Monday, January 26, 2009

And you thought this was a comedy? -- "El Guapo" & "El Jefe" Ride Again with Guns, Democracy and the "Insurrectionist Idea."

Folks,
Some of you may remember my last piece on Josh "El Guapo" Horwitz and Casey "El Jefe" Anderson's theory that the people should not have enough firearms to seriously challenge the government, "Monopoly (or, Slouching toward 'nut cuttin' time')" on Chris Horton's Mindful Musings blog, 11 May 2008. I was reminded of this by Kurt "45 superman" Hoffman's email to me below, which informed me that El Guapo amd El Jefe are mounting up to ride again, seeking to plunder our natural and God-given right to arms.

Hi Mike,

I was knocking around Chris Horton's place last evening, and stumbled upon your "Monopoly (or, Slouching toward 'nut cuttin' time')" piece. I had read it before, but have yet to come across anything of yours not worthy of a second reading--so I read it again. In it, you refer to the CSGV's Josh Horwitz, and the book he was working on, which at the time was supposed to come out some time last year, under the title Freedom Under Fire, examining the relationship between guns and democracy. Now it seems that the release date has been pushed back to May 28th of this year, and that the title has been changed to Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea (and "El Jefe," Casey Anderson, is being credited as co-author). Here's Amazon's description (excerpt):


The NRA steadfastly maintains that the 30,000 gun-related deaths and 300,000 assaults with firearms in the United States every year are a small price to pay to guarantee freedom. As former NRA President Charlton Heston put it, "freedom isn't free."

And when gun enthusiasts talk about Constitutional liberties guaranteed by the Second Amendment, they are referring to freedom in a general sense, but they also have something more specific in mind---freedom from government oppression. They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government.

In the past decade, this view of the proper relationship between government and individual rights and the insistence on a role for private violence in a democracy has been co-opted by the conservative movement. As a result, it has spread beyond extreme "militia" groups to influence state and national policy.

In Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrectionist Idea, Josh Horwitz and Casey Anderson reveal that the proponents of this view base their argument on a deliberate misreading of history. The Insurrectionist myth has been forged by twisting the facts of the American Revolution and the founding of the United States, the denial of civil rights to African-Americans after the Civil War, and the rise of the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. Here, Horwitz and Anderson set the record straight. Then, challenging the proposition that more guns equal more freedom, they expose Insurrectionism---not government oppression---as the true threat to freedom in the U.S. today.


It occurs to me that one of the "Pragmatics'" objection to the "3pers" is that all of us who talk about such things are full of shit and internet bravado, and that no one takes the idea of armed resistance to the U.S. government seriously. It seems to me that someone clearly takes it seriously enough to consider it a real threat to "Democracy."

Just struck me as interesting--hope it's not a waste of your time.

By the way, speaking of books--I can't remember where I saw you mention Robert Churchill's To Shake Their Guns in the Tyrant's Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement, but that sounds like a book I'll need to buy when it comes out. As for Horwitz's book, I'll be damned if I send him any money, but I am curious enough about what he has to say about us bad old insurrectionists that I'll have to see if my local library can get the book when it comes out.

III

Take care,
Kurt "45superman" Hofmann



The article that originally drew my attention to El Guapo and El Jefe was published at The Huffington Post on 6 May 2008, and it advanced the theory first expressed by their fellow bandido of gun control, CSGV's Ladd Everitt:

“The government must have a monopoly on force.”

El Guapo and Jefe were concerned that the then undecided Heller case might overturn their gun control cart for good and all. Scratch a liberal, get a fascist:

In its decision, the Court of Appeals asserted a broad range of purposes for the Second Amendment, including hunting, self-defense and, most notably, to defend against the "depredations of a tyrannical government." After the ruling was successfully appealed to the Supreme Court by the District of Columbia, the National Rifle Association made a similar argument in their brief to the Court, affirming that the "very existence of an armed citizenry will tend to discourage would-be tyrants from attempting to use paid troops to 'pacify' the populace." Such "insurrectionist" philosophy is common among a small but vocal group of gun rights supporters. Insurrectionists assert that unrestricted access to guns of every kind is an essential element of freedom. Government is seen as a likely enemy, and gun regulation is viewed as a plot to monitor gun ownership and, ultimately, to confiscate all private firearms. If this insurrectionist logic were to be embraced by the Supreme Court, however, our democracy would be severely degraded.


As I observed in "Monopoly, "Ah, democracy, sweet democracy. El Guapo and Jefe are right you know. Democracy IS 'severely degraded' by constitutional restrictions. AND THAT'S JUST THE WAY THE FOUNDERS WANTED IT."

So now we are going to have a book length treatment of why the government must have a "monopoly of force." And it will arrive, presumably, just in time to serve as an intellectual predicate for the Obamanoids' latest gun control bills.

You know, Bill Clinton's rules of engagement for the Serbs are looking more attractive by the minute. El Guapo and Jefe, meet the final shootout of The Magnificent Seven.


And you thought this was a comedy?

9 comments:

jon said...

these men deserve nothing less than an appointment at the ministry of love. would it were just and moral to deliver it.

45superman said...

They argue that the only way to keep federal authority in check is to arm individual citizens who can, if necessary, defend themselves from an aggressive government.

Josh, apparently, believes it to be preferable that citizens do not have the ability to "defend themselves from an agressive government."

Bloody tyranny enabling bastard.

markofafreeman said...

Not just tyranny enabling. I predict, in some yet unforeseen way, he will be one of those tyrants.

And, ah, yes...The Magnificent Seven. One of my favourite old flicks. And I only saw it for the first time last year. Seen it several times since, too. Even chose one of the best quotes from it as the tag line of my rather feeble blog at http://markofafreeman.blogspot.com/.

Anonymous said...

Mike V said: So now we are going to have a book length treatment of why the government must have a "monopoly of force." And it will arrive, presumably, just in time to serve as an intellectual predicate for the Obamanoids' latest gun control bills.

You know, Bill Clinton's rules of engagement for the Serbs are looking more attractive by the minute."

SLOUCHING TOWARD "NUT CUTTIN' TIME" indeed.

Back in 1995 Claire Wolfe wrote:

"America is at that awkward stage: It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."

Since then, people in the freedom community often rhetorically ask "is it Claire time yet?" and most folks know what that means.

But I kinda like this variation, inspired by your phrase:

"is it 'nut cuttin' time yet?"

It's more direct and prompts an appropriate visual image.

Anonymous said...

The original article Josh Horwitz wrote for the Huffington Post can still be found there:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/the-game-of-monopoly_b_99793.html

That article, as well as the description of his new book, are utterly priceless and need to be distributed far and wide as they present the unmasked totalitarian desire to disarm us precisely for the purpose of preventing us from fighting back.

There is no more useful tool for waking up sleeping Americans to what our enemies have in mind for us.

markofafreeman said...

I hadn't read the article yet (had to don the gas mask before clicking on a HuffPo link), but I just caught this from it:


Researcher Herbert Wulf, commenting on the U.S. occupation of Iraq, stated, "[t]he present situation in Iraq illustrates that even the most powerful military nation of the world runs into difficulties in trying to re-establish the monopoly of violence."



You catch that? All those that claim that the gubmint will be able to crush any 'rebellion' never consider this.

With all the UAV predators, all the daisy cutters, all other personnel and materiel at its disposal, it's not a forgone conclusion that it's a lost cause and that the 'most powerful military in the world' is going to be able to stop those who will not go quietly into that good night.

And add to that the hesitation that many in the employ of the tyranny may have in firing upon fellow Americans.

45superman said...

And add to that the hesitation that many in the employ of the tyranny may have in firing upon fellow Americans.

Not to mention the fact that those who would send government force against the people are not thousands of miles away from those whom they seek to "pacify."

straightarrow said...

As for the insurrectionist idea, I am old enough to remember when school textbooks taught that that was the entire reason for the second amendment and the only reason we attained liberty and won independence from, what compared to today was, a rather mild tyrant.

Every school child understood it and took great pride in being "independent and independent-minded" willing to fight to remain so.

Of course that was before we were all infected with the vaginitis virus and turned into---well, you get the idea.

There are people in our society who will lobby for forgiveness for mass murderers, child molesters, child murederers, rapists, robbers, defrauders and politicians, but I repeat myself, who will demand and extract the harshest penalty for someone they suspect of not being a "team player". You all know the type of miscreant these people find reprehensible, those who think for themselves. Those who will not betray their code of honor or manhood for popular acceptance.

People just too damn dangerous to try to enslave. More pragmatic to just isolate them,and kill them with as low a profile as can be managed. Because 3% of the populace will never surrender liberty, nor cease efforts to reassert it. These people are dangerous to all pragmatists because they are not "team players" and they don't care one good Goddamn for popularity at the expense of liberty or manhood. These people end up being hated by all, ALL, but their own. Pragmatism is like that.

45superman said...

Hey Mike, with Mindful Musings down, have you considered putting "Monopoly
(or, Slouching toward 'nut cuttin' time.')" up here? It can still be found via the Wayback Machine, but that's kinda awkward.