn’t all it’s vaunted to be . . . as a universalizing condition, hence an effective take-down, that is.

    Hmmm. How about that?

  13. dicentra says:

    Bosnia, I fear.

    Oh, I’m sure our American Exceptionalism will come up with something entirely new.

    But just as bad.

  14. daveinsocal says:

    This is an idea I know has been toyed with in California, but it never seems to go anywhere.

    I gotta wonder if it’s idea that’s just waiting for the right moment.

    Here in CA, as the conditions get worse in the bigger cities and the budget shortfalls get bigger and bigger (thanks to the high-speed rail “Browndoggle”, out of control spending and the unsustainable pensions and benefits promised to public employees, the majority of whom tend to live in the urban areas), I think the idea of cutting the cord and splitting off from the coastal enclaves will get more and more attractive to the less urban and rural counties. I expect the people scoffing at the idea today will be a lot more receptive when things on their street have gone downhill far enough.

  15. Blake says:

    dave, as a Central Valleyite, I’m all for telling the coastal enclaves to FOAD. Of course, the Central Valley also needs to tell Washington to FOAD.

    Maybe a few pikes with appropriate adornments along Highway 5 and, 10 and 40 would do the trick.

  16. The problem in California is that it isn’t just state governments and coastal towns causing trouble. The cities of San Bernardino and Stockton want to preserve union pensions at the expense of bondholders — neither is coastal.

  17. sdferr says:

    A few pikes? Adorned with lemon and parsley, maybe?

  18. leigh says:

    Dave, I’m in the middle of reading a novel about a post-apocalyptic/border war in California, where the state has split between the coastal enclaves and the valleys and mountains.

    I used to think that kind of thing could never happen.

  19. SoCalPatriot says:

    Greetings from a SoCal newbie.
    Hey leigh, what’s the name of that book?
    I see 2 main causes of the California meltdown. 1) The Left’s Long March Through The Institutions (particularly government education) have cut the long tradition of intelligent and freedom loving generations from continuing. Stalinism is the order of the day in the schools.
    California is blessed with boundless resources and the Commissars that rule the State effort to shut down any development of same, forcing people to look to government. Sort of Obamanism in miniature. They are moving forward with their own “cap and trade” scheme to destroy what industry we have left. Unbelievable.
    2) The people who moved here and built our culture are dying off or moving away. They are not the same. In fact, the people here now are like space aliens with no knowledge nor sense of culture. The people who built the “car culture” and fostered a culture of freedom and prosperity are gone.
    To the new rulers and urban planners, their ultimate goal is to build transit routes(corridors), hence the push of the “train to nowhere” (my apologies to the central valley residents). They will then restrict development outside of a given radius of these corridors and pass more laws to further kill off the automobile. Voila! End of car/freedom/prosperity. Permanent government dependency and eschewing freedom.
    So far, not enough outrage even among those still with a memory of our past to build an active resistance. My apologies for the lengthy post.

  20. daveinsocal says:

    Blake, at least you Central Valley folks will have the High-Speed Rail line to proudly point to in a decade or three.

    Here in the Inland Empire, we have… San Bernardino.

  21. leigh says:

    SoCalPatriot, it’s called Analog Only.

    It’s pretty cool, so far. Technology is driving everything, so the protagonist is an analog only guy and lives “off the grid”. It’s kind of a cross between “Blade Runner”, “Repo Man” and the “Mad Max” movies, so far.

  22. daveinsocal says:

    Leigh, like SoCalPatriot I’d be interested in knowing the name of that book as well. I just finished reading the “Enemies” trilogy by Matthew Bracken (also the author of “When The Music Stops – How America’s Cities May Explode In Violence” that I linked above). The second book (“Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista”) took place mainly in New Mexico and the San Diego areas, demonstrating the outcome of multi-culturalism and unchecked illegal immigration. Rather than splits within the states, in this book the progressive Federal government effectively ceded the southwestern states to “the Nation of Aztlan”.

  23. leigh says:

    It’s right above your last, Dave.

    I don’t know the name of the author. I’ll look it up for you later.

  24. Swen says:

    I suspect David Stockton is right, Global Leviathan will die not with a bang but with a long-sustained whimper:

    Without any changes, over the next decade or so, the gross federal debt, now nearly $17 trillion, will hurtle toward $30 trillion and soar to 150 percent of gross domestic product from around 105 percent today. Since our constitutional stasis rules out any prospect of a “grand bargain,” the nation’s fiscal collapse will play out incrementally, like a Greek/Cypriot tragedy, in carefully choreographed crises over debt ceilings, continuing resolutions and temporary budgetary patches.

    The future is bleak. The greatest construction boom in recorded history — China’s money dump on infrastructure over the last 15 years — is slowing. Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and all the other growing middle-income nations cannot make up for the shortfall in demand. The American machinery of monetary and fiscal stimulus has reached its limits. Japan is sinking into old-age bankruptcy and Europe into welfare-state senescence. The new rulers enthroned in Beijing last year know that after two decades of wild lending, speculation and building, even they will face a day of reckoning, too.

    Read the whole thing. If Stockton is right we’ll see a long, slow unwinding of government functions, social safety nets, and all the economic networks that put food on your table and gas in your car. Best to be prepared for a long period of shortages and inflated prices.

    I do disagree with Stockton that we should hoard cash, inflation will turn that into good kindling. Better to spend the cash now before the inevitable inflation destroys its value and lay in a good supply of food, medicines, clothing and footwear, guns and ammo, and everything else needed to ride out the depression from hell.

    Best not to be anywhere near an urban center, when the mooches stop getting their checks or the checks become worthless there will be burning and looting in the cities and the authorities will be too busy evacuating their families to do anything for yours.

    I’ve been expecting something like this for several years now, but when the New York Times starts printing articles that agree with me it’s time to start puckering hard.

  25. Blake says:

    Dave, I’d prefer to point to San Bernadino rather than believe in some mythical unicorn known as a “bullet train.”

  26. leigh says:

    San Bernardino County Jail is often featured on the “Scared Straight” shows. Lots of vatos and attitude.

  27. Blake says:

    Swen, we’re already in a deflationary collapse. I don’t think it is really possible for inflation to run wild when the American household is regressing to the single earner model.

  28. daveinsocal says:

    Thanks, Leigh!

  29. daveinsocal says:

    Here’s something you can spend your rapidly devaluing cash savings on that may come in handy in the near future:

    Depleted-Uranium Anti-Drone Shotgun Shells

  30. SBP says:

    “I’m not certain any longer what form the coming civil war will take.”

    A couple of possibilities:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Roman_Republic
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period

    Unfortunately, no Julius Caesar or Tokugawa Ieyasu is in evidence.

  31. SBP says:

    “Swen, we’re already in a deflationary collapse. I don’t think it is really possible for inflation to run wild”

    Demand is down for consumer goods and real estate, sure enough.

    The problem is that the Feds are just as screwed as Cali, and they don’t *have* to declare bankruptcy.

    They can just say that the dollar is now worth 10% of what it was before.

  32. leigh says:

    DHS announced yesterday that they may seize your safety deposit box(es) and their contents if you are on their watch-list or doing something they think is ‘suspicious’. They are also monitoring bank accounts.

    FDIC or one of the bank regulators also announced that all your deposits are belong to them once they are in the bank.

    We’re fucked.

  33. palaeomerus says:

    ““I’m not certain any longer what form the coming civil war will take.””

    It will look like Mexico.

  34. SBP says:

    I don’t think so. Mexico is only as good as it is because of huge cash influx from the United States.

    More like Europe circa 500 AD.

    I’d be worried about the Chinese, except I expect them to fall faster and even more thoroughly. It’s happened a dozen or two times in their history.

  35. richlove1 says:

    Every few years, some people in the northern half of Minnesota talk about seceding from the state, and the residents of the Northwest Angle (the little bump at the top of the state) make noises about wanting to become part of Canada. None of it has ever amounted to anything. The northern part of the state is solidly Democrap, and there isn’t much in the way of economic development besides tourism. Dependency on the generosity of the pols in St. Paul and DC keeps them sucking on the statist teat. When the largess vanishes, I doubt people will wake up. There will be protests where people demand government-provided goodies ad infinitum like the Greeks did, except in “Fargo”- accented English.

  36. RI Red says:

    Sdferr at 12:38
    Almost rabble-rousing, considering your comment last week that we were in the infancy of a movement that we might not live to see. I keed, I keed!
    That being said, did you notice that some group (likely cartel-related) has an action plan against DAs in Texas? They seem to have the courage of their convictions. In the felonious sense.
    Once I read about the odd federal legislator and his/her untimely demise, I’ll know that we are truly post-constitutional/rhyming historical arcs.

  37. beemoe says:

    Dr. Flood is a bit of a moron, huh?

  38. SBP says:

    Probably got kicked upstairs to a bureaucratic “director” position to keep him the hell away from the patients.

  39. Swen says:

    SBP says April 1, 2013 at 4:09 pm

    Blake says April 1, 2013 at 3:37 pm
    “Swen, we’re already in a deflationary collapse. I don’t think it is really possible for inflation to run wild”

    Demand is down for consumer goods and real estate, sure enough.

    The problem is that the Feds are just as screwed as Cali, and they don’t *have* to declare bankruptcy.

    They can just say that the dollar is now worth 10% of what it was before.

    My fear exactly. We’ve already had what? Three rounds of “quantitative easing”? Granted part of the incentive of quantitative easing is that done judiciously it can help stave off deflation, but Washington doesn’t do judicious.

    There’s nothing like creating a few trillion bucks out of thin air to devalue the currency already in circulation v. other world currencies. They don’t have to declare that the dollar is now worth 10% of what it was before, all they have to do is keep printing money until our dollar is worth 90% less v. other currencies. Shades of the Weimar Republic….

  40. sdferr says:

    Almost rabble-rousing

    Hey
    ! There ain’t no rabbles around here to be roused. (heh)

    Jes’ us fluffy bunnies.

    Weeell, and maybe a folk or two what muses on Odysseus’ doin’s regardin’ them suitors, sneakin’ up on ’em all unfair like.

  41. SBP says:

    Oh, yeah. I had a two billion mark stamp in my stamp collection when I was a kid. They stopped bothering to create new stamps; they just overprinted the old ones with the new denomination in black ink.

    Post-WWII Hungary was worse. They were the All-Time Champeen for decades, but maybe Zimbabwe has passed them by now?

  42. Blake says:

    Swen, SBP, it’s all well and good to print but, the money has to be put into circulation. The government can print up a couple trillion dollars, but if it isn’t in circulation, it’s not doing anything.

    Government is trying hard to avoid a deflationary collapse through printing, but government is running into trouble getting the money into circulation.

    Jobs are being lost and wages are stagnating. The money just isn’t being earned fast enough to really drive inflation. Not that there isn’t inflation; rather, from the way government is printing, I would have expected inflation to take off far more than it has.

  43. leigh says:

    That’s funny, Spies. I had an old Pfennig note that Gramps gave me to remind me why they left the Fatherland.

  44. SBP says:

    “Swen, SBP, it’s all well and good to print but, the money has to be put into circulation. The government can print up a couple trillion dollars, but if it isn’t in circulation, it’s not doing anything.”

    Actual intended quote. :-)

    Well, they could’ve taken that $60,000 per capita “stimulus” and just cut a check to everybody in the country.

    That would get it circulating, I’ll bet, and at least we’d get the pleasure of spending the money that they put on our collective credit cards.

  45. Blake says:

    SBP, I admit I’m arguing somewhat out of my you know what.

    My thinking is, and this is where J Howard would come in handy, government is trying to put more money into circulation through extended unemployment benefits, expanding food stamp rolls, Medicare, etc.

    There are only so many channels to quietly push money into the system and I suspect those pipelines are at capacity.

    (yeah, I’m reaching, and I know it. I don’t have enough knowledge to really defend my thesis.)

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