Posted on 08/31/2019 5:41:10 PM PDT by Boomer
A few years ago, I started to write a story about a bunch of “Old Men”, but who didn’t need to use their “smoking guns” to resist.
Remember, the fish rots from the head down, and that’s where you go when you want to actually get something of consequence done - the head. The story was about the “heads” - Senators, Reps, Mayors, etc, being “Clintonized”.
When the Senator who voted for the anti-gun bill suddenly drops dead in her office after shaking hands with some “old guy” who was visiting, after the Police Chief or Sheriff who sends his troops out on red flag missions has his children disappear, when the big money man behind the big political orgs suddenly drops dead from puffer fish poisoning, etc., there will suddenly be some table turning.
Just as people who think twice before crossing the Clintons, knowing how a friend or acquaintance died of “natural causes” from the three bullets to the back of the head in a mysterious car crash, once the big, fat “decision makers” see the consequences of pushing more “old guys” to take some quiet action, there will be some second thoughts about what they’re doing now without any consequences.
The lessons from Ashcanistan and Iwreck really have showed that if you’re going to piss off any great amount of citizens, the greatest army in the world inflicting mass destruction on them, it will be a LONG hard slug that probably will NEVER end. Suicide bombings, assassinations, even just one on one stabbings. Hideaways in the mountains or even on the outskirts of town. The “authorities” will never know if that sans-a-belt wearing grey haired old guy - or blue haired old woman - will smile as they shake hands or while they stab or poison or blow up or whatever, the high mucky muck who thinks they are beyond consequences.
And the “old guys” who don’t have much longer anyway not only have the knowledge and experience gained from long lives and even military training and don’t care what happens to them. But a few taking out some high end elites in their own homes or offices? Now that would start even the most leftist progressives to thinking about their own self preservation and well being.
In my story, which I never completed, the “old guys” start those elites, at least the ones remaining, to thinking [ which is a rather foreign thing for them ]. Their first knee jerk reaction would be draconian laws and rules [anti-gun, anti-club, anti-poison laws] that are passed to “protect” themselves. But again, as Ashcanistan and Meheeco cartels have shown, that doesn’t provide a lot of personal protection for them.
It might take a while, but going for the top decision makers and officials will actually be the quickest way to change their behavior. Guerrilla warfare, from the Boer wars to Napolean’s invasion of Spain to Ashcanistan/Iwreck, can take on the most well armed militaries.
And when it’s a bunch of “old guys” who are putting the fear of (yes) God in panty pissing, scared of their own shadow prog or libs -instead of fighting back with “barrels hot and smoking” - are quietly going for the “control and command” and top decision makers. (Ya gotta admit, the Clintons know how things work. LOL)
Like you say, that knock on Sen. Whatzisface’s door just might be an “old guy” dressed in a FedEx/UPS uniform. Or the blue haired old lady visiting the dirty pols’ (but I repeat myself) office with a nice smile and a little puffer fish poison. Or the “old guy” with the umbrella with the needle on the end. Etc.
The socialists have played the long game, working for decades to take down our way of life and instill their communistic vision. When us “old guys” start using every tactic in the spook’s book, it may not take a “shootin’ revolution”. But don’t give up your guns just yet.
(See my tagline)
As as an artist you might find something interesting in it, just on pages 66 and 67.
I live in a medium small town (actually outside town limits) with about 10 full time officers. The county Sheriff has already made it clear that he won’t help enforce new gun control laws. It’s not happening here either.
More than that, the post I was responding to was suggesting the feds would “scan” homes to find the ones to confiscate guns from. That means they would have to “scan” a lot more homes than the homes of 150 million gun owners. What a joke!
And how many false positives would those “scans” make? How many steel objects does the average home contain? It would take forever not a month.
“It occurred to me that I should add some historical context ...Stamp Act...1765, ten years before the Shot Heard Round the World...a group decided that the Tea Tax was unjustified and destroyed a shipment of tea...led to the occupation of Boston...the revolutionaries STOLE the big guns from Fort Ticonderoga...convinced the forces occupying Boston to leave the city...eventually led to the ratification of the Second Amendment...duty...to resist confiscation and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor in pursuit of maintaining our liberties and opposing the depredations of a tyrannical government.” [William Tell, post 101]
Reads more like a post-1789 propaganda pamphlet than an accurate summary of causes of AWI.
The chief event that pushed Colonists toward separation was a major change in British policies during and after the Seven Years War. Before 1756, British policy was to let Colonists govern their own affairs. After 1763, the British government decided the Colonists had to pay the bill for their own defense: more taxation was then a given. Much other Colonial activity had been nominally illegal, but enforcement was spotty & lax: Rhode Island was foremost in smuggling for decades before 1763.
The British government had concluded a number of treaties with various American Indian groups; in return for help in the Seven Years War, the British agreed to prevent the Colonists from spreading west of the Appalachian Mountains or north of the Ohio River. Ever land-hungry and expansionist, Colonists (many descended from landless classes in the British Isles and Continental Europe, or recent immigrants from such places), took this poorly.
The British won the Seven Years War but their government was deeply in debt; it had also acquired large new territories around the globe pursuant to the peace treaty, requiring still great administrative and defense expenditures. Taxing the Colonists sounded like a great way to retire the debt and offset expenses. As has often happened, higher taxes (still laughably low by today’s standards) led to stiffer enforcement and curtailment of liberties generally.
By the mid-18th century, American Colonists were becoming vastly richer & more successful, acquiring trading interests and numerous enterprises at ever-widening areas in the Western Hemisphere. Upper & commercial classes rose and prospered, perhaps the richest in Rhode Island, center of smuggling - based on the slave trade. They deemed themselves British subjects possessed of all the rights & privileges enjoyed by Britishers who lived at home in the British Isles.
The perceptions & attitudes of British subject still living “back home” differed sharply from those of the Colonists. It was “common knowledge” in the British Isles, that no Colonist was the equal of the lowest-class laborer or street person “back home.” Prominent citizens, upper-crust rich folks of the Colonies were routinely cheated & shortchanged by merchants and agents in the British Isles.
IN June 1772, Rhode Island smugglers attacked and burned HMS Gaspee, a Royal Navy Schooner enforcing customs laws and chasing other smugglers. The Colonists shot Gaspee’s captain; he was expected to die but he recovered. Royal authorities collared the ringleaders and prepared to haul them back to Britain for trial. Colonists took it poorly, all over the Eastern Seaboard: transporting for trial on undisclosed charges ran exactly counter to all British common law and custom, and prior British government behavior in the Colonies.
This “Gaspee Affair” upset the Colonial public and was talked about far more widely than the subsequent Boston Tea Party, a minor local incident in which no one was killed or injured, and only private property was destroyed. Its legal and policy import was much larger also.
Against these developments (later viewed by Americans as provocations), the occupation of Boston and affrays at Lexington and Concord, were minor but incendiary. By April 1775, British troops had already made repeated attempts to confiscate public stores of arms in outlying spots near Boston, but had failed.
Events were chaotic in 1775. Benedict Arnold (until a few days before, a merchant vessel owner/master) and Ethan Allen decided (each on their own) to take Fort Ticonderoga, then on the New York frontier, on 10 May. Built by the French, it had fallen into disrepair after the victory at Quebec in the Seven Years War and held a small British detachment; guns were there, but no powder. Not until winter did George Washington’s forces hit upon the notion of sledding the guns to Boston, to intimidate the British garrison. The bluff worked; British forces withdrew to New York and kept it until after the war.
The notion of America as an independent nation was the fantasy of a only a handful of the wackier revolutionary conspirators as late as early 1776.
I wasn't trying to summarize the causes of the war. I was trying to illustrate one example of why our Founders ratified the Second Amendment. It was important for future generations to have the equipment readily at hand to oppose tyranny.
“They can scan a house right now, the technology is there, it will be improved.”
Sounds like a fantastic opportunity for some entrepreneur to develop some scan-proof wall covering, or a Tyvek-type liner to secure your property if you ask me.
You can call Agent Goodwin tomorrow. Gramps finally showed me where it is.” >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Which is why no one else knows (grin).
“I wasn’t trying to summarize the causes of the war. I was trying to illustrate one example of why our Founders ratified the Second Amendment. It was important for future generations to have the equipment readily at hand to oppose tyranny.” [William Tell, post 126]
It’s an inversion of logic (not to say the timeline) to post conditions, events, and ideas, imply “this caused that” - and then insist those conditions, events, and ideas weren’t the causes of the split, and the war.
If we don’t know the causes, clinging to post-AWI propaganda will not bring us a better understanding of how our cultural foundations and legal structures were imagined, derived, put into effect, and came to be administered. This in turn will hamper us as we frame the requisite arguments against modern attempts to impose gun control.
I concede that a large percentage of us Americans prefer the postwar propaganda (a narrative long learned by rote in grade schools) to accurate historical renditions & interpretations.
1: A tyrannical central government occupied Boston, declared martial law, and disarmed the residents.
2: That same government sent army Regulars to confiscate privately owned arms including cannons from the residents outside of Boston.
3: Those outside of Boston who wished to relieve the residents of Boston from the occupation by that central government arranged to take by force the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga and used those arms to coerce the central government into ceasing their occupation.
4: The Founders of our nation implemented the Second Amendment, at least in part, to insure that future depredations by a central government could be met by force without the necessity of stealing arms from that central government prior to taking effective action.
This is what I intended to communicate. Do you see inaccuracies in the 4 statements above?
“1: A tyrannical central government occupied Boston, declared martial law, and disarmed the residents.
2: That same government sent army Regulars to confiscate privately owned arms including cannons from the residents outside of Boston.
3: Those outside of Boston who wished to relieve the residents of Boston from the occupation by that central government arranged to take by force the cannon from Fort Ticonderoga and used those arms to coerce the central government into ceasing their occupation.
4: The Founders of our nation implemented the Second Amendment, at least in part, to insure that future depredations by a central government could be met by force without the necessity of stealing arms from that central government prior to taking effective action.
This is what I intended to communicate. Do you see inaccuracies in the 4 statements above?” [William Tell, post 130]
Yes. Several: errors in detail and in concept.
Item 1: The raids by British Army troops in Boston were mounted to grab arms & munitions stored in local armories of outlying municipalities, not the privately owned fowling pieces, swords, tomahawks, or spontoons that might be held by any townsfolk or farmers. Just what the particulars of ownership in these cases remains obscure.
Item 2: The British were more concerned about Colonial plotters who might smuggle arms & munitions into Boston, than they were about whatever hardware might be lying about in city homes & buildings. Boston’s population was less than 20,000 back then, by the way.
Item 3: The American taking of Ft Ticonderoga on 10 May 1775 was in no way preplanned, nor did any American that spring look on the fortress as a source of any means to force the British troops to leave Boston. The enthusiasm of April 1775 was admirable, but the lack of organization and planning would frighten most moderns. Attempts were made to inventory the fort’s equipage but foundered due to lack of interest and spotty planning. Not until mid-November 1775 did George Washington issue orders to Henry Knox to fetch what artillery pieces he could from the fort.
Washington took other measures to augment the Continental Army’s slender reserves of munitions, and they are poorly remembered today. Concealing the initiative from the Continental Congress, he commissioned several privateering vessels and ordered them to capture resupply ships inbound to Boston from the British Isles. These efforts met with skimpy success and in some cases went dangerously awry.
Item 4 is more conjectural. Founders & populace did believe in the importance of an armed populace - as do I - but the idea that the fledgling United States beat the British because individually armed Americans took actions the British were unable to counter is not supported by the facts.
The entire notion that founding of the USA was preordained or inevitable is problematic. Belief in such is neither provable nor disprovable on a practical level; it might be of use in indoctrinating the young in the early stages of education, but it appears to be encouraging nothing so much as complacency, self-righteousness and laziness today. To look upon the days of the Founding and declare the outcome “inevitable” does the Founding generation a disservice, belittling the enormity of the task they faced and the amounts of courage, insight, and expertise required to do what they really did do.
How many are still in prison or dead. I believe 3.
Somethings
Are Worse.
Please explain, then, how they beat the British.
You credit Washington with the idea of using the guns from Fort Ticonderoga but downplay the fact that he didn't buy them on the open market or make use of privately owned guns.
Please explain why the Founders included the Second Amendment.
Agreed. I am simply stating that the standoff was forgotten by most. I think 2 are serving long prison sentences and 1 is dead. The world goes on. I guess I’m trying to say, we can all decide to stand our ground but 99.9 percent of the time the world will just keep going. It’s that 0.01 percent that is the shot heard around the world. Don’t expect anyone to care when you or I decide to stand our ground.
There are many articles and posts about JBT killing innocent lives on this site and even here on FR people will blame the dead / innocent for it. Don’t expect to be special. Be smart, be proud, be lethal and be available for the next fight.
Correct, those who pursue unlimited power are usually the worst monsters in history.
until the public gives up and does what they are told.
That has been the usual response historically... until the victims in WWII and the victims of the Soviets both taught us that if each victim kills just 1-2 of the confiscators, it doesn't take long until the confiscators start having second thoughts. They don't mind if I'm dead, and I don't mind of a few of them are dead. Let's see if they mind when they're among the body count.
I believe in my heart that the American Spirit is different, and has internalized those lessons. I may be wrong. I hope I am not.
(And it will take far far longer than a month to collect 350,000,000 arms, even if 95% of us are whipped sheep.)
Absolutely Agree,
We call them 3 Percenters
Today,
The Pariots of
The Revolutionary War.
Patriots rallied
at Bunker Ranch and
Murrieta BP station.
Patriots run to
the sounds of Battle.
Keep Your Powder Dry,
FRiend.
“Please explain, then, how they beat the British.
You credit Washington with the idea of using the guns from Fort Ticonderoga but downplay the fact that he didn’t buy them on the open market or make use of privately owned guns.
Please explain why the Founders included the Second Amendment.” [William Tell, post 134]
The fledgling American nation of 1770-1783 did not “beat” the British in the conventionally understood sense of that word, in terms of conclusively winning a stand-up, flat-out military clash.
During the entirety of AWI, American forces attained clear-cut strategically consequential victory in only one instance: the Battle of Freeman’s Farm and the Battle of Bemis Heights, fought back-to-back on the timeline in early autumn 1777, near Saratoga, about 185 miles north of New York City, on the west bank of the Hudson.
George Washington wasn’t even there.
American senior leaders and strategists realized that they could not overcome the British in a straightforward manner, so they concentrated on not getting beaten: in effect, avoiding “real battle.” Running away.
By keeping an organized force (however tiny & tatterdemalion) active in the field, they thus kept the American cause alive through times of the darkest doubt, when a decisive defeat of the Continental Army would have finished off the fledgling nation for good.
This went on until the diplomats - Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, John Adams, and others - were able to convince the French to enter the war on the American side in early 1778. Spain later entered the alliance, and then the Dutch.
The British were suddenly faced with a larger conflict against major Euro powers, and a worldwide strategic situation of greater complexity. Operations against the Thirteen Colonies receded in importance.
But the French alliance did not guarantee instant, total success of the American cause.
Things teetered on the brink more than once over the ensuing years - even after a French fleet blocked the Royal Navy from rescuing Lord Cornwallis’ forces at Yorktown in September/October 1781. The Americans and the British endured an armistice, troubled by minor engagements all through 1782 and much of 1783. The Continental Army came close to mutiny at Newburgh, NY in March 1783.
It must be emphasized that during spring 1775 the Colonial cause (not yet the cause of American independence, remember) was not in any sense being prosecuted by a central American government, nor supported by an organized military establishment with an approved mission or clear strategies.
Benedict Arnold was not a ranking officer, he was a hotheaded merchant vessel owner/master of Connecticut, who scurried toward Boston without permission or followers. The Massachusetts Legislature gave him a Colonel’s commission when he sold them on the idea of taking Ticonderoga; he decamped immediately, almost alone, encountering Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys entirely by chance, and they spent the rest of the journey trying to outdo each other, galloping over roads so bad that us postmoderns cannot believe what they were like, unless we’ve gone there and eyed the territory.
The success of Allen & Arnold in taking Ticonderoga was due as much to luck and lack of British preparedness, and it barely succeeded at that. The Americans were like the proverbial dog chasing the school bus, who has no idea what to do after catching it. Only months later, as the siege of Boston dragged on into a grinding winter, did any American leader get the notion of using Ticonderoga’s heavy artillery to swing events in eastern Massachusetts in American favor. And no one knew how the British occupiers might react, after spotting the weapons aimed down at them from Dorchester Heights.
There were cannon foundries in the 13 Colonies in the 1770s, but few were capable of turning out really heavy pieces, and all were bedeviled by lack of funds, uncertain supplies of materials, and very unstable labor situations. Only a part of the problems facing the American cause during the entire AWI: funds, food, arms, munitions, manpower were always in short supply. The French did help, but they could not fix everything.
Linking the advent of the Second Amendment too closely to British misbehavior and AWI seems to me a mistake: the framing of the Constitution, the creation of early Amendments, and their final ratification belong more to the war’s aftermath and the public debate over just what kind of American nation (and culture, and society) We the People ought to create.
Fortunately for we who have come after, the Founders and the rest of the populace were by then in a more deliberative mood. They undertook to think in boarder terms and in lengthier timelines (enough did so, at any rate).
There was a general fear of the potential for tyranny by any organized military establishment. The living examples they eyeballed in Europe and elsewhere did little to dispel their doubts; a conscious choice was made to reduce American military forces. By 1794 (best recollection), West Point was the only garrisoned army post, its garrison numbering about 80, including but one full Colonel.
My support for the Second Amendment, and my approval of the concept of an armed populace outside control of any official organization, isn’t based strictly on the advent & founding of the USA 1763-1789. After direct military experience, and a lot of dabbling in historical research & study, I came to the conclusion that no one will take us seriously unless we are armed.
And I mean “us” in the absolute widest sense. My notion applies to all humans everywhere, at every level of organization, from individuals & families, on up through city-states, nations, empires, modern alliances & supra-national organizations. Applies to the citizen on the street, carrying concealed on the chance of encountering the criminal element. Applies to the creation & sustainment of a national military establishment.
And it applies to any populace in relation to its government - any government no matter how kindly & disinclined to abuse powers. If we are not armed, some other party will make a move to work their own will. Won’t be good for us.
It's a good point to remember the lesson that "not losing" is essential and takes priority over trying to win. That's a good lesson for patriots everywhere.
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