E
Eyes Wide Open
Guest
The guardian
>
>
> On July 4, 1776, a new nation was born. It was more
> free than any that had ever existed on earth.
>
> By the time we stood up to declare independence, men
> had already been fighting for the new nation for more
> than a year. The fighters were, for the most part, a
> well-trained but un-uniformed rabble. Farmers.
> Shopkeepers. Dockworkers. Members of their local
> militias.
>
> These nobodies had taken on the biggest superpower on
> earth -- Britain.
>
> No president or general or any other central power
> ordered them to start fighting. They just did what had
> to be done. To this day, nobody knows who fired the
> first shot when the British soldiers arrived to
> confiscate firearms and ammunition from the citizens
> of Lexington and Concord.
>
> That much, you probably know.
>
> But the myth of the unorganized rabble putting the
> superpower on the run tells only part of the truth.
> The men who won America actually possessed more
> sophisticated military weaponry than their foes.
>
> The best small arm of the day was the Kentucky long
> rifle. Our little mob had it. The "legally constituted
> government" -- as represented by the red-coated
> soldiers -- didn't.
>
> Let me repeat that. Ordinary American men had a weapon
> not available to the soldiers of the world's biggest
> superpower. They knew how to use it in defense of
> their towns and properties. And they used it to be
> free.
>
> In July 2006, the United Nations held a conference --
> one in a long series of them -- to disarm the ordinary
> men and women of the world.
>
> This has been a long-time goal of the U.N. Anyone who
> loves freedom should carefully consider what the U.N.
> aims to do. Their intention is to ensure that only
> governments have guns.
>
> They want to set up a system that will let any
> government on earth keep all guns out of the hands of
> anybody who isn't approved by government.
>
> That might sound sensible if you don't think too hard.
> But that means that the United Nations wants to make
> sure that the worst, most evil, tyrannical, brutal
> government on this planet has the power to make sure
> that its opponents can never fight against it.
>
> They want to make sure that underdogs always lose.
> That freedom fighters can never win. According to U.N.
> standards, Hitler should have had guns, but German
> Jews should not. (Funny, that was Hitler's plan, too.)
> According to U.N. standards, Stalin should have had
> guns, but the farmers he deliberately starved to death
> in the Ukraine should not. (Stalin would have agreed
> with the U.N.)
>
> If the United Nations had had its way three centuries
> ago, America would never have been born. And you and
> your family, to this day, would be at the mercy of any
> dictator who wanted to rule over you or any thug who
> wanted to attack you.
>
> Don't believe me?
>
> Look what's happened in nations that have confiscated
> firearms or forbidden their possession:
>
> Germany: genocide
> Armenia: genocide
> Russia: genocide
> Rwanda: genocide
> China: genocide
> Uganda: genocide
>
> The list goes on.
>
> The simple fact behind all the complicated issues of
> "gun control" is this: Citizens of free countries have
> guns. Groveling subjects of dictatorships do not.
>
> Not long after the War for Independence ended, the
> founders of America gave us a Bill of Rights. The Bill
> of Rights has one vital function: It is a no
> trespassing sign. It says, "Government, keep out."
>
> It delineates what government is forbidden to do. It
> says government, especially the federal government,
> has only limited, delegated authority. It says the
> people, on the other hand, have a multitude of inborn
> rights that no legitimate government can ever take
> away.
>
> But governments are powerful and individuals are
> small. How could the people retain their hard-won
> rights against the threat of overwhelming force?
>
> Within the great Bill, the founders placed one
> amendment to guard all the rest. The guardian is the
> Second Amendment: the right to keep and bear arms.
>
> But the right to bear arms means nothing without the
> farmers and shopkeepers -- or today we might say the
> computer programmers, assembly-line workers, nurses,
> and auto mechanics -- who are the ones meant to be the
> first defenders of liberty.
>
> Today, the fashionable voices of the media tell us the
> Second doesn't really mean it when it says "the right
> to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." They
> assure us it means only that the states have authority
> to operate National Guard units. They assure us guns
> are too dangerous for mere rabble to possess.
>
> They tell us, most assuredly, that government agents
> should always be able to out-shoot anybody who breaks
> the law -- even if the law in question is unjust and
> tyrannical. They tell us it's for our own good for
> government to be infinitely more powerful than We the
> People.
>
> Is that so? Do you believe it? Then why did James
> Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights, say, "The
> right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the
> most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to
> individuals"?
>
> Why did Patrick Henry say, "The great object is that
> every man be armed ... Everyone who is able may have a
> gun"?
>
> And why did Thomas Jefferson declare, "No Free man
> shall ever be debarred the use of arms"?
>
> Because free men are armed. Slaves are not.
>
> No, the Second Amendment is not the government's
> right. Governments have no rights. And they shouldn't.
> Governments are big, dangerous dinosaurs. They should
> be kept within limits and carefully watched at all
> times.
>
> The Second is your right. Ultimately it's your right
> to control your own government. Your right to be free.
>
> The Second Amendment is the minuteman standing guard
> over the rights to free speech, fair trials, and a
> free press. The Second puts "liberty teeth" into the
> promise in the Bill of Rights that government won't be
> allowed to lock us up without charges or snoop through
> our lives without warrants.
>
> The Second says, more effectively than any other
> amendment, "Government, keep out."
>
> The fashionable voices laugh at the idea that
> Americans might ever have to shoot back at their own
> government. And let's hope we never do have to. But
> the great beauty of the Second Amendment is that, just
> as the mere presence of a firearm can deter a crook
> from entering a house, the mere presence of millions
> of watchful armed citizens deters tyrants.
>
> The Guardian best does its job when not a single shot
> is ever fired!
>
> Yet despite remaining an armed nation, we've failed
> the Second Amendment. We've failed freedom. And we are
> in peril because of it.
>
> Tyrants don't need to conquer us by force of arms.
> Instead, they buy us off, building enormous
> unconstitutional empires with our hard-earned money
> and promises of handouts. They disarm us mentally so
> they can disarm us physically.
>
> Today, instead of demanding our uninfringed right to
> be just as well armed as soldiers and police officers,
> we've let governments impose rules on us that their
> own people don't have to obey. They invade our homes
> and towns with machine guns. But they tell us our own
> firearms should be fit only for "sporting purposes."
>
> "Sporting purposes" was never written into the Second
> Amendment. And it wouldn't have done the farmers of
> Lexington much good. "Sporting purposes" was unknown
> in U.S. law until 1968 when -- get ready for this -- a
> U.S. Senator, Thomas Dodd, copied it from a Nazi
> German "gun control" law.
>
> Today, we allow the Second Amendment to be violated by
> an illegal agency called the Bureau of Alcohol,
> Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This agency is
> notorious for its viciousness, its entrapment schemes,
> its false charges against innocent people, and its
> bureaucratic arrogance and incompetence.
>
> It is un-American in the deepest sense. But we
> tolerate it.
>
> Now the government thinks it has defanged its
> citizens. They think they can force our protests into
> prison-like "free speech zones." They think our once
> free press will always be willing to spout what the
> government wants us to hear. They believe we'll
> tolerate imprisonment without charges as long as its
> done to people we don't care about. They think they
> can regulate away all but a few of our weapons. They
> even think they can buy off our churches (once major
> voices against government abuse) with "faith-based"
> government handouts and special tax favors.
>
> But what they fear is this: The Guardian, though
> weakened, still remains.
>
> When the founders wrote the Bill of Rights, they
> didn't "give" us anything. They were merely putting
> into writing what already existed. You have a right to
> defend your life, your family, your community -- and
> your freedom.
>
> You have an inborn, undying right to defend yourself
> against anybody who tries to take your life and
> liberty. Anybody. Whether he's a thug who works only
> for himself or for the biggest superpower on earth.
>
> The Guardian has been battered, weakened, wounded, and
> infringed. But the Guardian remains -- and always will
> -- wherever a few brave men and women are willing to
> stand and say, "Government, keep out."
>
>
> On July 4, 1776, a new nation was born. It was more
> free than any that had ever existed on earth.
>
> By the time we stood up to declare independence, men
> had already been fighting for the new nation for more
> than a year. The fighters were, for the most part, a
> well-trained but un-uniformed rabble. Farmers.
> Shopkeepers. Dockworkers. Members of their local
> militias.
>
> These nobodies had taken on the biggest superpower on
> earth -- Britain.
>
> No president or general or any other central power
> ordered them to start fighting. They just did what had
> to be done. To this day, nobody knows who fired the
> first shot when the British soldiers arrived to
> confiscate firearms and ammunition from the citizens
> of Lexington and Concord.
>
> That much, you probably know.
>
> But the myth of the unorganized rabble putting the
> superpower on the run tells only part of the truth.
> The men who won America actually possessed more
> sophisticated military weaponry than their foes.
>
> The best small arm of the day was the Kentucky long
> rifle. Our little mob had it. The "legally constituted
> government" -- as represented by the red-coated
> soldiers -- didn't.
>
> Let me repeat that. Ordinary American men had a weapon
> not available to the soldiers of the world's biggest
> superpower. They knew how to use it in defense of
> their towns and properties. And they used it to be
> free.
>
> In July 2006, the United Nations held a conference --
> one in a long series of them -- to disarm the ordinary
> men and women of the world.
>
> This has been a long-time goal of the U.N. Anyone who
> loves freedom should carefully consider what the U.N.
> aims to do. Their intention is to ensure that only
> governments have guns.
>
> They want to set up a system that will let any
> government on earth keep all guns out of the hands of
> anybody who isn't approved by government.
>
> That might sound sensible if you don't think too hard.
> But that means that the United Nations wants to make
> sure that the worst, most evil, tyrannical, brutal
> government on this planet has the power to make sure
> that its opponents can never fight against it.
>
> They want to make sure that underdogs always lose.
> That freedom fighters can never win. According to U.N.
> standards, Hitler should have had guns, but German
> Jews should not. (Funny, that was Hitler's plan, too.)
> According to U.N. standards, Stalin should have had
> guns, but the farmers he deliberately starved to death
> in the Ukraine should not. (Stalin would have agreed
> with the U.N.)
>
> If the United Nations had had its way three centuries
> ago, America would never have been born. And you and
> your family, to this day, would be at the mercy of any
> dictator who wanted to rule over you or any thug who
> wanted to attack you.
>
> Don't believe me?
>
> Look what's happened in nations that have confiscated
> firearms or forbidden their possession:
>
> Germany: genocide
> Armenia: genocide
> Russia: genocide
> Rwanda: genocide
> China: genocide
> Uganda: genocide
>
> The list goes on.
>
> The simple fact behind all the complicated issues of
> "gun control" is this: Citizens of free countries have
> guns. Groveling subjects of dictatorships do not.
>
> Not long after the War for Independence ended, the
> founders of America gave us a Bill of Rights. The Bill
> of Rights has one vital function: It is a no
> trespassing sign. It says, "Government, keep out."
>
> It delineates what government is forbidden to do. It
> says government, especially the federal government,
> has only limited, delegated authority. It says the
> people, on the other hand, have a multitude of inborn
> rights that no legitimate government can ever take
> away.
>
> But governments are powerful and individuals are
> small. How could the people retain their hard-won
> rights against the threat of overwhelming force?
>
> Within the great Bill, the founders placed one
> amendment to guard all the rest. The guardian is the
> Second Amendment: the right to keep and bear arms.
>
> But the right to bear arms means nothing without the
> farmers and shopkeepers -- or today we might say the
> computer programmers, assembly-line workers, nurses,
> and auto mechanics -- who are the ones meant to be the
> first defenders of liberty.
>
> Today, the fashionable voices of the media tell us the
> Second doesn't really mean it when it says "the right
> to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." They
> assure us it means only that the states have authority
> to operate National Guard units. They assure us guns
> are too dangerous for mere rabble to possess.
>
> They tell us, most assuredly, that government agents
> should always be able to out-shoot anybody who breaks
> the law -- even if the law in question is unjust and
> tyrannical. They tell us it's for our own good for
> government to be infinitely more powerful than We the
> People.
>
> Is that so? Do you believe it? Then why did James
> Madison, the father of the Bill of Rights, say, "The
> right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the
> most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to
> individuals"?
>
> Why did Patrick Henry say, "The great object is that
> every man be armed ... Everyone who is able may have a
> gun"?
>
> And why did Thomas Jefferson declare, "No Free man
> shall ever be debarred the use of arms"?
>
> Because free men are armed. Slaves are not.
>
> No, the Second Amendment is not the government's
> right. Governments have no rights. And they shouldn't.
> Governments are big, dangerous dinosaurs. They should
> be kept within limits and carefully watched at all
> times.
>
> The Second is your right. Ultimately it's your right
> to control your own government. Your right to be free.
>
> The Second Amendment is the minuteman standing guard
> over the rights to free speech, fair trials, and a
> free press. The Second puts "liberty teeth" into the
> promise in the Bill of Rights that government won't be
> allowed to lock us up without charges or snoop through
> our lives without warrants.
>
> The Second says, more effectively than any other
> amendment, "Government, keep out."
>
> The fashionable voices laugh at the idea that
> Americans might ever have to shoot back at their own
> government. And let's hope we never do have to. But
> the great beauty of the Second Amendment is that, just
> as the mere presence of a firearm can deter a crook
> from entering a house, the mere presence of millions
> of watchful armed citizens deters tyrants.
>
> The Guardian best does its job when not a single shot
> is ever fired!
>
> Yet despite remaining an armed nation, we've failed
> the Second Amendment. We've failed freedom. And we are
> in peril because of it.
>
> Tyrants don't need to conquer us by force of arms.
> Instead, they buy us off, building enormous
> unconstitutional empires with our hard-earned money
> and promises of handouts. They disarm us mentally so
> they can disarm us physically.
>
> Today, instead of demanding our uninfringed right to
> be just as well armed as soldiers and police officers,
> we've let governments impose rules on us that their
> own people don't have to obey. They invade our homes
> and towns with machine guns. But they tell us our own
> firearms should be fit only for "sporting purposes."
>
> "Sporting purposes" was never written into the Second
> Amendment. And it wouldn't have done the farmers of
> Lexington much good. "Sporting purposes" was unknown
> in U.S. law until 1968 when -- get ready for this -- a
> U.S. Senator, Thomas Dodd, copied it from a Nazi
> German "gun control" law.
>
> Today, we allow the Second Amendment to be violated by
> an illegal agency called the Bureau of Alcohol,
> Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. This agency is
> notorious for its viciousness, its entrapment schemes,
> its false charges against innocent people, and its
> bureaucratic arrogance and incompetence.
>
> It is un-American in the deepest sense. But we
> tolerate it.
>
> Now the government thinks it has defanged its
> citizens. They think they can force our protests into
> prison-like "free speech zones." They think our once
> free press will always be willing to spout what the
> government wants us to hear. They believe we'll
> tolerate imprisonment without charges as long as its
> done to people we don't care about. They think they
> can regulate away all but a few of our weapons. They
> even think they can buy off our churches (once major
> voices against government abuse) with "faith-based"
> government handouts and special tax favors.
>
> But what they fear is this: The Guardian, though
> weakened, still remains.
>
> When the founders wrote the Bill of Rights, they
> didn't "give" us anything. They were merely putting
> into writing what already existed. You have a right to
> defend your life, your family, your community -- and
> your freedom.
>
> You have an inborn, undying right to defend yourself
> against anybody who tries to take your life and
> liberty. Anybody. Whether he's a thug who works only
> for himself or for the biggest superpower on earth.
>
> The Guardian has been battered, weakened, wounded, and
> infringed. But the Guardian remains -- and always will
> -- wherever a few brave men and women are willing to
> stand and say, "Government, keep out."
