Re: tarbrushing,infighting, and our trucks (& tanks too!)

From: Cougarjack@aol.com
Date: Thu Aug 31 2000 - 18:28:27 PDT


John,
Great post!
I agree that Jeff probably should have been nicer, but I was about to say the same thing he did..he just beat me to it. Sometimes you just plain get tired of the constant attacks from every quarter. The whole purpose of the bill of rights was to insure that the centralized federal government could NEVER acquire enough power, legal or military, to overpower the states and the people. When the Constitution failed to be ratified the first time around, THIS was the reason why. It was taken for granted that the relationship between state and federal government would always be somewhat adversarial, that the federal government itself would indeed feed upon itself on occasion. (thus the balance of powers between the branches) Our issues here are very seminal to the issues they faced back then. You may say that muskets and bayonets were very different and less lethal than rockets and tanks, but you would have a hard time convincing a soldier back then, who had a leg off from a musket !
ball, or who had been bayonetted through the lungs. Lethality is just that...lethal. You cannot shoot or stab someone a little bit. If you can blow someone's brains out with a Brown Bess, why the hell should it any more legal and accepted than a Vulcan cannon? What's wrong with this picture? If you respond that a Brown Bess musket can only fire a shot at a time, and it's impossible to spray gunfire into a shopping mall with one, and this justifies the confiscation and government control of such weapons, you're overlooking an important fact: Shooting up shopping malls is, and has been, HIGHLY ILLEGAL. It is illegal already. How can we make it any more illegal? How about if we demand from our representatives that they deal with the societal problems which spawn this evil, a task which takes considerable effort and holds the risk of failure, instead of all the confiscatory feel-good bullshit that they force down our throats in the name of "security and safety"? How about if we!
 demand that they acknowledge that some people are just sick and evil, and that they should be kept in cages forever to keep the rest of us safe? How about if we demanded that they WORK for a living and do what they were sent to Washington to do, instead of taking lifelong picnics of debauchery and shameful public display as they do? Would it be asking too much to demand them to STOP wasting our hard earned dollars to put in place yet more worthless and unenforceable legislation on top of the crap they already piled upon us? The authors of our founding documents were probably not able to forsee miniguns, cobras, napalm, or Browning fifty calibers, but they knew GOVERNMENTS well enough that it became imperative to leave citizens with some sort of recourse should things go awry. The arms mentioned in the bill of rights, our vehicles and toys to be included, WERE not the tools of hunters and fishermen, they were the tools of individual citizen-soldiers, that were being guarante!
ed. When the President and Congress assure us that "it's not the hunter's guns that we're concerned about, we don't want to take away hunter's guns....blah blah blah" what they're really saying is that if you are stupid enough, they think they can lull you to sleep and remove your right to defend yourself, your family, and your state, as long as you can still hunt. (albeit with a tamed down magazine plugged, rubber bulletted remnant of a gun)
The founders also affirmed that government could not institute rights like these, that they were rather intrinsic and belonged to all men, and were granted by our creator, and government could merely recognize and affirm their existence. Whether or not government chooses to do this, the rights remain intact, until they are removed by SUPERIOR FORCE. The KEY concept in the bill of rights is to provide proper tools to "we the people" to preclude the central government from ever using that SUPERIOR FORCE to remove our rights. ANYONE have a problem with this statement?? The landmark concept of reserving property and ownership rights to the citizens alone was introduced with this signing, thereafter making it a violation of the document should the government or its agents ever attempt to take private property and goods without due process that you speak of. (current laws that are not being enforced) The second ammendment does not say that the right of the people to keep and b!
ear rabbit hunting weapons shall never be infringed. The founders were not concerned with hunting issues or sport shooting. Neither was an issue in 1776. The issue was MILITARY armament. If the present government is going to lump our hobby vehicles into the category of "military weapons", then I would say we have protection for them under the second ammendment.
Why is this such a hard concept for people to understand, and why in hell would anyone who was gifted with birth under such a system EVER be willing to forfeit it? To lull yourself to sleep by saying that we no longer have need for weapons or in fact these kinds of rights, in this modern society, and that we should let the government choose for us and protect us, is the height of arrogance and ignorance. It is a frontal insult to every man who ever wore the uniform of this great republic, and borders on treason. Having the right to be free MUST always include the right to REMAIN free, as unpleasant as that may sound in some circles. If one examines things, little has really changed since 1776. There were, and still are, people who are content to stand aside and let the soldiers fight. There were, and still are, soldiers who are willing to stand up straight and fight for those who will not. There were, and still are, those who will do neither, but stand closely by to!
 lap up the sweet gravy of hard-won freedom. Let us pray that this will always be true, that there will always be those few who stand and fight, and let us not teach our sons and daughters that weapons, military hardware, and the tools of war, indeed the men themselves, are evil and unwanted in our society. If we do, who will fight for us then? If we do, we will find ourselves irretrievably lost. Violence, military violence specifically, may NOT be the best solution to social problems, but lacking a functional congress and a constitution that has widespread respect and support of the population, it's way ahead of whatever is in second place. This was the sad dilemma our forefathers found themselves in. After all else failed, it was fight or become extinct as a people. If we are not more respectful of their efforts, we could well find ourselves right back in that soup.
The next time anyone here is tempted to honor the memory of a war veteran, whether it be on a veterans holiday, a memorial day of a war or battle, or no occasion at all, remember what he gave so that you could live as you do. And if YOU are the veteran, do not just accept these kudos. Ask, as I do, what they have done to KEEP the liberties for which I have fought at such a high price to guard and win for them. It may be the soldier's job to secure the rights to start with, but it is undoubtedly the job of each citizen to safeguard them and not sell them out to every cheap suit that gets elected by trickery and subterfuge and illegal campaign donations. As sacred as our rights are, make them bleed if they are to take them away. A million brave men and women bled to secure them!
I have often stopped to wonder what the drive is behind the liberal confiscatory anti-liberty mindset. Where does the push come from that constantly tries to destroy us from within? Is there some evil club that meets in some dark smoke-filled room in Washington which has all these oppressive and illegal things on its agenda? What is their reward for hobbling a free people and obfuscating government to the point of rage and frustration? WHO are these people??
To answer John's question about why a government should fear private ownership of military weapons, and to question why they flirt with the very concept of taking away citizen's rights, I would add the question "When they have confiscated them all, and have beaten the dissidents into submission and silence, God help us all, for WHAT do they have in mind for us next? In response to the harsh criticism of Jeff's acccusation "knee jerk reactionaries"...hehe..I happen to think it fits. To all those who may fit this category, re-examine your values and ask where they will lead us. Then, continue to be losers, OR come on over to the winning side. These are my values, taught to me by men of honor, men who won YOU your liberties. If my words embarrass or offend you, then YOU do not belong among us, and it is partially YOU who causes the problem by squandering what these men boguht for you. Knee-jerk reactionaries? You betchem Kemo Sabe!
Jack-on-the-box

major snippage from John's post.....
>> that existing laws
>> if enforced would keep nut cases from ARMING a restored Cobra, B17, or M8
>> armored car.



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