Connecticut Yankees in Revolt

State Sen. Tony Guglielmo (R-Stafford), who acknowledged at the time that, "If you pass laws that people have no respect for and they don't follow them, then you have a real problem.”

Civil disobedience is the second step in a process where the legitimate interests of a group are ignored by authorities.  The first step is prompt action in the courts.  Failing these prior steps, the third step is armed revolt.

Connecticut has passed a law required registration of all guns conforming to some political notion of an “assault weapon”.  The recent knife attack in southern China killing 29 people shows that any weapon can be used for assault, and the very attempt to redefine the term “assault weapon” is evidence of blatant propaganda.  

Federal law (the National Firearms Act 18 U.S.C. 926) prevents the ATF or any other Federal agency from linking the NCIC data base to individual gun ownership, effectively blocking the creation of a Federal gun registry.    This is the same law that outlawed fully automatic machine guns.  Whether this pre-empts a state from creating such a registry is a question for the courts.  

With the stroke of a pen, Connecticut’s gun registration creates felons out of lawful gun owners whose action were previously deemed innocent.  There is a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison for the first offense.  This is an “ex post facto” law in contradiction of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution and that article applies to both Federal and state laws.  It is also a “slippery slope" issue because it may serve as a precedent for other states.  Finally, the NRA and every other Second Amendment advocate group recognizes that gun registration is the necessary first step to gun confiscation.  If anyone doubts the intent of the anti-gun folks, please witness that President Obama already signed a U.N Treaty calling for gun registration to be followed by small arms confiscation.  Former New York City Mayor Bloomberg is on public record as saying that only the military and police should have guns.  His bodyguards, who are neither military nor police, do carry guns.

Obviously, the failure of this gun registration law has created a class of citizens in civil disobedience.  This case is somewhat unique.  In my research of two dozen cases of civil disobedience, all were based on Mahatma Ghandi’s concepts of civil disobedience:

"Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen to be civil, implies discipline, thought, care, attention and sacrifice”.

Here we have a large, well-armed group, Connecticut Carry, screaming “Molon Labe (Come and get it!)”.   Historically, those cases were armed revolt, not civil disobedience.

One of the best descriptions of authority is that of the King in Exupery’s “The Little Prince”, who declares:

"Accepted authority rests first of all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.”

Moshe Feiglin, an Israeli whose civil disobedience was instrumental to the formation of Israel, said it clearly:

“It is a mistake to think that the state works within the boundaries of laws. The public does not obey laws. It obeys rules within the boundaries of a triangle, the first side of which is the law. But the triangle has two other sides: common sense and ethics.

In other words, the fact that we obey the law is not because of the law itself, but because it is logical enough to warrant our adherence.

The third side of the triangle is ethics. If the government ordered us to drive our elderly and infirm out onto the frozen tundra, as per Eskimo custom, we might agree that it would logically enhance the economy. But nobody would obey, because it would be patently immoral. The party at fault for the insubordination would be the government that enacted the law and not the citizens who refused to obey.

The greatest crimes in human history were perpetrated when citizens ignored their duty to delineate logical and ethical boundaries for the rule of law. The societies in which this took place by and large collapsed.”

The right to keep and bear arms is included in the Constitution as a last resort of the people faced with tyranny.  It is not just a sporting privilege for hunters and marksmen.  This is bedrock for the liberty of US citizens.

Consider what the police would have to do to enforce the registration and/or confiscation dictates of this law.  You will not see nice, polite cops going door to door serving papers.  These are “armed felons”.  The police response would be SWAT teams breaking down doors in the middle of the night, shooting the family dog, terrorizing children and instigating death and injuries on themselves and on other law abiding people.  Is this some insane way of saving children from Newtown incidents?  No, it has nothing to do with saving children.  This is the government tightening the screws on a population to enhance control.  As I said, this is bedrock for the liberty of US citizens.

No doubt, some will perish in this sort of armed civil disobedience.  However, it is my bet the Founders were right.  It will impossible, impractical and, eventually, politically unwise to disarm the citizens of the United States.

Defense, Revenge & Rebellion

On this New Year’s day of 2013, a leaden winter sky symbolizes a bleak outlook for our continued prosperity and freedom.  We have been deliberately derailed from our primacy.   Like many of my correspondents, I feel something between political depression and despair.  

Defense is a basic instinct linked to our survival.  The Lord may be my shepherd, but I’m not a sheep.  Like any other normal human, I’m motivated to react strongly to any threat against my person, my family, or my essential property.  There are limits to what I will do, however.  I will act to remove the threat, but no more.  Once the threat is gone, I will stop reacting to it.  I will not nuke a city to stop a burglar.  I will not kill a thug when a fence will be enough.  There is a balance, a proportion, to defense.  Any act exceeding our concept of proportionate action is an affront to our sense of justice.

Self defense is a reaction to present danger.  We are not considering war and the strategies of war, which are more like chess than instinctive reactions.  Defense is self limiting.  The right to self defense is built into our system of justice, our laws and our Constitution.  It is an accepted part of our culture.

Revenge is very different.  Revenge is taken after the fact.  The goal of revenge is the fear it creates in an enemy and perhaps the satisfaction and status it produces for the avenger.   It has no limits in time or in proportion.  It may take a generation or a genocide.  

In tribal cultures. revenge is an obligation on the survivors of a murder or a grievous insult.  Now, law supplants the obligation for revenge of this sort, provided it is just.  In effect, society has assumed the obligation of clan revenge under the name of “victim’s rights”.  In the sentencing portion of trials, the very people who would be obligated to seek revenge are seated in the court to testify and to hear the sentence.  Where justice is even-handed, this kind of solitary revenge is no longer a dominant feature of our culture.  

Revenge may be a solitary act, but it is usually on behalf of a group, such as a gang of thugs or mafia.  Revenge is the fundamental act of a mafia culture.  In such a culture, even-handed justice is inconvenient.  It tends to trap the mafia ruling class.

Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, was quoted as saying, “If they hit you, hit them back twice as hard.”  This is revenge, and Chicago-style politics is based on a mafia structure.  There is a Capo with his lieutenants or a President with his czars. The gang territory is strictly divided.  Each division must pay tribute to the top.   No division sees the big picture.  Strategic information is on a “need to know” basis.  Disputes and decisions between divisions are made and enforced by the Capo.

If any one thinks this is the only way to rule, consider King Arthur’s Round Table - a collegial forum of equals.  Consider the intent of the Founders in creating the US Senate as just such a collegial forum.  There are many such egalitarian bodies in the world: the House of Lords, the U.N. Security Council, even the Loya Jurga in Afghanistan.   They all depend on the good will of the members.  They all assume that certain rules of fair play and conduct will prevail.  They have  Rules of Order that give each member a fair hearing and prevent chaos..

Unfortunately, egalitarian groups have a weakness. In order to function, they need a certain level of trust among their members.  That is the essence of a collegial relationship.  When this trust is broken, factions appear, insecurities overcome common  sense, and a struggle for hierarchical power ensues.  The round table devolves to become another mafia.  

The authors of the Constitution understood this quite well.  That document contains checks and balances to prevent an early decay of the egalitarian republic.  Those checks and balances raised the stability threshold so high that it took decades of clever subversion to create instability sufficient to bring on Chicago-style endemic corruption. 

It took the systematic destruction of values, religion and family life.  It required the deification of a new and abstract entity called “the Collective Good”.  The Capo is the only person who is allowed to interpret the Collective Good (not God).  He is the High Priest.  Any and all acts of confiscation or redistribution are justifiable on behalf of the Collective Good. The end, as interpreted by the High Priest, justifies the means.  That is the new definition of “fairness”.  Any rational argument to the contrary will get beaten down with “fairness” and “Collective Good”.  

The ordinary individual and his or her values, speech, and religion are no longer of much value.  They must be sacrificed to the Collective Good.  Politically correct speech is a recognition of collective values.  Censorship is a new kind of public ethic.  There are certain words I will not write here because they would trigger mindless vengeance in a few readers.  Acting on behalf of their group, they will undertake acts of revenge, even though they would not be able show any real damages.  The revenge motif has replaced the concept of individual rights.  We used to say, “Live and let live”.  Not any more.

The first act of the devil is to destroy trust among well-meaning people.  Creative collaborations, joyous celebrations, spontaneous acts of charity, all vanish.  “Why should I help those  S.O.B.’s ?  They never did a thing for me.  I wouldn’t trust them any further than I could throw them.”  You hear this every day now.  

It used to be that those same words would mark you as a misanthrope - a  Scrooge, or worse.  Good folks would cross the street to avoid you.  Not any more.  It doesn’t get a comment.  

In a mafia, those in power are threatened by the possibility of revenge against them.  They believe in revenge as a basic human motive and cannot tolerate it being a two way street.   Justice in the courts is scarce. Revenge is undergoing a revival.   It doesn’t take much evidence of corruption and privilege to generate animosity among the common people.  The motive for revenge is always present in a mafia culture.  The lieutenants or the soldiers may recruit their own constituents at any time and rise up against the Capo.  Therefore the people must be disarmed.  They must be made subservient, dependent on the hierarchy for every little thing - food, housing, cheap cell phones.  All blessings must flow from the top.  All violence must belong to the State.  People cannot be trusted (to just shut up and do what they are told).

At some point the sandpile of power and corruption topples.  Opponents spring up like grass in the midst of desolation.  In a mafia, a strong opponent stands out like a wolf among hyenas.  It’s only a matter of time before the old sandpile begins to slide and the wolf makes his move.

Rebellion is the mass act of a new Collective Good against an old Collective Good.  Sacrifices must be made in the name of the new Collective Good. We may want to believe that it is the spontaneous uprising of a suppressed minority against an oppressive mafia tyranny.  That is the usual recruiting slogan, but it is rarely true.  Most rebellions are simply a recursion of the historic cycle: power, corruption, decay, rebellion, repeat.  It’s the karma of a mafia culture.  

One exception to this bad karma occurred on this continent in 1776.  That rebellion “lit the lamp beside the golden door”.   It is nothing short of a miracle that it did not result in  a new King George (King George Washington the First), and that it lasted 236 years.  We were incredibly lucky.  However, the karmic cycle is come round again. People are tired of the irrationality, corruption and incompetence of the current mafia and the self-appointed Capo.  It is only a matter of time until the sandpile slips and the wolf pack goes after the hyenas.

Will we be so lucky the next time?

Ken Brody Jan 2 2013