We've already had our Reichstag Fire. I won't claim that the government is to blame, but the previous administration certainly did try to take take advantage of it.
Americans have experienced such historical revisionism in schools that few can tell you what the Bill of Rights contains and why those rights are so important.Yes.
And even those who call themselves "conservatives" or "Christians" continue to voluntarily send their children, the only real hope our nation has, into these government indoctination camps called "public schools".
(With Thanks to Schoolmasters Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot for the Teaching.)
As an amateur historian of this sad century whose time is almost up, I would like to reflect upon six lessons I have learned in my studies. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the last.
Lesson No. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don't want to go because of who you are or what you think-- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.
Lesson No. 2: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms-- kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
Lesson No. 3: If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified-- tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren't on their list.
Lesson No. 4: Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is "democratically elected" doesn't mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn't mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn't mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled "Showers" doesn't necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of "is" is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants-- but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
Lesson No. 5: Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms-- socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism-- have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. Leaders such as Bill Clinton who view the Constitution as inconvenient and ignorable are harbingers of tyranny.
Lesson No. 6: While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate. And anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no "house rule" that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos. Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt. While there is no "Collective guilt" to the crimes of a regime (all such crimes being committed by specific criminal individuals), there is certainly "collective responsibility"-- especially for those who watch the criminals at work without objecting or interfering. A French journalist of the last century wrote: "I must speak out for I will not be an accomplice." Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices-- good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people "useful idiots". DeTocqueville observed that "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders. As we move from the Twentieth Century into the Twenty-First, we should take care to remember the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah. If we wish to avoid the butchery of the Twentieth Century and the righteous judgment of the God of our antiquity, we would do well to keep our Bibles, our Constitution and our firearms close at hand.
Prof. Rudolph J. Rummel, author of Democide and Death by Government offers these observations :
1. Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth.
2. Nobody can be trusted with unlimited power. The more power a regime has, the more likely people will be killed. This is a major reason for promoting freedom.
3. Political scientists almost everywhere have promoted the expansion of government power. They have functioned as the clergy of oppression.
4. Power kills, absolute power kills absolutely.
5. The way to virtually eliminate genocide and mass murder appears to be through restricting and checking power. This means to foster democratic freedom.
6. We have a solution for war. It is to expand the sphere of liberty.
7. Our knowledge and our ability to handle our problems progress through the open conflict of ideas, through the tests of phenomenological adequacy, inner consistency, and practical-moral consequences. Reason may err, but it can be moral. If we must err, let it be on the side of our creativity, our freedom, our betterment.
Don't kid yourself. The current administration continues to perpetrate this attack on our God-given rights.
Zero. Nothing.
His argument is as meaningless and worthless, as his laughable attempt to link American policy with the actions of an infamous Austrian paperhanger.
Blowhard, claptrap, nincompoop, drivel unworthy of a Freeper consideration.