Psoriasis support - An OT Post for Grampa Chuck

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An OT Post for Grampa Chuck

Frosty

2006-10-16, 9:33 pm

This article speaks (a little) to your old, not forgotten sigfile.
And it says we're both somewhat wrong.
I thought you'd like to read it.

Frosty
=======

Iraq Through a Rebel's Eyes

By Andrew Greene

Posted on 10/16/2006
http://www.mises.org/story/2332

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and
bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny
in Government.

[]Thomas Jefferson was a rebel, as so many of his comments
demonstrated. He also was a gun enthusiast, and not the bird-shooting
kind. His gang of insurgents fought the British with the eighteenth
century equivalents of assault rifles, RPGs, and roadside bombs — and
that is why they are worth recalling when our conversation turns to
Iraq.

Before going further, I should declare that I am a patriot, but a
qualified one. My loyalty is to the kinds of ideas Jefferson put in
the Declaration: the sanctity of property, suspicion of power, and
extra suspicion of the state. I am saying so now because some of what
follows might sound deeply unpatriotic to the modern ear, but I think
it would have sounded just fine to Jefferson's classical one.

The shock of September 11th did some damage to my political resolve.
The murder of two thousand innocents was an act so outrageous that it
demanded a quick and violent response. So, like many Americans, I
wanted to see someone punished, and the federal government appeared
ideally placed to do the punishing. I silently agreed with the plan to
go after the bombers and their friends.

The way I saw it, the army could pummel some bad guys (not necessarily
the 9-11 culprits) and that would be one way to get our revenge.
Self-declared allies of the killers would find themselves being
treated as such.

It was a classical liberal's rationale: a stand for the subjective
individual and his property; finally, the government doing its job. Of
course the logic was twisted by emotion, and I knew the whole
enterprise might end badly, but I felt like punching anyway, at least
until my arm was completely exhausted and the anger was gone.

But the Jeffersonian in me had other ideas about Iraq, and they do not
make happy reading — not for neocons who like the war or apologists
who don't. If we woke Jefferson's gang up today, what would they make
of it all? Well, the first thing they would see is the US government
punching away on our behalf, and that they would probably endorse.
Knowing about the carnage in New York and Washington, the attempted
assassinations of two Presidents, the invasion of Kuwait, and the
chemical attacks on Saddam's subjects (and, of course, the fact that
he had subjects) would be reason enough.

But then, as their excitement subsided, I think they might notice a
few disturbing things: the sheer size of the US force, for one, and
how far it is reaching across the ocean, for another. And they could
only be dismayed to discover that their libertarian brainchild had
grown up to be an empire, feeding off its citizens' labor, with
legions stationed around the world, fighting in foreign civil wars,
enforcing a Pax Americana, and tasting the bitter fruit of its
adventures.

Once over that disappointment, though, Jefferson and his friends might
spot a ray of hope in Iraq. Their radical eyes would pick up on
something about the guerilla war that we — after two hundred years of
relative comfort and ease — have missed.

The US government's arm is tired. Even with one hundred and fifty
thousand troops, a fortune in fuel and supplies, and the best weapons
ever invented, all that power is having a rough ride. Humvees loaded
with high-tech regulars are sitting targets for bits of plumbing
packed with C-4, left at the side of the road. There are plenty of
surprises from the front, but such news would only elicit a sad smile
from Jefferson, and the same from his fellow insurgent, Madison, who
wrote this:

The highest number to which a standing army can be carried in any
country does not exceed one hundredth part of the souls, or one
twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This portion would
not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or
thirty thousand men.

To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million
citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among
themselves, fighting for their common liberties and united and
conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.
It may well be doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever
be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.

Even though Madison was talking about a war between the feds and the
people, the parallel with Iraq makes it a devastating tactical
appraisal. The biggest military machine — even the GPS-guided,
kevlar-toting, night-fighting, uranium-shooting US Army of 2006 —
can't subjugate a rabble of ornery civilians if a good number of them
have guns. Yes, it can obliterate them, but that's not the same as
governing them. Madison knew, and Iraq proves, that a rifle over every
mantlepiece can safeguard freedom.

American insurgents from 1776 would see Iraq through the filter of
their own occupation: the struggle against the Crown and its
Hamiltonian successors. They would see the setbacks of the 75th
Rangers in Baghdad and the 8th Cavalry in Fallujah, and would mourn
the casualties among the professional soldiers, as we do, but another
part of them would be saying I told you so — and might even be glad.
They couldn't feel anything else, because they were rebels to the
core:

The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms. If
they did, the people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as
America did.

The man who wrote that would not have rooted for Iraq's fanatics and
murderers, out to become tyrants themselves, but neither would he have
cheered the federal juggernaut fighting them now. The Iraqi insurgents
are the bad guys, for sure, but they are sovereign men, too, armed
with nothing but light assault weapons, trip wires, and explosives.
Just as Madison predicted, they are holding their own against the
attack helicopters of the King. Our government is against them today,
but that doesn't change their tactical likeness to the snipers of
1776.

The comparison is a disturbing one to make in the middle of our war,
but we need to make it. And maybe it would put Madison and Jefferson
at ease about the monster they fathered — the global superpower. A
successful insurgency, independent of its underlying purpose, is a
reason for every man who loves liberty to cheer.
[] There are limits
For both of our modern wings of politics, Iraq is a lesson in
government, and not the one either of them wants to learn. It proves
the assertion that the best way to keep the state down is to get
everyone a weapon.

Some part of the gun rights lobby should want the army to lose in
Iraq, and some part of the gun control lobby should want it to win.

Let neocon Republicans, who support the war and guns in the home, and
leftist Democrats, who despise both, put that contradiction in their
pipes and smoke it. Do they like state power or not? I am afraid the
answer is: they like it when it suits them. That is why we — who can
be true patriots only by being rebels ourselves — must not forget how
our patriotism was born.

Here is one last quotation, this from the insurgent commander himself:

… the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere
of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference, they deserve a
place of honor with all that's good.

That's not Moqtada al-Sadr talking, but George Washington. You get the
idea. Staring into Iraq's quagmire, we should see a second chance for
freedom everywhere, including the United States.

GrandpaChuck

2006-10-17, 2:29 am

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 21:07:23 -0400, Frosty <clause39@yahoo.com> wrote:

>This article speaks (a little) to your old, not forgotten sigfile.
>And it says we're both somewhat wrong.
>I thought you'd like to read it.
>
>Frosty
>=======

Thanks Frosty.
I really enjoyed it and pretty much agree with it.
As liberal as I may be since the GOP sold out I have never been in
favor of gun control. When we recently bought a new shotgun I was not
real wild about having to register it even though I understand the
excuses for the law.

BTW, I am still updating the sigline every day although it is shorter
than it once was. The total of Americans killed in Iraq will soon hit
the 2800 mark. When it does I will be posting the long form for one
day.
--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of October 15, 2006 is 2768. United Kingdom = 119 Other = 118.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
More than 19,910 Americans wounded.
As of October 16, 2006 it has been 1262 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."