The Smallest Minority |
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The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand "I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing." KdT
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Wahabism Delenda Est   
Hey, FEC!  BITE ME! I'm a Member of the McCain-Feingold INSURRECTION!   "Jeez, Kevin... calling you an asshole would be a huge understatement, wouldn't it?" -Jack Cluth, The People's Republic of Seabrook (Coming from you, Jack, it's an honor.)  email: gunrightsAT comcastDOTnet INVITATION: If you have never shot a firearm, regardless of your position on the right to arms, and if you live near or visit the Tucson, AZ metropolitan area, I invite you to go shooting for a day. I will provide the arms, ammunition, targets, safety equipment, range fees and instruction. All you have to do is show up. 4 Takers To Date DO YOU LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE and want to try shooting? Click HERE  Proud Gun-blogging member of the Pajamahadeen since May, 2003!
Debates: "The Commentary" A OLD discussion on gun control between me and an Irishman living in London Start here. UPDATED! Now with archive! Post #1 by Alex, a Guest A multi-post discussion hosted here at TSM My short exchange with Professor Saul Cornell of the Second Amendment Research Center Best Posts: The "Rights" Discussion: What is a "Right?" What is a "Right"? Revisited, Part I Part II Rights, Morality, Idealism & Pragmatism, Part I Part II Part III Part IV The United Federation of Planets Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part I & Part II 1975 in Washington, D.C. vs. 2004 in Canton, Ohio Go Ahead, Rely on the Government for Your Protection The Other Side Liberal vs. Conservative: Both are Necessary The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once This is NOT What I Wanted to Read TRUST The Lying "News" Media, Pt. II Say WHAT? Bias? What Bias? Agenda? What Agenda? The Church of the MSM and the New Reformation Let's See if I Can "Germinate an Intelligent Thought" Here The ACLU Hasn't Changed its Tune They Never EVER Stop It is Not the Business of Government Five Reasons Why It ISN'T They Keep Making Better Fools Five Month Investigation, 10 Tracer Rounds, Two Felony Convictions That Sumbitch Ain't been BORN! On Guillotines and Gibbets England Slides Further Towards Bondage Pressing the "RESET" Button Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothin' Left To Lose A Terrible Resolve The Courts Will Not Save Us Trilogy: The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions "Game Over, Man. Game Over." An Important Question And the denouement: Hudson Was Wrong The Dangerous Victims Trilogy: "(I)t's most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can" Violence and the Social Contract Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims In the same vein: Those Without Swords Can Still Die Upon Them The True Believers Trilogy: True Believers March of the Lemmings Reasonable People Also in the same vein: Tough History Coming Technical Dissertations Why Ballistic Fingerprinting Doesn't (And Won't) Work Spin, Spin, Spin Speaking of Teddy Kennedy... This is the Kind of Thing That REALLY IRRITATES ME Questions from the Audience?
BLOGROLL:
PROTESTWARRIOR Some people who are taking the fight to the Left. And some GREAT T-shirts, too. DAILY READS I need a longer day! Day by Day InstaPundit Lileks' The Bleat Kim du Toit Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk Personal Effects ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Smoke on the Water OTHER GUN/RIGHTS BLOGS Airborne Combat Engineer AlphaPatriot Alphecca American Dinosaur A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver The Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Call Me Ahab Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Mad Ogre The Michael Bane Blog Moral Flexibility Mr. Completely Murdoc Online The Munchkin Wrangler Ninth Stage No Looking Backwards No Quarters Oscar Poppa Outrageous Malfunction Pass the ammo Posse Incitatus Random Nuclear Strikes Reasonablenut Resistance is Futile! Sandcastles and Cubicles SlagleRock's Slaughterhouse Snowflakes in Hell Surly Curmudgeon Texican Tattler The Ten Ring South Park Pundit Triggerfinger The View From North Central Idaho Vox The War on Guns Weck Up To Thees! Wince and Nod Xavier Thoughts .45 Caliber Justice BLOGGERS I'VE MET Cowboy Blob Kim du Toit Mrs. du Toit Serenity Smoke on the Water The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler On the Patio Fodder of Ride Fast & Shoot Straight Rivrdog Say Uncle JimmyB, The Conservative UAW Guy KeeWee Mr. Completely Og the Neanderpundit USCitizen of Traction Control World Examiner Joe Huffman Chris & Mel John and Beth Donovan Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell DirtCrashr of Anthroblogogy Rob of The Kitchen Maj. Chuck Ziegenfuss of From My Position... On the Way! Matthew of Triggerfinger Sarah of Carnaby Fudge KevinP who maintains this excellent Wikipedia entry on the Joyce Foundation Dave Hardy Clayton Cramer Primeval Papa FURRINERS Kiwi Pundit The Policeman's Blog Free Market Fairy Tales Samizdata Musing The Second Version OTHER GOOD READS Baby Troll Blog The Winds of Change Sense of Events The Everlasting Phelps Knowledge is Power QandO Blog Radio Blogger THE PSYCHE BRIGADE Dr. Sanity Dr. Helen One Cosmos ShrinkWrapped Neo-Neocon Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred OTHER AZ BLOGS Useful Fools Zonitics Jackalope Pursuivant Primeval Papa DEPT. OF OUR COLLAPSING SCHOOLS Joanne Jacobs EducatioNation Teacher, Teacher The Irascible Professor OTHERS KIND ENOUGH TO BLOGROLL ME Adding to the Noise America's North Shore Journal Anthroblogogy Atomic Nerds Baboon Pirates Bad Dogs and Such The Bastidge Blognomicon Charming, Just Charming Chublogga! Classical Values Common Sense and Wonder Combs Spouts Off Conservative Scalawag The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns damnum absque injuria David Drake Digital Retrograde The Dougout The Emigre with a Digital Cluebat Empire of Dirt Ether Mind The Fabulous Mint 400 The Freeholder Heinleinblog Impearls Interested-Participant Isaac Schrödinger Josh's Weblog Keith Devens Kill Righty Libertopia The Liberty Zone The Liberty Papers Living in the Surreal World Mike's Eyes Miss O'Hara The Mind of Mog The Ministry of Minor Perfidy MonkeyWatch Adam Lawson NashvilleFiles Near the Salty City PervasiveLight Pierre Legrand's Pink Flamingo Bar Practical Penumbra The Passing Parade Right As Usual Rough Diamond Rules for Rulers Sharp as a Marble She Who Will Be Obeyed! The Speculist Sperari Striderweb A Trainwreck in Maxwell Upbeat Cynicism (Ian Hamet) The Warren Warthog's Rants Wasted Electrons Wheels within Wheels Wicked Thoughts  
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Saturday, April 03, 2004 An Important Question This is not exactly what I expected, but since the good Reverend felt it worth posting, I guess I will. And I'd like all of you out there with whom this question reasonates to post it too. Earlier this evening I wrote a letter to Rev. Donald Sensing, the minister who runs One Hand Clapping. Here's the letter in its entirety, though I've added hotlinks that I left off the original missive. -- Rev. Sensing, I've read your blog for a while now, off and on, and you strike me as one of the not-so-common deep thinkers in the blogosphere, so I'd like to ask you a question. First, I'd like to preface it with some background information. December 12 you posted a piece you titled Bush Republicanism = Roosevelt Democratism? In it you wrote: I predict that the Bush administration will be seen by freedom-wishing Americans a generation or two hence as the hinge on the cell door locking up our freedom. When my children are my age, they will not be free in any recognizably traditional American meaning of the word. I’d tell them to emigrate, but there’s nowhere left to go. I am left with nauseating near-conviction that I am a member of the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free.That same day, Francis Porretto, writing about the Supreme Court decision upholding the Campaign Finance Reform Act wrote: So long as speech was protected, Americans could claim with some justice that we were in some sense free. If Tuesday's Supreme Court decision prevails, we will not be able to call ourselves even partly free. We will be a people in chains. Chains forged to protect incumbents from having their records in office publicized in the press as they stand for election. Chains forged to increase the power of the Old Media, granting their journalists and editors the last word on political campaigns. Chains forged by (and for) men to whom "the people" are not only not sovereign, but are a force to be fastened down and made to do as they're told by those who know better.A couple of weeks ago, I posted a link to a story in which Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reportedly said in a speech he gave in New Orleans: It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.Then last week the 5th Circuit ruled on a case that (in my opinion) broadly widened police powers and greatly weakened the 4th Amendment protection against warrantless search. That prompted me to write an essay I titled "The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions" (it's still up on the front page of my site if you want to read it. I'm not trolling for links here.) [And I wasn't.] In the course of writing that essay I came across a 9th Circuit decision that made me sit back in shock, and after a couple of days I wrote another essay I titled "Game Over, Man. Game Over." In short, I have come to the same conclusion you did in your December 12 piece - that we are 'the last generation of the minimally truly free.' My epiphany came when I read that 9th Circuit decision, because until then I still believed that the judicial branch of the government could, if the justices were honorable and honest, still save us from our folly and return us to the intent of the Constitution even after I read Justice Scalia's quote. My "nauseating near-conviction" wasn't "near" anymore. In the late 1700's it was easy to see who the enemy was - King George. And his agents wore red coats and some wore silly wigs, and all went around with great pomp and circumstance, and we went to war over a level of taxes that citizens today would be ecstatic to pay. But today the enemy is simply "government" and that means, to most people: "us." The overwhelming majority of the populace, I believe, is ignorant and apathetic. They might sense the loss of their freedoms, dimly, but they don't know and they don't want to know. Today I wrote another piece wherein I said that I'm not Don Quixote, I'm 42 and fat and raising the black flag and slitting throats is not my style. To be honest, I don't even know whose throat to slit when it comes down to it. So here's my question: Believing what we believe, is it moral for us to let it happen without standing up and pledging our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor to fight it? I have grandchildren. What do I owe them? -- Rev. Sensing didn't have an answer. He put up excerpts from my letter and my essays and asked his readership for their ideas. I'm asking you for yours. And I'm asking you to ask other people for theirs. Because I don't want to be a member of "the last generation in the history of the world that is minimally truly free." 4/5/04 NOTE: I'm going to leave this up for a couple of days - no new posts, even though there is much (much) out there I'd like to comment on. This is a Blogspot blog. I have no option available to leave this at the top of the page, and that is, as far as I'm concerned, where it needs to be for a while. I'm sending out emails to people who run various sites asking them their opinions, too. Perhaps after a few days I'll have enough feedback to... I don't know what, exactly. But I'll write another piece and tell you what I think. You can count on that. UPDATE, 4:27PM: C. Dodd Harris responds at Ipse Dixit UPDATE II, 6:31PM: Mark Phillip Alger of BabyTrollBlog responds. Optimistically! UPDATE III, 7:40PM: Michael Williams of Master of None asks if we're actually less free living under a system of myriad laws, but essentially random enforcement. His question echos one asked by Mike Spenis last week. "Doug,"commenting at Francis Porretto's site says things are actually turning around. Update, April 6, 5:05AM: Fûz of WeckUpToThees! suggests that we test our new chains with a little civil disobedience starting Sept. 3 when the Donald Crankshaw of Back of the Envelope disagrees with Spoons, saying "Today, those who want judicial restraint have no choice other than the Republicans." We're drifting off topic a bit, but at least we're discussing the problem. UPDATE 8:51PM: SayUncle puts up a pithy, link-filled post pointing out government excesses followed by outrages illustrating the infringement of our individual rights, mostly in the name of "public safety." Which reminds me of another Mencken quote: The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."Well, perhaps not all of them, but certainly most. UPDATE 4/7, 4:28PM: Dale of Mostly Cajun took my question and expanded it to "How free are we?" Good question. I'll have a new post up this evening. UPDATE 4/8 9:43AM: Heartless Libertarian thinks Civil Disobedience is a viable path. | | |
