Remarkable thing. A politician speaks the truth. Not an American pol, unfortunately. This one’s from Poland. And the media reporting the story call him both a “gun lobbyist” (i.e. eeeeeevil villain) and “far-right” (journalist’s code word for “not to be taken seriously”).
In Europe, far-right is usually also a code word for xenophobic and probably Jew-hating. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke, who is running for president of Poland but from a tiny minority party, told a TV interviewer that if every Jew had had a gun before World War II the Holocaust would never have happened. (H/T CB for the heads-up)
Well, we know that already, don’t we? But it’s apparently so startling to the Times of Israel that they have to go out of their way to try to prejudice readers against him and his positions twice in one tiny article.
Korwin-Mikke, despite his minority political status, is a fascinating and influential man. And not “far-right” in any sense. He came from the liberationist underground left, worked with Lech Wałęsa and his famous Solidarność movent (which helped bring down communism), and published translations of the work of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayak.
He courts controversy, uses blunt, colorful language, sometimes says the most un-PC things, and at one time wrote the most popular blog in Poland.
The poor, confused Wikipedia article linked above calls him both a “conservative liberal” and a “libertarian conservative.” He has also been accused of being both an anti-Semite and a “hidden Jew” and a Zionist. (I don’t know his religious history, but he was born in Nazi-occupied Warsaw and his mother died in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.)
An intriguing man, definitely.
He spoke those words, “If every Jew had a gun before the war, there would be no Holocaust,” on the eve of Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of Hitler’s genocide. He added that “every young guy has to have a gun.”
And that’s where my headline statement comes in. That’s only a partial truth there, Janusz. Sure every young guy — who has enough responsibility and integrity to use one well — should own a gun and be prepared to use it at need. So should every older, wiser, guy. But don’t forget that when it comes to self-defense and defense of family, home, community, and faith, some of the most determined fighters are most definitely non-guys.
Of the 30,000 Jews who escaped the ghettos and camps and joined the guerrilla battle against the Nazis, a good share were women. And though many cooked, tended wounds, and acted as couriers and spies (something that took great courage), quite a few took up arms. One was even the commander of the partisan group in the woods outside Luckow, Poland.
In modern-day America, it’s wonderful to see that both young guys and young women are increasingly interested in firearms and learning to use them. Many of these young people are (so far) only into the sporting aspects of guns — target shooting, competition, and hunting. But should the day ever come for armed defense against enemies of freedom, foreign or domestic, that’ll be millions more who know what to do and have the tools to do it.
So celebrate the brave men who’ve been freedom’s staunchest defenders over the years, but cheers to the women who’ve joined them — and who will join them in times of future need.
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If you want to know more:
Women in the Italian Resistance
What Can We Learn from Women Partisans? (Click on the links to individual stories.)
I did some research on women who were WWII partisans for a story I wrote.
Wow. They were not the kind of people you want to mess with.
That “If the Jews had firearms there would not have been a Holocaust” remains a fallacy. Back in 1933 Jews had not only access to but possessed shovels, fireplace pokers, axes and the like. As flashbang grenades had not yet been invented and the nazis were still loathe to shoot through doors and the walls next to doorways, it would have been easy-peasy to kill the nazis as they came through the doorway, then take their firearms and go kill more of them. Yet there is almost no history of that being done.
Access to and possession of firearms without the resolve to use them, as opposed to waiting for some government agent to come rescue you, or expecting that rational discourse can revise discriminatory laws is still attributing some magical power to the implement as opposed to recognizing the attribute(s) of the few individuals who will in fact take up arms and fight back.
We saw that in the early years of Israel, but now it is very rare. Back in 1941 Admiral Yamomoto was alleged to have stated the reason Japoan should not try to invade the USA was because “there would be a gun behind every blade of grass”. There are still enough guns but increasingly they are in the hands of fewer and fewer people and fewer of them seem inclined to draw any line in any sand until after they are on the bus to the FEMA centers.
Probably 90%+ of those who say they will resist are in fact keyboard commandos. But historically it only takes between 3% and 5% of the population to rise and take up arms in order to achieve strategic victory.
It is not the fowling piece over the hearth that makes a man’s home his castle, but the resolve of the man to use it. Without resolve (as opposed to rhetoric) “Never Again!” is merely another hashtag.
stay safe.
“That “If the Jews had firearms there would not have been a Holocaust” remains a fallacy. ”
“If all Jews had had firearms …” doesn’t imply that all Jews would have used them to resist the Nazis. As you note, it might take as few as 3% who are willing to stand up against a tyrant.
What if all Jews had had firearms and some small but formidable percentage of those gun owners were willing to use them to resist?
Claire –
That’s just the point I was making. The existence of firearms means nothing unless those that posses them are willing to use them. How hard is it to get to the 3% mark? History says it’s not all that difficult. Bump it up to 5%? Maybe a bit more difficult.
But all this is predicated on the notion that those who will act can overcome whatever level of conditioning they carry about “the State is right, the State is there to care for me” but more importantly they must overcome the reluctance to put their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the line. I’m probably paraphrasing, but “freedom’s only free when you have nothing left to lose”. Just ask those that manned the ramparts and the trenches two minutes after the U.N. so graciously “created” the State of Israel.
The one thing that keeps me optimistic is that some folks, seeing another resist the rogue state (or take responsibility for the safety of themself and their loved ones rather than rely on the state), find it possible to copy that behavior. That’s where I expect to see the additional 2% come from.
Again – my point was and is that mere possession of firearms, without the resolve to use them relegates those items to the status of paperweights and decorations and leave their possessors just as (if not more) vulnerable than those who do not see any means of resisting.
Maybe at some other juncture we can discuss those who refused/failed to act because they were sure “the State would never do that”.
In closing, I am ever grateful for one line you wrote: “If it’s time to bury them, it’s time to dig them up.”
stay safe.
In my AO at least I am seeing more and more Patriots coming together every day it seems (and this is behind enemy lines BTW). There’s at least 3% (hell people go get to know you’re local red necks & see how much BS they are willing to put up with) and when the time comes if needed IMHO they will stand, it may be a stand more related to what happens when you stir a hornet nest but it will be a stand, hopefully the hornets will calm down enough to get organized at some point but those doing the stirring are gonna get the hell stung out of em methinks!
On another note there’s a reason the last thing you want to mess with is a female Grizzly with young-ums, same thing goes for the two legged variety too!
BTW I really really like me new ZP shirt and coat, but I gave me new ZP hat (will have to get another) to an EDC Jewish friend who will wear it with pride!
Death before slavery!
“BTW I really really like me new ZP shirt and coat, but I gave me new ZP hat (will have to get another) to an EDC Jewish friend who will wear it with pride!”
Comrade X — consider yourself cyber-hugged. That’s wonderful! And dunno if you’ve seen yet, but we’ve now got even more good stuff. As far as headgear goes, we’ve also had a request for custom yarmulkes. I don’t know whether we’ll be able to do those or not, but I think that would be a wonderful item. Now that we’ve gotten this far, we’ll be talking about what comes next.
When we get the yarmulkes there will be a picture taken of at least one squad of armed partisans modeling them for posterity in my AO!
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied … today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air …. it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
Comrade X — Looking forward to seeing that picture gives us one more incentive to get those yarmulkes for the store! (A friend of TZP suggested that, but so far, it’s just been my hobby horse; I haven’t convinced anybody else.)