Utopians always cause the worst genocides, because they are convinced they are justified in forcing their vision on an entire society.
Your blood should run cold when our masters tell us we must be disarmed in the name of “public safety.”
During the French Revolution’s “Great Terror,” it was the “Committee of Public Safety” that sent tens of thousands to the guillotine without even a pretense at a trial.
In Turkey, German, the USSR, China etc, gun control / confiscation was always sold as promoting “public safety.”
Ask the Armenians, Jews, Kulaks, “landlords” etc how it worked out, safety-wise.
I would offer that if they in fact propose to offer us a price for the surrender of our freedom, it will be met with a counteroffer for which they are unprepared.
Perhaps one ought not be troubled by such thoughts on a beautiful Christmas morning such as this. And yet storm clouds do lurk ahead, ever more menacingly for the stubborn refusal of our leaders to recognize objective reality in so many areas of life. It would appear their lust for power knows no bounds save the practical limits that (at least) some citizens may soon choose to impose upon them.
As a matter of history, it would hardly be an unprecedented occurrence. As a matter of American history, it would exceed the life experience of even our great-great-grandparents, some of whom heard the stories of the last time, first hand.
In the recent years of American decline, I have feared that the Irish poet Yeats' cautionary words were coming true: the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Perhaps instead we have reached a historic moment when sunken conviction may be stirred back to the surface before the kettle boils over and spills all. For now, the heat has certainly been turned up.