You’re right, betty. There was always a small corps of realists, students of history and human nature who got the lessons.
When you contemplate the real history of the last century, you know beyond a doubt that wishful thinking and whistling past the graveyard more often than not will get you enslaved or dead.
We now know that over 220 million - that’s 220 MILLION - people have been killed by their own governments since the beginning of the 20th century. Not casualties of war, but casualties of an evil that now appears to have the upper hand here today. It’s that unappeasable appetite to control - and ultimately to consume - mankind.
As our friend Lurker has said - there’s only one way this can end...
I definitely take your point, dear Noumenon. Still it seems to me we do not have legitimate recourse to our Second Amendment rights until it is very clear that all attempts to "restore the public order" via our First Amendments rights have been exhausted and/or utterly repressed.
Plus remember "who did what to whom" at Lexington and Concord, and in what order. I would argue the Brits brought the war to us; i.e., we did not START it. From the Colonial point of view, it was defensive from the first. We were not the aggressors. But when the Brits let it be known that they were marching on Concord and Lexington for the express purpose of disarming the Colonials, they hit the wall, big-time. The Colonials stood on their rights as natural free men (not to mention then-British subjects, and thus entitled to all the rights and privileges of Englishmen, notably preeminently including — since the Magna Carta IIRC — the right of free men to keep and bear arms), and simply replied: "Molon Labe!!! Come and get 'em (if you can)!!!"
A defensive war is almost always a just war under Just War Theory.
The time is not yet. Or so it seems to me.
Another thing to think about: a society is not a machine — it's not a collection of parts moving according to some inexorable and irreversible chain of cause and effect. (Though I imagine Left progressives think of it that way; which could yet prove to be their Achilles Heel). Rather, it is probably one of the most dynamic "systems" in Nature. Meaning: The future is not cast in stone. New elements are always entering into the picture that have the power of shifting the course of events in ways that one would not be expecting from a "mechanistic picture" of the situation.
Take a look at what's happening in IRAN of all places. Did any of us expect that? Talk about a "new element" in the picture! And oh, we need to pay very close attention to what's going on over there, particularly WRT the "guerrilla cyber-warfare" being waged. Under the Marxist Meat Puppet, something like this could well be in our future. (Unless he comes to his senses first; but I wouldn't hold my breath....)
Shifting gears, a main problem seems to be that many if not most of the American people do not know their Constitutional rights or how to exercise them effectively. Generally I'm referring to their First Amendment protections against usurpatory government — which so described is but an "abstraction" of a real condition that people will ultimately be made to feel, when they have to give their assent to being enslaved by the State. As in a loyalty oath of some kind. (Doesn't pass First Amendment muster right there.)
And so I'm collecting a "little list" of completely Constitutional things that Patriots can do to throw a "monkey wrench into the works."
So far, I've come up with two items:
(1) Understand your role and rights as a juror.Oh, RE: (2). I well remember the last census, in 2000. Some really unsavory character came into my home and started asking me a whole lot of personal questions, such as: my race, my gender, my financial condition, how many toilets I had, etc., etc. I said to myself, "the hell with that!" The Constitutional purpose of the decenniel census is for congressional apportionment purposes only. In other words, it's supposed to be a simple "head count."(2) There's a census coming up next year. Think about how you will choose to respond to it.
So, I stood on my rights, and gave the jerk the headcount figure, refusing to answer all other questions. He looked at me in total disbelief. He resisted my choice. But finally, I was able to get him to leave my home.
Warning to anyone who decides to do this next time around. Evidently, in all its wisdom, the Marxist Meat Puppet Mob has decided to impose a fine of $5,000 on any American who will not disclose all the "required information."
Must stop for now — I'm thinking about this stuff all the time, and need all the help I can get. Especially for ideas for the "First Amendment To-Do" list proposed above. We need all the good ideas we can get to cheerfully and vigorously assert our role as members of the Sovereign People. Thus to restrain and constrain the Beast Leviathan as much as we can, whenever we can.
May God ever bless you, Noumenon and Lurker, and "give thee Light."