Trying to save lives and souls, one unthinking collectivist at a time.

Jenna wants to ban handguns and sneers "You lose, Gun Jockey!" My reply:

-----Original Message-----

From: georgemason1776

To: jennakarene

Sent: Tue, Feb 28, 2012 6:09 am

Subject: Regarding your apparently serious proposal for another civil war. We accept, as long as you understand where this is going.

"Tyrants have no problem dealing with people who are willing to die for their principles. They will happily kill them to achieve their goals. Where they fail is with the people who are not only willing to die for their principles but are willing to kill tyrants in righteous self defense of those principles, and their property, liberty and lives." -- Mike Vanderboegh

My dear Ms. Karvunidis,

Having read your column, "Ohio school shooting: Time to ban handguns, guys," I have two questions:

First, how do you propose to do that without initiating a bloody second American civil war?

Second, how much is such a tyranny worth to you, personally?

The answer to the first question is that you can't. Oh, you may be extrapolating from your own social isolation, cultural ignorance and moral cowardice to believe that just because the big bad government, state or federal, tells you to do something at the point of a government gun that YOU would certainly do it -- so consequently we will. You may even be so poorly educated as to believe that "democracy" -- unfettered majority rule -- trumps constitutional republicanism just because your side wins a vote. Whatever the cause of your ill-thought proposal, the result would be a ghastly civil war, for if you wish to get my handguns -- or any firearms -- you will have to kill me to get them. In addition, you will have to kill my brother, you will have to kill my son and daughters, you will have to kill all my friends. And if just three percent of American gun owners feel the way I do, you will have to kill upwards of 3 million people. And, not to be ugly, but we will not go gently into your collectivist good night peaceably and will take as many freedom-stealing sonsabitches your proposal sends our way, and we intend to make that more than a one-to-one ratio. So, where are we at now, mathematically, with your proposal? Stacks of bodies in the tens of millions certainly. It seems an odd way to prevent school shootings and promote "public safety."

I had to laugh, as well, at your Borg-like characterization, also apparently from absolute ignorance, that "Resistance is Futile!":

Well guess what? Now the government has nukes, automatic weapons and sniper rifles. If it just came down to a battle of arms between you and the government, you are not going to win that one. It would be like playing road chicken with a tank. You lose, Gun Jockey! If you really want things to be fair, why don't you lobby for the right to a nuke. That will totally happen.

Please, Jenna, really, you don't know much about the military, do you? Nor military history, obviously. Who do you think makes up the military these days? The sons and daughters of gun control advocates? The draft is long gone, and you wouldn't find a "progressive's" son caught dead within a kilometer of a recruiting station. Why it is OUR children who still believe in the old verities enough to sacrifice themselves to protect this country. It is our children who, if your tyrannical order is given by your Man-Child God-King Barry Soetero, will be in the command posts, tactical operations centers and in the barracks of the tip-of-the-spear combat formations. All of them took an oath to defend the Constitution against "ALL enemies, foreign and domestic." It was not a personal "Fuhrer oath" to Barrack Hussein Obama. Which way, when your order is given, do you suppose they will point those sophisticated and powerful weapons in the event of civil war over firearms liberty -- something codified in that Constitution they swore to uphold?

And as for the efficacy of determined guerrillas versus a powerful, sophisticated military, the history of such conflicts across the centuries suggests that putting your money on the guerrillas is a safer bet. A tank is of limited utility against nimble guerrillas using Fourth Generation Warfare techniques targeted against the politicians who command them. A nuke? Come, Jenna, think it through. Of what use is a nuke when your proposal would require it to be used on your own soil, against your own people? The political blowback of the use of nukes on American soil, even among other ignoramuses who would support your proposal, would instead blow Barry right out of the White House and bring down the entire Federal Leviathan nanny-state tyranny. Of course, they don't even teach the important lessons of the American Revolution in public schools anymore (and I'm assuming you went to government schools, for no private school or home school product would be so abysmally ignorant of her own history) so perhaps it is not your fault. But now that I have explained to you the facts of life and liberty I'm sure you'll see the folly of your proposal.

No?

Okay, how about Question Two?

How much is such a tyranny worth to you, personally?

In 1999, your previous man-child president Bill Clinton was upset at the Serbs. They were killing their ex-countrymen, the Muslim Kosovars and Bosnians, and wouldn't listen to reason. Exasperated, Clinton decided that the NATO bombing campaign would be expanded -- changing the rules of engagement by which our military operates -- to include the politicians who crafted the policies and (pay particular attention here, Jenna) the media and intellectuals who publicly supported the Serbian cause. To this end, Clinton ordered precision guided munitions sent in the middle of the night into the homes of such people, as well as the headquarters of Serbian radio and television.

It is, then, no small kindness I do you by pointing out that -- assuming you get your way -- if the previously law-abiding (but well-armed) folks whom your proposal makes criminals and guerrillas in their own country overnight decide to adopt Bill Clinton's Serbian Rules, you might want to relocate to Canada as a precaution.

Of course, all of this seems like calculated insanity to you, just as your proposal seems to us. Well, there are a lot of us who have been paying particular attention to the way the federal government really works ever since Waco in 1993. We don't live in your bubble. Waco taught us we couldn't afford to.

So, if you now concede that your proposal was unthinking, stupid and doomed to fail because of its unintended consequences and not worth the likely body count and agony to the country, I will consider this a letter well written and time well spent.

If on the other hand, you still deny inconvenient reality and stubbornly cling to your proposal, well, all I can say is, if you get your way and the government tries to enforce it, you'll find plenty of people who will take you up on it.

May God help us all.

Mike Vanderboegh

PO Box 926

Pinson, AL 35126

Dennis Henigan's citizen disarmament wagon breaks down at "Terror Gap."

Dennis Henigan, pseudo-intellectual apologist for, and solicitor of, tyranny and civil war. Seen in the light of Bill Clinton's 1999 Serbian Rules of Engagement, he is either a very brave man or a very clueless one.

Dennis A. Henigan

Dennis A. Henigan is the Vice President for Law and Policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Director of its Legal Action Project. For nineteen years, he has been a leading advocate for stronger gun laws, appearing dozens of times on national television and radio shows, including 60 Minutes, The Today Show, Nightline, Larry King Live and Dateline NBC. He also has written and spoken extensively on liability and constitutional issues relating to gun laws and gun violence, including testifying before several Congressional Committees. Henigan’s writings on the Second Amendment include two influential law review articles that have been cited by federal courts in upholding gun laws against constitutional attack.

Mr. Henigan leads a team of lawyers at the Brady Center that provides pro bono legal representation to victims of gun violence in lawsuits challenging irresponsible practices by gun sellers and manufacturers, as well as appearing in over two dozen cases as “friend of the court” defending gun laws under attack in the courts. Under his direction, Brady Center lawyers have recovered millions of dollars in damages for gun violence victims, as well as winning precedent-setting decisions on the liability of gun sellers in New Mexico, Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana and other states. In addition to assisting individual victims, Brady Center lawyers have represented over two dozen urban municipalities, including Washington D.C. and New York City, in lawsuits seeking to recover the public costs of gun violence. Mr. Henigan’s achievements were recognized by Lawyers’ Weekly magazine, which named him one of the ten “Lawyers of the Year” for 2004. His work as a public interest lawyer also has been profiled in The New Yorker.

Mr. Henigan received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1973 and his law degree in 1977 from the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to joining the Brady Center in 1989, he was a partner in the law firm of Foley & Lardner.

The gun-grabbers have invented a new term to stampede the clueless. It is "Terror Gap." Like "gun violence," "assault weapon," and "gunshow loophole," "terror gap" is a propagandist's tool designed to overcome logic with a bald-faced lie wrapped in a label.

Here's the thing you're not comprehending, Dennis. We've read the bill. The prospect of the Federal government having the ability to designate anyone -- ANYONE -- a "terrorist threat," without the ability to challenge it, without even the ability of a federal judge to reverse it, is simply Star Chamber tyranny.

It is constitutionally void.

It is treasonous to the Founders' Republic.

Its enforcement would be a casus belli.

So pass your tyrannical bill into law and watch what happens.

Just don't think that such an event is without personal unintended consequences. Ask Bill Clinton if you don't believe me.

Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters.


The house that Dennis Henigan has taken out an option to buy. NOVI SAD, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A photographer walks through the rubble of the Serbian TV building destroyed in last night's NATO air raids in the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad Tuesday. U.S. President Clinton hinted at a possible pause in NATO's six-week-old bombing campaign, but there was no indication of a breakthrough emerging from the latest flurry of diplomatic peace-making over Kosovo. Photo by Desmond Boylan

"My Lord" imitates the Borg, and manages to insult all Catholics in the process.

Someone with the odd moniker of "Monsignor" has announced Borg-like that "restistance is futile" over at David Codrea's Gun Rights Examiner column here. ("Test your knowledge of 'gun control'")

So anyway, David asked Pete if I could come out and play "stomp the weenie," and Pete said I could take a break from Absolved so I did. This is of course the same old "Almighty is the Leviathan State" crap that other disarmament advocates spew from time to time. See for example "Resistance is Futile": Waco Rules vs. Romanian Rules posted on David's blog almost two years ago.

No, the odd thing is not the victim disarmament pitch, but rather the guy's handle: "Monsignor." Now for those of you Catholic boys and girls, you know that a real Monsignor looks something like this:



Monsignor is an honorific used in the Catholic Church which describes a title and an office conferred upon a priest by the pope. Something tells me this guy is no priest.

On the other hand, this could be the Monsignor he's talking about:

Monsignor is a 1982 film about a Roman Catholic priest's rise through the ranks of the Vatican, during and after World War II. Along the way, he involves the Vatican in the black marketeering operations of a mafia don, and has an affair with a woman in the postulant stage of becoming a nun. -- Wikipedia.

So, OK, if he's not a priest, maybe he's just anti-Catholic, or is a seriously twisted fan of molesting nuns.

Or, perhaps he means it literally, for Monsignor is a derivation of the Italian "monsignore," which comes from the French "mon seigneur," meaning "my lord". So maybe he just believes he's been appointed by the Collectivist Borg to instruct us commoners in how best to be assimilated. Certainly his response to David's post and subsequent comments suggests a certain arrogance --

Monsignor: Ok. Let's say for instance that the government is really out to exterminate you and your family.

And you have prepared for this by legally arming yourself with the maximum amount of firepower available to a U.S. civilian. You are 100% legal and within your rights.

Do you really think you'll be able to stop laser-guided munitions dropped from 20,000-30,000 feet with your legally-acquired weapon? Do you think you'll ever even see the Navy SEAL who puts the laser-emitter on your roof?
Do you suppose your legally acquired weapon will prevent a chemical attack from a tank sitting a half-mile to your north? How many rounds of ammo do you think it will take to win when the government decides to poison your water? Do you REALLY think you can outshoot a two-man Marine sniper team? How many of them do you think you can defeat? One? Two? A hundred? You honestly believe that you can outshoot 100 Marine sniper teams from your standard brick-n-mortar American home?

Get real. When the government wants you dead you will be dead. Should you cause the deaths of any American soldiers commiting atroicities or violating your rights then the media will simply use this as proof that your death was necessary for order and security.

This "Guns will secure our rights" argument is a canard in the age of smart weapons and megatonnage. Always has been. Always will be.
February 23, 2:04 PM

So anyway this is how I played "stomp the weenie" ad seriatim with this Catholic-insulting scum sucker:

Mike Vanderboegh: Monsignor sings the lullabye of borg slavery, "resistance is futile":

"Ok. Let's say for instance that the government is really out to exterminate you and your family. And you have prepared for this by legally arming yourself with the maximum amount of firepower available to a U.S. civilian. You are 100% legal and within your rights. Do you really think you'll be able to stop laser-guided munitions dropped from 20,000-30,000 feet with your legally-acquired weapon?"

MBV: Yes, by killing the UAV operator, raiding the airbase before the strike is launched, killing the pilot while he is defenseless in the arms of a provided patriotic prostitute. There is ALWAYS a way.

Monsignor: "Do you think you'll ever even see the Navy SEAL who puts the laser-emitter on your roof?"

MBV: Uh, dickhead, its a "laser designator." If you're going to try to scare people, at least get the evil clown's name right.

Monsignor: "Do you suppose your legally acquired weapon will prevent a chemical attack from a tank sitting a half-mile to your north?"

MBV: Again, your ignorance is astounding. Tanks do not have standoff chemical weapon dispensers. Can't you at least conjure some demonic threat that is believeable?

Monsignor: "How many rounds of ammo do you think it will take to win when the government decides to poison your water?"

MBV: Again, patently ridiculous. How can a governemnt, ANY government, wage a civil war against an enemy that is across, athwart and within ITS OWN LOGISTICAL TAIL? All you're doing here is demonstrating your own military ignorance. Let's get this straight. You want us to be frightened of an INVENTED boogeyman from your own imagination?

Monsignor: "Do you REALLY think you can outshoot a two-man Marine sniper team?"

MBV: Me? No. Some of many friends? Oh most certainly yes. You are also assuming that Marines will take orders from collectivist dickheads to kill their own neighbors and relatives. They are more likely to shoot the SOB who gave the op order.

Monsignor: "How many of them do you think you can defeat? One? Two? A hundred?"

MBV: As many as they send, jerk. As many as they send, with a little help from my friends.

Monsignor: "You honestly believe that you can outshoot 100 Marine sniper teams from your standard brick-n-mortar American home?"

MBV: Again, you're assuming they will fight on the evil bad guys' side, but even if they do, why would I want to wait for them? There are better ways to kill people in righteous self-defense than standing up and waiting on them.

Monsignor: "Get real. When the government wants you dead you will be dead."

MBV: Perhaps. But when they do, they will have sown the wind to reap the whirlwind.

Monsignor: "Should you cause the deaths of any American soldiers commiting atrocities or violating your rights then the media will simply use this as proof that your death was necessary for order and security."

MBV: Certainly. And right after that, my friends will enforce Bill Clinton's Serbian rules of engagement on the politicians who sent the killers and the media who support them. They are willing to fight to last ATF agent. Are they willing to fight to the first politician? The second editor? The third media talking head? If they try it, we will find out.

Monsignor: "This 'Guns will secure our rights' argument is a canard in the age of smart weapons and megatonnage."

MBV: Really? Then I guess the Red Chinese didn't fight us to standstill in Korea, the North Vietnamese lost the last Southeast fracas, and Robert McNamara is your candidate for sainthood.

Again we see the obvious fact that you have never smelled gunpowder, cordite, burning buildings and bloated bodies. Of what utility are WMDs IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY WHICH YOU SEEK TO CONTROL?

Monsignor: "Always has been. Always will be."


MBV: NEVER has been. NEVER will be.

I can only suggest that you crawl back in your uninformed hole, hide and watch. We will demonstrate how it is done, if we are attacked. You are welcome to take notes.

-- Mike Vanderboegh
Pinson, AL
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com

Note: I am now back at work on Absolved so save your insults, or direct them at David and Pete.

That paragon of moral virtue, Jesse Jackson, writes "Lesson of White House strafing: Limit guns now."

I was once asked by a citizen disarmament advocate, a follower of the Bradys, what I thought about more firearm restrictions. I began to answer when he impatiently broke in, "Give me the short answer." I replied, "Okay. . . If you try to take our firearms we will kill you." All the fellow could do was stare at me in disbelief. This is the restated meaning of "shall not be infringed." Some people, however, have to have it translated for them. -- Mike Vanderboegh.

And I always thought "strafing" required an airplane. Who knew?

As David Codrea writes: Jesse Jackson Proposes New Civil War. Yes, either he hasn't thought the unintended consequences of his proposal through or Jesse is seemingly willing to kill millions of those of us who would resist such tyranny.

Well, under Bill Clinton's 1999 Serbian Rules of Engagement, at least he'd probably get what he deserved for proposing such a bloody conflict in the first place -- if not a precision guided munition through the window like Serbian Television, then at least an American version of "Rule .303". Personally, if I lived through such a ghastly future as Jesse longs for, which I don't expect to, I would prefer that he get a rope at the end of an exquisitely fair war crimes tribunal, like Julius Streicher.


Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher demonstrates the perils of collectivist propaganda, although by this point he was past caring and beyond further pontificating.

Unfortunately, poor Jesse is risking the sentiment expressed in a hand-lettered sign on an intelligence office wall in Iraq:

"Proper target information means never having to say you're sorry."

Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . The next Media Matters excremental spasm is coming just about . . . NOW.

I LOVE jerking those jerks' chain.



Be careful what you wish for, for you may get it.

Scott Martelle of the LA Times -- Yet another volunteer for the Julius Streicher award. My email acknowledging his contribution.

You say gun control doesn't work? Fine. Let's ban guns altogether.

My email to the author:

From: georgemason1776@aol.com

To: scott.martelle@latimes.com

Sent: Thu, May 29, 2014 5:17 am

Subject: This is to confirm your self-nomination for the Julius Streicher Memorial Award

Dear Mr. Martelle,

Pursuant to a codicil of the Law of Unintended Consequences as amended by President Bill Clinton in 1999 when he was dealing with the Serbs, this is to acknowledge that your self-nomination for the Julius Streicher Memorial Award in the categories of "Solicitation of Civil War" and "Advocacy of Collectivist Tyranny" has been received and duly noted for posterity --- "You say gun control doesn't work? Fine. Let's ban guns altogether." (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-gun-control-ban-homicides-suicides-20140528-story.html)

Julius Streicher, you may recall, was Adolf Hitler's favorite "journalist." He later received the fruits of his labors on behalf of collectivist tyranny by dancing the executioner's jig at Nuremberg in 1946. You may be less familiar with the manner in which President Clinton changed the rules of war as practiced by the United States when, in a fit of pique over Serbian intransigence, he expanded them to include the political leadership, media advocates and intelligentsia who supported his enemy's war effort. Pursuant to this sea change in our rules of engagement, he ordered that precision guided munitions be targeted at various and sundry targets, including the studios of Serbian radio and television.

Given that fact, and as your proposal, if acted upon, will certainly ignite a bloody civil war which will be fought along the lines of those 4th Generation Warfare principles as embraced by Clinton -- something I'm sure you're intelligent enough to have thought through before you made it -- your advocacy of collectivist tyranny for this country in the face of the Founders' clear intent of the Second Amendment to the Constitution is bravely made, sir.

We here at Sipsey Street Irregulars would merely like to recognize such bravery and to note it for the historical record, which, as Streicher discovered to his dismay, has a bad habit of coming around and biting you in the ass at some future date according to the Law of Unintended Consequences. Well done, sir. Julius Streicher, burning in Hell though he may be, would be proud.

Mike Vanderboegh

PO Box 926

Pinson AL 35126.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

Another country heard from . . . Another nomination for the Phillipp "Fips" Rupprecht Prize for Collectivist Hate Cartoon Excellence.

Meet Tom Toles. Earlier this year, I awarded Clay Bennett the First Annual Phillipp "Fips" Rupprecht Prize for Collectivist Hate Cartoon Excellence.

Toles has now made a serious bid for that title. Witness the one below which ran in my own hometown paper, The Birmingham News, on Saturday, 7 August.

Other than referring Comrade Toles to the Bill Clinton 1999 Serbian Rules of Engagement (making cartoonists and other intellectual supporters of tyranny legitimate targets of war), I can only observe that this particular ballgame is not yet in the ninth inning. Were I him, I wouldn't be so certain about the goose egg he has assigned to that first column.

Mike
III

Scaring the white folks, again. (Hide the children.)

Barkley Rosser, liberal economist, sneers at John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime" thesis here, entitled "Gun Nuts Exposed at Distorting Data and Results."

A snippet --

In the latest Econ Journal Watch, just out, Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III have a paper, "Yet another refutation of the more guns, less crime hypothesis - with some help from Moody and Marvell" . . .

I am not doing their paper justice, but the media discussion is often dominated by Lott and his allies who are now pushing for loosened gun laws in Virginia, and are counting on Dems laying low and not challenging their incessantly repeated claims that such gun law relaxations reduce crime. They should not lay low. The claims are baloney and lies, based on distorted date and misrepresentations of results from ones with better data.

The comments back and forth are often silly and Say Uncle rightly calls this, "I know you are, but what am I?"

In a reply on both Barkley's and SayUncle's sites I endeavour to "scare the white people" again. I entitle my response:

How many economists (with their social scientist dates) can dance on the head of a gun control pin?

The fascinating thing about intellectuals is that they actually believe that their trench warfare over footnotes and data actually MEANS anything in the grand scheme of things as we are faced with today.

All of your snarky arguments are about to be overwhelmed by events. Either the society collapses under the economic tidal wave that is about to hit (in which case those who have firearms will no doubt survive better than those who eschew them, and the armed will be ill-disposed to obey any scheme that works toward their disarmament) or the Obamanoids will proceed with AWB2 and the federal seizure of control over all private transfer of arms (the ill-named lie called "the gunshow loophole") thus sparking armed civil disobedience if not outright civil war.

In the first event, you left-wing academics are either going to be stew for the cannibal's pot, or pulling plows for those who are armed.

In the second, those who advocate citizen disarmament of the "gun nuts" are going to be hiding in deep cellars and caves from those people who, having lost family members to a predatory government, will be using Bill Clinton's Serbian rules of engagement to wipe out the political, media and intellectual underpinnings of that tyrannical regime.

In any case, your footnotes will be used for kindling.

Kinda makes you want to go buy a firearm, doesn't it? Better hurry, before they're all gone.

Mike Vanderboegh
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com


LATER: I also posted this response at another science blog out of Australia, Tim Lambert's Deltoid. There, I was presented with this remarkably cogent and well reasoned rebuttal:

Shorter Mike Vanderboegh:
I don't care if you're right or wrong, because I has gunz!!!!!!
Posted by: bi -- IJI | January 22, 2009 12:06 PM

To which I replied:

And you were trying to be insulting with that, right?

Put another way: "When Democracy Turns to Tyranny, I STILL Get to Vote." People may vote with their feet (as in leaving deadly "citizen disarmament zones" like the liberal-conrolled cities or states for places where gun ownership is cherished), with their wallets (as in the Great Obama Gun Rush) or, if all else fails, with their rifles.

You know, calling us "gun nuts" and advocating that our liberty and property be taken from us does not endear you to us. If the Obamanoids decide that they can twist the meaning of the Constitution and the laws so that they no longer protect us, then they can hardly quibble if we decide that the law no longer protects THEM either. Nor will they protect you, come to that.

For 75 years we have been pushed back by the federal government in the free exercise of our right to arms. Each time we backed up grudgingly. Now some of us have decided that we will no longer back up -- that if the administration draws the line of the law behind where we now stand, we will resist. And we will do so at the muzzles of our rifles if necessary.

We don't want to tell you how to live, we merely wish to be left alone. You can sneer at us, revile us, call us names, but you cannot deny (unless you are as ungrounded in reality as you accuse us of being) that we are here, we are armed and we are not going away quietly.

Now, you can either accept that, or you can try doing what has always worked for you in the past. If you do the latter, we will introduce you to the Law of Unintended Consequences. It is the the statute that kicks in when all the other laws have been knocked flat.

Or, as my Grandpa Vanderboegh told me: "Don't poke a wolverine with a sharp stick, boy, unless you want your balls ripped off."

All of the intellectual argument between Lott and his critics, in the end, is spit in the wind. Don't poke the wolverine. Good advice. It remains to be seen if y'all are smart enough to recognize it.

Mike Vanderboegh Pinson, AL

OK, OK, I'll get back to Absolved now.

"He's making a list, and checking it twice."

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

O! You better watch out!
You better not cry.
Better not pout, I'm telling you why.
Santa Claus is coming to town.
Santa Claus is coming to town.


There are lists, and then, there are lists.

Some you want to be on. Some you don't.

Some you deserve to be on. Some you don't.

And some you get on and you later regret it.

Welcome to JournoList. If you ever wondered why the media sounds like a collectivist echo chamber, that's because it is. Read the article, and I'll have a comment at the end.

JournoList: Inside the echo chamber

MICHAEL CALDERONE
3/17/09 3:59 AM EDT Updated: 3/17/09 11:55 AM EDT

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

Last April, criticism of ABC’s handling of a Democratic presidential debate took shape on JList before morphing into an open letter to the network, signed by more than 40 journalists and academics — many of whom are JList members.

But beyond these specific examples, it’s hard to trace JList’s influence in the media, because so few JListers are willing to talk on the record about it.

POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.

In an e-mail, Klein said he understands that the JList’s off-the-record rule “makes it seems secretive.” But he insisted that JList discussions have to be off the record in order to “ensure that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions.”

One byproduct of that secrecy: For all its high-profile membership — which includes Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman; staffers from Newsweek, POLITICO, Huffington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and The New Yorker; policy wonks, academics and bloggers such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias — JList itself has received almost no attention from the media.

A LexisNexis search for JournoList reveals exactly nothing. Slate’s Mickey Kaus, a nonmember, may be the only professional writer to have referred to it “in print” more than once — albeit dismissively, as the “Klein Klub.”

While members may talk freely about JList at, say, a Columbia Heights house party, there’s a “Fight Club”-style code of silence when it comes to discussing it for publication.

But a handful of JList members agreed to talk for this story — if only to push back against the perception that the group is some sort of secret, left-wing cabal.

Several members volunteered that JList is unlike listservs such as Townhouse, the private, activist-oriented group formed by liberal blogger Matt Stoller.

“No one’s pushing an agenda,” said Toobin.

Toobin joined JList about a year ago, and he said that he had to get a new e-mail address just for JList in order to keep up with the sheer volume of commentary that appears there every day. The frequent disputes among members, he said, are “what’s most entertaining on the list.”

John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic, described JList in an e-mail as “a virtual coffeehouse” where participants get a chance to talk and argue.

“There is probably general agreement on the stupidity of today’s GOP,” he said. “But beyond that, I would say there is wide disagreement on trade, Israel, how exactly we got into this recession/depression and how to get out of it, the brilliance of various punk bands that I have never heard of, and on whether, at any given moment, the Obama administration is doing the right thing.”

But aren’t there enough forums for arguing about domestic and foreign policy — or even for partaking in the more idiosyncratic JList debates about the merits of Bruce Springsteen and whether The New Republic is liberal enough? And do those debates really have to happen behind a veil of secrecy?

“It’s sort of a chance to float ideas and kind of toss them around, back and forth, and determine if they have any value,” said New Republic associate editor Eve Fairbanks, “and get people’s input on them before you put them on a blog.”

Indeed, the advantage of JList, members say, is that it provides a unique forum for getting in touch with historians and policy people who provide journalists with a knowledge base for articles and blog posts.

Yglesias, who writes an eponymous blog hosted by the Center for American Progress, noted that “the combined membership has tentacles of knowledge that reach everywhere,” adding that “you can toss out a question about Japan or whatever and get some different points of view.”

Alterman said it’s important that there are “people with genuine expertise” on the list.

“For me, it’s enormously useful because I don’t like to spend my time reading blogs and reading up-to-the-minute political minutia,” he said. “This list allows me to make sure I’m not missing anything important.”

POLITICO’s Mike Allen, Ben Smith and Lisa Lerer are on the list. “The roster includes some of the savviest authorities on everything from behavioral economics to Ben’s Chili Bowl,” Allen said. “It’s a window into a world of passionate experts — an hourly graduate education.”

Said another JLister: “I don’t know any other place where working journalists, policy wonks and academics who write about current politics and political history routinely communicate with one another.”

But what if all the private exchanges got leaked?

That’s been the subject of some JList conversation, too, as members discuss the Weekly Standard’s publication of a 2006 e-mail posted to the private China Security Listserv by diplomat Charles Freeman, who last week withdrew his name from consideration for a top intelligence job.

Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain staffer and conservative blogger who published the e-mail, was not part of the China list and therefore hadn’t agreed to any off-the-record rules.

Asked about the existence of conservative listservs, Goldfarb said they’re much less prevalent.

“There is nothing comparable on the right. E-mail conversations among bloggers, journalists and experts on our side tend to be ad hoc,” Goldfarb said. “The JournoList thing always struck me as a little creepy.”

Kaus, too, has seemed put off by the whole idea, once talking on BloggingHeads about how the list “seems contrary to the spirit of the Web.”

“You don’t want to create a whole separate, like, private blog that only the elite bloggers can go into, and then what you present to the public is sort of the propaganda you’ve decided to go public with,” Kaus argued.

But Time’s Joe Klein, who acknowledged being on JList and several other listservs, said in an e-mail that “they’re valuable in the way that candid conversations with colleagues and experts always are.” Defending the off-the-record rule, Klein said that “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private.”

And then Klein — speaking like the JLister he is — said there wasn’t “anything more that I can or want to say about the subject.”

Now, IF we ever do have a Restoration War in this country, sparked by the intellectual urgings of the pukes on JournoList, and

IF someone decides that Bill Clinton's Serbian Rules of Engagement have some utility in winning that war,

THEN, the best this leftist cabal can hope for is that the forensic IT professionals working for the Restored Republic of the united States of America use this list as the basis for indictments in the war crimes trials to follow. At worst, some time after the outbreak of hostilities, they get to meet this guy:

Another country heard from: More death threats from the collectivist left.

Jeffrey Wells. He wants us all to be put in "green re-education camps."

The Blaze reports that Militant Environmentalists Call for Executions and ‘Decisive Ecological Warfare.’

One of the activists, Derrick Jensen, allegedly even believes those who destroy the environment should be summarily executed: “If it were up to me, all the people associated with the Gulf oil spill, which is murdering the Gulf, would be executed. That would be part of the function of a state,” said Jensen.

In addition to Jensen, the two other environmentalists interviewed in the article – Lierre Keith, and Aric McBay — have spearheaded a fringe movement called the “Deep Green Resistance” (with a book of the same name) that calls for “direct attacks on infrastructure” and an annihilation of civilization as we know it.

According to the far-left triumvirate, humanity must devolve into living primitive, “indigenous” lifestyles. To this end, Keith targeted a litany of ills that must be stopped, declaring: “We need a culture that is self-consciously oppositional to things like corporate power, capitalism, industrialization and ultimately civilization, because that is the arrangement of power on this planet right now.”

Yes, well, just bless his little murderous heart. Good luck with that. That lends a whole new meaning to the phrase popular among ranchers plagued by the wolf laws: "Shoot. Shovel. And shut up."

Jeffrey Wells is not quite so insistently bloody, although he wants London-style riots in the United States and wants to begin "rounding up Tea Bagger types and sentencing them to green re-education camps for minimum one-year terms."

And who is Jeffrey Wells? From his bio:

Jeffrey Wells is the publisher/editor of Hollywood Elsewhere, an opinion-attitude site with reporting thrown in from time to time. HE is an outgrowth of a twice-weekly Hollywood column Wells has been writing online since October 1998. Th earliest incarnation was on the ABC News-owned Mr. Showbiz, then moved to Reel.com in August 1999 until August 2002, then shifted again to Kevin Smith's Movie Poop Shoot.com until launching Hollywood Elsewhere in August 2004. He wrote a weekly Hollywood column for the L.A. Times Syndicate from 1994 to 1999. Wells was regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly from 1991 to 1996, and People magazine from 1996 to 1998. He has also freelanced for the N.Y. Daily News, Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, the N.Y. Times and the Washington Post.

What else do we know about Wells? Well, he identifies with the film Brokeback Mountain, and considers Che Guevara to be Lawrence of Latin America.

Here is his self-described "delicious fantasy":

Many times I've riffed on a dark, delicious fantasy about rounding up Tea Bagger types and sentencing them to green re-education camps for minimum one-year terms. Not to punish per se but to expose these contemptible morons to facts, to truth, to the way things really are and how they're being played by the rich, and the fact that Boomers have taken almost everything and that diminished lifestyles and economic security are being bequeathed to Genx and GenY for decades to come, and that the best is definitely over. The infra-structure that once provided decent, fair-minded quality of life to middle-class people in this country is disintegrating. The game is rigged. This is the fall of the Roman Empire.

All largely because of impediments to logical, intelligent governing put up by the knee-jerk, mule-like, corporate-kowtowing mentality of Tea-Bagger types and their 60 or so looney-tunes Congresspersons now in office. We've truly become a South American society of rightist oligarchs, angry lefties, disillusioned wage-earners, retirement-age fuddies and struggling, debt-smothered have-nots, and the rightist boobs will never understand that they're primarily the problem. The deficit-reduction deal will almost certainly hurt growth and kill jobs, most analysts are saying. And the radical right will own this when it happens. This level of ideological denial is no longer appalling -- it's become lethal. Ignoramuses can no longer be tolerated. The right is killing this country, things have gotten really crazy, and Obama will never stand up to them.

A second Civil War would be an incredibly destructive thing, but it would feel so good.

Blithely dreaming of putting people in camps for their political opinions and stating that civil war would "feel so good" are statements of someone who has never been shot at, someone who has lived a completely sheltered, self-absorbed and smug existence safe from challenges of any sort. This is so divorced from reality, I wonder if he has ever read even one book of history.

A dozen years ago, I wrote "What I Have Learned From the Twentieth Century." In it I noted 6 lessons I had learned from the collectivist dictators of the 20th Century.

LESSON NO. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you do not want to go because of who you are or what you think -- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent him. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.

"If you can, kill the politician who sent him." That also applies, under Bill Clinton's Serbian Rules of Engagement, to the intellectuals who justify it.

On those twin premises, if Mr. Wells gets what he wishes for, he will be a dead man.

He probably hasn't worked all that out yet, but if someone tries to start up political re-education camps in this country, it will be explained to him, no doubt rather abruptly.

To paraphrase the Sipsey Street sidebar icon, when democracy turns to tyranny . . .

. . . Men and women with rifles still get to vote.

Dark Thoughts -- Misadventure, Spasm & Decapitation. How I spent Constitution Day.

Morgan: They pushed us too far! They didn't think we'd fight, no matter what they did!

Julian Osborne: And they were wrong. We fought. We expunged them. And we didn't do such a bad job on ourselves.

-- On the Beach, 1959.

I am ashamed to admit that Wretched Dog had to remind me that today, 17 September, is Constitution Day. I must also confess my tired skepticism that we will see another such anniversary without violence initiated by an arrogant, ignorant, out-of-control administration who see that tattered, battered old Columbia as just another prospective government gang-rape victim.

Today I read some internal ATF documents that cannot be publicized for now, yet they convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the agency is as rogue at this moment as it ever was.

The failure of successive administrations of both parties to rein in these armed bureaucrats can only lead to deadly, bloody misadventure which will trigger a murderous spasm unlike anything yet seen in this country's long history of periodic civil strife.

The thing is, once started, the regime will find it almost impossible to stop on any terms besides their own unconditional surrender as they would be fighting an enraged but dispersed network insurgency. It is likely that after a few weeks of such blood-letting, the administration will be unable to find anybody left alive with sufficient influence among the insurgents with whom they can negotiate an end to the horror. The fact of the matter is that they would have done their best to kill the folks they would need to stop what they started.

And they will want to stop it, oh, yes, out of concern for their own miserable hides if nothing else.

For they will have provoked a conflict that will not be directed at the war-fighters, the grunts, even those in the outnumbered federal police, but rather at the war-makers, i.e. themselves.

In this they have only Bill Clinton to blame. When the Philanderer in Chief, frustrated with Serbian intransigence in 1999, changed the rules of engagement to include the political leadership, news media and the intellectual underpinning of his enemy's war effort, he accidentally filed suit under the Law of Unintended Consequences. The Serbians knuckled under, yes. But the rest of the world took note, including us. I assure you, the appeal to the higher court of history in that case has yet to be decided.



Back in May, the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation held a seminar in the Reuben W. Hills Conference Room on the second floor of Encina Hall.

There, Patrick Johnston, PhD Candidate from the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC, presented a paper entitled The Effectiveness of Leadership Decapitation in Counterinsurgency.

His dissertation examines the military effectiveness of civilian targeting in civil wars. He has published articles on the organization of insurgencies, spoiler dynamics in peace processes, and the political economy of civil war in journals such as Security Studies, Civil Wars, Canadian Journal of African Studies, and Review of African Political Economy. Johnston holds a BA in political science from the University of Minnesota, Morris and an MA in political science from Northwestern University.

Patrick Johnston is considered by some to be the Pentagon's "bright boy of the month." From the first page of his presentation:

Leadership decapitation is a high-profile tactic that involves the the capture or killing of top insurgent leaders. It is frequently used against guerrilla insurgencies: in the past two centuries, top insurgent leaders have been killed or captured in just under 50 percent of counterinsurgency campaigns. Yet we know little about the nature of the relationship between leadership decapitation and counterinsurgency effectiveness. Is capturing or killing insurgencies' leader(s) an effective tactic? Or is it counterproductive, radicalizing insurgent movements, strengthening their resolve, and making them more difficult to defeat? Or does it have no effect at all?

The general consensus is that leadership decapitation of guerrilla groups is ineffective. These conclusions should give scholars pause: they are based on unsystematic research designs, minimal empirical data, and incomparable units -- usually terrorist organizations or foreign leaders.

I argue that leadership decapitation is effective. Decapitation provides numerous marginal benefits, weakening and disrupting insurgent organizations and making them more likely to be defeated.

Go to the link and read if you must, but Johnston is as wrong as he can be when comparing past history to 4th Generation warfare, distributed networks and leaderless resistance, especially as will be practiced in the United States if it ever goes to war with itself.

He is wrong, but the powerful men and women he is writing for think he's right.

Unfortunately for them, in the situation the administration would find itself after Waco Two, the "decapitation" strategy would for them more resemble Russian Roulette played with an automatic pistol.

Hypothetical: They kill some of us, at first accidentally perhaps, but almost immediately thereafter intentionally. The spasm of defensive killing begins, targeted at their leadership. They spasm in return. They would not be able to scuttle into their "green zones" fast enough. For each clumsy attack on us, they receive a lesson in the 500 meter war, one bullet (or many bullets) at a time. They commit "collateral damage" of our innocents, we stay within the rules of engagement and kill only war-planners and war-wagers.

I have asked this question before. They will fight to the last ATF agent or to the last oath-breaking soldier. Will they fight to the first senior bureaucrat, the second Congressman, the third newspaper editor, the fourth Senator, the fifth White House aide? Can they stand Bill Clinton's rules of engagement?

These are the stakes for them, though they do not understand it.

And once they start it, they will find it impossible to stop, until they surrender unconditionally or personally face the music themselves.

Forgive me these dark thoughts, my friends, on this Constitution Day. They are occasioned by my glimpse today inside the minds of some taxpayer-supported jack booted thugs. They really are as venal, stupid, arrogant and dangerous as I feared.

As I read their innermost thoughts, freely expressed among themselves, I realized that all my efforts to prevent this madness from happening will very likely be mere cruel, futile self-deception on my part.

And given the arrogant, narcissistic master they now nominally serve, it is unlikely this will end with mere politics, but rather by what Clausewitz called "politics by other means."

May God forgive them.

For whoever is left standing with a rifle after the initial spasm that they start certainly won't.

"Leadership decapitation" indeed.

Their leadership. . . and their decapitation.

There's a fight coming.

They will start it.

Let's win.

Mike
III

The "Gun Lobby" is YOUR last line of defense, E.J., not the other way around. (An Open Letter to the WaPo's Arsonist of Civil Order.)

"They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards." The 101st Airborne at Bastogne.

E.J. Dionne is upset that the Lightworker apparently doesn't want to start a civil war and burn the country down to the ground around all our ears. YET. My open letter to the silly putz follows.

Mike
III

Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?

By E.J. Dionne Jr.Monday, April 20, 2009

Try to imagine that hundreds or thousands of guns, including assault weapons, were pouring across the Mexican border into Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California, arming criminal gangs who were killing American law enforcement officials and other U.S. citizens.

Then imagine the Mexican president saying, "Well, we would really like to do something about this, but our political system makes helping you very difficult." Wouldn't Mexico's usual critics attack that country's political system for corruption and ineptitude and ask: "Why can't they stop this lawlessness?"

That, in reverse, is the position President Obama was in last week when he visited Mexico. The Mexican gangs are able to use guns purchased in the United States because of our insanely permissive gun regulations, and Obama had to make this unbelievably clotted, apologetic statement at a news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderón:

"I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment rights in our Constitution, the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners who want to keep their families safe, to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know, here in Mexico, are helping to fuel extraordinary violence.

Violence in our own country as well. Now, having said that, I think none of us are under the illusion that reinstating that ban would be easy."

In other words: Our president can deal with all manner of big problems, but the American gun lobby is just too strong to let him push a rational and limited gun regulation through Congress.

It's particularly infuriating that Obama offered this statement of powerlessness just a few days before today's 10th anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado -- and just after a spree of mass homicides across the United States took the lives of least 57 people.

No other democratic country in the world has the foolish, ineffectual gun regulations that we do. And, unfortunately, what Obama said is probably true.

Earlier this year, when Attorney General Eric Holder called for a renewal of the ban on assault weapons -- he was only repeating a commitment Obama made during the presidential campaign -- the response from a group of 65 pro-gun House Democrats was: No way.

Their letter to Holder was absurd. "The gun-control community has intentionally misled many Americans into believing that these weapons are fully automatic machine guns. They are not. These firearms fire one shot for every pull of the trigger." Doesn't that make you feel better?

Those Democrats should sit down with Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania. "Time and time again, our police are finding themselves outgunned," Rendell said in Harrisburg last week. "They are finding themselves with less firepower than the criminals they are trying to bring to justice."

The Democratic governor told his own state's legislators that if they didn't support such a ban, "then don't come to those memorial services" for the victims of gun violence. "It's wrong," he said. "It's hypocritical."

And why can't we at least close the gun show loophole? Licensed dealers have to do background checks on people who buy guns. The rules don't apply at gun shows, which, as the Violence Policy Center put it, have become "Tupperware Parties for Criminals."

But too many members of Congress are "petrified" of the gun lobby, says Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), a crusader for sane gun legislation ever since her husband was killed and her son paralyzed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.

Family members of the victims of gun violence, she says, are mystified by Congress's inability to pass even the most limited regulations. "Why can't you just get this done?" she is asked. "What is it you don't understand?"

Obama, at least, should understand this: He was not elected by the gun lobby. It worked hard to rally gun owners against him -- and failed to stop him.

According to a 2008 exit poll, Obama received support from just 37 percent among voters in households where guns are present -- barely more than John Kerry's 36 percent in 2004. But among the substantial majority of households that don't have guns, Obama got 65 percent, up eight points from Kerry. Will Obama stand up for the people who actually voted for him?

Yes, I understand about swing voters, swing states, the priority of the economy and all that. But given Congress's default to the apologists for loose gun laws, it will take a president to make something happen.

TO: ejdionne@washpost.com

An Open Letter to E.J. Dionne: The "Gun Lobby" is YOUR last line of defense.
re: Who Will Face Down the Gun Lobby?"
Mr. Dionne,

Ho Chi Minh once cautioned his followers to "cherish your enemies, they teach you the most valuable lessons."

Ensnared by your own prejudices and cut off from a complete sense of reality by your isolation from other folks (us) who do not agree with your world view, citizen disarmament advocates such as yourself present our side of the argument with a moral dilemma. Should we explain to you how little clue you have about the dangers you face or should we just let you walk forward unwarned into a minefield that you unwittingly made yourselves?

As an owner of the types of heretofore legal semi-automatic rifles you are seeking to ban, I will try to save you from your own worst impulses.

What you must understand is that the old political verities no longer apply. You berate Obama and other members of his party for failing to embrace further gun control while you are in ignorance of the fact that there are gun owners far more uncompromising than the NRA who refuse to obey any more gun restrictions. Such "bitter clingers" are known as "Three Percenters."

If such a law as you propose is passed, we will resist it and defy you to enforce it upon us. And the Government, being the government, will attempt to do just that. Shots will be fired and the next American civil war will be joined.

Now, as we come from entirely different world views, you may not believe this. It is nonetheless true. And as an advocate of other people's disarmament and the official theft of their liberty and property, you should hope that they don't choose to play by Bill Clinton's rules should push come to shove.

Surely you recall when Clinton decided to expand the rules of engagement with the Serbs in 1999, declaring that the political, media and intellectual underpinnings of their regime were legitimate targets of war? Do the precision guided munitions he had directed into the headquarters of Serbian Television and Radio ring a bell?

At the time this was roundly condemned by free speech and press advocates all over the world, and rightly so. Yet, the precedent WAS set, the point WAS made. Can you be entirely confident that it won't be invoked once more against you?

Here's the thing about "enemies lists" such as Napolitano's "Right Wing Extremists" report -- the sloppy scholarship represented by the elisions and conflations of the very real differences between veterans, constitutional militias and small government activists and mad dog white supremacist terrorists convinces all of us that we are intended victims regardless of what we believe. And the dangerous thing about "enemy of the people" lists in the real world is that they work both ways.

So cherish the "gun lobby." The way many on our side see it, as long as they exist and are able to use traditional politics to protect our rights, they protect YOU from uncompromising gun owners and not the other way around.

This may not be the "hope" and "change" you were looking for, but it is the hope and change you got.

I expect to be in Washington in the month of June and would welcome the chance to discuss these issues and answer any questions about the great percentage of your countrymen of whom you seemingly know so little.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 35126
GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

"Dear Mr. Security Agent." A Cautionary Essay From Matt Bracken.

The conclusion:

So now we’re back to you, Mr. Security Agent, and your unique role in this high drama. Let me state this very clearly, both for you and for the liberal agenda-setting elites who might accidentally stumble upon this essay. Let there be no doubt about this. Let no one later say, “But we were just trying to improve public safety. We had no idea that all these disastrous unintended consequences would happen.”

I am telling you now that disastrous unintended consequences will happen if Congress passes new laws banning presently legal firearms. To make it very easy to remember, and in the spirit of our beloved Department of Homeland Security’s old color-coded security threat levels, let me spell out three lines of demarcation.

The Yellow Line:

The yellow warning line will be crossed with national gun registration laws, including laws forbidding private gun sales without government permission. When that law passes, millions of Americans will feel that they have been pushed directly to the edge of the abyss above the mass graves of history. Defenders of the Second Amendment know what happened in Turkey, the USSR, Germany, China, and other nations that fell under totalitarian rule: in every case a necessary preliminary step on the road to genocide was national gun registration, followed by confiscation. The Jewish survivors of the Nazi Holocaust say, “Never again!” And so do we.

The Red Line:

The red line will be crossed with the passage of laws mandating that currently owned weapons, ammunition magazines, and ammunition quantities above a certain number must be turned in to authorities or destroyed, and thereafter their simple possession will be a felony. At that point, the nation will be on a hair trigger, with a thousand flaring matches nearing a thousand primed cannon fuses aimed directly at the next Fort Sumter.

The Dead Line:

The next line requires a bit of history to explain. In some primitive Civil War POW camps, where lack of funding or logistical constraints did not allow the construction of proper fences, a knee-high continuous railing of wooden slats encircled the prison grounds. Guards with rifles were positioned at the corners and in crude towers. If a prisoner so much as stepped over the narrow plank, he was shot dead without warning, obviating the need for a real fence to contain him. Hence the term “dead line.” Cross the line and people die, right now.

And this is what liberal utopians must understand: after passing the yellow line with national gun registration and transfer requirements, and the red line by making possession of currently legal firearms felonious, the dead line will be breached with the first SWAT raids upon citizens suspected of owning legal firearms made illegal by the new gun control laws. People will die resisting confiscation, in large numbers.

Confiscation crosses the dead line, make no mistake about it.

So this essay is really for you, Mr. Security Agent, because it won’t be elite Manhattan or Malibu liberals or Ivy League professors or politicians or columnists who will be ordered to strap on the sweat-stained body armor and enforce the new gun control laws at gunpoint. No, that grim task will fall to you.

But as long as you are an honorable agent of the people while an employee of the government, and as long as you honor your oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, then you will encounter no problems at all with gun owners. Why? Because you will refuse to take part in gun confiscation raids. Period. End of sentence, end of paragraph.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the leading American law enforcement agency, at least in terms of its long history and high prestige. Dear Mr. Security Agent, please consider that F.B.I. also stands for Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity. Soon, your fidelity to your solemnly sworn oath may be severely tested. It will take a lot of bravery to make your personal integrity a higher calling than following illegitimate orders, simply to maintain your steady paycheck and benefits.

On the other hand, if you no longer resemble the upstanding and honorable federal agents I have known in the past, if that whole oath-to-the-Constitution shtick was a big fat joke to you and you would accept a transfer to the old Soviet KGB or East German Stasi for a ten percent pay raise…then we are definitely going to have a problem. So that oath you swore really matters, one way or the other, and so does your personal sense of honor.

Dear Mr. Security Agent, let me spell it out. If you find yourself in the sub-basement of an annex to a secret intelligence center on the far end of town, waterboarding citizens into revealing the locations of suspected “illegal caches” of firearms, ammunition or ammunition magazines that were legally owned in 2012, then know this one simple fact: tens of millions of Americans will most surely consider you a betrayer of your sworn oath and a traitor to your country.

And so, if you find yourself silently dismounting a covert SWAT vehicle at zero-dark-thirty, dressed all in body armor, counting down to the time-coordinated explosion of battering rams and flash-bang grenades, on a raid against a sleeping household intended to result in the confiscation of firearms, ammunition or ammunition magazines that were legal to own in 2012, millions of Americans who also swore an oath to defend the Constitution will consider you their domestic enemy, and they will resist you with force of arms. Just as the soldiers of King George were resisted on another notable gun confiscation raid on April 19, 1775. It used to be called “The Shot Heard ’Round the World.”

You may consider the sentiments expressed above to be absurd, hyperbolic, dangerous, ridiculous, or simply wrong-headed. But please understand that tens of millions of Americans feel this way to their cores, and they will not be disarmed without a fight. Well-meaning but naive liberals should understand the certain-to-follow consequences of new gun control laws intended to disarm their fellow citizens in the name of “public safety.” LEOs and FLEAs should understand the dire consequences of participating in gun confiscation raids, in direct violation of their sworn oaths to uphold the Constitution, including the Second Amendment.

The unintended consequences of this misguided utopian fool’s crusade to ban guns would include a second civil war as agonizingly painful as the first one, if not more so, since there would be no front lines and no safe areas for anybody, anywhere. Every sane American wants to prevent such a calamitous outcome as a “dirty civil war” on United States soil.

But know this: those tens of millions will never be quietly disarmed and then later forced at government gunpoint onto history’s next boxcars. If boxcars and detention camps are to be in America’s future, then you, Mr. Security Agent, will have to disarm them the hard way first. Not Piers Morgan, not Michael Moore, not Rosie O’Donnell, not Dianne Feinstein, not Chuck Schumer.

You.

MBV Note: Not that such a war wouldn't have consequences for the war planners, enablers and leaders. They would end up just as dead under Bill Clinton's 1999 Serbian rules of engagement, either before or after the war crimes trials.

Julius Streicher, Hitler's favorite "journalist," after being hung at Nuremberg.

More bluster from the collectivists' phalanx of useful idiots.

GOP Responds to Obama’s Gun Control Executive Orders With Threats of Civil War. What is it about these morons that they always think that the GOP and the NRA are their worst problems?

One of the comments struck my interest. I posted a response which I doubt will make it past the moderator, so here it is as well:

"Civil War? Just how much chance do these racist malcontents think they are going to have against the military might of the United States?"

Leaving aside the ignorant ad hominem attack of calling us "racists," your analysis and historical sense is fundamentally flawed Who is it, do you think, that makes up the bulk of the military tip-of-the-spear units? Why it is our sons (and in lesser numbers daughters). When issued an illegal and unconstitutional order which way will their guns face? Toward their families or the regime that orders them to attack their families?

The way this will play out, if in the unlikely event that Obama & Co. get their fervent wishes of a true ban on semi-autos and standard capacity magazines (and private sales as well) is that our side will disobey, resist and flaunt the law. As the author says, this will make the regime so nuts that they will come to attack such resisters a la Waco and Ruby Ridge. The only thing is, they had their free Waco in the 90s, without consequences to the raid planners and politicians. It will not be free this time.

Kindly study the topic of 4th Generation Warfare, which targets the enemy decision making elites, not the military forces or the populace, in order to destroy their will to fight. Bill Clinton, in his frustration at the Serbs in 1999, changed the rules of engagement to include the political, media and intellectual leadership of his enemy, sending precision guided weapons into their homes as well as Serbian Radio and Television.

Now, imagine an American civil war fought along the same rules.

To sum up, be careful what you wish for, you may get it. On the other hand, we're not telling you what to do nor are we trying to take any of your liberty or property at the threat of your lives as you are doing, in your ignorance of the Law of Unintended Consequences, to us.

All we require is for your overweening collectivist "nanny state" to back up out of our faces and leave us the hell alone.

Citizen disarmament advocate Dan Thomasson is at it again. My reply.

Folks,

Dan Thomasson, long-time advocate of citizen disarmament is at it again here in a column entitled "The several varieties of gun nuts."

Go, and read. My email reply to him follows.

Mike
III

From: georgemason1776@aol.com
To: thomassondan@aol.com
Sent: Tue, Mar 9, 2010 10:20 am
Subject: All the world bows before your scintillating wit . . .

My dear Dan,

All the world bows before your scintillating wit . . .

But only in the mirror and only in your dreams.

I will not attempt to argue with you about your latest anti-firearms, pro-citizen disarmament screed. Having done that in the past, I realize the futility of the exercise. I would merely like to point out a section of the Law of Unintended Consequences as it applies to you.

In 1999, your buddy Bill Clinton changed the American rules of war as they then applied. The Serbs were being recalcitrant, so, in his frustration, he decided that the politicians, the news media and the intellectuals who laid the predicate for the enemy's war effort were legitimate targets of war. To this end, he dispatched precision guided munitions into the homes of various politicians and the broadcast studios of Serbian radio and television. They managed to kill some security guards, makeup artists and janitors.

Fast forward to today.

Now, a recent CNN poll showed that 56% of the American people now view the federal government -- you know, the one you are so enamored of, the one you wish to give a monopoly of violence to by disarming the citizenry -- constitutes a clear and present danger to their liberties. This is the eternal question: Which is to be the master? The government or the people? You obviously believe the answer is the government. At least 56% of your countrymen disagree. And this question, THE question, MUST be answered, WILL be answered, and one side or the other will lose. And if politics fail, as it now seems likely, many, many people will die in the process.

Indeed, the country was not this divided in 1861. Yet, here you are, parroting the line of the imperial federal government at a time when a considerable portion of our people (as evidenced by the incredible numbers of firearms and ammunition now being purchased in this country) are preparing for any eventuality, up to and including civil war.

So, my question is, what makes you think that the people who insist upon their traditional liberties regardless of your "enlightened" opinions WON'T play by Bill Clinton's rules of engagement after the shots begin to fly?

You are either very clueless, or very brave.

But I mention it just in case you hadn't thought the unintended consequences of your advocacy of federal tyranny through to their, shall we say, uncomfortable conclusion.

Have a nice day.

Mike Vanderboegh
The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters.
PO Box 926
Pinson AL 35126
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

The "Feckless" New York Times

feck·less
Function: adjective
Etymology: Scots, from feck effect, majority, from Middle English (Scots) fek, alteration of Middle English effect
Date: circa 1585
1 : weak , ineffective
2 : worthless , irresponsible
-- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

This is the New York Times Building.

This is the latest New York Times editorial demanding more draconian gun control laws:

The Drug Cartels’ Right to Bear Arms

Published: February 27, 2009

The hypocrisy grows all too gruesome: The Justice Department pronounced the Mexican drug cartels “a national security threat” this week, even as American gun dealers along the border were busily arming the cartels’ murderous gangs. Mexico complains that American dealers supplied most of the 20,000 weapons seized last year in drug wars in which 6,000 Mexicans died.

A vast arms bazaar is rampant along the four border states, enabled by porous to nonexistent American gun laws. Straw buyers can pick up three or four high-powered war rifles from one of more than 6,600 border dealers and hand them off to smugglers. They easily return to Mexico, where gun laws are far less permissive.

Licensed dealers routinely recruit buyers with clean criminal records to foil weak laws and feed the deadly pipeline, according to a report by James C. McKinley Jr. in The Times. The countless unlicensed “gun enthusiasts” free to deal battlefield rifles at weekend shows, thanks to loophole-ridden laws, are a second source.

The federal government is allowed to only trace weapons used in crimes and has no idea of the full scope of the border trade, which accounts for 9 out of 10 recovered weapons.

One dealer exploited the lack of federal controls by packing up his California shop, where laws were tougher, and moving to the lenient Arizona border. He is accused of selling hundreds of AK-47 rifles to the cartels before he was finally arrested in a sting by undercover agents. He’s more the exception. At best, 200 agents work the border expanse where gun smugglers operate as a “parade of ants,” in the words of one frustrated prosecutor.

There should be enormous shame on this side of the border that America’s addiction to drugs is bolstered by its feckless gun controls. Firm federal law is urgently needed if the homicidal cartels are to be seriously challenged as a threat to national security.

This is what Serbian Television and Radio Headquarters looked like after Bill Clinton decided to modify American rules of engagment to include the media, politicians and ideological support structure of an enemy regime as legitimate targets of war.

Among the 16 vicious enemy combatants killed in the air strike above were janitors and makeup artists.

Can someone explain to me why, if the NYT gets its way and the current American regime provokes a civil war over gun confiscation, this



shouldn't look like this?



After all, Bill Clinton said it was OK.

Of course Three Percenters don't have cruise missles and precision guided bombs, and unlike our enemies (witness Waco and Ruby Ridge)we wisely eschew any attacks which might cause innocent deaths. That only makes the potential process more targeted and personal.

The New York Times editorial board is willing to fight to the last ATF agent to enforce the theft of our traditional, God-given and natural rights to liberty and property -- a process they must fully realize will be resisted and will place our own families at risk of government execution by raid party. Thus, they are also more than willing to fight to the last firearm owner.

But, are they willing to fight to the first editorial writer?

The second anti-gun politician?

The third columnist?

The fourth collectivist intellectual?

If they get their wish, we will most likely find out.

Be careful what you wish for, New York Times, Bill Clinton's rules of engagement may give it to you.

You want "feckless"?

Look in the mirror, before it is too late.