Casus Belli: Of Tripwires and Simpletons Who Risk Nothing Wanting to See Them Tripped.

The Old Powder House in Somerville, Massachusetts as it stood in 1935.

Casus belli is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. Casus means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while belli means "of war". . . The term came into wide usage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the writings of Hugo Grotius (1625), Cornelius van Bynkershoek (1737), and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui (1748), among others, and the rise of the political doctrine of jus ad bellum or "just war theory". Informal usage varies beyond its technical definition to refer to any "just cause" a nation may claim for entering into a conflict. As such, it has been used both retroactively to describe situations in history before the term came into wide usage and in the present day when describing situations when war has not been formally declared. -- Wikipedia.

Forgive me for all of those who are not simpletons, but it appears I must insult your intelligence with basic definitions and rudimentary common sense in order to attempt to reach a few hardheads who continue to foam at the mouth, eager to plunge their country into civil war under circumstances which will guarantee defeat of the cause which they claim to espouse.

"Informal usage varies beyond its technical definition to refer to any "just cause" a nation may claim for entering into a conflict."

When I use the term casus belli in posts, it is merely pointing out that the particular trend or incident is adding to the just cause by which the civil war, when it breaks out, will be justified.

The cumulative effect of such individual reasons, stacked one upon the other, will later be seen as background, the fuel, the dry grass if you will, of the conflagration.

The prairie fire will be started by a single spark, or series of sparks -- incidents so compelling that no one, given the common understanding of the explosive tinder building up, will be surprised that it happened, only when it happened.

The Founders experienced such a rising series of casus belli, each new outrage of the King's ministerial government piling upon the one before, causing reactions among the liberty-loving populace COMMENSURATE WITH THE THREAT.

The Stamp Act caused the colonists -- WHO DID NOT YET THINK OF THEMSELVES AS REVOLUTIONARIES but merely English citizens whose rights under the English Constitution were being abrogated -- to react with violent demonstrations, assaults on royal lackeys and their property, tar and feathering, etc. The resistance was sufficient to get the Crown to back down.

The Boston Massacre was not the tripwire for general war. Why? Because neither the general public nor the men who were increasingly viewing themselves as revolutionaries were ready for such a step. Indeed, John Adams and other Founders acted as DEFENSE attorneys for the British soldiers at the subsequent trial. Yet the propaganda that the Founders made of this incident was absolutely brilliant, and essential to laying the groundwork for independence.

The tax on tea was not the tripwire for general war, again because no one was ready. The political pretext for resorting to defensive violence had not yet been made. There was no thought that the officers of the King should be targeted, but the tea itself? A brilliant choice of targets and an impeccably executed plan of vandalism. It was Sam Adam's finest hour.

Then came the Intolerable Acts and the continuing battle of the Crown forces with smugglers. Revenue cutters were burned, customs men harassed (NOTE: NOT KILLED), and as British troops flowed into to overawe the malefactors, the liberty-minded colonists began to take over the militia system or create their own units independent of the colonial structure.

Then came the British attempt to seize militia arms and powder. The militias responded to several of these raids by mobilizing around and in front of the British columns, culminating in The Powder Alarm of 1774.

The Powder Alarm was a massive popular reaction to the removal of gunpowder from a magazine by British soldiers under orders from General Thomas Gage, royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, on September 1, 1774. In response to this action, amid rumors that blood had been shed, alarm spread through the countryside as far as Connecticut, and American Patriots sprang into action, fearing that war was at hand.

Although it proved to be a false alarm, the Powder Alarm caused political and military leaders to proceed more carefully in the days ahead, and essentially provided a "dress rehearsal" for the Battle of Lexington and Concord seven months later. Furthermore, actions on both sides to control weaponry, gunpowder, and other military supplies became more contentious, as the British sought to bring military stores more directly under their control, and the Patriot colonists sought to acquire them for their own use. -- Wikipedia.

The Powder Alarm caused smuggling of war supplies to increase and militias to redouble to their training. No one went to war, because neither side was ready.

When the war did start -- the tripwire if you will -- was thanks to a miscalculation by the British that they could march out of Boston, seize or destroy the arms and powder and get back to town before the militia could react. Even the mustering of the Lexington militia on the green was in the spirit of the Powder Alarm. Captain Parker actually backed his little force up, away from the road, so as not to block the ministerial troops path, but yet to make a demonstration that they had better not get out of hand in the village.

But the actual tripwire, the "shot heard 'round the world," could itself have been a negligent discharge by a nervous regular or militiaman. The Brits of course blamed the militia and vice versa. But the conduct of Parker's formation and the lop-sided odds, made it seem likely to the rest of the colonials that the "bloody lobsters" had started it. And remember, about a third of those colonials thought that the "armed rabble" had it coming, and that it was about time the King's men did something.

In 1861, the tripwire was the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Prior to that incident, Lincoln was faced with a huge political problem. A majority of the people of the North wanted to avoid a civil war. So Lincoln contrived to get the Confederates to cede the moral high ground.

By April 4, President Lincoln . . . ordered merchant vessels escorted by the United States Navy to Charleston. On April 6, 1861, Lincoln notified South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only, and that if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the fort."

In response, the Confederate cabinet, meeting in Montgomery, decided on April 9 to open fire on Fort Sumter in an attempt to force its surrender before the relief fleet arrived. Only Secretary of State Robert Toombs opposed this decision: he reportedly told Jefferson Davis the attack "will lose us every friend at the North. You will only strike a hornet's nest. ... Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal."

Toombs, as we know now with 20-20 hindsight, was absolutely correct. Lincoln's gambit worked and the Confederacy took the bait to it's peoples' eternal sorrow. Imagine the Federal rout of the First Battle of Bull Run WITHOUT the justification of Fort Sumter. The pressure on Lincoln to stop the war and negotiate would have become immense. Arrogance and stupidity killed the Confederacy at the very first. That it took four years for the Federals to subdue the South in cruel war was a testament to the Southrons' courage and tenacity. BUT THE CONFEDERATES GAVE THE FEDERALS THE FIRST, AND ARGUABLY MOST IMPORTANT, STICK WITH WHICH TO BEAT THEM.

Fast forward to today.

First, one of the arguments most often heard in simpleton quarters is "THEY" (whoever they are) are "too smart to start a war" and will simply gradually increase oppressive measures until they achieve our absolute slavery.

This assigns some sort of god-like power of restraint to the largest, most inefficient, ponderous, corrupt and mistake-prone bureaucracy ever created in this country: the federal government of the 21st Century. Only an ignorant simpleton would believe such a tall tale.

For the better part of two years, one agency of that government, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been chasing a phantom opponent simply because one of their favorite snitches told them he was a confederate of a law-abiding man that they wished to see squashed. ATF lawyers have demanded to know from expert witnesses in depositions if they knew this man, always eliciting the answer, "I know of no such person." ATF agents have been dispatched to run down every lead, every rumor, searching for this nemesis of the Chief Counsel's Office WHO NEVER EXISTED. Millions of taxpayer dollars have certainly been wasted in the search.

This is hardly evidence of federal omniscience or omnipotence.

Secondly, the argument that "they" will be patient enough to play the long game of gradual tyranny reckons without our own ability, LIKE THE FOUNDERS SHOWED US, to resist with lesser measures and gradually make our would-be oppressors so frustrated and crazy with our resistance that they attack us with deadly force, by accident or design.

The tools available to us to accomplish that are the same as were in the liberty toolbag of the Founders: strikes, shunning, petty yet strategic vandalism, street theater, demonstrations, smuggling, etc. The fact that we haven't fully employed these tools is an argument AGAINST the preemptive use of deadly force on our part, not FOR it.

Recall Michael Collins:

“They can jail us. They can shoot us. . . BUT . . . we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon is our refusal! Our refusal to bow to any order but our own! Any institution but our own!”

That refusal, if we practice it diligently, adamantly, will force the frustrated leviathan to use deadly force.

Third, there is an argument offered by some (many more than actually have it as a valid reason) that to engage in lesser acts of resistance than shooting -- breaking political party windows or vandalism of ARRA signs for example -- will compromise their "operational security" for the big event when shooting starts.

Perhaps. But only if they're stupid in carrying out such operations. We are not talking about carrying out operations against defended targets, for crying out loud. Nothing is more vulnerable than the easy pickings of an ARRA sign on a deserted road at two o'clock in the morning. Besides, engaging in the process of operational planning and execution exercises the tactical muscles for when the shooting DOES start. Each who makes this argument must look into his or her own heart for the answer to whether or not this is simple reluctance to do ANYTHING rather than an exercise in proper prudence.

But in any case, unless sanity breaks out among our would-be tyrannizers, at some point there will be an initiating event of deadly violence by Leviathan against a man or woman who simply wishes to be left alone.

Let us then look at what the Three Percenters have staked out as tripwires:

Any more restrictive firearms laws, is a big one. Katrina-like confiscation obviously would be resisted by force at out doorsteps first, and then taken to the enemy in maneuver warfare style. But what of lesser moves? A "gun show loophole" bill would be resisted first by hosting our own Fed-free gunshows, provoking a response. Any ammunition restrictions would be resisted first by rolling our own, smuggling, theft, etc. Again, provoking a response, and then, a spasm of targeted counter-violence.

Enforcing "health-care" would be met by refusal to pay the fines, refusal to go willingly to jail, and eventually, at the point of a gun. Again, a PROCESS OF RESISTANCE only ending in deadly violence if Leviathan chooses to do so. And they will, if we do our part right.

Federal election tampering, or outright theft, is another. Here I can think of an excellent use of tar and feathering of local and state election officials, breaking of windows, and other vandalism as a first response. If the election is certified despite these moves, then the situation will rapidly move to violence without doubt.

But why, in any of these cases, should we cede the moral high ground and shoot first? Just because some of us are tired of waiting? Or because they're too scared to use lesser measures? Or because they risk nothing nothing in urging US to take the first shot? Such people are urging us to the trip the wire without consequence to themselves. For if they lack the guts to start acting like free people and engage in lesser forms of resistance, what evidence is there that they will go to the extreme when it is called for?

I mean besides their own hot air reduced to keystrokes.

I agree that not all of us are public figures like myself, with names and addresses well known to the PTB. Nor should we be. My JOB is to be a living, breathing gambit -- daring the Power to take a shot at me, and gradually defeating them with every passing day that they do not make an example of me -- exposing the lie of the man behind the curtain that the Wizard is all knowing and all powerful, encouraging others to resist by simply existing as a symbol of the federal government's true vacillation and impotence.

But if YOU are urging us IN AN EASILY TRACEABLE COMMUNICATION to engage in deadly violence against the PTB, then you are not a "grey man" anyway. You trade that when you speak out on the Net. Only a simpleton thinks otherwise. So, telling me that you are not willing to risk lesser violence in order to preserve the operational security that you just threw away by telling me in this venue is hardly persuasive of anything except to reasonably doubt your intelligence or courage or both. Likewise, people who urge others to begin shooting in such a venue have to be asked: who are they really serving? And what are they risking by doing so?

Finally, I ask again, who among us on that final day the wire is tripped will not desperately wish that we had ONE MORE DAY, ONE MORE HOUR, to train, to recruit, and see to our own logistics for the killing time?

If present events play out into a likely future, that wire WILL be tripped. But until it is, it is your responsibility to do everything you can using lesser measures to avoid it and, failing that, to prepare for that day to fight and to win.

No Fort Sumters. No OKC bombings. Let the enemies of the Founders' Republic make those mistakes, not us.

Mike
III