So, someone decides the Awkward Stage is over...

[cuchulainn]

I am willing to do anything to avoid resorting to violence. I have a great life and I enjoy my freedom, but it is slipping quickly. How do we stop it?

As I told Nick1911, history is full of examples of people who have changed the courses of their history without violence: the U.S. civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement.

Heck, the very slide we're fighting against is an example. Could anyone have imagined in 1920 that in 85 years how far we would have drifted from our Constitutional morings with narry a shot being fired? We're in the midst of a quite, peaceful revolution.

The answers are myriad -- civil disobedience (look at what the Canadians are doing to their Gun Registry), marches, boycotts, professors being willing to hide their poltical goals until after they have tenure (the other side did it, to great effect) -- to name just a few.

I don't pretend to have all the answers. All I know is that I'm not ready to give up -- but you guys are. Really you are. Your fantasies about armed rebellion amount to little more than suicide-by-cop.

That's giving up.

Stop giving up.

 

[Flyboy]

You want an option? Here's an option.

The history of the USA -- and of the world, for that matter -- is full of examples of people who've changed the course of their countries' histories (for good or bad) without armed rebellion. Perhaps we should have a discussion of what they did and how they did it rather than "what if" fantasies.

In recent history, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. managed to spearhead some sweeping changes. You want to put an end to this business in New London? Here's what you do:

Get five hundred of your closest friends who are mad about the decision. Go occupy the condemned neighborhood. No guns, just lawn chairs. If you want to get elaborate, take handcuffs, and attach yourself to the houses, but that's really not required. When the police come to evict the residents, make them physically remove everybody present. Don't resist, just go limp. Make them carry out five hundred people--on national TV--from the homes of people who just want to keep their homes. Yeah, you'll go to jail. The ringleaders will probably be convicted of embarassing the government. But you'll be sympathetic characters. The people will feel for you, and hate the government for it.

Dr. King understood how to win sympathy. The key to civil disobedience is that you have to be willing to go to jail, even though you're right, to develop that groundswell of sympathy. Bonus points if you have information of each of the CT assembly memers who voted against the bill that would restrict such takings (22-11, I believe, along a nearly party-line vote).

There's your nonviolent option. If you're talking about "shooting the bastids," don't you owe it to, well, everybody to try not killing them first?

 

[thereisnospoon]

I think you have misunderstood...

I don't believe any of us here at THR have passed the point of no return or our posts would read more like "guess what I did" instead of "what will you do when".

The point is, we have done the things you have suggested and look what we have gotten. Some would say we have made progress...I say Bullsh*t

(RANT)...the day one can mail order a Tommy Gun for fun and home protection without a Federal Alphabet soup Agency looking over his/her shoulder...the day one can cut all the timber on his/herand and not worry about some freaking owl...the day one can carry her gun where ever she goes, for her own protection and the protection of her children...the day Federal State and Local gov't remebers WE the PEOPLE are in charge...(END RANT)

Someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. If we keep doing the same things we been doing, we're gonna get the same thigns we been gettin...

Am I willing to go to jail for my beliefs? Sure.

Do you have any other suggestions?

 

[cuchulainn]

The point is, we have done the things you have suggested and look what we have gotten. Some would say we have made progress...I say Bullsh*t

No, we haven't really tried those things. There have been a few half-hearted attempts at a few (such as boycotts), but that's all. What we need to do is figure out how to conjole more Americans into joining those half-hearted efforts ... make them full-hearted.

Read Flyboy's post. He makes an excellent suggestion. That might make the effort full-hearted.

I'll offer you another suggestion. Stop looking to our heros -- the Founders -- for examples of how to win. Rather, look to our enemies, the 1960s counter-culture folk who put us in this mess. They took Dr. King's methods and perveted them to their own socialist, anti-liberty goals. In 1967, they were a bunch of irrelevant kids in need of a bath. Just 25 years later, by 1992, they were in the White House.

 

[The Real Hawkeye]

OK, so who's going to new London?

Anybody?

If it weren't for this bum knee ... Actually, I couldn't anyway. I've got a dog, and who'd take care of him?

 

[thereisnospoon]

So you're tellin me you think we have race equality in 2005?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I get your point, but I think that was a poor example. Here's why...

I am not willing to live with half freedoms as the folks in the black race have. Yes they are "in the White House", but only because it is Politically expedient. PERIOD.

I want my children top have real freedom

 

[cuchulainn]

I am not willing to live with half freedoms as the folks in the black race have. Yes they are "in the White House", but only because it is Politically expedient. PERIOD.

I was speaking of that ex-Hippie Bill Clinton making it to the White House. He didn't get there through political expedience. He won an election.

I get your point

Uh, no you didn't. Somehow, you thought I was talking about black people having access to the White House. Rather I was talking about the 1960s Counter Culturalists (mostly white folk) perverting Dr. King's methods to their own socialist anti-liberty agenda and eventually getting one of their own -- Billy -- to the White House. You totally missed my point about looking to our enemies for ways to win.

The counter-culturalists are winning -- there's a reason why they're winning.

half freedoms

Freedoms are lost and won in increments. Rarely do we win or lose them whole.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Sorry I did miss it, for some reason I read something totally different.

If it weren't for this bum knee ... Actually, I couldn't anyway. I've got a dog, and who'd take care of him?

none of us are going to New London, unless I missed a post or something...If y'all want to go for the thing in New London, let me know, but I don't think I'd fit in your group in my fatigues, face paint and carrying my rifle and all

 

[cuchulainn]

Sorry I did miss it, for some reason I read something totally different.

Fair enough.

So start focusing on realistic ways to win. Stop giving up, because that's all you're doing focusing on an "end game" that will never come.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Get five hundred of your closest friends who are mad about the decision. Go occupy the condemned neighborhood. No guns, just lawn chairs. If you want to get elaborate, take handcuffs, and attach yourself to the houses, but that's really not required. When the police come to evict the residents, make them physically remove everybody present. Don't resist, just go limp. Make them carry out five hundred people--on national TV--from the homes of people who just want to keep their homes. Yeah, you'll go to jail. The ringleaders will probably be convicted of embarassing the government. But you'll be sympathetic characters. The people will feel for you, and hate the government for it.

Maybe. Maybe not. It might work, but more probably (based on the government's recent actions at Waco & Ruby Ridge) the area would be cordoned off, no press allowed. Government just might go on a murderous rampage against the peaceful protestors. Then, the press could come in and report the 'evidence'; firearms, explosives, you name it, followed by a complete trashing of the reputations of the (now dead) protestors.

 

[cuchulainn]

Maybe. Maybe not. It might work, but more probably (based on the government's recent actions at Waco & Ruby Ridge) the area would be cordoned off, no press allowed. Government just might go on a murderous rampage against the peaceful protestors.

Yep, I'm the one given to hyperbole and overreaction.

 

[Henry Bowman]

Get five hundred of your closest friends who are mad about the decision.

It won't happen, so why fantasize about it.

This particular issue is unpopular enough that Congress and state legislatures are likely to act to "balance" the powers of the SCOTUS. Other freedoms do not enjoy such popularity.

 

[cuchulainn]

It won't happen, so why fantasize about it.

This might happen. Violent rebellion won't. There's a difference, and you know it. Stop pretending they're similar. Getting Americans to come to the aid of those who are being stomped on by the goverment may be hard, but not impossible. Getting them to take up arms would be.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Cuchulainn,

You seem to focus only on the "NOW". What is your PLAN if the actions you suggest fail?

AS I said earlier, I vote, I do a lot of stuff in the "Soft War" as its called, but what is your plan if the soft war fails?

You seem to keep avoiding this one...

 

[Beethoven]

Don Gwinn

2. If you DO shoot the men who come to take your property, who are you going to shoot? The people who made the decision and gave the orders, or some kid who joined the Sheriff's Department to "make a difference" and has never stopped to reflect on whether he should "do his job" that day.
You start a shooting war, and even if you win you're going to have to kill a lot of otherwise very decent people who ended up on the other side. People who think they're just doing their duty and you're the crazy one. Better make sure you can live with that, and right now, I honestly don't think we're at that point.


Derek Zeannah:
Exactly. "I took away your daddy because he didn't focus enough on the constitutional lessons taught in 10th grade" is a hard line to sell.

So basically you both agree that "I was just following orders" is a valid excuse.

This isn't advanced philosophy, quantum physics, or some other high-flying, obscure topic.

We're talking about the government taking your home and giving it to someone else.

If the "young little sheriff's recruit" doesn't have the mental capacity to reason his way through THAT and understand that it is WRONG, then he deserves whatever fate he is dealt at the hands of the homeowner defending his property.

 

[cuchulainn]

thereisnospoon: You seem to keep avoiding this one...

No, actually, I dealt with it in post #74, where I wrote:

"Someday, we might get to the point where rebellion is justified. But if we do, we will have lost because the rebellion won't occur.

The sooner you people understand that, the sooner we can discuss the alternatives.

The founders had the luxury of the rebellion option. We don't. Our job is harder."

 

[R.H. Lee]

Now you're quoting yourself as backup for your argument?

You really need to engage the topic, cuchulainn. This circuitous negativity about what you think won't happen completely misses the point. Your prophecies don't seem to be based in anything other than your world view of hypotheticals. OTOH, my hypotheticals are based on government's recent behavior. What has happened can happen again. You really need to get over your disdain for the exercise of the 2nd amendment as it was intended by the founders. Civil insurrection may not be probable, and is certainly not desirable. It is however possible.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

We live in a republic. Anything you can achieve with a gun, you can achieve more easily by simply motivating your fellow citizens to vote with you.

To put it plainly, all you have to do is get people to put down the hohos and vote. If you cannot get them to vote, then what chance do you stand of convincing them to risk life, liberty and happiness in an even more futile attempt at violence?

Frankly, I'd like to see all the people who want to live out their Walter Mitty TEOTWAKI fantasies be forced to live adjacent to each other for 20 years so they can argue about whether their idiot neighbor dumping endless amounts of loose fill into the same river they all use is a freedom worth killing over.

 

[cuchulainn]

RileyMc: Now you're quoting yourself as backup for your argument

Um, no. Thereisnospoon said I was avoiding a point, and I quoted myself to show that I had addressed the point.

RileyMc: You really need to get over your disdain for the exercise of the 2nd amendment as it was intended by the founders.

I have no such disdain. I have 100% respect for the founders' vision of protecting the RKBA for the purpose of citizens taking up arms against their government. I'm proud to live in the only nation in history where the people's right to rise up in violence is written (implicitly) into its Constitution.

I simply recognize that it isn't going to happen. It's not an option we have at our disposal.

You really need to get over your focus on an end where we've lost, but maybe, just maybe, we can salvage some honor by going down fighting. That has nothing to do with winning back our liberty.

RileyMc: Civil insurrection may not be probable, and is certainly not desirable. It is however possible.

That possibility is merely academic because its improbability approaches the impossible. It ain't going to happen in the today's USA.

It's also possible that the Cayman Islands will invade Connecticut to stop the eminent domain abuses. That ain't going to happen either.

 

[R.H. Lee]

That possibility is merely academic because its improbability approaches the impossible

Because it is academic does not mean it is useless. I wouldn't want you negotiating anything for me if you're willing to remove options, no matter how unlikely. You gain nothing and lose bargaining power.

There is some reason the leftist/statists are constantly pushing gun controls? What do you think that reason is? I think they fear an armed citizenry, because of the potential for armed resistance. It is that potential that is extremely valuable, and we should not forfeit it outright.

The cold war is a good example. The potential for mutually assured destruction kept the USSR from overstepping its boudaries. When the U.S. government has nothing to fear from it's citizens, you can be it will become tyrannical. It is no different, no nobler, and no more ethical than governments before it. It needs to be held in check by us, and the ultimate check is the potential of the 2nd Amendment. If you 'petition for a redress of grievances' but have no recourse if/when denied, because you've already said you won't use force, you can bet you'll lose.

Now that doesn't mean that we focus on/plan for/use armed resistance as a first course of action. Of course not. But it is there. Acknowledge that. You cannot control what 80million+ armed people might or might not do given a set of unforseen circumstances. The fact that we're armed is a factor. It's part of the equation whether you like it or not.

 

[cuchulainn]

RileyMC: Because it is academic does not mean it is useless. I wouldn't want you negotiating anything for me if you're willing to remove options, no matter how unlikely

OK, I'm going to write the legislators of Conn. to warn them of the possibility of the Cayman Islands invading and putting a stop to their abuses. Yep. That's what I'll do. I wouldn't want to remove The Great Cayman Island Invasion from my negotiation options.

RileyMC: I think they fear an armed citizenry, because of the potential for armed resistance.

No, they fear armed citizens because they think guns cause crime. It's for the chillen. If it saves just one life. You're 43% more likely to stub your toe if you have a gun in the house.

Stop being so naive that you believe our side's propaganda about their motives. Their motives are pure, base fear, having nothing to do with enslaving us. Gun control is nothing different than child-seat or anti-smoking laws for them. Gun control is just their misguided attempt at greater safety.

Sara Brady, Michael Beard, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein and Tom Diaz aren't sitting around thinking, "First we disarm them, then we make the USA into our socialist playground, bwaahahahahaa!" No, they sit around thinking, "Golly, those guns sure scare me. Oh the children! The children!"

Us having guns has never dissuaded them from their political goals one bit.

RileyMC: The cold war is a good example. The potential for mutually assured destruction kept the USSR from overstepping its boudaries.

Nope. It doesn't work that way. The feds don't sit around thinking, "Golly, if we pass this law, the law of mutual destruction will come into play. We better step back from the bounds."

Stop being so naive that you believe our side's propaganda.

 

[R.H. Lee]

Sara Brady, Michael Beard, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein and Tom Diaz aren't sitting around thinking, "First we disarm them, then we make the USA into our socialist playground, bwaahahahahaa!" No, they sit around thinking, "Golly, those guns sure scare me. Oh the children! The children!"

Your point being that their purpose for gun control is public safety. Or so you say (maybe you're able to read their thoughts too?) Even IF that were true, and that's a big IF, their original intention in no way lessens their proclivity for tyranny. After all, they're smarter than everyone else, why shouldn't their will be imposed, by force if necessary, on everyone else? It is naive to believe you can somehow 'negotiate' with that mindset.

I think you're completely missing the point of your own argument because it seems to defeat itself.

Stop being so naive that you believe our side's propaganda

Please don't be so presumptive as to include me on your side. I see your philosophy as one of equivocation and negativism, without any positive results. Yours is the way that leads us down the path of erosion of liberties and ultimately to bondage and inevitably to violence. You seem to think you can avoid violence by not talking about the possibility.. You think this is some sort of public relations battle; that your 2nd Amendment, indeed the entire BOR are somehow negotiable and must be endorsed by public opinion. That’s naïve. ‘My’ side doesn’t need ‘propaganda’. What you derisively call ‘propaganda’ are inherent rights.

For whatever reason, you seem not to understand the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. Or maybe you choose to ignore that purpose because contemplating it is just too painful for you.

 

[cuchulainn]

RileyMC: After all, they're smarter than everyone else, why shouldn't their will be imposed, by force if necessary, on everyone else?

Yes, they might get to the point of imposing their will by force. At that point, violent revolution probably will be justified -- but it won't occur.

A few folks will die playing out their end-game fantasies, and that's it. However, that’s not revolution. That’s admitting defeat and committing suicide-by-cop.

RileyMC: It is naive to believe you can somehow 'negotiate' with that mindset.

You are correct. It would be naive to negotiate with them. However, who said anything about negotiating?

RileyMC: For whatever reason, you seem not to understand the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. Or maybe you choose to ignore that purpose because contemplating it is just too painful for you.

Its purpose is to ensure our ability to rebel. In fact I'm proud to live in the only nation in history where the People's right to rise up in violent revolution is codified in the Constitution.

However, I suffer no delusions about that occuring. The fact that you can't discern the difference is very telling.

RileyMC: You seem to think you can avoid violence by not talking about the possibility.

I'm not trying to avoid violence. I'm trying to point you to a useful course of action. It is very telling that you can't discern the difference.

I’m telling you to stop talking about your fantasies of a violent end game because:

A) It focuses you on a defeat where we die fighting, rather than on how we win.
B) It drives away potential allies.
C) It gives our enemies fodder for their propaganda.
D) It won’t occur anyway.

RileyMC: I see your philosophy as one of equivocation and negativism, without any positive results.

That's hilarious coming from someone under the delusion that talking about suicidal end games will change anything.

But then – since you think that I’m interested in avoiding violence and negotiating with those who would take away our liberty – you don’t know the first damn thing about my philosophy.

 

[goalie]

OK, I'm going to write the legislators of Conn. to warn them of the possibility of the Cayman Islands invading and putting a stop to their abuses. Yep. That's what I'll do. I wouldn't want to remove The Great Cayman Island Invasion from my negotiation options.

Because the possibility of the local officials who voted to steal land and homes from people (in order to give that land to a private developer) being killed or shot at by the Cayman Islands is just as likely as those local officials being killed or shot at by someone who's land or house they were instrumental in stealing.

FWIW, any retaliation is going to be most effective if it is directed at those officials that steal property and land. Shooting a bulldozer driver or a cop is not going to deter the city council at all, but those running for city council after a spot is opened up by someone who's land was stolen just might think twice about doing it themselves.

 

[publius]

Stop looking to our heros -- the Founders -- for examples of how to win. Rather, look to our enemies, the 1960s counter-culture folk who put us in this mess. They took Dr. King's methods and perveted them to their own socialist, anti-liberty goals. In 1967, they were a bunch of irrelevant kids in need of a bath. Just 25 years later, by 1992, they were in the White House.

You make an excellent suggestion, but there is one flaw. The 60s folks were not around in 1954, when a DC department store in a "blighted" neighborhood was seized, setting the precedent for Kelo. They were not around in 1942, when Wickard grew his wheat and it was called interstate commerce, setting the stage for Raich and Stewart.