William Diamond's Drum, Part Four: "Nativist Craziness," Resistance, Compromise and Cowardice.

I laughed when I read that Magpul has one final slap at the state authorities of Colorado before voting with their feet and taking many jobs with them to a freer clime:

We are proud to announce that within a matter of days we will be going live with a new program. Due to a bill currently moving through the Colorado legislature, there is the possibility that Colorado residents' ability to purchase standard capacity magazines will soon be infringed. Before that happens, and Magpul is forced to leave the state in order to keep to our principles, we will be doing our best to get standard capacity PMAGs into the hands of any Colorado resident that wants them.

Verified Colorado residents will be able to purchase up to ten (10) standard capacity AR/M4 magazines directly from Magpul, and will be given immediate flat-rate $5 shipping, bypassing our current order queue.

Our customers outside of Colorado, please know that our PMAG production will continue at an ever-increasing rate until we do relocate, shipments to our distributors in other states will continue, and that we do not expect relocation to significantly impact PMAG production. We are also aware that Colorado is not the only state with existing or pending magazine capacity restrictions; we are working on programs for other affected states as well. (Emphasis supplied, MBV.)

Good on 'em. Meanwhile, Politico reports that Obama's gun strategy falling short in Senate.

Another advocate with close ties to the White House effort expressed frustration with the inability to create the bipartisan consensus Obama has praised in public.

“There is a sort of nativist craziness from a sort of number of people who never want any of their information about their gun ownership in the hands of the government,” the advocate said. “Those things are hard to deal with because it is essential that those records are kept somewhere.”

"Essential?" To whom? Call me a "nativist crazy" I guess but whatever bill emerges into intolerable act, we will disobey it. William Diamond's drum still sounds the long roll. (See previous parts of this series here,hereand here.)

I was visiting a local gun store on Monday when a man in his forties came in, looking for "a tube I can bury my best guns in." The counterman referred him to nearest surplus store. As he turned to leave, I asked him, "Why do you want to bury your best guns?" He responded, "So I'll still have some after they confiscate the beat-up ones." "And if they do that," I asked, "when do you think it will be safe to dig up the others?" He blinked, twice, then answered, "After all this shit has blown over." I could have argued further, but didn't have the time to waste. He departed, pulling out of the parking lot in the direction of the surplus store.

I was reminded of the framed copy of a Churchill quote that hangs on my wall, presented to me as a thank you by a local candidate for judge who I once helped with his campaign back in the late 90s:

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

This thought was kicking around in my brain last night during my regularly scheduled insomnia when I recalled something from one of the books from the list that Doctor Richter had first recommended to me back in the winter of 1976-77: Eric Hoffer's The True Believer. Not from Hoffer's work, but rather from the Introduction by Sidney Hook. Richter also, as I recall, had Hook's The Hero in History on that list.

I remember identifying with Hook as a fellow ex-communist who had seen the light and become a staunch anti-communist. So last night, motivated by this twinkle of a long-ago memory, I rose and went to the shelves and pulled down my 1963 Time Books edition of The True Believer.

Hook's Introduction is as much a critique of Hoffer's broad stroke analysis as it is approving. This was the observation of Hook that tugged at my memory:

There is nothing that a fanatic will not do to achieve his goal: the end justifies the use of ANY means. There are some things which those who are not fanatical will refuse to do in defense of their ideals, even at the cost of their lives. . .

Those who in the face of totalitarian threats today (MBV: remember this was 1963 when Hook wrote this) say that survival at ANY price is the be-all and the end-all of existence have in effect capitulated to the fanatics who are unafraid to die. As a morality, this view is contemptible; as a strategy it is unimtelligent. It is morally contemptible because those who endorse it will swallow any infamy in order to live a life unworthy of man. It is unintelligent because the only thing which can restrain fanatics is fear of failure. Even Hitler probably would have kept the peace had he known or feared his aggression meant destruction for his cause. Where fanatics have no fear of failure, the liklihood is that in their insanity they will destroy themselves in fanatical war against other fanatics. In that case, those who have sacrificed integrity for life will have lost their lives, too.

The gravamen of this analysis, which I believe is not inconsistent with Hoffer's main position, is that moral integrity is not a monopoly of true believers. Those who love life must be prepared to risk life in behalf of the values which make life worth living. Those who desire peace with freedom rather than the peace of slavery must always be prepared to resist aggression at the cost of their lives. Otherwise, there will be no alternative to the warring absolutisms of true believers until oblivion descends upon the race of man.

The people who seek to destroy the Founders' Republic in order to achieve their "higher purpose" are, at the core of them, fanatics. They seek our liberty and property in service to their "right-thinking." It is ironic then that they call us "gun fanatics" when in fact all we seek is to be left alone with our God-given, natural and inalienable rights to life, liberty and property.

Yet if we desire to maintain those rights -- all other political efforts having failed -- we must resist in armed civil disobedience at the point of our rifles. Reluctantly, to be sure, but firmly. To do otherwise, to bury our weapons and hope for the best, is but craven, self-defeating cowardice.