Freedom (This is a MUST READ!)

Eject Eject Eject ^ | December 22, 2002 | Bill Whittle

[tarawa]

All I can say is WOW! I wish I had the raw talent this gent displays. I know so much of this has been said in one form or another, but rarely all in one place, and almost never with such passion and skill.

[tarawa]

You've got to read this. It's a bit longer than normal, but WOW! is it worth it.

[kattracks]

BTTT

[SAMWolf]

Bump.

[MissAmericanPie]

I don't share his optimism, they will come for our guns with regulation then with the BATF one door at a time. No one cares what is going on next door, until it is going on at their door.

"Consider the case of Jews in Germany, during the 1930’s: Here was a people who had been so tormented and prosecuted and psychologically beaten down that they came to believe the outrageous slander that they were guests in their own county"

We have been so tormented, prosecuted, and psychologically beaten down that we seem to buy into the outrageous slander that we are all recent immigrants to this country, with no group of individuals having a greater stake, history, connection, nor greater claim to this blood bought land or it's future. Mush less the right to determine to continue it's constitution, or cultural identity.

Heck some of us have bought into it so much that some of us have begun to refer to ourselves as hypenated Americans, european-Americans, or, American of Europen decent, even me. So I am not overly confident about the future of the Second Amendment.

[Brad C.]

An incredible read, thanks for posting it!

[RLK]

The great failure and staggering tragedy of European Jews is that they could not accept that some of their neighbors were not as decent, humane and educated as they were. A culture that learned to survive by turning inward simply never was willing to face the reality of what they were up against; namely, that hoping for compassion and humanity from the likes of the Nazis was akin to reading poetry to a hurricane. This denial --- and that is the only word for it --- is, in the final horrible analysis, a form of unconscious arrogance, a refusal to see things for what they are.

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After some study I have come to believe George Bush lives in a denial similar to this. He refuses, for instance, to look at Islam as murderous even though it is killing off thousands in the middle of the night in many areas of the world.

[RLK]

Kick down 100 doors of self-proclaimed French pacifists, grab the women and kids, and haul them away. Then try again in Texas, with 100 NRA members. Collate, or rather, have a surviving relative collate the results. Extrapolate the abductors' rates of casualties to determine the total number of murdering swine needed. See what percentage of jackbooted thugs have a suicide wish and then determine the number of men you will need to disarm, kidnap and murder 50 million armed people.

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Bold talk. Perhaps this fellow should familiarize himself with one word. WACO.

[prisoner6]

EXCELLENT! Thanks for the post.

prisoner6

[johnboy]

many have put the question as did the author of this article: how did 1933 germany, with all of its sophistication, etc., allow what happened?

but what has always fascinated me is how QUICKLY it occurred: hitler rose to power in january 1933, and, by august of that year, observing every punctillio of german law and the wiemar constitution, transferred germany into a totalitarian state.

THAT is what always puzzled me ... until i observed in my own country a similar deterioration.

a mere forty years from the greatest nation on earth (arguably it still is; nevertheless ... ) to something that our forebears would not even recognize.

i remember being angry at my father for allowing what had happened to this country to occur. what will my daughter think of me?

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[Nateman]

As PJ O'Rourke points out, the U.S. Constitution is less than a quarter the length of the owner's manual for a 1998 Toyota Camry, and yet it has managed to keep 300 million of the world's most unruly, passionate people safe, prosperous and free. Smarter people than me may disagree with that document- I'm for not touching a comma.

Here I disagree! The problem with the constitution is that once a bad law , tax , spending item, or amendment does make it past the hurtle, political reality makes it harder to remove than it took to create it. Suppose you had a legislative body that met only every 20 years that only had the authority to cut spending, eliminate laws, or fire government officials, that would help!

Or imagine that every law has a sunset provision that requires a revote every 50 years or so. The amount of laws would then be limited eventually to whatever could be processed in 50 years. You could make amendments to the constitution face harder and tougher hurtles at 20, 50 and hundred years, with a permanent vote required every 100 years to make sure it was the will of the vast majority of the people ( not just 1/2 )

History is littered with civilizations that  smother themselves with public servants, regulations and taxes, surely some way to put in a permanent trimming process is called for!

[Allan]

A lot of hot air.

A nation that allows its children to be drugged and indoctrinated by its ruling class never will fight back.

[babygene]

bump for a later read

[wafflehouse]

GREAT POST!!
best post of the year here..
maybe several years..

[qvack]

Great find. Thanks.

[Movemout]

I know that many of us believe that the Nation has gone to hell in a hand basket and that we ignore the perils to our freedom on a routine basis. Bill Whittle seems to have captured the essence of why that is not true. All of us who sit in our cozy homes armed to the teeth do not use our weapons to further our interests, finacial or otherwise. We feel secure in the knowledge that if some rampaging idiot wants to take what is ours then he will pay for it in blood.

That is not a pleasant thought but it is a true thought. Our freedom is always in jeopardy of one kind or another. Our freedom has always been protected imperfectly. Our rights have always been abused to some extent or another. Yet here we are on FR raising cain about anything that we care about from minute to minute.

I care about the second amendment. I care about property rights. I care about all things conservative. If I were a slave, I could care about all of these things and it wouldn't matter. But I am not not a slave.

[Brad C.]

BTW, I clicked on the article's link and got led to some really interesting pages that I had never seen before. It is well worth looking at a few of them, there is some excellent reading amoungst that group of people. Thanks again!

[Betty Jane]

Bump for the morning.