The Smallest Minority

The Smallest Minority
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most cherished principles and beliefs questioned and in some cases mocked. That psychic discomfort is the price we pay for basic civic peace. It's worth it. It's a pragmatic principle. Defend everyone else's rights, because if you don't there is no one to defend yours. - MaxedOutMama I don't just want gun rights... I want individual liberty, a culture of self-reliance....I want the whole bloody thing. Kim du Toit
I am Simon Jester . . . and so are you 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. 6 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! An Invitation to My Readers 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 Mystery of Government The Blog that Ate Poughkeepsie Updated and restated as: Of Laws and Sausages Militias A Mistake a Free People Get to Make Only Once The George Orwell Daycare Center 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 The Culture Trilogy Culture Hubris Weltanschauung And its follow-on: In Re: Culture 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 Mostly Cajun View from the Porch Of Arms and the Law TFS Magnum Ravenwood's Universe Irons in the Fire Say Uncle The Adventures of Roberta X TRUE EXCELLENCE American Digest The Belmont Club Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper The Volokh Conspiracy Michael Yon Varifrank Eject!Eject!Eject! Eternity Road Oleg Volk ON INDEFINITE HIATUS USS Clueless The Safety Valve Ipse Dixit The Lopsided Poopdeck Acidman (RIP) Skywritings Publicola D.C. Thorton Kim du Toit Personal Effects 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 Mrs. Anarchangel The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Argghhh! The Bitch Girls Boots and Sabers The Breda Fallacy Gun Nuts Media Carnaby Fudge Clayton Cramer Cogito Ergo Geek Countertop Chronicles Cowboy Blob Critical Mastiff Cryptic Subterranean Found: One Troll FreedomSight From the Heartland Fun Turns to Tragedy!!! The Geek with a .45 Gunwatch Heartless Libertarian Hecate's Crossroad Hell in a Handbasket Individ Justin Buist's Blog The LawDog Files Lead and Gold Les Jones Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast 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 A Keyboard and a .45 AIM Blog Another Gun Blog The Armed Schoolteacher Bitter of The Bitch Girls Cowboy Blob Captain of a Crew of One damnum absque injuria Dave Kopel Days of our Trailers GreatBlueWhale Gun Pundit GunTruth Kim du Toit Mrs. du Toit The Mad Duck Michael Bane Rustmeister's Alehouse Serenity Sharp as a Marble Snowflakes in Hell Smoke on the Water Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Gun Nuts Media On the Patio Phil and Dave of Random Nuclear Strikes Fodder of Ride Fast & Shoot Straight Rivrdog Say Uncle View From the Porch Walls of the City JimmyB, The Conservative UAW Guy Engineering Johnson KeeWee Yosemite Sam and Denise from The Ten Ring The Unforgiving Minute Mr. Completely Og the Neanderpundit USCitizen of Traction Control World Examiner Joe Huffman Chris & Mel John and Beth Donovan The Packing Rat 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 Engineer-Poet Primeval Papa FURRINERS Kiwi Pundit The Policeman's Blog Free Market Fairy Tales Samizdata Musing The Second Version The Last of the Few The Inside Edge Jigsaw's Thoughts OTHER GOOD READS Baby Troll Blog The Winds of Change Sense of Events The Everlasting Phelps Knowledge is Power QandO Blog Radio Blogger Rachel Lucas Mad Rocket Scientist 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 Oxypolitis Arizona Rifleman A Gator in the Desert 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 Black & Right Blognomicon Benevolent Misanthropy (Ian Hamet) 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 Liberal Morality 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 The Warren Warthog's Rants Wasted Electrons Wheels within Wheels Wicked Thoughts	Thursday, September 15, 2005 This Letter Makes This All Worthwhile. Bright and early this morning I logged on and got my email, and found this (printed here with his permission): I have been reading your blog for a while, learning about the subjects you write about...and even prior to N. Orleans, I was leaning towards your position, and possibly arming our family. Can I tell you what a radical departure that is for me? And then maybe why it shouldn't have been in some ways? I was raised in a religious Jewish household. Religious Jews just don't hunt; we're not raised in a culture of guns (outside of Israel, in which this has changed things). I was also a child of the liberal 60's, thought guns kill and all that nonsense. My dad, however, was a survivor of Auschwitz. My grandparents were murdered there. And it is now a cliche, but it's true, the 'average' Jew could not defend themselves. So that got me to thinkin...and then seeing how it starts to look like America could end up like many S. American countries, with gated communities and barbed wire or broken glass up on the walls of the compounds...and I used to think this was the siren song of the Cassandras, but New Orleans showed that ain't necessarily true...well, all this speaks of the need to have some protection. Of course, we had someone, a rabbi, say in his 30's, walking in his house, not too far from where we live, and he was mugged by a man with a gun. Fortunately, and almost unusually in these cases, in spite of the fact this rabbi had literally nothing on him, the creep ran without shooting. But this happened basically in MY neighborhood. And all it takes is one occasion (though otherwise, it's a relatively safe area, whatever that means!). I can't think of any reason not to. Child safety? That's all just TEACHING, like it is with a hundred other lethal things we have inside the house. I don't want to go on too long, but I do hope either we'll travel near someone on your list offering shooting sessions (and yes, I have never shot a gun in my life, never thought I'd think about it, which is the point of all this) or someone will be added to the list close by to home, Saint Louis, MO and I can take 'em up on the offer. I've given him the contact information for John Ross, but if there's someone else in the St. Louis area who would like to join Publicola's list of volunteer instructors, drop me a line. When I emailed him to thank him for the letter and to ask permission to print it, he added this: You've helped me understand a great deal of things I otherwise might not have. I had a lifetime bias against guns...still won't say I like 'em, but that's that cultural bias I mentioned, and having one for self-defense is not the same as enjoying killing. (I still have a problem with hunting, but that's MY BIAS, and I never was opposed to anyone else hunting just because I don't "get it". Who am I to tell anyone else to do unless it bothers my life? That seems SO self-evident, but then we grow up and learn it's not. Half the world wants to rule the other half, or so it seems, and that's from most politicians down to the petty bureaucrats running health care nowadays ). But self-defense? Yeah, we have the right to that. Another thing that would seem self-evident, but...gosh, dealing with that other 1/2 of the world...). I figured out I was as bad as some mama bear, when it came to wanting to protect my family. I think I never understood that idea UNTIL I had children. After that, I realized I had an obligation to MY FAMILY. Another simplistic notion, but one that seems to flit by most people (though interestingly, I read that many of the "refugees" from N. Orleans and Mississippi have been taken in by...gasp...family members!). I couldn't sleep last night, was reading one of James Lee Burke's novels, and (start up the Twilight Zone music) he had his character mention that very thing about how the police don't, can't prevent most crime, and in fact, how most crime is never punished. It WAS weird that I read it not a couple of hours after I had written you. On a bigger scale, , I have enjoyed learning about the Constitution, the ideals America was founded on...We drove the kids to Boston some years back and have continued to now take driving vacations literally all over the country. Early one, though, we were in Lexington and Concord, saw the statue of the Minuteman...who had a RIFLE (doh). Just wanting to teach my kids about these things, I started reading myself..and soon found out I knew nothing, like most Americans, about why we started this country. Put it all together..and I have one other story to tell: When Nixon resigned, my dad cried with relief. Why? He wasn't an avid Nixon hater at all, but he said, and I remember it like it was yesterday (and my dad's been gone since '84), but he thought it was amazing we could have a bloodless revolution, that the rule of law WORKED here, unlike how it had been corrupted in WW2 Europe, and he had a respect and a feeling for America, for its institutions and ideals, that most of us take for granted, or more unfortunately, don't even understand or know (as we slide farther away from those ideas). It's that stereotype of immigrants who came here and appreciated freedom, never took it for granted; on my mom's side, her parents were from Russia/Poland, and my grandfather's father was murdered in front of my grandad in the 1905 Revolution. So when they came here, same thing as my dad...none of it was taken for granted. We're in real danger, I've come to see, of losing those ideals. Having said all the above, it's thanks in large part to blogs such as yours that I've learned anything. I'm still learning, economics, political philosophy, Consitutional law, and finding intelligent blogs has been an amazing help. And I think its important to thank our teachers sometimes, let 'em know we appreciate the efforts. But I wanted to let you know why this is a big deal for me. I realize too, that for most, there is a reason they don't bother to learn, whether it's that lifetime of indoctination, the sheep-like attitude of most folks, or even the (somewhat true for a while) idea that 'ignorance is bliss" (because the more I learn, some days, the more pissed off I am), but I had a need and desire to do so, and I think we all should have SOME obligation to know, otherwise we are screwed. You know that. I didn't, but I'm learning. I've had a big smile on my face all day long. \| posted by Kevin at 5:26 PM PermaLink HOME