Posted on 01/10/2013 12:52:00 PM PST by dead
These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions.
This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.
Various armies, such as the Poles, during the Смута (Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall Street monies, found that holding Russian lands was much much harder than taking them and taking was no easy walk in the park but a blood bath all its own. In holding, one faced an extremely well armed and aggressive population Hell bent on exterminating or driving out the aggressor.
This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not been for Washington's clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently.
Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lying guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot.
Of course being savages, murderers and liars does not mean being stupid and the Reds learned from their Civil War experience. One of the first things they did was to disarm the population. From that point, mass repression, mass arrests, mass deportations, mass murder, mass starvation were all a safe game for the powers that were. The worst they had to fear was a pitchfork in the guts or a knife in the back or the occasional hunting rifle. Not much for soldiers.
To this day, with the Soviet Union now dead 21 years, with a whole generation born and raised to adulthood without the SU, we are still denied our basic and traditional rights to self defense. Why? We are told that everyone would just start shooting each other and crime would be everywhere....but criminals are still armed and still murdering and too often, especially in the far regions, those criminals wear the uniforms of the police. The fact that everyone would start shooting is also laughable when statistics are examined.
While President Putin pushes through reforms, the local authorities, especially in our vast hinterland, do not feel they need to act like they work for the people. They do as they please, a tyrannical class who knows they have absolutely nothing to fear from a relatively unarmed population. This in turn breeds not respect but absolute contempt and often enough, criminal abuse.
For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases. As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike. They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack. What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head, that is why they are a maniac, because they are incapable of living in reality or stopping themselves.
The excuse that people will start shooting each other is also plain and silly. So it is our politicians saying that our society is full of incapable adolescents who can never be trusted? Then, please explain how we can trust them or the police, who themselves grew up and came from the same culture?
No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.
So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.
Stanislav Mishin
Wow...Pravda? If anyone would know what tyranny looks like, it would be formerly enslaved commies.
“Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lying guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot.”
Something analogous is quite possible here. Give a little, lose it all.
Bizarre, isn’t it? And Putin talking about socialism sounds like Reagan. Dizzying times.
it took decades before the First Amendment was brought into focus vis-a-vis the "Fairness Doctrine." Obama could use a kind of "Fairness Doctrine."
I remember the decades of the "Fairness Doctrine;"
the First Amendment remained but conservative opinion was stifled by simply "waiting" for citizens to complain about media content thus threatening the station owners' licenses..
.. the licenses in this case could be the result of de facto registration; to wit, the Administration declares that all guns are "registered" and "licensed." Gun owners can be identified and lose their "license(s)" when any citizen complains about the gun owner's behavior.
My point again is: We never gave up our First Amendment rights.. but . . . .
•
Paul Harvey on GunsMonday,
November 06, 2000
Are you considering backing gun control
laws? Do you think that because you may not own a gun, the rights guaranteed by
the Second Amendment don’t matter?
CONSIDER:
In 1929 the Soviet Union established
gun control. From 1929 to 1953, approximately 20 million dissidents, unable to
defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
In 1911, Turkey established gun
control. From 1915-1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves,
were rounded up and exterminated.
Germany established gun control in 1938
and from 1939 to 1945, 13 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally ill,
and others, who were unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and
exterminated.
China established gun control in 1935.
From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves,
were rounded up and exterminated.
Guatemala established gun control in
1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves,
were rounded up and exterminated.
Uganda established gun control in
1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were
rounded up and exterminated.
Cambodia established gun control in
1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million “educated” people, unable to defend
themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
That places total victims who lost
their lives because of gun control at approximately 56 million in the last
century. Since we should learn from the mistakes of history, the next time
someone talks in favor of gun control, find out which group of citizens they
wish to have exterminated. I would really like to know which groups you liberals want to kill. Of course gun control has nothing to do with anyone’s safety and everything to do with a tyrannical government take over. If Obama gets his way kiss your freedoms goodbye
So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.
it took decades before the First Amendment was brought into focus vis-a-vis the "Fairness Doctrine." Obama could use a kind of "Fairness Doctrine."
The “Fairness” Doctrine can only seem to make sense on the assumption that journalism is objective. That assumption is, of course, preposterous. It is preposterous, ironically, precisely because journalism claims to be objective. That is true for the simple reason that no one can know that they themselves are objective, and no one can seriously even attempt to be objective without being open about any and all incentives and motives which the disciple of objectivity can in all due diligence identify. And that is a discipline which is directly in conflict with making any claim of actually being objective.Do journalists have any identifiable interests? Journalists are motivated to attract attention, and they are motivated to gain influence. Their motives, in short, are precisely the motives of "the boy who cried ‘Wolf!’” Their behavior, coincidentally, is precisely the same - except that, unfortunately, they have learned to change the subject when their ruse becomes too transparent to continue. So they never actually get eaten by the wolf for which they are, theoretically, on watch.
bttt
Actually when the "Fairness Doctrine" was introduced journalism was not objective and had never intended to be.. if my memory serves from those days.
What we had were several newspapers in every large city. You had choices.
I can't say that I was old enough to judge the objectivity of radio news but I liked listening and knowing what was happening.
Beginning in the 1950s the TV networks began to dominate; in the 1960s newspapers began disappearing as TV grew.
In the 1960s I complained to the TV networks about their bias and was simply told that "we are professionals and you are not."
With the end of the Fairness Doctrine modern talk radio was made possible and now including the Internet -- we once again have choices. That is the best way. Screw objectivity --
I agree that to expect objectivity is preposterous..
I just want the MSM employees to admit their bias and I would have no complaints.
bkmk
Actually when the "Fairness Doctrine" was introduced journalism was not objective and had never intended to be.. if my memory serves from those days."The “Fairness” Doctrine can only seem to make sense on the assumption that journalism is objective."
What we had were several newspapers in every large city. You had choices.
I can't say that I was old enough to judge the objectivity of radio news but I liked listening and knowing what was happening.
I’m embarrassed to say how many years it was, first until I realized that journalism was heavily biased and, after that, how many years until I realized that I should investigate the effect of the telegraph on journalism. There were other advances in news technology in the Nineteenth Century, certainly, but I was unable to convince myself that they inherently would cause journalism to be the monolithic propaganda monster which in retrospect I understand that it had been all my life. But the telegraph, that had the power to transform.I will stipulate that there were differences in the editorial stances of the competitive newspapers of a given city, whereas now there is commonly only one newspaper left standing in a given city. In that sense you are correct, but in a larger sense the problem started before our parents were born. It started with the telegraph, because the telegraph begat the Associated Press. Actually, it begat the wire service in general, and the AP just happens to be an egregious example. This is documented in
The AP was initiated in and for New York in 1848. It took on its current name a few years later, as it spread nationwide in an aggressively monopolistic manner, cutting exclusive deals for the transmission of news over each telegraph line as it was built. It didn’t take long for people to start questioning the concentration of propaganda power which the Associated Press represented. The AP’s response was to point out that its member newspapers had all different viewpoints - so the AP itself was objective.
- News Over the Wires:
- The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844-1897
by Menahem BlondheimThat argument carried the day, unfortunately. It was fallacious for the simple reason that Adam Smith articulated in Wealth of Nations:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices."In modern terminology, the Associated Press newswire is a 24/7 virtual meeting of all the major journalism outlets in America which has been operating continuously since memory of living man runneth not to the contrary. And just as Smith’s dictum predicts, journalism became united in promoting the interests of journalism at the expense of the interests of the public. And one of the ways they promote their interests is exactly in proclaiming that they have no interests distinct from the public good.Of course if that is true, there is no real need for democracy; you should just learn from objective newsmen what the public interest is, which of course they know perfectly since they are the embodiment of it. What could be more natural than that politicians should gravitate to the orbit of journalism, providing support for journalism’s cries of “Wolf!” - and, for their pains, getting positive labels from journalism. Labels such as “progressive,” “liberal,” and “moderate.”
As I said, there are many different editorial pages, and many are still at least somewhat idiosyncratic. But that is not where to look for the bias. The bias is in the stories that, we are solemnly assured, are “objective.” Not in what is frankly labeled opinion.
Are we stupid? Why can't we see the glaringly obvious lessons from history?
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