"I have come to realize that my theories explain the degeneration of a great civilization; they do not prevent it. I set out to be a reformer, but only became the historian of decline."
Ludwig von Mises
In a police state, citizens have no rights and can be ordered around at
the whims of a militarized police force whose goons run around in black
uniforms, terrorizing the populace. Welcome to Boston, 2013. The police
state is running wild in this city, and it has reached the point where
innocent families are being ordered out of their own homes by screaming,
aggressive, 'roid-head SWAT teams armed with overwhelming firepower.
"GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW!"
One member of the local police aims his M4 rifle directly at the resident taking above photo from a second-story window.
Considering the two recent posts by my colleagues at Liberty's Torch, I must hasten to add my own humble view that from a practical standpoint the "terrorists" have succeeded in achieving their main objectives to wit: a de facto diminution of the traditional rights acknowledged by the constitution of the United States as delineated in the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. This, when considered in light of recent attempts to ignore the black letter provision of the Second Amendment leads me to conclude that for the most part the Constitution of our formerly freedom loving nation is more or less a dead letter only to be observed according to the federal courts lacking a "compelling governmental interest".
I would also note that public statements issued by the "terrorist" operatives invariably attribute their motives to the foreign policies of the government in Washington interfering in the internal affairs of various and sundry Muslim nations. None of these statements refers to, as former president G.W. Bush averred: "their resentment of our freedoms". Be that as it may, can a philosophy/"religion" fixated on a seventh century mentality have any expectation of a victory over western science and technology? Of course all bets are off if the West self destructs by following the path of corrupt collectivist financial, economic and political leadership so much in evidence of late.
Stated differently: the West will only lose this struggle if it abandons the strategy which has resulted in its dominance.
The hue and cry of the usual suspects whose agenda is to achieve the disarmament of the US citizenry subsequent to the Sandy Hook outrage is as predictable as it is disingenuous. Even those who should know better are contributing grist to the mill of the gun grabbers by accepting the premises of the government gun grabbers and their media enablers. This is evidenced by the following exchange between CNN's Piers Morgan and the neocon Ben Shapiro. You, dear readers will note at 2min 43sec into the below video that Mr Shapiro is suckered into accepting the questionable premise/narrative that an "assault" weapon was used by the shooter Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook massacre:
This humble scribe has noted a lack of evidence that a so called "assault rifle" was in fact used by the shooter to accomplish his evil deed.
"It wasn’t reported until later that the police had discovered an AR-15 assault rifle in the trunk of the [shooters] car. This AR-15 was not used in the shooting, and police did not initially even know about its presence until conducting that further search."
To date, no videos have been released of the actual shooting event at Sandy Hook. These videos would settle finally the nature of the weapons utilized by the shooter. Nevertheless, no time was wasted by various government spokespersons and their media shills in clambering for a ban on firearms exhibiting scary cosmetic characteristics as well as capabilities of extended use between reloading requirements.
Spread this latest work by Matt Bracken and friends far and wide, especially the video:
Democide: Socialism, Tyranny, Guns and Freedom
Democide is the elimination of a despised group by a government. It
includes genocide, politicide, and other forms of state-sponsored mass
murder. The hated minority headed for extermination may be defined by
religious, racial, political, class, cultural or other attributes.
Between 200 and 260 million people were the victims of democide in the
20th century, several times more than were killed in international wars
during that period.
The first widely studied modern democide occurred in Turkey between
1915 and 1923, when the Turkish government decided to eliminate the
country’s Christian minority, primarily ethnic Armenians and Greeks who
had Turkish roots extending back to before the Islamic conquest. Two
million Christians were murdered on forced marches into deserts without
water or food. This democide occurred in view of Western reporters, who
took photographs and posted contemporary wire reports. The fact that the
democide was known outside Turkey did not deter the Turkish leaders.
The Armenian Genocide, as it has become known, was also widely known inside
Turkey, where the majority Muslim population either supported or at
least passively tolerated the democide. It was impossible to miss the
sight of thousands of Christians at a time being rounded up and
force-marched through towns and into the burning deserts on one-way
trips.
Stalin and Hitler both noticed the lack of world reaction to the
democide of Turkish Christians and planned accordingly. In the Soviet
Union, Stalin’s henchmen purged millions of “kulaks” (farmers deemed to
have too much wealth), intellectuals, businessmen, and anyone who had
ever traveled outside the USSR or even had had contact with foreigners.
In Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe, Hitler proceeded with his own
“final solution to the Jewish problem.” Where the German nationalsocialists
simply eliminated Jews as quickly as possible in mass graves and gas
chambers, Stalin’s international socialists deported their “class
enemies” to Siberia, where they were put to work in Gulag slave-labor
camps, with years of torture through cold, malnutrition and brutal
working conditions preceding the release of eventual death.
Stalin also devised another means of democide when he ordered the
forced starvation of the Ukrainians, and five million more innocent
victims were added to his totals. In Communist China seventy million
people were the victims of democide, murdered by overwork in slave-labor
camps, by direct execution, and by regional forced starvation. Millions
more were victims of democide in Pakistan, Cambodia, Rwanda, North Korea, and many other countries.
Democide, as the name implies, does not happen in the dark of night
without any awareness of it in the country where it occurs. The Turks
knew the Christians were being mass murdered. Average Germans were fully
aware of what was happening to the Jews between 1938 and 1945, and a
large majority either actively supported or at least tolerated it. (I
strongly recommend reading Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Goldhagen, to fully appreciate the wholehearted German support for the Jewish democide.)
Today, we sometimes hear that the Second Amendment has outlived its
usefulness, that it is a relic of our barbaric past and is no longer
needed in the modern era. Horrific mass shootings by deranged
individuals are cited as the primary reason for Americans to surrender
their most effective firearms and rely solely on a state monopoly of
force for their protection. This government-dependent attitude is
shortsighted, historically ignorant, and extremely dangerous.
In each of the cases cited above, a necessary preliminary step on the
road to democide was the confiscation of privately owned firearms. In
Turkey, “reasonable” gun control laws enacted in 1911 permitted the
democide of two million Turkish Christians a few years later. In
Germany, the “commonsense” 1928 gun control laws of the Weimar Republic
preceded Hitler’s Holocaust by a decade.
The Weimar politicians did not intend for their gun control laws to
lead to the slaughter of millions of people, but it is an historical
fact that those gun control laws permitted the Nazis to carry out their
Holocaust. How? By making it economically and militarily feasible to
round up and mass murder entire towns without any significant
resistance.
In fact, the Nazis quickly learned that they needed only a hundred
ordinary military policemen to exterminate towns of a thousand Polish
Jews in a single day. Contrast that fact with the Warsaw Ghetto
uprising. If the Jews had not first been disarmed, using previous gun
registration lists as a map for confiscation, the Holocaust would not
have been possible.
Likewise in the Soviet Union and in every other case, democide was
preceded by “reasonable and commonsense” firearms registration, followed
eventually by gun confiscation and then by the extermination of a
despised minority population.
During the past two centuries, while America has avoided tyranny,
Turkey, Germany, Russia and the other nations mentioned above have
spasmodically lurched between monarchs, democratically elected leaders,
and often quite popular dictators, allowing them frequent opportunities
to commit democide against their unwanted minorities.
The situation is fundamentally different in America, because we have a
centuries-old tradition of private firearms ownership guaranteed by the
Second Amendment to the Constitution. The Second Amendment does not
“grant” us this right; it puts into writing our God-given natural right
to effective self-defense, including armed defense against tyranny.
“Pure democracy” has been described as two wolves and a sheep voting
on their dinner plans. The two wolves might see this election as an
expression of their highest democratic values, but for the outnumbered
sheep, pure democracy is highly problematic. On the other hand, a
republic has been described as two wolves and a well-armed sheep voting
on dinner plans. The well-armed sheep can veto the outcome of the dinner
election simply by brandishing its firearm. The sheep has inherent
rights as a sovereign individual, including the right to self-defense, a
right that cannot be stripped away by a simple majority vote.
So, when a democratically elected American president speaks of
“fundamentally transforming” his country, and of his need to act outside
the constitutional framework, the population should be on guard. When
that leader begins to push for strict new “commonsense and reasonable”
gun control laws, including national firearms registration in the name
of “public safety,” the citizenry should be on high alert.
Can any glib politician, pundit or ivory tower academic give us an
ironclad guarantee that tyranny will never arise in the United States?
Not even a popular tyranny, like those of Ataturk, Stalin, Hitler or
Mao? Can anyone assure us that today’s “commonsense” gun registration
lists will not be used for future gun confiscation? Of course not.
The future may be unknowable, but history is well understood, and
American gun owners know and understand the history of democide in the
20th century. That is why they will never accede to what is currently
portrayed in the predominantly left-wing mainstream media as
“commonsense and reasonable” new gun control laws.
While American gun owners lament and regret the inescapable fact that
deranged individuals in a free country may on rare occasions murder a
dozen or a score of unarmed victims, they also understand that
government democide murders by the million. And in every case, tyrants
can conduct these democides only after disarming their unwanted
minorities, rendering them helpless to resist murderous government
pogroms.
American gun owners will never permit this historical pattern to be
repeated in their country, because they understand that the government’s
heavy hand will be kept in check only as long as they are armed. Ask
yourself: Were the Armenians, the Jews or the kulaks treated better, or
worse, after they were disarmed and rendered helpless by their
oppressors, who thereafter held an absolute government monopoly on armed
violence? The answer is too obvious to require elaboration.
Naive utopians and other “low-information voters” might not
understand the historical pattern, and we don’t expect them to bother to
learn it. Cynical and dishonest “progressives” who do understand the
historical pattern cannot yet reveal their ultimate goal of creating a
disarmed and helpless American citizenry. Nevertheless, millions of
Americans understand their hidden aim with crystal clarity, seeing
through the false sincerity of power-hungry leftist politicians who are
actually Marxist wolves dressed in Democrat sheep’s clothing—for now.
But unless and until these secret Stalinists and sundry other
“progressives” can figure out a way to disarm Americans, they cannot
execute their historically standard final solution to the
“reactionaries-standing-in-the-way-of-utopia” problem. And this is a
thorny problem for them, because tens of millions of Americans,
disbelieving their deceitful bromides, will stick to their guns no
matter what.
Unlike the Armenians, Jews, kulaks and other exterminated peoples,
Americans who support the Second Amendment will never be disarmed
quietly by government edict prior to meekly boarding a train to a
socialist “reeducation” camp. They will not be taken at government
gunpoint on a one-way forced march into a desert or a Zyklon-B
“delousing shower,” simply because they foolishly agreed to be disarmed
by their future oppressors in the dubious name of “public safety.”
If American “progressives” truly intend to disarm the American
people, they will have to do it the hard way, by taking their bullets
first, one at a time. As the 300 Spartans announced to the vastly larger
Persian army at Thermopylae, “Molon Labe!”
If many of you dear readers, like this writer, have been paying attention to the "mainstream" media recently you have heard that the US economy is in a slow but steady "recovery" from the financial crisis of 2007-2009. This drumbeat includes the recent data proving that the housing market has begun to rebound as evidenced by an increase in the prices of existing single family dwellings.
Our own experience here in west Georgia seems to refute such an assertion. Vacant homes in many residential neighborhoods in this area approaches 1 in 5 (20%). Two strip malls consisting of a dozen retail shops each which were completed in late 2009 and early 2010 remain completely vacant to this day with a recent sign at one of them announcing "free rent". (click on above image to enlarge)
Members of our family who have recently fled California with cash in hand have attempted to purchase at least a dozen properties listed "for sale" only to be advised by the agents that the properties are "under contract". Investigation has revealed that all of the properties are in the process of being transferred to the ownership of this or that limited liability corporation (L.L.C.).
...[W]hat’s fuelling the soft rebound in the U.S. housing market and home prices is something that’s never happened in our history. It’s not individuals buying houses who are moving prices and demand higher; it’s institutions. Yes, big institutional investors are buying houses—and in a big way!
The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE/BX) bought $2.5 billion worth of U.S. homes—that’s 16,000 units in total so far, with cash! In October of 2012, the company owned $1.5 billion worth of homes and was spending $100 million a week to purchase more! (Source: Bloomberg, January 9, 2013.)
Other companies like the Colony Capital LLC and Waypoint Homes are taking similar courses of action as the home prices increase. Colony Capital has already purchased 5,500 homes since April of 2012 and expects its investments to increase to $1.5 billion by the end of this year. Waypoint Homes has bought 2,500 home and plans to have a total of 10,000 homes by the end of 2013.
Indeed, a neighboring single family residence selling for $210,000 in 2007 and which stood vacant for 3 years after being abandoned by its resident owner was occupied a year ago by a "minority" single mother of three minor children whose rent is subsidized by the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development under Section 8.
As soon as the emerging glut in rental properties results in a lack of return to these corporate investors and the federal subsidies end as a result of the "Great Default", the fecal matter will definitely encounter the rotating ventilating device. I suggest that you gentle readers refuse to surrender your "personal defense" weapons. You may need them.
Since the unpleasantness last month in Newtown, Connecticut, our rulers and their myrmidons in the media, never wanting to allow a crisis to be "wasted" are all atwitter over the possibility of further voiding the second amendment to the Constitution by outlawing "assault" weapons. Indeed, the Vampire state in an apparent trifecta race with Kalifornia and Illinois has won first place by enacting a comprehensive attack on the ownership by mere mundanes of so called "assault" rifles including the AR 15 and all weapons of the Kilashnakov design. These scary appearing rifles, while having no functional distinction from ordinary semiautomatic weaponry are considered by our "Progressive" bettors to be evil by virtue of their "military style" and are therefore officially designated as "assault" weapons.
On the other-hand, the Department of Homeland Security via the General Services Administration has issued a solicitation for bids to supply 7000 "Personal Defense Weapons" for members of the Immigration & Customs Enforcement bureau. The weapons to be delivered are described as AR-15 platform rifles but containing the option of a selector switch enabling them to fire as either semiautomatic or full automatic as in machine gun.
Please note, gentle reader, that our government defines these items as "Personal Defense Weapons" whereas the version of this rifle sans the full automatic capability in the possession of an ordinary citizen is defined by the same government as an "assault weapon".
If many of you dear readers, like this writer, have been paying attention to the "mainstream" media recently you have heard that the US economy is in a slow but steady "recovery" from the financial crisis of 2007-2009. This drumbeat includes the recent data proving that the housing market has begun to rebound as evidenced by an increase in the prices of existing single family dwellings.
