On Refreshing The Tree of Liberty

With respect to “If this be cowardice, be glad we’re cowards” by our own Claire Wolfe: Anything that denies that the oppressed have a right to mete justice to the oppressor is bound to crackle with unease, if not contradiction. Being a careful thinker, Claire escapes this predicament, of course, advocating for peaceful change. However, given the size and power of the American State; given that a vast number of people and interests have bought into state propaganda and are vested in it—meaningful change is unlikely and improbable. The idea of change through the ballot box, moreover, is a fantasy.

While it seems obvious that the minority in a democracy is openly thwarted, the question is, do the elected representatives at least carry out the will of the majority?

The answer is no. The People’s representatives have carte blanche to do exactly as they please. As Benjamin Barber has written:

It is hard to find in all the daily activities of bureaucratic administration, judicial legislation, executive leadership, and paltry policy-making anything that resembles citizen engagement in the creation of civic communities and in the forging of public ends. Politics has become what politicians do; what citizens do (when they do anything) is to vote for politicians.

In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy E. Barnett further homes in on why the informed voter has little incentive to exercise his “democratic right”:

If we vote for a candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for, but we have also consented to the laws she has voted against.
If we vote against the candidate and she wins, we have consented to the laws she votes for or against.
And if we do not vote at all, we have consented to the outcome of the process whatever it may be.

This “rigged contest” Barnett describes as, “‘Heads’ you consent, ‘tails’ you consent, ‘didn’t flip the coin,’ guess what? You consent as well.'”

Democracy is a despotic affair.

Should they occur, and however peaceful—secessionist movements across the country the federal government will greet with brute force. It’ll be 1861 all over again.

Thus the objection I see to the sentiment that prompted Claire’s post—“We ARE a nation of cowards. Proof: Holder is still breathing”—is more utilitarian than principled. In other words, one will not win against the Federales, but only come to grief. Therefore, one should tread with great trepidation. Is prudence tantamount to courage? No. Neither is it cowardice.

Fear is simply a facet of tyranny.

The “long-time, much-respected freedomista” who made the quip about Holder was probably using a bit of hyperbole. Thomas Jefferson, however, was perfectly serious when he said:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Islam Enmeshed In America Since Founding?

Written mostly at an eighth-grade level (as measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability test), Barack Obama’s ramblings are getting harder and harder to address seriously. The ISIS-is-un-Islamic absurdity overwhelmed all else in his latest address on “extremism”—so much so that another of Obama’s absurdities on that occasion has been neglected. Said the ass with ears: “Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding.”

That’s news to this writer. It’s true about the Jews of America, to whom George Washington promised peace and goodwill in a 1790 address to a synagogue congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. “The highest ranking Jewish officer of the Colonial forces was Colonel Mordecai Sheftall.” Why we Jews even had a Confederate colonel, Abraham Charles Myers.

In any event, “[a]fter President Barack Obama said this week that ‘Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,’ Glenn Beck asked historian David Barton to come on his radio program” and get to the bottom of this fiction:

“In all the reading I’ve done, thousands of books, there’s nothing there,” Barton said on Friday. “I mean, we know that Muslims were the folks who captured the slaves sent to America, largely out of Africa. … The Muslims did the slave hunting and the slave trading, et cetera. The first Muslims came to America as a result of the Muslims capturing them and sending them to the Dutch traders.”

Barton said that beyond their heavy involvement in the slave trade, America was at war with the Barbary pirates shortly after the founding of the country, but those were “the two biggest contributions.”

“This is the fabric,” Beck said with heavy sarcasm. “I mean, it’s practically the whole blanket.”

Barton added that there were a number of Muslims whose activities were recorded in the 1800?s, but it might be a stretch to say they are part of the “fabric of the country.” One such Muslim helped the American military raise camels, he said.

MORE.

RELATED:

“Obama Says That ‘Islam Has Been Woven Into The Fabric Of Our Country Since Its Founding.’ Yes, Its Called The Barbary Pirate Wars, The First War America Every Fought Against Jihad” By Walid Shoebat.

Timeline in American Jewish History

History of the Jews in the United States

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Oslo’s New Human Shields – Updated

Yesterday, in a show of compassion and not a small amount of savvy public relations, over one thousand Muslims reportedly formed what amounted to a human shield around a synagogue in Oslo,Norway.

Oslo Circle

Norway has the dubious distinction of having the highest level of Jew Hated in all of Scandinavia. Indeed “Jew” is a common curse among even non-Muslim Norwegians. Violence against Jews is quite common.

Norway Bris

The primary organizers of the event, described as a Peace Circle, went to great pains to declare that Islam is a “Religion of Peace” and to try to draw distinctions between those few “Jews” living in Norway for whom they feel kinship (Norway has only thirteen-hundred Jews.) and those other “Jews” who live in Israel, for whom said kinship is demonstrably less vigorous.

Bloggers “Aussie Dave” and “Carl in Jerusalem” have more on the event and organizers here and here.

Norway’s Chief Rabbi , and long-time left-wing political activist, Michael Melchior was “visibly moved” by the turnout.

Still, the Police were taking no chances. They were there in force, despite claiming that there was no particularized threat to which they were responding. They even had snipers positioned in vantage-points on buildings adjacent to the synagogue.

norwegian-police-snipers

Since Norwegian gun laws administrators almost never accept “self defense” as an acceptable reason for gun possession (despite statutes theoretically allowing it) these Jews and their new-found friends, are utterly reliant on those policemen to be everywhere, and all the time.

What a plan.

Update:  According to Breitbart, the “Thousand” Circle participants was only twenty.    What a SCAM.  (Thank you, Mr. Baker )

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

If this be cowardice, be glad we’re cowards

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.

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Morons Will be Morons

I’m beginning to think the residents of New York deserve every bit of stupid heaped on them by their drooling nimrod politicians. After all, they do keep electing these monkeys into office!

The latest bit of stupid comes from New York state senator Tony Avella, who has decided that New York needs to ban machetes.

No, I’m not kidding. Get a load at this tool.

tool

He’s perfectly serious. Apparently machete crimes are now a problem in the Empire State. And under the proposed legislation, one could get a year in the pokey for merely possessing this gardening tool.

Smaller knives such as switchblades and gravity knives are already banned and listed as deadly weapons under state law, but machetes are considered the same as butcher knives.

New Yorkers carrying those knives can be ticketed for a blade longer than 4 inches, an administrative code violation. They face up to 15 days in jail and a $300 fine.

“They’re DAAAAAAAAAAAAANGEEEEEEEEROOOOOUUUUUUSSS,” he simpers!

“The fact that anyone can easily purchase this potentially lethal tool is just crazy,” he said.

And anything dangerous is bad for you, and therefore must be banned.

For real.

So, let’s ban hammers, household chemicals, and of course automobiles!

Why stop at machetes? Ban teeth and fists while you’re at it. Those kill as well.

And maybe we should mandate that every citizen leave the house only when wrapped in a copious amount of styrofoam. And maybe bubble wrap.

Tyranny starts with stupid. I’m convinced of it.

So until New Yorkers get educated and start exhibiting some independent thought and intestinal fortitude when dealing with their own lives, perhaps they deserve these types of lunatics as legislators.

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Stubborn European Traditions

MM

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chabad Lubavitch shaliach, and head of the European Jewish Association, about which I have written both in praise and in criticism, has a new badge of honor.  Someone specifically wants him DEAD.

Israel’s Channel 10 reports that someone calling themselves Richard Wright wrote, “Menachem Margolin will be a dead man if he does not stop. We will stick a bullet in his head,” on Rabbi Margolin’s Facebook page.

The post was luridly Jew-Hating, replete with a selection of curses.

Clearly, someone does not want Jews in Europe armed, nor able to leave Europe.  Well… not alive, anyway.

Some traditions die hard, don’t they?

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Copenhagen

Yesterday evening, more “random” bloodshed came to Europe, this time in Copenhagen. Twice.

 
A meeting on “Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression.” at the Krudttoenden Cultural Center was shot to pieces by a masked, athletic, man trying to emulate the Charlie Hebdo affair.

 

Krudttoenden

 

One of the meeting’s participants, Lars Vilks, drew a political satire cartoon depicting the Islamic Prophet, Muhammad, as a dog… eight years ago. Death threats have followed him ever since. Vilks was quickly moved to safety by his bodyguards. However, another participant; filmmaker Finn Noergaard, was less fortunate. He was murdered by the gunman.

 
Later that night, a twelve-year-old girl was hosting a party with her community. She was celebrating her Bat Mitzvah; the marking of her accepting personal responsibility for observing the six-hundred and thirteen commandments specifically placed upon the Jewish people at the revelation on Mount Sinai.

 
This joyous event, and the young participants’ very existence, was so determined to be so offensive that they were likewise targeted for death. An attempted reprise of the Hyper Cacher terror murders was underway. A guard stood at the entrance to the synagogue. His name was Dan Uzan. He was shot in the head, and later died, defending the celebrants’ lives.

 

dan-uzan-copenhagen-hero

 

Before sunrise on Sunday, five policemen were shot and an unlucky bystander was also murdered. The entire city is on virtual lockdown, and the streets are filled with soldiers with machineguns.

 

 

Police, who had the likely gunman’s house under surveillance, subsequently killed him at a nearby train station. Two others were caught at an internet café and led away in handcuffs.

 
There are about 6,400 Jews in Denmark, and falling.

 
There are about 270,000 Muslims in Denmark, and climbing. Forty percent were admitted as asylum seekers, mostly from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, and Bosnia. 2,800 are native Danes who have converted to Islam in recent years.

 
The Danish Prime Minister and the head of their Intelligence department have broken ranks with many other European leaders’ sorry tradition of obfuscation and cowardice, plainly declaring the act as Islamic terrorism.

 
One other hopeful factor exists. As a commentator duly noted; “Denmark is not Sweden”. He points out that Denmark has nearly four-hundred-thousand skilled private marksmen in a broad selection of gun clubs. There are over one million firearms in their hands.

 
No wonder the Danish government seems to be taking this seriously. This mess will only end one way. And, it will be bloody.

 
Rabbi Menachem Margolin should have never backed down, no matter what the groveling Ghetto-Yidden say. He should double down, pressuring for streamlined firearms access, right now.

 

Jew with Gun

 

He should also quietly coordinate with his fellow Chabad shluchim, across Europe to help anyone interested in Aliyah with leaving, and soon.

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

NYT hyperventilates about concealed carry, skews statistics

I know you will be shocked, just SHOCKED, to find out that the New York Times editorial board is soiling itself over what it calls “Concealed Carry’s Body Count.” Apparently the editors at the Times decided to take on people who are legally permitted to carry firearms concealed.

In other words, they are quaking in their collective panties at the thought, and have decided to paint concealed carry permit holders as a group of murderous villains, using data from the Violence Policy Center, which they describe as a “gun safety group,” making me want to choke on my coffee.

There is no central tally of the effects, with states often barring release of concealed-carry data and Congress hewing to the gun lobby’s opposition to research on guns’ effects on public health. But a methodical gleaning of eight years of news accounts by the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group, found that in research involving 722 deaths in 544 concealed-carry shootings in 36 states and the District of Columbia, only 16 cases were eventually ruled lawful self-defense — even though this has been a major gun rights selling point for the new laws.

In my old life, when I worked as a reporter, inflammatory words such as “horrifying,” “slain,” and “alarming” were discouraged. I was taught we were there to report the news, not tell people what to think. I realize the above-linked is an editorial, and therefore does not have to conform to those standards (I would submit that given the Grey Hag’s tendency to skew its reporting, it doesn’t abide by those standards anyway), but the outright absurdity of painting concealed carriers with the broad brush of violence and murder prompts me to take a look at the larger picture.

Enter the Crime Prevention Research Center’s study on concealed carry in America. It seems there are a few facts the NYT editorial staff either did not know, or did not bother to research.

They did not mention until the very bottom of the article (more as an afterthought), for example, that there are at least 11.1 million concealed carry permit holders in the United States. I say “at least,” because according to the CPRC, that number is likely much higher, given the fact that several states, such as New York, don’t report the number of their concealed carry permit holders. And several states have no permit requirements for concealed carry at all.

But let’s go with that 11.1 million people, which represents roughly 4.8 percent of the population.

According to the VPC, there were *GASP* 544 shootings involving concealed carry permit holders, 16 of which were ruled lawful self defense. That would leave 528 shootings between 2007 and 2014 (I’m assuming they are including 2014, as the editorial merely states there were that many shootings since 2007) or 75.4 per year.

In comparison, between 2007 and 2012 (the latest year for which the CDC has data),  average of 548 people were stabbed to death per year, 425.6 were beaten to death, and 138.5 per year were strangled or suffocated.

Now let’s look at those 528 shootings. Let’s assume that these involve 528 separate concealed carry permit holders. Given that there are at the very least 11.1 million concealed carry holders currently residing in the United States, those 528 represent .048 percent of people with valid concealed carry permits. Not even a half a percent.

And this is what the NYT editorial staff chooses to hyperventilate about? These are the statistics they choose to report as some kind of horror involving those evil concealed carry holders?

Really?

So not only does the editorial staff cite a VPC report that apparently not only contains inaccuracies, such as double or triple counting cases that shouldn’t even be counted as crimes or problems with guns to begin with, but the numbers they use are so minuscule in comparison to the concealed carry population at large, that it hardly qualifies as “a problem.”

Additionally, if you look at the data, concealed carry permit holders, are a fairly law-abiding bunch.

Consider the two large states at the front of the current debate, Florida and Texas: Both states provide easy web access to detailed records of permit holders. During over two decades, from October 1, 1987 to May 31, 2014, Florida has issued permits to more than 2.64 million people, with the average person holding a permit for more than a decade. Few — 168 (about 0.006%) — have had their permits revoked for any type of firearms related violation, the most common being accidentally carrying a concealed handgun into a gun-free zone such as a school or an airport, not threats or acts of violence. It is an annual rate of 0.0002 percent.

The already low revocation rate has been declining over time. Over the last 77 months from January 2008 through May 2014, just 4 permits have been revoked for firearms-related violations. With an average of about 875,000 active permit holders per year during those years, the annual revocation rate for firearms related violations is 0.00007 percent – 7 one hundred thousandths of one percentage point.

For all revocations, the annual rate in Florida is 0.012 percent.

And the numbers are similarly low in Texas, according to the same report.

So what is it that the Grey Hag’s editorial staff is hyperventilating about?

Well… their attempts to foist the gun grabbers’ agenda onto us for the most part has been a miserable failure, even with them screeching hysterically and dancing in the blood of innocent children after the Newtown massacre.

Americans overwhelmingly kicked gun grabbers in the giblets during the last election. And while we have experienced a few notable losses, overall, the tide is turning.

Major polling data confirms the same thing: Americans oppose new gun control legislation. They treasure their right to keep and bear arms.  Less than half of Americans support additional infringements on our Second Amendment rights, according to Gallup. Rasmussen points to similar results. And Pew agrees, leaving the New York Times editorial staff mourning its cause.

So what do they have left? Their limited options are to drop this ridiculous crusade against our freedoms (good luck getting them to do that!) or find faulty reporting with a bunch of skewed statistics, and use it to attack a rather large group of law-abiding Americans.

Want to take a guess which they chose?

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

His “single failure”

Pardon the sarcasm of this post, but when one of the most corrupt, racist, statist, blundering Attorney Generals in recent history tells a media outlet that the “single failure” of his tenure at the Justice Department is failing to pass new gun control legislation, the snark gets off its leash, rips off its muzzle, and proceeds to do a tap dance on the fetid carcass of what used to pass for integrity in Washington DC.

Yes, you read that right.

Operation “Fast and Furious” that funneled thousands of guns illegally purchased in the United States to murderous Mexican drug cartels? Not a fail.

Refusal to prosecute a clear case of voter intimidation by members of the New Black Panther party on racial grounds? Not a fail.

Hiring lawyers who represented al Q’aida operatives? Not a fail.

Involvement in the IRS targeting scandal? Not a fail.

Lying about subpoenas for phone records targeting Associated Press reporters? Not a fail.

But the inability to enact yet more laws that violate the rights of peaceable Americans? Holder considers this the only failure of his tenure as Attorney General.

In the interview, Holder was asked if the United States was “a nation of cowards” when it comes to guns, a reference to a statement he made in 2009 that the U.S. was a nation of cowards when it came to discussing race relations.

“I don’t think we are a nation of cowards. But I think that members of Congress need to have a little more backbone and stand up to what is a distinct minority even within, for instance, the NRA, and do the kinds of reasonable things that the American people simply want to have happen,” he said.

Eric HolderThe pouting, petulant “Gun lobby is just too strong! WAAAAAAAH” whining would be amusing if it didn’t come from the nation’s top law enforcement officer!

And by the way, since when does the Justice Department “enact” any type of law?

The Justice Department, according to its own website, is responsible for enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States; ensuring public safety against foreign and domestic threats; providing Federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; punishing those guilty of unlawful behavior; and ensuring fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”

Nope. Not seeing enactment of the laws anywhere in that job description. Basic politics classes in high school taught me that Congress is the government entity that writes legislation. So we can only assume that Holder’s plaintive whimpering comes from the fact that he failed to pressure, trick, cajole, and bully Congress into violating Americans’ rights.

And he considers this is “single failure” while in office!

Don’t be modest, Mr. Holder! You’ve failed much, much more than just this one single time!

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail

Jews as a convenient example

When it comes to genocides, Jews aren’t unique. What made them special is the cultural history of self-expression. Many of the relatively recent genocides in places like Africa have gone by with only a slight interest from the rest of the world, as neither Burundi nor Ethiopia nor Nigeria have a literary tradition of notice. Jews, being spread all over the world and fluent in local languages, also had surviving relatives and friends able to expose the plight of their people. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, the shining example of the Israeli success despite the odds underlined the advantages to armed resistance to evil.

Unfortunately, the socialist origins of Israel meant that only collective resistance to evil has been fostered. Israeli government treats its own citizens as unworthy of trust unless controlled by the state military and police agencies. American Jews, heirs to a more individualist tradition, are better positioned to provide for their own defense. Some of the take advantage of this opportunity, while others prefer the comforting but disabling opium of left-wing promises of safety through surrender to the state.

Jews as a culture have been traditionally quite good at educating each other and at influencing those who sympathize them. With every new person convinced of the need for self-reliance — defensive as well as economic — the collectivist foes lose a minion and we gain an ally. The mainstream Jewish culture has the terrific advantage of being welcoming to outsiders: it’s tenets do not require strife against any kind of alien or infidel, and so make it competitive through cooperation. The offer of training extended to a person serves simultaneously as a compliment (“we consider you sane”), a show of trust (“we expect you to remain friendly”) and as a peace offering (“this training will put you on par with us, and wouldn’t have been offered had we planned to mistreat you.”) These effects apply across such divides as culture, gender, religion and even party affiliation.

All of these consideration apply to other distinct cultures. Defined in enough detail, every one of us can be considered a minority. Those who make political careers of building lynch mobs are quite good at dividing to rule. Our job is to out-argue them while being so well armed and trained as to make the prospect of a stand-up fight to burn us out unattractive. And, given the post-war hunt for Nazi criminals, Jews in particular have a proven track record of avenging injustices.

Given the varied interests of the stereotypical Jewish youngsters, technological solutions to physical threats are preferred. It takes less time and keep-up practice to stay proficient with a Tavor rifle than to maintain combat proficiency in unarmed martial arts. The Bielski guerrilla band of WW2 Belorus illustrated quite well the survival advantage conferred by firearms on even a slightly trained group of civilians. And the occasional range trip or a weekend rifle class doesn’t take all available time away from competing academic and cultural pursuits or family obligations.

The first President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, was a chemist with a major contribution to the British mass production of Cordite gunpowder during WW1. If the pursuit of such a martial goal was good enough for him, perhaps we can bestir ourselves to pursue a more modest task of providing for defense of self and family.

 

Facebooktwitterredditpinteresttumblrmail