I haven’t run across that poem in a few years. A worthy reminder!

Ymar said:
> And I ask, why do you think Leftists like Helen or other (even LIbertarian) gun control advocates use the argument that limiting other people’s right to life is worthy of laws that attempt to make guns less available in order to reduce gun related crime? Is eliminating gun related crimes such a worthy panacea that it should be traded for in the coinage of basic human rights? Of course not

The interesting thing I have noted is that the vast majority of gun violence is committed by those who will not just give up their guns as a social panacea.

There was a story in our news here in Dallas a few days ago. Two young brothers and sisters were near a store when young punks drove up and got into an argument with them. They shot the brother dead. She was in tears in the interview. But the story was about a program where people would turn in their guns for $50 of free groceries, and she thought it was a great idea because it meant that people like her brother would no longer die so tragically.

I have news for her. Those young punks are *not* giving up their guns for $50 of free groceries. A grandmother will give up the guns because her beloved (and gun-loving) husband has recently passed away. The father of a family will decide it is safer to do so. And so on. The young punks? Never. This program would not have saved her brother from the unfortunate encounter.

http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/08/rules-for-radicals-dick-armey-mexican.html

For other people, that kind of empathy and enemy analysis, getting inside their heads, can be accomplished with basic psychological warfare methods.

And even if you exclude all of the above as measures against groupthink, there is always spycraft. Get people to pretend to be for the opposition, as evidenced by various satirical attempts posted here.

Bookworm: I appreciate your blogging very much, especially your reports of encounters with more statist types. I always have the worry that a form of groupthink will envelope this group, too, like it has with, e.g., the doctor you encountered. Thanks again.

VD: How did you end up deciding to write a book about the science of global warming? You’re in New Zealand, after all, which few would consider to be at the forefront of the debate.

IW: New Zealand is a perfect example for Americans of where this global warming issue is headed. The UN lobbyists pushing for a comprehensive emissions cap and trade scheme desperately want agriculture included in the mix, which is why the IPCC announced last year that greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture outweighed all of the industrial CO2 emissions caused by humans. However, the lobby groups know that they’ll never get American farmers herded into that particular pen unless the rest of the world is lined up first, and unless America first surrenders its national sovereignty to an overarching international governance organization like the UN. That’s the blunt description. The more ‘nuanced’ and diplomatic description is that first there has to be an agreement under international law that all participants bind themselves to – which is Copenhagen 09 – and the fine print of which allows recognized international agencies such as the World Trade Organization or others to impose sanctions, tariffs or other enforcement provisions against non-compliers with the full weight of the UN behind them….

Much more here:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

http://www.artofeurope.com/eliot/eli2.htm

Here’s an example of the infiltrators I was worried about with SEIU. I suppose really sophisticated infiltration is better left to the journalist hacks, rather than the Union hacks, tho.

Fear is a major and vital component, in my opinion. The human mind, as opposed to an animal mind, is capable of imagination and thus, can feel the fear born of that imagination. A horse with its head covered in darkness can run right over a cliff and it will be in bliss, because it was ignorant. Until it hits the ground, that is.

Humans, however, fear darkness. We fear being blinded. We fear, not because we know what can get us, but because we imagine what can get us. And what we imagine is usually far worse than what we actually know about or have experienced. The human mind is designed to deal with problems, to inquire and to resolve. When given an actual experience, an actual memory or problem, we get cracking on it. We don’t give up. But give us darkness, give us something born of our imagination, and we become unmanned due to fear and uncertainty.

That’s how human nature is. And we can only hope that children who are afraid of the dark will learn to temper and discipline their feelings. But there’s more than one way to do this. You can ignore the fear, displace it or deny it, and act as if nothing has happened. This tends to happen with post traumatic shock patients. Or you can learn to deal with the problem and become empowered in the knowledge that however unknown or unfriendly the future may be, you have what it takes to deal with it on your own terms.

The gun, in American culture, symbolizes the later. Cradle to Grave welfare, healthcare, and economic care symbolizes the former.

It isn’t a surprise that people who accept and take firearms training no longer fear guns the way they did before. What they feared wasn’t an object. It was something born of imagination. It, essentially, did not exist. By having people look at reality and to learn how to deal with it, through training and education, you dispel their prejudices, their fears, and any rash reactions that may have resulted from that fear (villages in the past lynched strangers since it was easy to blame problems on them or ‘witches’).

I don’t want people to live in fear, forever controlled by such emotions. I want them to break free of the shackles of human flaws. I want them to control their own lives, by their own beliefs and goals.

I don’t think that is too much to ask, to demand of a truly civilized and good nation and government. But for Obama and his Legions, it is inconceivable.

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

It wasn’t about any liberty for any security. It was about essential liberties, defined as essential, in return for little And temporary safety.

If restricting guns from the arsenal of citizens would decrease all crime and do so permanently and for everyone, that would be a permanent security worth the limitation on liberty, on choice.

But… well, that’s not the case, of course. And it also isn’t the case because people won’t argue the case. And they won’t argue the case because they don’t care about ‘essential’ or ‘non-essential’ liberties. They want it all. They want what they want, and they want it now.

Libertarians believe that any sacrifice of liberty is invalid. But permanent security requires the restriction of liberty. That’s what “Need to Know” means. That’s what “OPSEC” means. That’s what “Top Secret” classifications require. They don’t require Full and Total liberty, giving everybody the choice on anything and everything.

Instead of arguing about what is valid or invalid concerning the restrictions on liberty, they just point to Bush and the Patriot Act and say that because they restrict liberties they are invalid or un-Constitutional.

Intellectual weaklings, really. Then again, that’s probably why they ape and support so many Leftist propaganda points in the last 4 or 6 years of the Iraq war.

As for the Left, well you don’t want to get my started on the Left. It might not end.

I bring this issue up, because Libertarians, or simply those in the middle who are either light Democrats or those like Ozzie (stuck on a fence not willing to go either way, while proclaiming one’s moral superiority over both houses), are notably one of the most consistent populations when it comes to conveniently sacrificing essential liberties for little and temporary safety.

Not to portray people’s beliefs inaccurately, but the Libertarian party, which speaks for at least half of what Libertarians believe and act upon, would not support the liberation and security of 50 million Iraqis because it inconvenienced them at home. This is not promoting liberty. This is promoting temporary safety at the cost of really vital liberties. Somehow supporting Saddam’s liberties became all important, when it became time to consider the inconvenience of supporting a man like Bush.

If that’s not a perversion of Franklin, I can’t quite imagine what would be.

And they still have his quote wrong. Because they, like the rest of their Leftist allies, only know history because of what they were told. And they weren’t told anything particularly useful.