Essay: Freedom, by Bill Whittle.

[Fish]

I'm sure many of you on this board have already read this essay, but I thought I'd point it out to those of you not yet lucky enough to have seen it: Freedom, by Bill Whittle. There are too many good passages to quote them all, but here are two that really touched me personally:

In the Warsaw Ghetto, in Solzhenitsyn's Gulags, in countless other miserable terrifying pits of murder, some people woke up to the idea that resistance is NOT futile. Which is why that old saw, which in my terribly, tragically misspent liberal youth I used to sneer at as the mark of a real idiot - "they can have my gun when they pry it from my cold dead fingers" - suddenly makes a new kind of sense to me.

That is not the statement of someone who doesn't want to give up a snowmobile or a Beemer. That is a statement that draws a line in the sand for the government, or any other oppressor, to plainly see. You want to take this freedom away from me? COME AND GET IT.

And this:

Here is a sociological experiment that might have something to teach us:

Kick down 100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try again in Texas, with 100 NRA members. Collate, or rather, have a surviving relative collate the results. Extrapolate the abductors' rates of casualties to determine the total number of murdering swine needed. See what percentage of jackbooted thugs have a suicide wish and then determine the number of men you will need to disarm, kidnap and murder 50 million armed people.

You will need a lot of men. More than you can raise.

Not long after I read this essay, I started upon the road which as lead me to where I am today: a proud owner of firearms, intent on acquiring more with peaceful and honorable intent. The High Road, if you will.

I strongly recommend all of Mr. Whittle's essays, but this one in particular spoke to me. I hope all of you enjoy it as well.

Fish.
molon labe

 

[fiVe]

Thanks, fish. This is a GREAT read.

 

[Mark Tyson]

Is that the guy who builds airplanes for a hobby?

 

[Fish]

Is that the guy who builds airplanes for a hobby?

Yep; I believe he's done some work as a test pilot, and messes around with the private airplane construction industry... on his own time.

fiVe: I'm glad you're enjoying it. I go back and review it every couple of months, and have printed out copies to give to many of those who ask me why I've become so interested in firearms all of a sudden. In a couple of cases, it's convinced them that maybe I'm not entirely insane...

Fish.

 

[Fish]

Finally tracked down an entry of Bill's where he discusses (briefly) some of his work as a test pilot: Courage.