Posted on 06/06/2002 12:05:45 AM PDT by jasonalvarez
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!" -- The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
I have just finished reading Vin Suprynowicz's superlative book Send in the Waco Killers, as well as his Memorial Day column. I want to tie together these two works, the above quote from Solzhenitsyn, and the Bush Administration's recent announcement that commercial air pilots not be allowed to have firearms in the cockpit.
In the book, Suprynowicz discusses how the feds egregiously overstepped their bounds in their unprovoked harassment of Randy Weaver, and the murder of his wife and son, at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the summer of 1992. He then goes into exhaustive detail in assigning guilt to the feds in the incineration of 80-plus innocent people at Waco, Texas, on April 19, 1993.
There are two common schools of thought surrounding these despicable episodes. One says that Randy Weaver was a white supremacist and that the Davidians had weird religious beliefs, so they deserved what they got. This view is commonly held by the same folks who preach diversity and tolerance. Evidently, they will tolerate you as long as you are not too diverse.
The other school of thought says that these were isolated events and not part of a larger pattern of behavior by the federal government. When they came for the white supremacists they did not say anything because they were not white supremacists. When they came for the Davidians, they did not say anything because they were not Davidians.
People of the latter mindset tend to believe that violations of others' rights have no bearing on them. Thus, when they come for the druggies, they do not say anything because they are not druggies. (Indeed, while they may condemn what happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge, they eagerly applaud the work of the DEA.)
In the column, Suprynowicz asks us to remember this Memorial Day the four brave passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, who, on September 11, thwarted the hijackers' attempt to fly the plane into either the Capitol or the White House and instead caused it to crash near Pittsburgh. He writes, "In that one brief moment, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, Thomas Burnett Jr. and Mark Bingham ceased to be 'civilians.' Surely they've earned their medals and their flags -- and surely those who follow in their footsteps should no longer be disarmed by their own government -- do you think?"
Ever since September 11, I have marveled how those who purport to believe in limited government and individual liberty have eagerly surrendered their freedom in the name of security. Would they relinquish their freedom as willingly in support of the agenda of a President Al Gore?
They reply that the government "had to do something" in the wake of these atrocities. I thought it was only liberals who clamor for their government to do something when disaster strikes. Conservatives say they believe that self-reliance, not government, solves problems.
Rush Limbaugh rejoices in poll results indicating that more and more Americans trust their government to do the right thing now than at any time in over thirty years. Limbaugh, along with the rest of the Republican amen corner in the media, reassure us that Bush's motives are pure and that he "knows what's good for the country." So when GWB supports restrictions on our freedom, he "must know what he is doing", so they put their blessing on it.
For quite some time, these people have told me that, although they favor the Second Amendment, we "have to put some restrictions" on gun ownership. It's, like, we cannot let "just anyone" have a gun. (Isn't it interesting that O.J. Simpson, Andrea Yates, and Tim McVeigh committed their crimes without guns? Do these folks not similarly believe that we cannot let "just anyone" have access to knives, bathtubs, and fertilizer?)
Federally mandated airport security measures have become so much a part of our culture that - like state education and Social Security - we never even question them anymore. We just split hairs as to how much the feds should do to make us "feel secure". It's, like, we cannot let people carry guns on planes, because if we did, like, something bad might happen.
Well, something bad did happen last September 11. And what did the feds do in response? More of what they had been doing before September 11.
For decades, the security system at America's airports has served to deter only law-abiding citizens. It is as if someone insane enough to fly a jumbo jet into a skyscraper would give a rip about such pantywaist measures. Evil abhors a vacuum. When you disarm innocent people, as night follows day, bad things happen. Gun-free schools made the left the students and faculty of Columbine High School defenseless against Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Gun-free planes made the passengers of four airplanes easy pickings for the September 11 terrorists. Had America been a free country, had the Second Amendment still sported a few teeth, and had we not required people to surrender their constitutional rights when they walked through the airplane door, these passengers would have been able to retaliate. Indeed, the terrorists probably would have written off hijacking airplanes as futile.
Yet what did the George W. Bush administration do? It clamped down even harder on the rights of innocent people to defend themselves than did the Administration from the Bowels of Hell (i.e. the Clinton administration). And despite the protestations of pilots and Second Amendment advocates across the land, his administration has continued to forbid pilots to arm themselves. But since GWB is not the man about town that his predecessor was, so many people put this totally unfounded childlike trust in him. His policies make them feeeeeeel so much safer. (Doesn't Rush Limbaugh constantly remind us of the importance of thinking over feeling when it comes to liberal policies?)
There is a huge difference between feeling safe and being safe.
When they came for the air travelers, many did not say anything, not because they were not air travelers, but because their boy was coming for them. And because it was GWB who came for them, they felt oh so secure. Bush is not Hitler. (Nor, for that matter, was Clinton.) He is not sending air travelers to death camps, but he is denying them that most fundamental of rights: the right to self-defense. And he is not merely denying the rights of people with weird religious or racial views. He is denying the rights of many millions of mainstream Americans, i.e. anyone who flies on an airplane.
There is only one great debate in politics: shall we have more government or less government? To the extent that we expand government, we deny people their God-given, constitutionally guaranteed rights. No matter who implements a dangerous policy, it remains a dangerous policy.
Big government is bad government, no matter who is in charge. Bad policies deserve condemnation regardless of who is behind them. If we continue to expand government indefinitely, it is only a matter of time before we arrive at a totalitarian state of affairs. And this, brothers and sisters, will not feel very good.
I can see it now. Somewhere in heaven, someone is paraphrasing Solzhenitsyn as he recounts his last moments on September 11.
"The horror was absolutely unimaginable. What would things have been like if the terrorists, when they were plotting these atrocities, had been uncertain whether the passengers aboard those planes would be armed or not armed? Or if, after they had so much as threatened that first stewardess, people had not simply sat there in their seats, paling in terror, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly surrounded the attackers brandishing guns, knives, knitting needles and whatever else was at hand. The terrorists would very quickly have realized that, notwithstanding all of their thirst; their efforts to mess with the American people would be totally futile. 3000 lives would have been spared, and September 11 would have been just another day."
Freely Speaking: Speeches and Essays by Doug Newman
Bush is doing the exact same thing when he signed the CCW law for Texas. There are two Bills that will arm the Pilots and when one of them passes the House and Senate, Bush will sign the Bill over the objections of the anti-gun, anti-self defense dems. Bush's popularity goes up with that of the Republicans. The anti-gun dems start to become a distant memory and life goes on. Politics 101.
what is the DP?
Sorry. The Death Penalty.
Waco and Ruby Ridge are the outcome of infringements of the right to keep and bear arms, not "bad decisions".
People who understand the Constitution and the Second Amendment understand when the boot of the tyrant is on their neck. They can sense that the perpetrators of injustice will see to it that they are punished for opposing the tyranny. Both Weaver and Koresh knew that surrender would be followed by lies. The lies told in the aftermath of these brutal outrages prove them right.
I tire of hearing that free people must wait for "due process" when the Second Amendment is clearly being infringed.
Why should I have to submit to a day in court because Kalifornia has decided that I may not own a rifle with a pistol grip? I can feel the foot of the tyrant on my neck.
I think you misunderstand my point. I was agreeing with one_particular_harbour's point that Waco and Ruby Ridge were not the result of conspiracies, but were the understandable outcome of bureaucratic organizations operating in an incompetent and hamhanded fashion.
Check out this recent post:
Twin Titanics: The FBI and CIA are first of all bureaucracies
(I hope this works--I'm in way over my head with this HTML stuff).
The above post summarizes what I was trying to say--the FBI, CIA, and Fed Govt. in general is too damned big and powerful to operate correctly, that is, in the interest of the citizenry. Therefore we get Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc. And both o_p_h and I acknowledge that Reno, Clinton, et. al. were and are really bad folks who used these organizations for their own ends.
I'd wager the BATF and FBI agents didn't do the things they did in order to subvert the 2nd Amendment. They were operating in their own bureaucratic environment in response to the incentives of their particular organizations. And yeah, a part of it was Reno, etc. manipulating events for their own ends. But it wasn't a vast conspiracy.
What happened at Waco and Ruby Ridge shouldn't have happened and the perpetrators should be brought to justice. It won't happen. Again, a consequence of too much government which is what the Constitution was supposed to protect us from. Large parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been disregarded by the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary over the years as it suited them at the time. So we end up with an all-powerful out-of-control government monster that stomps on those who get in the way. These events are the culmination of a long string of errors and crimes against the Constitution. It isn't simply a 2A matter.
I'm as big a supporter of the 2nd Amendment as you are. I own firearms of different types and calibers, which I won't detail here. I'm in the market for a scattergun at the moment.
The use of the power of the State against the citizens must be with done with extreme caution. For all the talk of our right to bear arms as a bulwark against tyranny (which it is), the Feds can bring to bear overwhelming firepower against any individual or small group. Witness both outcomes.
It is a tragedy that so many Americans don't see how far we have fallen away from the founding principals of limited government. Now we have a new bureucracy "protecting" us at the airport. Feel safer? I don't.
Score another point for sleep deprivation.
I think that I do understand what you are saying.
Our comments are not incompatible. I am trying to stress that I believe that our Founders passed a Constitution which was designed to grant the central government only those powers which were absolutely necessary. Most matters of life and death were to be left in the individual citizen's capable hands.
For example, there is no indication that the Constitution would allow the feeding of anyone who was not acting in the service of the government. This is despite the fact that people who do not eat will die.
The few matters of life and death which the central government does control have to do with declarations of war, punishment for treason, etc. The bungling and bureaucracy was expected and was a necessary trade-off to get the desired centralized results.
The Second Amendment clearly protects my right to keep and bear arms and any tax of that right is an infringement.
The "unintended" consequences of the government treading in an area of life and death where they have no business being is, in fact, quite predictable. The bungling is expected and the infringement is unConstitutional. The former is a consequence of collective action and the latter is a consequence of the corruption of power.
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