bdgackle
Member
Today we celebrate the beginning of our existence as a free republic. Following our war for independence, we established ourselves as the most liberated country on the face of the earth. We rightly celebrate that achievment. Two hundred and thirty two years later, we still enjoy more freedom than most other contries on the planet. I am proud of this fact, and continue to work to preserve that freedom, and to improve the country I live in.
I am forced to consider, however, that the country I live in today is considerably less free than it was two hundred years ago. Indeed, the country I live in today is less free than MOST countries were in 1776. Consider that even in Britain, the right to carry a weapon for self defense was considered a basic civil right not even fifty years ago. Today, a substantial minority of Americans would find themselves in prison if they attempted the same. Even simple acts such as building a house on land that you own, obtaining or using a means of transportation, and earning a living through employment or independent enterprise is grounds for imprisonment in today's society if you do not obtain explicit government permission on a specific and on-going basis. Today, we are subjected to a level of surveilence that would have been unimaginable to the men who signed the declaration of independence. How many of us purchased a package of hamburgers or hot dogs today without a record of that fact being recorded in a nationally searchable database?
The enemy we faced in 1776 was external. On the simplest level, victory was a simple matter of identifying those who would deny us our freedom and pointing a musket at them. I would argue that the enemy we face today is much more insidious. The threats to our freedom today arise from the very circumstances that have brought us security and prosperity. Our enemies today are not men, they are ideas. I do not believe in the existance of a global conspiracy to deny us our rights and our dignity. I do not believe that the efforts of any concious entity have brought about the crisis we currently face. I believe, rather, that our problems emerge naturally from the nature of modern society.
Contrast the attitude of any independent man with the collectivist thought that seems to emerge from dense urban populations. Our country was founded by a backbone of men who were responsible for their own day to day survival. Over time, we have slowly allowed ourselves to become more specialized. Most of us make a living by performing a single task well. We obtain food, clothing, and shelter by relying on others specialized to do the same. This is not bad in and of itself; through cooperative effort we have enabled ourselves to live more comfortable lives than the most privelaged people of the past. This way of life, however, comes with a hidden danger. As we give up responsibility for our own day to day survival, the temptation to favor security over liberty becomes very strong. It is no coincidence that people living in cities are consistantly the first to offer up individual freedoms in exchange for promises of safety and stability.
I believe that what binds the people on this board together is a strong tendency to resist this trend. All honest men are probably capable of of becoming sheepdogs if born and raised in an environment that demands it. What sets us apart is our stubborn refusal, even our inability, to turn into sheep -- despite living in a society that should make such a transformation inevitable. This is why we find ourselves as the rear guard of liberty, fighting for the last two centuries to delay its inevitable decline. Based on the percentage of people that take up arms in defense of themselves when given the opportunity to do so, I would estimate that we represent somewhere between one and five percent of the population. Absent a catastrohic disruption of society, we are destined to remain a tiny minority. Perhaps this is what drives so many of us to fantasize about the collapse of civil society (an no one who has spent any amount of time on a gun board can deny that these sorts of thoughts are common) -- an innate knowledge that this would at least lead to the reemergence of our kind as the dominant component of the population.
My challenge to myself on this 4th of July, and to any person on this board who feels as I do, is to spread our way of thinking. Look around at the people you work with, play with, live with, and try to understand why they have become sheep. Realize that they are to be regarded with pity, not contempt. They remain potential allies, even as they vote to sacrafice their own liberty, and to forcibly confiscate ours. We do not have the luxury of regarding them as our enemies, as strong as the temptation to do so may be. We need them as much as they need us, and our only hope for long term victory is to help a significant number of them to rediscover their dignity.
In addition to the obvious political steps that most of us are already taking, I pledge to do smaller things, to try to plant the seeds of independence in my fellow citizens. I plan to buy a box of cheap pocket knives. When someone at work who normally considers me strange for carrying one asks to borrow it for some reason, I plan to make a gift of one -- to change that one small habit that too many people have given up. I will try to identify people who have never touched a gun and invite them to the range -- not to overwhelm them with propaganda but just to remove the mystery and hopefully have them associate a fun activity with firearms. I plan to attend an Appleseed shoot, and become trained as a rifle instructor, so that I can become a better rifleman and learn how to give someone else the satisfaction of doing the same. I plan to teach at least one person who has never done so how to jump start a car, and how to change a tire, so that they can experience the satisfaction of solving a problem for themselves instead of calling for help. I'm sure that all of us have small opportunites in our daily lives to take steps like these. None of us can change the world, but all of us can change one mind -- and taking the opportunity to do so is far more honorable than yeilding to the temptations of hopelessness and cynacism.
I am forced to consider, however, that the country I live in today is considerably less free than it was two hundred years ago. Indeed, the country I live in today is less free than MOST countries were in 1776. Consider that even in Britain, the right to carry a weapon for self defense was considered a basic civil right not even fifty years ago. Today, a substantial minority of Americans would find themselves in prison if they attempted the same. Even simple acts such as building a house on land that you own, obtaining or using a means of transportation, and earning a living through employment or independent enterprise is grounds for imprisonment in today's society if you do not obtain explicit government permission on a specific and on-going basis. Today, we are subjected to a level of surveilence that would have been unimaginable to the men who signed the declaration of independence. How many of us purchased a package of hamburgers or hot dogs today without a record of that fact being recorded in a nationally searchable database?
The enemy we faced in 1776 was external. On the simplest level, victory was a simple matter of identifying those who would deny us our freedom and pointing a musket at them. I would argue that the enemy we face today is much more insidious. The threats to our freedom today arise from the very circumstances that have brought us security and prosperity. Our enemies today are not men, they are ideas. I do not believe in the existance of a global conspiracy to deny us our rights and our dignity. I do not believe that the efforts of any concious entity have brought about the crisis we currently face. I believe, rather, that our problems emerge naturally from the nature of modern society.
Contrast the attitude of any independent man with the collectivist thought that seems to emerge from dense urban populations. Our country was founded by a backbone of men who were responsible for their own day to day survival. Over time, we have slowly allowed ourselves to become more specialized. Most of us make a living by performing a single task well. We obtain food, clothing, and shelter by relying on others specialized to do the same. This is not bad in and of itself; through cooperative effort we have enabled ourselves to live more comfortable lives than the most privelaged people of the past. This way of life, however, comes with a hidden danger. As we give up responsibility for our own day to day survival, the temptation to favor security over liberty becomes very strong. It is no coincidence that people living in cities are consistantly the first to offer up individual freedoms in exchange for promises of safety and stability.
I believe that what binds the people on this board together is a strong tendency to resist this trend. All honest men are probably capable of of becoming sheepdogs if born and raised in an environment that demands it. What sets us apart is our stubborn refusal, even our inability, to turn into sheep -- despite living in a society that should make such a transformation inevitable. This is why we find ourselves as the rear guard of liberty, fighting for the last two centuries to delay its inevitable decline. Based on the percentage of people that take up arms in defense of themselves when given the opportunity to do so, I would estimate that we represent somewhere between one and five percent of the population. Absent a catastrohic disruption of society, we are destined to remain a tiny minority. Perhaps this is what drives so many of us to fantasize about the collapse of civil society (an no one who has spent any amount of time on a gun board can deny that these sorts of thoughts are common) -- an innate knowledge that this would at least lead to the reemergence of our kind as the dominant component of the population.
My challenge to myself on this 4th of July, and to any person on this board who feels as I do, is to spread our way of thinking. Look around at the people you work with, play with, live with, and try to understand why they have become sheep. Realize that they are to be regarded with pity, not contempt. They remain potential allies, even as they vote to sacrafice their own liberty, and to forcibly confiscate ours. We do not have the luxury of regarding them as our enemies, as strong as the temptation to do so may be. We need them as much as they need us, and our only hope for long term victory is to help a significant number of them to rediscover their dignity.
In addition to the obvious political steps that most of us are already taking, I pledge to do smaller things, to try to plant the seeds of independence in my fellow citizens. I plan to buy a box of cheap pocket knives. When someone at work who normally considers me strange for carrying one asks to borrow it for some reason, I plan to make a gift of one -- to change that one small habit that too many people have given up. I will try to identify people who have never touched a gun and invite them to the range -- not to overwhelm them with propaganda but just to remove the mystery and hopefully have them associate a fun activity with firearms. I plan to attend an Appleseed shoot, and become trained as a rifle instructor, so that I can become a better rifleman and learn how to give someone else the satisfaction of doing the same. I plan to teach at least one person who has never done so how to jump start a car, and how to change a tire, so that they can experience the satisfaction of solving a problem for themselves instead of calling for help. I'm sure that all of us have small opportunites in our daily lives to take steps like these. None of us can change the world, but all of us can change one mind -- and taking the opportunity to do so is far more honorable than yeilding to the temptations of hopelessness and cynacism.
