Tag: ignorance

PROTECTING THE SECOND AMENDMENT

I want to protect and defend the entire constitution of the United States of America. I pledge to do so. In particular, though, the 2nd Amendment stands out to me as preeminent. It demands responsibility of all who enjoy it. It condemns those who abuse it.

Throughout history, tyrants have first sought to separate their subjects from this right to self defense for obvious reasons. After all, it is difficult to abuse those who can and will fight back. That is what makes the USA so very unique, indeed, exceptional in world history. Our founding principle was to protect citizens, so that we would never become subjects.

Yet, in the state of Oregon, history has brought us to a culmination of hatred for the freedoms and obligations that I’m addressing. In the following link, let the reader peruse Democrat proposals in our new legislative session. I’ll place the link at the bottom of my remarks, in order that my reader might actually finish reading my thoughts here.

My criticism of these several bills may be generally summed up in that they have one common theme, that is not mentioned. Everyone of them has an underlying strategy. That is to reveal to the government exactly who owns what weapon. The real goal of each bill is to discreetly encase in law the registration of firearms. Grandpa’s old gun, sitting quietly in some safe now, will be insured…and that process alone will suffice to register it with the government. And registration, history teaches us, leads to confiscation. It is already happening in CA, NY and CT. These schemes, if passed, are going to paralyze the exercise of freedom, of the 2nd Amendment in Oregon. Full of toxic, paralyzing, infringing, entangling rules and regulations, they will have their intended effect: the ban on the free exercise of the right to self defense. Yes, every tyrant’s wet dream.

Do you doubt me? I would urge you to research the regulations already in effect in many other states. CA, NJ, NY IL, and on and on. In other words, the enemies of freedom know they can’t get an outright ban or repeal of the 2nd Amendment. But with the funding of billionaires like Paul Allen, Bill Gates, and Michael Bloomberg to name a few, they know that states where citizens are lulled into a false sense of security, will be ensnared by these laws before even knowing of their passage.

The 2nd Amendment stands out among our God given freedoms. The 2nd Amendment is there to protect the other enumerated rights in the constitution. The 2nd Amendment is the only one that demands, “…shall not be infringed.” This is a categorical imperative ruling out feckless encroachments upon the right to keep and to bear arms by individual citizens.

So wake up, my fellow Oregonians! Wake up, before it is too late. The crime rates have gone down in the last 20 years or so, even though gun ownership has risen dramatically. We don’t need these draconian, freedom killing, unconstitutional laws. We need responsible citizens, and we need responsible politicians too. Let’s do this!

Ignorant and Free?

Ignorant and Free?

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be” (Thomas Jefferson)

So what are the means by which we could be knowledgeable enough to maintain our freedom? Certainly the media is one vehicle for this function, yet for many years now the media has sided with one rather ugly movement in our culture, namely progressivism. This has hampered the general knowledge base of our people.

Our schools, certainly should help us avoid the pitfalls of ignorance. Yet, sadly they have also fallen into the progressive ideology. They are supporting the big government narrative of Saul Alinsky. Enter “common core,” essentially sold on the notion that all children will learn the same or similar things in school, thereby making standardized testing for example, more doable. Yeah. While the method could be useful in some ways, I have another word for what’s really going on, it’s called propaganda.

So, if the media and education are failing the country, and I contend they are by propagandizing rather than informing us of our history, our exceptionality, our current standing in the world, and our dreams for the future, what is left as a means to recreate and maintain our freedom. Yes, I said recreate. We have lost vast dimensions of freedom since our founding. We are losing the value of self-reliance, intuition, honest research, and personal integrity.

There are those who seem to pin hopes on our bloated, bureaucratic Washington, DC government to fix itself. I see no hope there. The rewards of cronyism have set into both political parties to a point of no return. Integrity has been reduced to not getting caught, or lying when they do get caught. It has been and can be said that the gluttonous grab for power and the corruption that accompanies it produces resume enhancement rather than the end of careers.

To begin with, I’m not ready to give up on media, schools, government, etc.. Things have a way of going full circle. Circumstances can change dramatically to force change on these, even though both seem recalcitrant right now.

There is hope from the impact of high tech on education. As more people place their children in home schooling, or private, or charter schools, there is the hope that the internet, wifi libraries, and the general explosion of creativity will produce forward thinking young people full of zeal for opportunities. The open question here of course, is what are they learning? Is it all future? Or are they going to be advantaged by learning the past too? Failure to learn our past is failure to be guided and safeguarded by the advantage of learning from past mistakes.

There is also a constitutional way out of the current crisis. Article 5 allows not only the congress, but the states to amend the constitution by their own convention, without Federal involvement or interference. While this is a solution perhaps requiring years, it could provide corrections to our federal government, that has become unresponsive to the people. So be on the lookout for the COS, the Convention Of the States.

I am optimistic that the real solutions will come from the people. Freedom is, I believe, inherent to the condition of the human heart. We were created with a yearning to be self-reliant, self-governing, self-supporting to the end of helping one another. Of what good am I, if I have none of my own power to assist my family, my neighbor, and my community?

People don’t naturally like to be ignorant either. Ignorance places the individual at the mercy of the evil doer and the merely oportunistic. Ignorance turns a citizen into a serf. The people, with their natural thirst for freedom and knowledge, respect themselves enough to stand up to tyrants. And tyrants seem to be plentiful these days. So we have lots of practice ahead in standing up to them.

Never, ever give up on freedom!