Sipsey Street Irregulars: "A Democracy By Any Other Name Is . . ." Tyranny.

Friday, December 19, 2008

"A Democracy By Any Other Name Is . . ." Tyranny.

Sam McKeen writes the following letter in the Klamath Falls, Oregon Herald and News:

A democracy by any other name is...

Thursday, December 18, 2008 10:15 PM PST

I wrote a harmless little letter about gun control and almost immediately James Farmer criticized my use of the word “democracy” and the same day a Web site user quoted part of my letter and then said that the Second Amendment is to protect us from a tyrannical government who will strip us of our rights and then kill us in our sleep.

As to Farmer, he’s right. We do not live in a democracy. Let’s call it a cantaloupe. Madison wouldn’t object. It means we have fair elections and then abide by the results.

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are thrown in to control the power of the people. A cantaloupe of the people by the people and for the people.

The Internet user presents a more serious problem. The Second Amendment was granted to us by a friendly government that stood with us, not over us, and, in order not to intimidate us, granted us the right to keep and bear arms. But let me tell that person what he’s dealing with — a nation that, after being crippled at Pearl Harbor and in less than five years, utterly defeated the five greatest navies on the entire planet, not to mention their armies and air forces. If that nation ever decided to oppose us, they would manufacture more assault weapons in 20 seconds than we could amass after 100 lifetimes of seeking them.

Friend, you are creating an enemy that does not exist. Love your country and be willing to die for it. Your cantaloupe will not let you down.

Sam McKeen

Klamath Falls

To which I replied to the paper's editor thusly:

Subject: A democracy by any other name is... tyranny.
Date: 12/19/2008 10:36:08 P.M. Central Standard Time
From: GeorgeMason1776
To: pbushey@heraldandnews.com

Dear Editor,

Sam McKeen writes "the Second Amendment was granted to us by a friendly government that stood with us, not over us, and, in order not to intimidate us, granted us the right to keep and bear arms."

Horse manure. The Founders would have thought that statement dangerously ludicrous. Governments, even friendly ones, do not "grant" us anything. The Constitution merely codifies our God-given, natural and inalienable rights, among them the right to arms to defend ourselves against tyrannical government.

"A democracy by any other name is . . ." The word the editorial headline writer was searching for is "tyranny." The Founders were extremely distrustful of "democracy" (rule of the people, rule of the mob, or majority rule). Absent the limits of a constitutional republic, democracy is three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what, or who, to have for dinner. The rights of the sheep in a pure democracy are by no means respected.

This is why the Founders took such time and care to craft a Constitution for us. Now that Obama and the antigun Dems have achieved political supremacy by defeating the GOP and marginalizing the NRA, they will be tempted to seize more of our traditional liberty and heretofore legal property simply because they can. The Sam McKeens of the country do not realize that the GOP and the NRA protected them more than those hapless organizations protected us. And now, having by majority rule -- by "democracy" -- swept away firearms owners' ability to politically redress our grievances, what choice will they give us? Why, to submit to additional infringements or to resist.

They will find to their surprise that when democracy turns to tyranny, we of the armed citizenry still get to vote. We just won't use voting booths to register our complaints.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

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"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Friday, December 19, 2008

"A Democracy By Any Other Name Is . . ." Tyranny.

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