The united States has many cultures within it. Not just sub-cultures, but cultures. Just so we're on the same page, a definition (from wikipedia, but let's go with it anyway)
"...an integrated system of learned behavior patterns which are characteristic of the members of a society and which are not a result of biological inheritance."
Subcultures are usually regarded as minority groups within a parent culture that share some of the parent culture's characteristics but deviate in some beliefs or interests.
Because the u.S. is so vast it's more likely that a bunch of superficially similar cultures are falsely assumed to be one single culture, with deviation being erroneously labeled as subcultures. (My anthropologist ex-g/f would be so proud - she thought I wasn't paying attention when she'd talk about her homework!)
In an earlier post I wrote of the seemingly eternal struggle for dominance in a society betwixt the individual & the collective. That's playing out here, but on a more shallow level it's not merely vying for prominence - it's a war of annihilation betwixt two very differently based cultures that share the same real estate. And you get to be part of it, whether you want to or not.
Much talk has been made of the Gun Culture. And let me get this out of the way - gun culture 2.0 is an irritating term. This is the same gun culture that existed before, which is basically a continuation, perhaps even an evolution of the Scots-Irish culture. Before anyone starts to feel left out, the Scots-Irish were an inclusive bunch; if you could adopt their mores you were in, so a surname starting with "Mc" was not a requirement, any more than it is to be a part of the modern incarnation.
But the Gun Culture exists. At its root isn't so much the gun itself, but of the idea the gun represents: self sufficiency. It's a culture centered on individual identity, not a group i.d. card. There are no membership rites, no secret handshakes or other "hidden" truths involved with entry - you just have to adopt some of our values. Not even all of them, just some. (Which makes it tricky to get the Gun Culture together on something as individuals tend to vary in opinions).
I grew up within this culture and I can tell ya right damn now it ain't easy. I perhaps took to heart more than I should have, but being responsible for everything that occurs in your purview is damn tiring. Knowing that if I starve or eat it's because of my actions now (or weeks or months or years ago) rather than relying on someone else to help or blame can be a bit stressful. But it's a more honest approach to life than any alternative I'm aware of.
Whether I eat or not is my responsibility, not the groups. If I walk into the street and get hit by a car, it's my fault for not being more careful, not the driver of the car for not seeing me, or the DMV for not making the crosswalk more visible.
This same principle of individual responsibility permeates the Gun Culture and gives it cohesion. It's not that pooling resources or working towards some goal as a larger unit is alien to us; rather it's that the desire for individual improvement, not the well being of a larger entity, is what we value most. We tend to prioritize our obligations and efforts, with ourselves and our respective families (nuclear family, extended family, those we care about in general, etc.) being at the top of the list.
Of course not everything about our culture is great - no culture is perfect - and it's hard to objectively analyze a culture from within. Sociology and anthropology aren't my dominant fields of interest, and perhaps 500 years from now someone will be better able to categorize what makes us who we are.
Our enemy though presents enough contrast for discussion. You may think of them as "progressives" or "socially liberal" and those monikers are close enough to be getting on with. Lately though I've come to call them the Eloi culture, as I see no other end that is possible with their values.
The Eloi were a fictional race of humans from an H.G. Wells novel, The Time Machine. Wells was a socialist, and envisioned a future where modern day humans would split along social class lines.
Take a slight detour with me; one of the flaws of our enemy for all of their existence, has been to equate results with character. An example - most people that own homes lead productive lives, so to make the less fortunate productive we should make sure they have, or in some cases give them homes. They fail to realize that the people who own homes usually have homes as a result of their productivity, not as the cause. Therefore when programs are developed to make owning a home easier on the non-industrious, those people don't usually become as productive as the folks that owned homes before. They don't understand that character enables possessions, and not the other way around. This will be important later.
Back to the Eloi - humanity had in the very distant future split into two distinct races; the Eloi and the Morlocks. At first the narrator is taken to believe that the Eloi are some sort of superior race, as the Morlocks provide the shelter and food for the Eloi, freeing them of most care for their sustenance. Then it's discovered why the Morlocks tend to them; the Eloi are raised and devoured like cattle.
Wells may have been prescient, but his hypothesis was wrong; if such a degradation of humanity occurs, it won't be because some people have cars while some take the bus - it'll be because of the ideologies that people have as a culture. It'll be because some people think only group action is legitimate and a few within that group see this as their opportunity to reign.
Want an example of what the Eloi culture will bring? Look at Chicago. That's been a city directed by progressive ideas for decades. Visit Englewood, Chicago. At night. Just walk around. Better yet, spend a week there. Or a month. You'll get to see the results, first hand, of a community that is the consequence of what were called "progressive" ideas back in the early 20th century.
Here's a very old article about Englewood from 2003. The focus is on putting up public surveillance camera's to combat the crime in the area. Rev. Willard Payton, who resides in Englewood, had this to say about the camera's being used by the police:
"We recognize the potential problems that could develop, but I think they are outweighed by at least the sense of some kind of safety and security..."
So how has it worked out in the last decade or so?
Chicago's highest murder rate in Englewood
"Crime is falling in Chicago, but one neighborhood hasn’t felt that dip. According to the police department, in 2011, Englewood had more murders than any other police district in the city. Residents are aware of the glum statistics, but they have different theories about why their South Side neighborhood experiences such violence."
The article quotes some residents about their thoughts on the crime rate in Englewood:
"Violence in Englewood – it’s going to increase unless the drug dealers, like the state, give them jobs. Give them more jobs out here and stop spending all the money on the jails."
That was from a 16 year old "peer mentor" in an anti-violence program. If the state would only give the drug dealers jobs and stop spending money on jails, violence would decrease!
From the article:
"Unemployment in and around Englewood is a whopping 35 percent. It’s also one of the poorest enclaves in Chicago."
A 35% unemployment rate is not good, and likely that's a conservative estimate. I'm skeptical about it being the cause of the crime problem. It may be a justification on an individual level (not a valid one) but it's not the cause.
A fellow in his late teens/early 20's who has resided in the neighborhood for 19 years had this to offer:
"The housing crisis really devastated our community and caused a lot of destabilization. Violence is just the a result of a lot of poverty. Crime is a reflection of poverty. People need things. So I think a lot more focus needs to be put toward changing the issues of systemic inequality in Englewood."
That entire comment is a decent, if simplistic, summation of the progressive movement's theory on crime since (at least) the early 20th century.
Again from the article:
"The district also ranks among the worst in the city for violent crimes. Ironically, Englewood is a heavily-policed neighborhood. So there’s plenty of police around. But not everyone is pleased with their approach."
Another resident had this to say about the policing efforts:
"Not just police but engage the youth. Put down your vest and your gun and bounce the ball with them. We need more people to come out and just be humane."
I'll note that all the persons quoted in the article were members of some social organization in Englewood.
Since the cameras and heavy policing haven't seemed to work, the solution to crime in Englewood is for police to put away their guns and badges and shoot some hoops with the residents? Eliminate the systematic inequality (presumably through government intervention)? Have the state give the drug dealers jobs?
I'm pointing this out not to criticize the proposed solutions (because that'd be too easy) but to highlight the perception of those interviewed. They have been steeped in a culture where those sorts of proposals are acceptable and viewed as a solution to a crime problem in an area. (well unless a job plan is environmentally unfriendly and run by private enterprise - then it's not so cool.) I'm not holding my breath about the Whole Foods store planned for the area bringing down the crime rate, but some folks undoubtedly are.
As of this past July, the crime rate is still very high in Englewood, though not as bad as in Austin, Chicago (note: the graphs and numbers in that article are monthly, not yearly totals).
Another perspective can be found in this piece, where a reporter interviews gang members in Englewood:
“There’s no solution to the violence,' one gang member tells him. 'Killing, killing is the solution.”
“Rob, steal and kill. That’s the only way. We didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills. We don’t get it handed to us,' he said."
This Eloi culture isn't merely a victim of what can be described as a proto-Morlock culture - it's the cause of it.
I chose Englewood, Chicago because it was convenient for the point I'm making, but there are dozens, perhaps hundreds of similar places in the continental u.S. They're typically (not always but typically) within urban areas with a high population density and low income compared to the surrounding area. They're often, not always but often, largely black communities. But the last at least is a superficial vector, not relating to the root cause of the problems those places face.
It's not that black people, or any racial group, is predisposed to crime, or that it's some genetic trait that makes a criminal life more or less likely. Nor is it poverty in and of itself. I think population density has some role to play, but a secondary one. And living in a big city doesn't turn otherwise honest folk into scallywags or brigands.
It's the culture. The progressive, leftist Eloi culture is strongest in those areas. People living within such a culture are more likely to adopt its mores, and the consequences, unintentional as they may be, are unavoidable.
The Eloi culture has some flaws that lead to these types of places, where crime is high and the standard of living is low. The foremost is that the individual is not as valued as the collective. This creatives little disincentive for those not benefiting with the majority to engage in harmful behavior to themselves and/or others. If I grew up in a culture where I felt left out, with little or no recourse to improve myself or my situation, then a life of crime would be much more appealing. I'm sure it's the same for young people (young males especially) in such places.
The second, though arguably of equal importance, is a lack of respect, acknowledgement or even outright disdain for Property Rights. This erodes an internal barrier to a life of crime. If stealing is just a prohibition enacted so "the rich" can keep me down instead of it being an inherent moral wrong, then stealing may be a viable option for me. I suspect it's the same for many folks within that culture.
The third is tied heavily into the first two; a lack of internal discipline structured through adequate mentorship. I don't mean there's a shortage of community organizers to teach teens how to join activist groups to lobby for better societal programs, I mean there aren't enough men teaching youngins when to use violence, when not to use violence and most importantly why to use violence.
Kevin over at The Smallest Minority wrote about this years ago. Young men especially are apt to be more physical in their expression because of their biology. This tends to result in violence. What causes this to become protective violence rather than predatory violence is not genetic. It's not an appeal to anyone's "better nature". It's discipline, instilled by the instruction of an older respected male figure that teaches them to use violence for protection of Property rather than predation (By Property I mean self defense, as well as defense of others.) Without that component, then there is one less barrier to using violence for improper ends.
That third part of the Eloi culture is that they don't understand violence. Nor do they respect it and its proper place. They fear it, seeing it as something only to be wielded by the state and only under the most extreme circumstances. So they neglect teaching their youngin's how to control it.
The fourth part is a lack of vision. Oh, progressives for decades have had grandiose designs for re-shaping society, but that only applies to society as a whole. On the individual level short to medium term goals are emphasized without much focus on long term goals. Retirement will be taken care of by the state. The kids' education will be taken care of by the state. Health services will (presumably) be taken care of by the state. Various other social programs cover most other exigencies that may crop up. It's not quite "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow the state will foot the bill" but it's close enough in result.
If you're not valued as an individual, have no concept of Property Rights as a moral imperative, lack a role model to teach discipline and the proper use of violence, and don't value long term planning, then you are much more susceptible to the quicker and easier paths that grant short term gratification.
I should note that this Eloi/proto-Morlock culture does not seem bad to many who are immersed in it. There are many affluent places where this culture is dominant. For now at least. In time they'll succumb to the results of their base philosophy, but they won't put it together that the poison that creates situations like that in Englewood, Chicago are the same poisons that will have adverse effects on other Eloi strongholds, or that they are the source of that poison.
Instead they seem to have a very superficial method of analysis. They'll postulate that the guns, or the income inequality, anything but the culture, is responsible for high crime areas. Thugs, thieves, murderers and any other manifestation of evil behavior will be attributed to a bad childhood, or income inequality, or easy availability of guns.
This is also how they view us. The Gun Culture isn't a very accurate term for us. There are many of us that don't own or even like firearms, but otherwise hold our values. But it's how they see us. They see the gun, not the things that it represents, like individual responsibility, or personal accountability, or self sufficiency. They just see the gun.
So, they reason, if they can get rid of the gun, they can eliminate our culture. We'll then have no choice but to join them. Or we'd just die off. Either way they'd become the dominant force in u.S. politics and society, which they see as a benefit for everyone in their sphere and beyond it.
Whereas we see Englewood, Chicago becoming a nationwide model.
Joe over at The View from North Central Idaho has a piece up called It's the Culture Stupid. In it he discusses an article that divides the u.S. into 11 cultural zones, with a brief explanation of their origins and predispositions. It's a summation of a book by the author (Colin Woodard) entitled American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. Joe has some minor disagreements with Woodards theory but seems to agree with Woodard's ideas on how some of his proposed cultural groupings developed their ideas on the use of violence. Joe writes:
"The anti-gun people like to point out the higher rates of violence in the south and claim it is higher rate of gun ownership that accounts for this. Of course they ignore the high rate of violence in places like 'gun free zones' Chicago. The truth is that it’s the culture that creates the violence, not the guns. And as long as there are those that insist all culture is equal and that we respect diverse culture, as long as it isn’t that yucky gun culture, we will have violence cultures and have to deal with the problems."
I see some problems with Woodards theory, and from some quick glancing around it seems that Woodard himself has an outsiders perspective of what I see as the Gun Culture, and what he'd say encompassed a good part of 3 of his 11 cultural regions. He penned this piece in 2011 in which he gleefully predicted the Tea Party's demise:
"In short, the Tea Party and the Deep South may do the country serious harm, but they will not take it over. They may hobble the workings of Congress, inject flat-earth thinking into Senate debates, or even capture the presidency next year. But their policy program will never win the hearts and minds of a clear majority of Americans, and it carries the seeds of its own destruction. The political pendulum will indeed swing back. How far it goes—and how long it stays there—will depend on how many of America’s cultural regions the Deep South’s opponents can attract to their cause."
Woodard, like most of those steeped in the Eloi culture, are quick to point out the inherent levels of violence within regions he sees dominated by the Gun Culture (though he labels those places differently) as well as criticize our perspective on politics and policy, but as Joe said, they don't seem too keen on explaining the cause of the crime problems in places like Chicago or D.C.
That's because they can't or won't see that the problem isn't with my culture, it's with theirs. They don't understand the relationship between their culture's fundamental philosophy and what gives rise to high rates of crimes against Property. They'll go to great scholarly lengths to explain why the Gun Culture's violence rates are rooted in animal husbandry and slave-owning societies. They won't go to such lengths to explore why Englewood, Chicago has a crime problem. That's because it's not a crime problem, or even a gang problem, but a proto-Morlock culture problem.
In any case, my culture is not without its flaws. It's just that those flaws aren't nearly as detrimental in the long run as those of the Eloi culture.
Another example, this time via Shall Not Be Questioned, who posts about families of two robbers who want "justice" for their deceased relatives :
"It's not fair,' said Virginia Medina, mother of 24-year-old William Medina, who police said robbed Krick's Korner store alongside 18-year-old Robert De Carr on Monday.
The two men were shot and killed by a private citizen while leaving the store, and family members want to see charges pressed.
'[William] had no right to lose his life over something that man could have called the police for,' said Medina. 'He took the law into his own hands and walked away scot-free.'
'How about if people just start running around here, policing the city on their own? How much worse is it going to get?' said Peter Ratel, Medina's cousin."
I'll note that the person who shot the two robbers at first called the police when he witnessed the robbery in progress, and didn't shoot them until they threatened him.
Still, the relatives saw this as "unfair". In the video, it was said that while it was known one of the robbers was a drug addict, he'd have only robbed a store to pay his child support.
That is merely a redistribution of wealth rationalization reduced to an individual level. A person robs, but only to give to those who really need it. Is that any different than what the government does? Therefore it's unfair, because government workers aren't killed when they "rob" people to give their money to others that "need" it more.
I often cut slack to parents of people that are killed in self defense by others. Losing a child, whether that child is 2 or 70 is the worst thing a parent can go through. It's also hard to see a child you raised as a bad person. I'm sure Mrs. Lanza never dreamed that her child would murder her and go on to shoot a bunch of children at school. I'm sure this woman, and many others like her, didn't think that her child could do something evil.
But the justifications have their roots in more than just parental love - it's the culture they're in. Killing to benefit the public is okay, but killing just to save your own life, or someone else's? That's not. That puts the good of the individual above the good of the collective, and the Eloi culture is fundamentally opposed to that.
That's why they see us as a threat - if our ideas catch on, the cornerstone of their philosophy crumbles. That's why they want us to become irrelevant if not completely destroyed. This again from Joe:
"Nobody cares about your guns, if you hunt with them or (I hope) someday kill yourself with them.
…
Everyone else considers 'ya’ll' crazy. We strive for the day that your ancient propaganda goes extinct. You, Mr. Redneck, are a dying breed of ignorance.
That was a lady named Ashley who left that as part of a comment at Joe's place. That comment was left on another one of Joe's posts, wherein he had an exchange with a blogger going by Coquette:
"It's sad, really. You're so myopic that you can't even look past the barrel of your own gun and focus on the greater good."
Deriding personal self interest as detrimental to "the greater good", a preference for the collective's well being even at expense of the individual. This doesn't only apply in the realm of self defense and the tools thereof, but as Kevin points out, in health care policy among other scenarios:
"We're not changing our views because of this situation, but it hurt to hear Obama saying, just the other day, that if our plan has been dropped it's because it wasn't any good, and our costs would go up only slightly,' he said. 'We're gratified that the press is on the case, but frustrated that the stewards of the ACA don't seem to have heard."
Again via Kevin (who found it via Instapundit) another piece wherein the greater good is seen to trump individuals' needs - The Twisted Morality of Death Panels:
"Everything wrong with the Left’s view of economics, morality, and healthcare in particular can be observed in that passage. Goldenberg’s analysis ignores any consideration of individual rights."
The author of that quote seems shocked, but that is the central element of what he calls the Left, and what I refer to as the Eloi culture - the emphasis on "the greater good" as Coquette put it. The collective over the individual. Or in that bastardization of logic that Roddenberry popularized, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. (That Roddenberry used the quote in terms of voluntary, personal sacrifice doesn't matter, as many of the Eloi have taken that as justification for imposing that sacrifice on individuals). To them, the discount of the individual isn't a bug, it's a feature.
Years back a fellow left a comment here that I turned into a post. Here's what he had to say:
"I am repeating myself. I am more frightened of you guys on this thread than I am of criminals. They aren't self righteous like you guys. Self defense, my ass. And my reading comprehension is just fine, thank you. That's why you all scare me.
I should have known better than to call you nutcases. It may piss one of you off and you are all armed and dangerous.
I have had guns pulled on me more than once. I was a child protective services worker for years. Ever try to take away kids from somebody? I don't want any guns around at all at a time like that. The ones the parents have are quite enough. Peace!" (emphasis mine)
To quote myself from that same post:
"An armed individual can resist (& sometimes effectively) the will of the collective. That's it. That's it in its entirety. Sounds too simple to be believed doesn’t it? But that's why we're arguing that 17 round tube fed .22 caliber rifles shouldn't be outlawed as "assault weapons" in some states. That's the root of the conflict; some folks want the collective to brandish the power & see an armed individual as a danger to that level of control."
(As an aside, Fighting Words covers a couple who had their 5 month old baby taken away from them by the state. By cops and a social worker to be precise. It has links to some very serious critiques of the social services system in the u.S.)
The Eloi culture wants you to be defenseless. Not because it delights in your being robed by a crack head, but because the same tools you'd use to prevent said crack head to harm you can be used to stop them from forcing their will on you.
A social worker hates the idea of an armed populace because he might have guns pointed at him when he comes to take away someone's child. To him, in his world, that's a perfectly valid function of the collective - to decide if a child should stay with the parents or be taken away. To use force to protect yourself and your children from the will of the collective is nonsensical to him and those like him. After all, using force against you and stealing your children is for the greater good.
This is what we face. It's not just the abhorrence of an object, but rather the abhorrence of our culture. Of our people. Of us. Of me. The gun is just a symbol, and in their perception, symbols are everything.
In a post entitled Government is Magic (h/t The Smallest Minority) Mr. Greenfield equates the progressives with a cargo cult. From the wikipedia article:
"In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors, and airmen use. Cult behaviors usually involved mimicking the day to day activities and dress styles of US soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. The islanders carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses...
In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of aeroplanes out of straw and cut new military-style landing strips out of the jungle, hoping to attract more aeroplanes. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches." (internal citations omitted)
In his post, Mr. Greenfield writes:
"Our modernity is style rather than substance. It's Obama grinning. It's the right font. It's the right joke. It's that sense that X knows what he's doing because he presents it the right way. There's nothing particularly modern about that. In most cultures, the illusion of competence trumps the real thing. It's why so many countries are so badly broken because they go by appearances, rather than by results."
In the Eloi culture, they regard symbolism highly because they don't understand (or want to understand) human nature. They have a misconception of the antecedent-consequent relationship as it applies to human behavior. Not understanding what actually causes people to react a certain way, they seize on symbols; on shallow constructs that they equate with cause instead of seeing them as byproducts of effect. The housing example I mentioned in the beginning of this piece is a good example.
To them it's guns. That's our symbol. That's what they imposed as the cause of our non-progressive behavior. If they eliminate the gun, then the rest should fall into place and we can all march steadily on to that utopia they just know they can create, once they civilize or eliminate us.
That's why there are so many "zero tolerance" policies concerning guns. Making a gun shape with your fingers, using chicken fingers to mimic a gun, even taking a bite and leaving a vaguely gun shaped piece of food is cause for shaming. That's to root out the symbol, and therefore, in their minds, root out the barbaric culture that delays progress.
Some of us know what that progress will look like. Not Dachau or Auschwitz (though those may be necessary to get there). The "progress" they're so desperate to get to will be Detroit. Or Englewood, Chicago. They don't mean to turn the u.S. into those places, but there's no other way their ideas can manifest in the long run. They can delay it here and there, postpone it a generation or two perhaps, but that's their destination. That's what lies at the bottom of the cliff.
And after that the Morlocks stop being proto.
What's stopping them in many cases is us. Our beliefs, our ideologies - even though they're not identical they retain central elements that cause conflict with the Eloi's worldview; we value the individual over the collective. We value Property Rights. We teach the responsible use of violence to our kids. we try to plan in the long term for ourselves. We don't do any of those things perfectly, but those are some of the most important fundamentals that we have built our culture upon.
Those things cause us to resist plans based on the Eloi's values. Their values and our values are simply incompatible. We may be able to agree to some minor to middlin' things here and there, but when it gets past a certain level, then we cannot compromise with them unless we lose.
Let me repeat that - when we compromise with them we lose. That's not just my stubbornness coming through; that's because of their core philosophy and ours. They value the collective. we value the individual. When we work with them, no matter what temporary concessions we think we've gained, we've eroded part of our fundamental principle.
Lawdog has a post on the futility of compromising over gun owner control (Here's an illustrated version).
The concept is simple enough: view the Right to arms as a cake. The other side wants all of our cake. We want to keep our cake. A compromise only benefits them in the long run. Most of us can see that now from our perspective. But from their perspective they see the cake as belonging to the group, not a single entity. Therefore they will always come back for more cake. Most of us understand that as well. But once we've given them any cake, even the smallest slice, we've acquiesced to their principle - that the cake does in fact belong to the group. After that it's just a matter of haggling until we're down to a bare plate.
Michael Bane isn't a fan of making concessions either:
"We are playing a deadly serious zero sum game...every time our blood enemies win a point, we lose a point...and move closer to the abyss The concepts of 'reasonable,' of 'national dialog,' of an 'open conversation' are nothing but false flag operations to reel in suckers. We've had a 'national dialog' for half-a century, and all we've done is lost ground."
It's not just on the issue of weapons. That's the most visible part, but not the only one. There are a number of other things being fought over. But no other object symbolizes individualism the way a firearm does. That's why they're so relentless, and that's why they'll never stop.
Remember, to them the gun is a symbol, a totem if you will. If they can eliminate that, then they think our culture will disintegrate and we'll absorb their ideas.
We can live side by side with them. It's a bit dicey but we can have a live and let live attitude towards them. We can tolerate them, because as long as they don't try to use force to impose their values on us, then our values aren't affected.
They can't tolerate us. We don't fit in with their concepts of society, and because the things we value are the polar opposite of the things they value, they can't co-exist in a world where we are free to do things as we prefer. It's not our guns that threaten them (though they mistake it as such), it's our values. Our belief that an individual shouldn't not be sacrificed against his or her will for the "greater good" is dangerous.
I mentioned our culture has problems earlier. The most important of those to point out is that we don't understand our enemy. We misjudge the Eloi. To quote Michael Bane again from another post of his:
"Let me say this again...we are at war with a segment of society whose sole goal is total civilian disarmament. We are not in a dialog. We are not in a debate. We are not in a healthy give-and-take in the Cornell University academic lounge. The primary weapon used by our blood enemies is the Big Lie.
It works like this...our enemy states a Big Lie, and I could list dozens, and we run around like little bitty chickens with our heads cut off, marshaling our arguments, footnoting our learned responses, bullet pointing our facts...and after the whole charade is over the enemy repeats the Big Lie, the lapdog media reports it as truth, and WE LOSE AGAIN!
Look at the thoroughly discredited 'a gun in the home is 43% more likely to harm rather than protect the homeowner.' Probably more words have been written debunking that fake piece of trash than all Shakespeare's plays and the complete transcribed Wikipedia, yet 2 weeks ago I read it presented as gospel truth in a daily newspaper website.
During the fight on the Colorado gun laws earlier this year, thousands of us came with our carefully prepared remarks, charts, studies, bullet points, facts — real honest to goodness facts. Our blood enemies, most notably Michael Bloomberg, shipped in a parade of liars...heads of fake organizations created by Bloomberg, a presentation of 'polls' that wouldn't meet even the most basic rules for polling, etc. We had the 'indisputable' facts; they had the Big Lie. Who won?
Hint: It wasn't us." (uber-kewl colored fonts omitted cause I never figured out how to do those)
To us, facts, logic, reason - those things should sway any debate or argument or even war. If we were arguing with us, we would've won. But we weren't. We were arguing with Eloi. Facts don't matter. Logic doesn't matter. Reason doesn't matter. Symbols matter. Emotions matter. (in the case of Colorado buying a good chunk of the politicians mattered, but that's another subject).
We want to reach out to them, to explain to them why they're mistaken and why we're not dangerous to them just because we have guns. The more we attempt to do that, the more we lose. There's simply nothing we can do about that so we have to stop.
We can't engage them in discussion or debate. We can't compromise with them. We can't draw a line in the sand and mightily proclaim, "Thus far; no further!". Even using #Job38:11 in a tweet won't do us any good.
We have to take back ground. And we can't do that thinking that a permit system is an adequate substitute for a Right. We can't toss machine guns under the bus. We can't keep claiming that "law abiding gun owners" are the only ones that should possess Rights.
We have to do more than that, and on more fronts than just gun owner control laws. But remember that to them, the gun is a symbol that they must destroy.
What we're fighting over isn't just which culture will be dominant. As I mentioned above, for our part we could tolerate them. They cannot and will not tolerate us. They want our culture to be extinct. This isn't about who gets first round draft picks - this is about survival, and we've already lost a whole bunch of ground.
I'm not a sociologist, or anthropologist. I think I'm a good judge of character (I have some of the coolest ex-g/f's you could imagine) and I think I'm good at analyzing behavior (as long as I'm not directly emotionally involved - see the previous parenthetical comment about exg/f's). I think my summation of the Gun Culture and the Eloi and proto-Morlock culture are accurate, if somewhat simplified. I'm certain of my conclusion, that a principled approach, where we strive to take back lost ground, is the best option for us. How to take back that lost ground is open for discussion. So if you have any ideas, or if you think I'm in error or I've missed something, speak up.
If you think I'm onto something; if you conclude that I'm correct about the enemy and their intentions, or even if you think I'm dead wrong, then I regret having to be the one to inform you, but you've been drafted. Whether you want it or not, they'll come after the Gun Culture. They'll come after us. And if you're a part of the Gun Culture, then this means you.
So stop compromising. Stop trying to reason with them, or use facts and logic to debate with them. Stop crossing your arms and saying sternly that they won't get any more of your Rights. Demand they return what they've taken, and guard it jealously. They'll never be appeased as long as we exist, and if we stop existing, then the Morlocks will have free reign to devour what's left of humanity.
Posted by Publicola at November 9, 2013 03:25 PM | TrackBack