All posts by Claire Wolfe

authoritarian swine, gun control, Politics, Sellouts and traitors

Banish it, vanish it, boot it!

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The BATFE, that is.

This weekend, the crack reporting team of Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea (the bloggers who broke the Fast & Furious scandal) revealed another scandal-to-be. Or perhaps we should say “scandal that should be” since chances are this one will get swept under the rug, its significance ignored.

They’re reporting that the NRA made a deal to save the ATF’s bacon. Mike writes:

Sipsey Street Irregulars can now confirm the broad outlines of a story first disclosed two days ago by National Gun Rights Examiner columnist David Codrea. Last week, a secret deal involving the National Rifle Association lobbying arm and brokered by politicians of both national political parties was struck in Washington DC that would save the ATF from the political and legal consequences of its own regulatory errors. In the process, this deal would broaden the language of the 1968 Gun Control Act regarding “sporting purposes” and allow ATF to extract itself from the potentially catastrophic political damage of enforcing its arbitrary ruling that makes every owner of a pistol grip 12 Gauge shotgun like the Mossberg Cruiser a felon in possession of a “destructive device” subject to the penalties of the National Firearms Act of 1934 — currently up to 10 years in federal prison and a quarter million dollar fine. …

As explained by sources here and in the nation’s capitol, the outlines of what one called “this cynical deal with the Devil” are as follows:

1. The ATF will be let off the hook by broadening the “sporting purposes” language and legislatively negating their own determination that millions of heretofore legal pistol-grip shotguns produced over the past decades by companies like Mossberg are “destructive devices.”

2. The NRA will get to claim credit for, as one source said, “riding in out of the storm on a white horse and claiming to have saved millions of firearm owners from federal prison, even though,” he added, “everybody in the room with an IQ above room temperature understands that politically and legally there is no (expletive deleted) way that ATF can enforce this ruling on anybody. They can’t and they won’t . . so” he concluded, “the NRA will claim to have saved their members from a boogeyman that never really existed.”

3. In return for allowing NRA to claim the credit, the Democrats demanded another ammunition import ban on “specialty ammunition,” to include tracers. Some sources agreed that this last “gimme” was a “throwaway,” in the words of one. “Look, their M.O. is to always demand more than they know they can get in to get the thing they really value. They’d like to get it but what they really covet is knocking a bigger hole in the Constitution by (widening the ‘sporting purposes’ language) . . . this deal will give them one big enough to drive Diane Feinstein’s limousine through.”

More at the link. It will be interesting to learn the details, including which politicians were involved in the deal. But in short, the ATF has (once again) inflicted damage on itself through its own incompetence and arbitrary rulemaking — and the National Rifle Association has stepped in to save that most despised anti-gun arm of the fedgov from itself. The deal has a price, which gun owners will pay in the long run.

Now of course news of yet another NRA sellout would hardly be news to anybody who’s been watching. (UPDATE: So far, after days of refusing to comment, the NRA’s Chris Cox denies everything, which may mean that the backroom deal has fallen apart.) That’s not my point.

I’m just here to observe that any organization that truly represented gun owners would never do anything to make the ATF look better or have a greater chance of survival. The ATF is the enemy of gun owners, always has been, and always will be. Making it “better” does us no favors.

Also, this reported backroom “fix” revolves around the obscene “sporting purposes” rule that that the ATF has used as one of its major tools against gun owners for decades and will continue to use as long as it can get away with it. And you remember where the “sporting purposes” rule came from, right?

Yeah. It came from Nazi law. It came via the Gun Control Act of 1968. Prior to 1968, no such thing as a “sporting purposes” test had appeared in U.S. federal law. “Sporting purposes” was imported along with much of the rest of the GCA by Sen. Thomas Dodd (D-CT) via a 1938 Nazi gun law that he brought with him after his experience as a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. Aaron Zelman and Richard Stevens proved this conclusively when they laid out the text of the two laws side-by-side in Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny.

The original (now late, lamented) Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership revealed the Nazi origins of GCA ’68 to the world. The texts are there for anyone to see. Why do so many “pro-gun” mainstreamers choose not to see them?

Any organization that claims to be pro-gun should want GCA ’68 gone. Not “improved.” Not “interpreted in a more favorable way.” Certainly not “broadened.” Any organization that claims to be pro-gun should also want the ATF thrown into the dustbin of history. Not rescued from itself. Not made more efficient or more popular.

The old JPFO, Aaron Zelman’s JPFO, was vocal in wanting both these obscenities banished, vanished, booted, and gone forever. Our brand new Zelman Partisans continues the tradition. We advocate and agitate for the principles on which Aaron based his mission. We’re a small voice — now. But we speak for the principles of individual rights. And we always will.

Banish, vanish, boot the ATF! In the meantime, go ahead and let it shoot itself in the foot with its long history of idiotic, unfair, catastrophic regulations. Let the entire bogus “sporting purposes” rule go … well, where it belongs. Don’t merely make obscene rulings on an obscene rule a little more favorable to us peasants in exchange for dirty political favors. Freedom isn’t a sport. Nor is it something to be compromised away in backroom political deals.

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authoritarian swine, hatred of Jews

Ilana Mercer on freedom of association

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I’m posting this for our TZP colleague, Ilana. Over at WND.com, she writes about freedom of association in her own unique way:

The individual living in America as it was meant to be is free to run his business as he wishes, associate with those he likes, dissociate from those he dislikes or disapproves; hire, fire, rent to or evict from, invest and disinvest, speak and misspeak at will.

This hypothetical free man is at liberty to bruise as many feelings as he likes, so long as his mitts stop at the next man’s face. So long as he harms nobody’s person or property, our mythic man may live as he wishes to live.

Americans have been propagandized for so long; they no longer grasp the basic building blocks of liberty. A crude reductio ad absurdum should help:

A retail store selling Nazi memorabilia opens its doors in my neighborhood. I enter in search of the yellow Star of David Jews were forced to wear during the Third Reich. The proprietor, decked out in Nazi insignia and regalia, says, “I’m sorry, we don’t serve Jews.” “Don’t be like that,” I say. “Where else can I find a pair of clip-on swastika earrings?” The Nazi sympathizer is polite but persistent: “Ma’am, I mean no disrespect, but back in the Old Country, Jews murdered my great grandfather’s cousin and used his blood in the leavening of the Passover matzah.” “Yeah,” I reply. “I’m familiar with that blood libel. I assure you my own mother’s matzo balls were free of the blood of brats, gentile or Jewish. No matter. I can see where you’re coming from. I’m sorry for your loss. Good luck.”

There! Did that hurt?

Read more here. Something to think about.

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authoritarian swine, gun grabbers, hatred of Jews, hoplophobia

Your bigotry sucks. Mine, on the other hand …

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Quite a few TZP posts since the first of the year have looked at bigotry against Jews. It’s dangerous. It’s growing. And unfortunately it’s no surprise.

But there’s one good thing about hatred of Jews: decent, educated human beings in the Western world know how wrong and deadly it is.

There are other kinds of bigotry, on the other hand, that are becoming acceptable. Worse, they’re becoming especially acceptable to the very people who ought to know better: young, well-educated Americans.

Take, for example, Ms Andrea Grimes. Earlier this month this lefty ‘zine editor and prolific social media user advocated taking firearms away from all white men.

Her long-term goal is to take away everybody’s guns (I invite you, Ms Grimes, to come to my house and try it). But for now, just white males.

She envisions all the white guys weeping as they line up to turn in their weapons. (Apparently a desire to make men cry is somewhat of a meme among feminists. And apparently Ms Grimes has no freakin’ clue as to who’d end up crying — and bleeding — in the future she envisions.)

Unfortunately, she’s not just part of some uninfluential fringe. Everywhere on the left, bigotry against some group or another is being not only excused but justified. The respected “progressive” journal, The Daily Kos is one of many that has twisted reality to “prove” that only whites can be racist. A prominent Georgetown University professor teaches the same bilge

In this thinking (if I may call it thinking at all), if a black or Hispanic or Asian person hates whites, it’s somehow okay. Or at least not as bad. (Never mind that every form of racial hatred can be deadly.) The idea is that only powerful people can be racist, and somehow all whites (even blue-collar bottom-of-the-heapers) are powerful, while all chosen minorities (even professors, lawyers, lobbyists, and journalists) are powerless. Basically, the whole notion boils down to “if any designated minority has hateful thoughts, white people, especially white males, caused it.”

Of course, this very broad brush of bigotry against white people or white males also encompasses most Jewish people and most Jewish males. But the real problem isn’t which group it’s “okay” to hate and who is included in the target group.

The problem is the mainstreaming of bigotry — and more scarily, the mainstreaming of bigotry in influential media and in the academic world.

People are so willfully short-sighted! When they want to smear a particular group — whether it be blacks or males or Jews or women or redheads or whatever — they choose not to see that the very act of hating people just because they belong to some group by birth or culture is wrong. It’s wrong no matter what group you choose to revile.

Justifying your own bigotry on the grounds that someone else was bigoted first just perpetuates the vicious cycle. And educated people should know this.

Once you’ve said “group hatred is okay” you’ve declared on principle that bigotry is acceptable. That discrimination is okay.* That depriving entire classes of people of their rights is just fine. You have, in short, opened the gates of hell — and you’d better not be surprised at what comes pouring through.

—–

* This was really a terrible word choice on my part and has led some readers to believe that I’m against freedom of association. For the record, it’s obvious to me that in a free society individuals and individual businesses have every right to discriminate in any way they wish and others have a right to respond. I’m upset that this one ill-written, ill-thought sentence appears to have demolished the real points I was attempting to make in this post.

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Inspiration, New merchandise, The Zelman Partisans, Uncategorized

What do you want to see?
And some notes on our name and our mission

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On the surface, it’s been a little quiet at The Zelman Partisans this week. Behind the scenes — not so! The gnomes of TZP (led by the amazing Jo Ann Alpert of the Missouri Bullet Company, one of our founders) have been busy prepping for our next advance.

‘Til now, we’ve been just a blog. Our next steps turn us into a “real” organization. To some, the updates we’re soon to unveil may seem minor. But trust me, as a step toward our long-term plan of carrying out the legacy of Aaron Zelman, they are huge.

Among other things, we’re developing TZP merchandise to help fund future projects and operations. We’ll start small, but with your help, we’ll build.

With that in mind, I’m asking: What types of merchandise would you like to see (and more important, what would you purchase)? Targets? Posters? Bumper stickers? Reader-friendly booklets? Wearables? Knives? Toss your ideas into comments. How much we’ll be able to do, and how soon, will depend on a lot of factors. But YOU can help point our thinking in the right direction. So have at it!

We’re already working on one cool item suggested by a reader. Then this week we received the delightful suggestion of TZP-logo kippot (yarmulkes) — an idea that would have brought a smile to Aaron’s face. Can you imagine the conversations those might start in Jewish communities?

Heck, personally I’m neither Jewish nor male (and who else has use for a kippah?), but if those became available, I’d buy one. Just because. 🙂

—–

Oh. And as I was writing this The Amazing Jo Ann already intro’d a couple of our new features. Take a look over there on the right, below the banners for our friends and supporters, Dragon Leatherworks and the Missouri Bullet Company. Check out our Queensboro store, which specializes in high-quality wearables with our nicely embroidered logo. Then visit our CafePress store, where you can get logo-printed items for yourself and even your best friend. (A store of our own is yet to come.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post …

—–

The same person who suggested TZP kippot — a business owner and long-time JPFO supporter — also expressed mild concern about us. Or specifically, our identity. He wrote:

It’s really a loss that JPFO went the way it did — the name told you everything you needed to know about the organization. Unfortunately, as important as it is to honor Aaron Zelman’s work and memory, “Zelman Partisans” requires explanation when talking to people who don’t know about JPFO’s (former) mission. I’m not sure what you can do, or what you’d even want to do, about the branding…

I agree that the Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership was a wonderfully descriptive name. It was also so clunky that hardly anybody ever used it. One time when the freedomista columnist Vin Suprynowicz did use it, he was accused (seriously!) of being an anti-Semite for “making up” such a “ridiculous” group.

‘Cause everybody knows that all Jews loathe guns. Ptooey! And that is precisely the perception Aaron wanted to change — and so do we. He wanted to change that perception among Jews and Gentiles alike — and so do we.

The name “Zelman Partisans” does need explanation. But that gives us all the opportunity to open conversations. (“What? Why are there rifles crossed on that Star of David?”) Opening conversations can open eyes.

Besides, aside from honoring Aaron, I hope the name draws us together. Jews and friends of Jews, if we all understand that firearms are genocide-prevention tools and we’re willing to stand to protect gun rights as lifesaving civil rights, then we truly are partisans in the fighting sense of the word.

We are together in this. Outnumbered but undaunted. Outsiders united.

Powerful forces oppose us. Our resources are miniscule compared with those of our enemies. As partisans we come from diverse backgrounds and are driven together by need. We find each other in hardship. We join together in times that are increasingly perilous for Jews — and for freedom. We may not enjoy comfort and ease. But, always, the bold outlaw spirit of the partisan prevails.

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defense of others, duty, hatred of Jews, Israel, Jewish history, self defense

Is it time for the Jews to leave Europe? But even if it is — what then?

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This topic is more Y.B.’s beat than mine. Perhaps he’ll have more to say. But this Atlantic article on the current predicament of Jews in Europe disturbed me as much as anything I’ve read about the fatal squeeze being put on Europe’s Jewish remnant.

Muslims (who outnumber Jews in Europe now by an order of magnitude) may provide the “muscle” these days when it comes to harming Jews. But the traditional prejudice of Christian and secular Europeans makes it easy for long-time Europeans to turn a blind eye, mutter in secret agreement, or otherwise support the barbarity.

The bottom line lesson is one we all know: Self defense can’t be delegated. Europe’s Jews will ultimately have to protect themselves. But how? Without an honored right to bear arms, they’re caught between being bankrupted by hiring security or fleeing to Israel — a nation that will welcome them right into the most dangerous region of the world.

Europe’s governments may promise to protect them and may even make token efforts in that direction. But seriously? You think “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you” is going to work magic for the safety of Europe’s Jews?

An excerpt from the article:

France’s 475,000 Jews represent less than 1 percent of the country’s population. Yet last year, according to the French Interior Ministry, 51 percent of all racist attacks targeted Jews. The statistics in other countries, including Great Britain, are similarly dismal. In 2014, Jews in Europe were murdered, raped, beaten, stalked, chased, harassed, spat on, and insulted for being Jewish. Sale Juif—“dirty Jew”—rang in the streets, as did “Death to the Jews,” and “Jews to the gas.”

The epithet dirty Jew, Zola wrote in “J’Accuse …!,” was the “scourge of our time.” “J’Accuse …!” was published in 1898.

The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe is not — or should not be — a surprise. One of the least surprising phenomena in the history of civilization, in fact, is the persistence of anti-Semitism in Europe, which has been the wellspring of Judeophobia for 1,000 years. The Church itself functioned as the centrifuge of anti-Semitism from the time it rebelled against its mother religion until the middle of the 20th century. As Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Great Britain, has observed, Europe has added to the global lexicon of bigotry such terms as Inquisition, blood libel, auto‑da‑fé, ghetto, pogrom, and Holocaust. Europe has blamed the Jews for an encyclopedia of sins. The Church blamed the Jews for killing Jesus; Voltaire blamed the Jews for inventing Christianity. In the febrile minds of anti-Semites, Jews were usurers and well-poisoners and spreaders of disease. Jews were the creators of both communism and capitalism; they were clannish but also cosmopolitan; cowardly and warmongering; self-righteous moralists and defilers of culture. Ideologues and demagogues of many permutations have understood the Jews to be a singularly malevolent force standing between the world and its perfection.

Shades of Adolf Hitler. New century, different uniforms. Same deadly peril.

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Uncategorized

Mr. Gottlieb: The invitation still stands

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On January 21, I hurt Alan Gottlieb’s feelings.

I never imagined I had the ability to do that, but he came here to say so and to tell me that if I really wanted to know what he was thinking I merely had to ask. I respect that he cared enough to come to a site that is (it’s hardly a secret) unfriendly territory for him.

So I asked. I responded by offering Mr. Gottlieb a guest post at TZP. And commentor Oregon Hobo swiftly came up with a cogent list of questions for him to answer, regarding his support for Manchin-Toomey and related matters. Realizing Mr. Gottlieb was unlikely to come back to read comments, I emailed him both the guest-post invitation and the link to Hobo’s questions.

I told him that while we hoped he’d answer Hobo’s questions, we’d run whatever he chose to submit, without editing.

On January 23, Gottlieb responded:

Thanks. I am at the SHOT Show in Vegas and will try to get you something in the next week or two. There is much on my plate right now.

I appreciate the invite.

The SHOT Show is definitely enough to occupy and wear out any gunperson. I waited just under a month. Having still heard nothing, I once again emailed the invitation. On February 17, Gottlieb wrote:

Thanks for the reminder. Life is real busy right now with Congress and legislatures back in session along with 30 plus active court cases that we have going on at the same time. In addition, I am getting booked on 3 or more TV and radio shows a day. I will try to get to it as soon as I can.

Again, understood. But since several people have asked, I’m here to say that is where matters remain.

After the recent unpleasantness between Gottlieb and (now former) JPFO contractor David Codrea, I admit there was some talk among the TZP team of rescinding the guest-post invitation. I also admit I was at least momentarily on the wrong side of that talk. But better heads prevailed and I’m glad they did.

So here’s an open message to Alan Gottlieb:

Mr. Gottlieb:

I won’t bother you again because I know you’re busy. And I understand that you might be reluctant to subject yourself to questioning by what is clearly a skeptical audience.

However, I want you to know that our invitation to write a guest post is still open. Specifically we hope you’ll answer Hobo’s questions, then stick around for follow-up questions. But I reiterate that I will post whatever you send, without editing and without any form of censorship. And if you don’t choose to answer comments, that’s up to you.

Your supporters have come to TZP several times, accusing us (and me, specifically) of fragmenting the gun-rights movement by being too radical or being hostile to you. You yourself, in your comment here, said I was harming the gun-rights movement. But like Oregon Hobo and a lot of others, I would rather see us, if not united, at least agreed in our opposition to victim disarmament. (We can disagree on tactics and strategy all day; I hope we can agree on the principles of freedom and gun rights.)

Whatever I or any other skeptic may think, there are readers here who would love to believe better of you than they have since Manchin-Toomey. This is a chance for you to build bridges by clearing up misunderstandings and explaining how your actions on Manchin-Toomey and last November’s Washington state initiatives further the cause of Second Amendment rights.

By accepting our offer of a guest post and by giving clear, open answers to the questions that so worry so many of us, you’ll be demonstrating your leadership and you could lay the foundations of those bridges.

If you just plain don’t want to set foot at TZP again, I’m sure everybody would understand. In that case, all you have to do is email me or leave a comment on this post to say so. But on our end, the invitation remains open.

Thank you.

Claire Wolfe

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Uncategorized

The Modern Sons of Doeg

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Mike Vanderboegh was scheduled to give this speech at a Washington state rally in support of wrongly “detained” activist Anthony Bosworth. Weather and (participants suspect) other more unaccountable factors prevented Mike from reaching Washington to deliver it.

It’s very much in the spirit of The Zelman Partisans. So go. Read it. Here’s a sample. The story begins with Doeg, chief herdsman, willing agent, and liar-in-chief to the paranoid King Saul. Everything that follows is from Mike.

Excerpts from The Sons of Doeg by Mike Vanderboegh

….So Saul, already more than half crazy from fear and jealously, acted on Doeg’s lie and summoned the High Priest and his entire company and, in a rage, ordered them all killed. As the King James version states:

And the king said unto the footmen that stood about him, Turn, and slay the priests of the LORD; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew when he fled, and did not shew it to me. But the servants of the king would not put forth their hand to fall upon the priests of the LORD. And the king said to Doeg, Turn thou, and fall upon the priests. And Doeg the Edomite turned, and he fell upon the priests, and slew on that day fourscore and five persons that did wear a linen ephod.

Get that? Doeg, knowing it based on his own lie, killed 85 of the high priests of Israel BY HIMSELF. Now, the first thing you can conclude from that is that the priests should have been open-carrying. This verse is one of the most powerful indictment of arms control ever written. But that was not enough for Saul.

Note too that the King’s other retainers refused to obey the massacre orders. Only Doeg was willing to carry it out and carry it out he did with a vengeance. And this was millennia before the Nuremberg defense — “I was only acting on orders.”

—–

Surely Doeg must have had some help from sycophantic like-minded butchers for such an undertaking, although the Bible is silent on the subject. But when my brother mentioned the story of Doeg the willing executioner I could not help but think of all the other sons and grandsons of Doeg throughout history down through the ages to the Holocaust and, 22 years ago, to the massacre of the Davidians, their old men, women and children, by bullets and fire, first at the hands of the ATF and finally from the even bloodier hands of the FBI.

There are murderous spiritual sons of Doeg in every generation. Men — and women — who will play the part of the secret policeman, the assassin of the king, the willing toady of power — not because it is right but simply because it IS the power. Such sons of Doeg attacked Anthony Bosworth. Such sons of Doeg confront us here today — not merely in the open, but play the part of the clandestine spy, the lying snitch, the evil agent provocateur — and they know who they are, these evil men.

Many remember the self-destructive story of King Saul. Few remember the tale of Doeg, yet it is the sons of Doeg that we confront most often, most directly, those of us who wish to preserve our liberty, our property and our lives.

Read more at Sipsey Street Irregulars.

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authoritarian swine, Sellouts and traitors

“Disappearing” David Codrea

22 Comments

“Here today, gone tomorrow.”

ScreenHunter_03 Mar. 04 09.40

ScreenHunter_01 Mar. 06 08.43

As David says, KABA is Gottlieb’s site. He can do what he wants with it. But it’s also supposed to be a gun news site — which Gottlieb pledged not to nerf when he bought it.

The banned “Regrettable Announcement” was, of course, David’s post about leaving JPFO over … KABA’s banning of stories.

We now know that news is not news in the KABA world if it mentions Mike Vanderboegh. In the future will news not be news to KABA if it’s about or written by David Codrea? Only time will tell. But “disappearing” two of the most prominent figures in the gun-rights movement is … well, you know.

And war is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
We have always been at war with Eastasia
And Big Brother loves us.

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duty, Inspiration, Media

David Codrea has left JPFO

1 Comment

David Codrea has left JPFO. He did so for the sake of his principles & I salute him.

David was one of three (along with fellow writer Kurt Hofmann and webmaster Chris) who stayed on when JPFO’s board sold it to Alan Gottlieb and the rest of us left to form TZP. The three all had good reasons for staying and they all continued to have our deep respect. But frankly a lot of us have been watching David ever since, guessing that he would be the first canary to drop in the coal mine.

More on this later. For now … just SALUTE! to David for his principles, his guts, and the solidity of his commitment to gun rights.

(H/T CB — who has his own take on it here.)

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authoritarian swine, duty, resistance

If this be cowardice, be glad we’re cowards

11 Comments

First, The Talk.

Last week one of TZP’s blog posts drew this response via Twitter: We ARE a nation of cowards. Proof: Holder is still breathing.”

The comment came from a long-time, much-respected freedomista. What follows is not in any way a knock on him. Anybody who’s been around the freedom movement, watching for decades as high-level rights-robbing criminals go unpunished, knows the frustration that drives statements like that.

But I’ve been dispatched by the rest of the TZP crew to say a few words about future comments that may go over the line, over the top, or around the bend.

We let that particular tweet remain in our feed because it stayed on this side of the dangerous line: no threats were made or implied. But the line is there. Any comment on our blog or our social media feeds that crosses that line — that advocates aggressive violence or threatens anybody — may be deleted posthaste or mocked mercilessly and Made An Example Of. The person making it may be blocked, banned, restricted, barred, disbarred, forbidden, kicked out, ejected, evicted, removed from under their troll bridge, defenestrated, given the boot, or given a pair of boots and be told the hit the road. We also generally follow the comment policy outlined by TZPer Nicki Kenyon on her personal blog.

Now, this position will inevitably lead some readers (see “around the bend,” above) to scream “Censorship!” and “You’re violating my First Amendment rights!” Some may call us collaborators and sellouts for refusing to give our online space to the cause of fomenting their revolution or assassinating their least-favorite politician. So be it. To those folks we say: Get your own webspace. It’s cheap (if not free) these days. Then you can have the joy of dealing with the FBI, ATF, DHS, or IRS when your posts come to their attention. We’d prefer to avoid such bad company, thank you.

While you’re explaining yourself in an interrogation cell, we’ll go right on following Aaron Zelman’s original mission of educating, inspiring, and providing a safe place for a lawful conspiracy to restore freedom and gun rights.

You have been warned. Not that most of you need it. But there it is, on behalf of the entire might of TZP officialdom.

Second, The Action. Even when the best action may look like inaction.

Now to the more interesting part.

I suspect there’s not one of us who, in some dark moment, hasn’t wished death (or at least a severe case of genital fungus) upon some haughty villain whose badge or title or office or rank (not to mention the presence of heavily armed bodyguards, iron gates, security systems and suchlike) makes him (or her) untouchable by We the Peasants.

We watch as bureaucrats, elected officials, or puffed-up billionaire cronies rampage over our freedoms. We stand here shouting and waving our arms as our country oozes downhill — and we feel as if we’re doing nothing. Or at least nothing useful.

I grok the feeling.

We fantasize about uprisings. We read novels or watch movies about rebellion. We gaze backward to the days before the American Revolution, looking for similarities, for trigger events, for courage. We cheer for some other mouse to “bell the cat.” Then (oddly enough) when the occasional would-be leader actually does step forward to propose gathering an army to march on Washington, DC, we suddenly find we have something better to do.

But that’s not cowardice on our part. It’s good sense. Because the wanna-be generals are usually either damnfools or agents provocateurs.

The fact is: violence (even in the name of freedom) isn’t the sure sign of courage or principles, and non-violence in the face of oppression isn’t the sure sign of cowardice.

Violence is often just the sign of dangerous idiocy or desperation born of a failure to think creatively. Non-violence (not inaction, mind you, but non-violence) may be not only a sign of wisdom and prudence; it may in the long run be the surest course toward restoring freedom.

Sixteenth-century proto-freedomista Étienne de La Boétie put it well in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548): “I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”

The poet Shelley had a thoughtful take on tyrants, too. He and La Boétie could have had a great conversation over a bottle of wine.

TZP’s own Oleg Volk made an apt comment on the understandable desire to see any specific official “terminated with extreme prejudice”: “While assassinations are cathartic, they are generally counter-productive in a democratic society because the evil is usually a feature of the position held as much as a feature of the specific personality. If Holder dies, his handlers will appoint another of similar moral qualities.”

And ain’t that the truth? Not only will some similar lump of excremental corruption replace anyone who’s assassinated; but we’ll get entire new agencies, directorates, bureaucracies, departments, and dictatorship, all dedicated to combatting the threat to fedgovian power. Government is worse than a Lernaean Hydra when it’s directly attacked.

There may come a time when defensive violence in the cause of American liberty is necessary once again. But that time is not now — and if we commit ourselves to promoting and preparing for freedom in the present, that time may never come. We should hope for that. We should hope — and we have reason to hope — that big, overreaching government will bloat and die from within. We should hope — and we have reason to hope — that dedicated freedomistas, including gun owners, will hasten that death by refusing to yield, refusing to obey, refusing to grant any respect to those who sieze our rights.

Revolutions and assassinations look good in the movies, but in real life they mostly bring crackdowns and other catastrophes. Frustration makes them seem appealing, but the reality is otherwise. If you want a revolution or you want to see some politician dead, you’re entitled to your point of view. But if that’s what you want, you’d better not let your frustration do your thinking and planning for you. And if that’s what you want, don’t bring it here.

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