Out Of The Past 2

Barricades, Explained

November 26, 2008
5:04 AM CDT

In a long-ago discussion in Comments, I made the statement that if I had my preference, I’d like to die either asleep in my wife’s arms, or else on the barricades.

I think I’d better explain the latter, because someone may get the wrong impression, and I’d hate that to happen.

Although I’ve started to look like a Frenchman and am descended from the French, most Gallic qualities have long since been burned off by the passage of generations. Most especially, the need for le geste magnifique, mais inutile (the magificent, but futile, gesture) has long ago been purged from my psyche.

So don’t expect me to rush to the barricades when The Glorious Day comes, AK clutched in wrinkled grasp, with ringing exhortations coming from my lips.

I am uncomfortable in the role of “revolutionary leader”. I’m not a rabble rouser, or an agitator. I seek not to form an army, or an underground movement, or any kind of Maquis. I don’t care about glory, or notoriety, or any of that nonsense. I am, quite simply, a man who will go so far, and no further, and who will resist oppression without fanfare, without recognition, and without a qualm.

I am also not a terrorist, or “freedom fighter”, and I will never engage in any activities which are proactive against Our Enemy, The State.

may, however, choose to resist, in a manner of my own choosing, because I have various boundaries, personal boundaries, which may or may not be the same as those of others.

So my “barricade” would be a lot simpler, and a lot more personal.

It could be at my doorstep, when agents of the State come to confiscate my suddenly-illegal guns.

It could be in a court of law, when I am forced to choose between paying a fine for disobeying an unjust law, and going to prison. (It will, I promise you, be the latter.)

It could be when the State tries to confiscate or trespass on my property.

It could be when the State threatens my family.

It could be when the State tries to load me, or any other “undesirables”, into the cattle cars (real, or metaphysical).

It could be when an agent of the State demands “Papieren, bitte” and I show them my tattoo instead.

It could be when I am restricted in, or forbidden to exercise my freedom of speech, or any of the other freedoms enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I will decide what constitutes “reasonable” when it comes to restrictions thereon, and not some Congressman, lawyer, judge, policeman or government bureaucrat.

Just like Nock before me, I’m not intent on “setting an example”, or influencing others, or making a splash of any kind. Those who wish, may do what I do, or not. Those who wish to castigate me for my choices may do so, but it will have no effect. Those who wish to use me as an example do so without my consent or blessing, and those who expect me to “lead” them will be disappointed.

I am a quiet man, a reasonable man, but I am not nor will ever be a slave to the State. I left one country to escape that, and I will not live like that in my adopted one.

So if I die on the barricades, it may be known to others, or else just an unseen spark which flickers and dies in the darkness. Either way, I am indifferent. But it will be known to the agents of the State, I can promise you that. I will not go quietly into that dark night of oppression. It may well turn out to have been a futile gesture, but it will not be futile for me.

I may have lost most Gallic qualities, as I said earlier, but the one I have most definitely lost is the impulse to surrender.

And that’s all I’ll have to say on the topic. Ever.

Acid Trip

Brit TV personality Jo Brand has landed herself in hot water (warning:  link contains pics of Jo Brand) with this silliness:

The BBC has defied calls to sack comedian Jo Brand after she suggested on a Radio 4 panel show that protesters should throw acid instead of milkshakes at right wing politicians.

However, as stupid as that statement was, this was worse:

Nigel Farage accused the 61-year-old of ‘inciting violence’ and called on the police to act after her comments on an episode of Heresy.

I know that this is Britishland, where the fuzz can arrest you for making an off-color comment on Twitter, but my main point is quite simple.

As long as the loony Left (and few are loonier than Jo Brand) can continue to talk trash like this and remain unpunished, the better for all of us — because, as Longtime Readers will know only too well, I’ve often suggested tying socialists to a chair and beating them to death with a baseball bat.  It is, of course, just hyperbole;  I don’t really want to beat anyone to death (except maybe for a few of the worst socialists), and I’m reasonably sure that if some loon decided that a little acid be tossed in, say, Jeremy Corbyn’s face on the “good for the goose, good for the gander”  principle, that Jo Brand would be “shocked, shocked ” that someone took her at her (jocular) word.

Ultimately, of course, this is going to turn around and bite the loony Left, for two reasons.  In the first case, most ordinary people would be horrified if, say, Boris Johnson or Mike Pence were to get a faceful of acid, and the political repercussions would be severe — the loonies would alienate even more voters from their side than they’re already doing.

The second case, and I speak here of the U.S. specifically, would be a lot worse than simple political repercussions:  some would-be acid-tosser [sic]  would be quite likely to get a .45 bullet in his  face the minute he raised the jug.  And the rest of America would cheer the shooter to the rafters.

Once again, I say that the Left seems to be all about violence because they think we’re evil;  but I don’t think they’ve really thought this through, unless they have a martyr complex (and they might — they are that twisted).

As long as they keep talking shit like Jo Brand has, we can just laugh at them, until, that is, some loony gets “triggered” into action.  But using the rozzers to arrest people for talking shit is wrong — I believe that’s covered in one of the Constitutional Amendments, somewhere — because the minute we conservatives support that nonsense, it’s going to get used against us, a lot more than against them.

Remember:  words mean nothing (in terms of legal action);  it’s deeds  that (rightly) engender a response from agents of the State.

Or a response from a concerned conservative (see “.45 bullet” above).  The Brits don’t have that 0ption, of course, because they have no Constitution and no real Bill of Rights so the fuzz can fuck with the citizenry all they want, but that’s their  problem.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and oil a length of rope.  Then it’s range time.  Those .45 bullets won’t aim themselves, you know.

News Update

Thome pithy commenth about the newth of the day.

1)  Apparently, Commie-In-Chief Nancy Pelosi wants to see President Trump in prison.  — yeah, well I want to see Red Nancy dangling from a lamp post — her, and all the other socialists in Congress So we’ll call it even.

2)   “Why Have the Revered Crocodiles of This Island Nation Suddenly Started Killing People?” —  because they’re fucking crocodiles, and that’s what crocs do?  I’m not even a zoologist, and I can answer that one.  (No link because NY fucking Times)

3)  Amazon Turns To Snitching –and–  Amazon Sending Out The Dronesand if we find out that the two activities are in any way linked, we’re going to need a LOT more shotgun ammo.

4)  Gypsies Take Over Villagenever an errant MOAB when you need one.  (Mr. TrueBrit disagrees with me, says  he wants Vietnam-style napalm carpet-bombing, for maximum suffering.  I like the way he thinks.)

5)  Woman Bites Off Would-Be Rapist’s Tongue(I’d like to comment, but I’m paralyzed with laughter)

6)  Austrian Cops Kick The Shit Out Of Greenie Scumand inexplicably, some people are upset by this.  My only quibble is that they didn’t give climate-scold kiddie Greta Thunberg a new parting for her hair.

7)  Africa Wins Again — anyone have an idea of how much meat a dozen lions can eat?

Day 1

On May 28, 1986 I arrived in the United States to start my new life as a born-again American.  Of course, New York City was my initial port of entry:

I just knew that I’d fit right in…and then I went on down to Texas to stay with friends while my paperwork was being processed:

…and then I really  felt like I’d come home.

Animals

And people ask me why I never go out without carrying a gun.  Here’s a little fun and games for you:

A mob of eight to 10 males wielding hammers descended upon bystanders at the East Bank Light Rail station on Friday night injuring several.

Just so everyone’s clear on this:  all ten* of the “males” were Somalis.  And it happened in Minneapolis, where carrying concealed handguns is not common.

Curious that this doesn’t seem to happen much in areas where a lot of people do  carry guns, e.g. in my neighborhood.

Wow.  Looks like Minnesota’s policy of allowing thousands of Muslim “migrants” from Africa to settle there is working out just as planned, huh?


*Ten?  Looks like I need to start loading the 1911 with these bad boys.  Good thing I have one or two on hand.

Interesting Thought

During one of those interminable Brexit / Remainer arguments in Britishland, one of the ripostes from a young Brexiteer was this priceless gem:

“The 17 million who voted for Brexit aren’t all angry, racist, 50+ year-old men.”

Which led me to a tangential question:  what if the 17 million who voted for Brexit were all angry, racist, 50+ year-old men?

In the broader sense of the thing, what happens when an “undesirable” group of people become the majority of the voting population?

Actually, we all know what happens, because we’ve seen it since late 2016.  What happens is that the once-entrenched “elites” — especially if said elites are on the Left side of the political spectrum — will try to overturn the election results.

In Europe (and more recently in post-Brexit U.K.) the Left resorts to re-running the elections until they get the result they wanted in the first place.  Hence the endless delays and negotiations involved in the Brexit debate, with all the obfuscations about “tax union”, “backstop” and all the other smokescreen terms used essentially to slow and eventually stop the process.

In the United States, the Left over the years has resorted to all sorts of underhand and illegal methods to get their desired result, such as trying to overturn the winner’s election through multiple recounts (Bush/Gore 2000 et al.), trying to get states’ electors to vote against the wishes of their voters (Trump/Clinton 2016), trying to undermine the winner’s election by asserting foreign collusion (Trump/Clinton 2016 again), or trying to pad the electoral rolls with illegal voters (every election in living memory).

All the above are a consequence of a group of people labeled by the Left as “undesirables” (clingers, flyover country voters, deplorables, angry old White men etc.) growing in number until they achieve an electoral majority.

What’s interesting in Britain is the emergence of a single-issue political party (the Brexit Party) which is draining voters away from both the Conservative and Labour parties and which will basically serve to enforce once and for all the desire of a majority of British voters to leave the European Union.  I am reliably informed that even a large number of people who originally voted to remain in the EU have become disgusted with the EU’s arrogance and bullying of Britain’s hapless PM Theresa May, and will change their vote in favor of Brexit if the Remainers manage to arrange another referendum on the topic.

That hasn’t happened Over Here.  There has been no hint of a third (TRUMP!) party to force the political establishment to follow the MAGA principles and policies.  Instead, the Socialist Democrats of the Left have wrenched the once-dominant Democrat party into the loony extreme-Left sliver of the political spectrum, and their lunacy has managed to drive not only moderate Democrats but also a large number of one-time Never-Trumpers (excepting some egregious hardliners) to coalesce into support behind the President and his policies — aided greatly, it should be said, by the massive surge of economic growth and the concomitant reduction of unemployment since Trump’s inauguration.  When one-time Leftist hardliners like Nancy Pelosi are now seen as the “voice of reason” in Congress, you have to realize that despite all the Left’s insult and invective, the country seems to have resolved itself not into three camps like the U.K., but into a near-supermajority of moderates and conservatives drawn from all socio-economic classes on one side, and a segment of extremist Marxists in a small (and still-shrinking) minority out on the other.  (This, by the way, is why the Democrat party — what’s left of it — is grasping so firmly at the amiable but forever unelectable Joe Biden as their “centrist” white knight, despite his eternal and unshakable catastrophic awfulness as a presidential candidate.)

None of this bodes well for the Left, by the way, especially as Trump — as he promised back in 2015/2016 — is populating the courts with Constitutionally-sound judges, a policy which will deny the Left their favorite method of undermining the popular will and even laws by a sympathetic judiciary.  (Had Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts not somehow transformed himself into an Anthony Kennedy “moderate”, the effect would have been greater still.)  When even the loony and oft-overturned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is driven to support the President’s policies on topics such as immigration, you know the writing is on the wall.

Of course, none of this is written in concrete.  British voters may decide to split their votes between Brexit and Labour — thus dooming the Conservative Party to irrelevance (a fate, it should be said, that is richly deserved) — which may even bring that foul and unrepentant Communist Jeremy Corbyn to power at the head of a Labour government.  (The wealthier Brits can see that possibility all too clearly, by the way, and are making the necessary SHTF preparations.  Always follow the money.)

On this side of The Pond, things are equally uncertain.  Moderate (traditional) Democrats may refuse to vote rather than vote for Trump in 2020, and the traditional Black- and Hispanic voter blocs may yet vote for the “interest-group” party (Democrat) instead of voting for the man whose economic policies have allowed them to climb out of poverty in greater numbers than ever before.  (I know, it makes no sense to me either, but such is life.)  And just as most Brits are quailing at the thought of Prime Minister Corbyn, most Americans should be afraid of a President [deep breath]  Biden / Harris / Booker / Buttigieg / Warren / [add your favorite Dwarf’s name here].  We should also, as a nation, be afraid of the reelection  of House Reps Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib and Omar — to name but the three most egregious socialists — but with metro New York, urban Michigan and suburban Minneapolis / St. Paul, there’s no telling.

In Britain, there used to be a political party known as the Raving Loony Party (headed by the wonderful Screaming Lord Sutch) and in Canada there likewise used to be the Rhino Party (whose party manifesto stated that if elected to power, they would immediately resign and call for new elections).  Both parties gave voters a chance to vote for “none of the above” by virtue of their absurdity.  How interesting that the modern-day Democrats are trying to create such a party in the United States — but unlike the Raving Loonies and Rhinos, they  are actually deadly serious about putting their own policies into practice.

Over at samizdata.net, Andrew Douglas had this to say in Comments about the post referendum polity in the U.K.:

The only things we certainly know more about since the referendum are that neither the Conservative or Labour parties are to be trusted, the top echelons of the civil service are staffed by quislings and traitors, and the EU is an even less desirable place to remain than it was in 2016.

Substitute “Election 2016” for referendum, Republicans and Democrats for their respective British counterparts, leave the “civil service” part alone, and you have pretty much my opinion of our own polity.