"Can't we all just get along?" Well, ah, no.

A friend forwarded this Loveland Colorado Reporter Herald editorial bemoaning the secession movement in rural counties and other political divisions in the state, writing:

And though residents will never fully agree on the issues, all Coloradans should try harder to understand and appreciate the people and issues of the mountains and plains, the Eastern and Western slopes, rural and urban areas, because despite our differences, we're all in this together.

To which I responded:

From: georgemason1776@aol.com

To: jstahla@reporter-herald.com

Sent: Thu, Nov 14, 2013 6:57 am

Subject: re: your editorial "Coloradans are in this together."

Mr. Stahla,

You write:

"In a democracy, when voters or legislators make decisions, the majority will rule and those in the minority may be unhappy with the result. . Clearly, some issues split the state along urban-rural lines. Many in rural areas say they see the Legislature as unresponsive to their needs and some bemoan that it passes laws such as gun magazine limits, legal marijuana and civil unions that they disapprove. . "

As someone who is currently involved in a campaign of armed civil disobedience to your state's new oppressive and unconstitutional magazine ban, I would like to make a few observations on that statement.

First, the United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a "democracy." The Founders viewed unrestrained democracy with even more distaste than a monarchy, believing it to be the equivalent of three wolves and a sheep sitting down at the table to vote on what to have for dinner. That is why they tried to craft a system of government that restrained the "popular will" within constitutional limits that "shall not be infringed." Unfortunately, deliberately sloppy appeals to "democracy" and "majority rule" have been used over the past century to undermine and overthrow what the Founders viewed as iron-clad constitutional limits. Each time the collectivists have used this to back up American firearm owners from our traditional rights to liberty and property that are embodied in the Second Amendment, we have grudgingly gone along and backed up, grumbling. It should be no surprise to anyone with a modicum of knowledge of American history that you can only push folks so far and then they begin to push back. Our deliberate disobedience of the magazine ban by smuggling standard capacity semi-automatic rifle magazines into your state in defiance of it, as well as the desire for secession on the part of some Colorado counties that you decry, are perfectly predictable to anyone with a knowledge of history and an appreciation of the Law of Unintended Consequences, which can neither be appealed nor repealed.

Second, when these natural push-backs occur it always the first reaction of the collectivists whose "reasonable regulations" are opposed to whine "but we gamed the system and we won, can't we all just get along now that we have what we wanted?" In a word, no. For it is an established principle of American jurisprudence that an unconstitutional law is null and void. Indeed, you should rejoice that the secessionists of Colorado are as yet taking their grievances within the system. For, sooner or later, if you convince them that they cannot find redress within a rigged system for the attacks on their natural, God-given, and inalienable rights to life, liberty and property that are merely codified in the Constitution (not created by it or subject to repeal), then they will seek redress outside of it. This is also natural, as we are Americans and we are a practical people. If the system has become so corrupt and unconstitutional as to no longer protect our rights, then we will make our own arrangements. So, as for the people who have actively worked to restrict our rights, I think this falls under the heading of the familiar Chinese admonition, "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it."

Another way of putting it is that when democracy turns to tyranny, the armed citizen still gets to vote. This was true even in the campaign to overthrow the Jim Crow system in my state, when armed black men such as Condoleeza Rice's father and groups like the Deacons for Defense and Justice stood watch over the advocates of Gandhian passive resistance such as Martin Luther King with firearms in their hands and determination in their hearts. Ironic, huh? Never heard of the Deacons? The Klan and corrupt, evil local officials such Bull Connor who enforced their hatred under color of law wished they never had. You should look them up, for we honor their memory and use them as a template for our current campaign of armed civil disobedience to the new tyrannical gun laws of your state and others.

For our part, we have been law-abiding citizens for so long that we are uncomfortable with the new role that has been forced upon us. But the fact is that our "law-abidingness" has been used against us in the name of "democracy" for years until now we find ourselves backed up against a precipice, Now that we finally, uncompromisingly, have started to push back, we are called seditionists and insurrectionists. Try to look at it from our point of view for a moment. As far as we are concerned, the domestic enemies of the Constitution have been using appeals to "democracy" to undermine the Founders' Republic for a hundred plus years now. It is plainly evident with the Second Amendment but hardly confined to it. To us, such "democracy"-crying collectivists are the real seditionists and insurrectionists to the Founders' Republic, albeit that it has been a long, slow march of quiet subversion through our institutions. Thus, we see ourselves as counter-revolutionaries to the collectivists' revolution. We are, indeed, the forces of restoration.

The question now is, are we two countries or still one? We are divided along the answer to the question, "Does the government serve the people within Constitutional limits or do the people serve the government contrary to the Founders' plan?" This is not a question whose answer can be negotiated, finessed or compromised. It is either one or the other -- that of individual liberty and the rule of law or that of the collectivist Borg. Historically, such fundamental divisions have been able to be settled only by the horrific violence of civil war. Compared to that, peaceful secession within the rule of law doesn't look quite so bad, now does it?

There is a solution, of course. All we wish is to be left alone, and we'd appreciate it if the other side would recognize that we are done backing up and ease up out of our faces. As they say here in Birmingham these days, "Don't start nuthin', won't be nuthin'."

Mike Vanderboegh

PO Box 926

Pinson AL 35126.