Paper constitutions raise smiles on the faces of those who have observed their results; and paper social systems similarly affect those who have contemplated the available evidence. How little the men who wrought the French Revolution and were chiefly concerned in setting up the new governmental apparatus, dreamt that one of the early actions of this new apparatus would be to behead them all! How little the men who drew up the American Declaration of Independence and framed the republic, anticipated that after some generations the legislature would lapse into the hands of wire-pullers; that its doings would turn upon the contests of office-seekers; that political action would be everywhere vitiated by the intrusion of a foreign element holding the balance between parties; that electors, instead of judging for themselves, would habitually be led to the polls in thousands by their “bosses”; and that respectable men would be driven out of public life by the insults and slanders of professional politicians.
[Herbert Spencer, “From Freedom to Bondage,” 1891]
“And are we not big enough to meet them in plain battle?”
“We are four men, some women, and a bear.”
“I saw the time when Logres was only myself and one man and two boys, and one of those was a churl. Yet we conquered.”
“It could not be done now. They have an engine called the Press whereby the people are deceived. We should die without even being heard of.”[C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength]
Many would say that the American experiment has falsified its test thesis: i.e., that a constitutional republic formed for the protection of individuals’ rights can endure. It’s an argument worth considering. We the People of the United States have meekly surrendered to a Usurper Regime that’s cheated and defrauded its way to power, is destroying our economy, and is eliminating several of our long-established rights as we speak. Yet what the Usurpers are doing is forbidden by the Constitution! How, then, are they getting away with it?
It’s quite simple, really: A constitution, no matter how freedom-oriented or well designed, cannot enforce its own terms. There must be an external enforcement agency – and it cannot be the government itself. It can only be the people who have chartered the government and demand that it remain within its constituted bounds.
As I’ve written before, the key to the restraint of government can only be an armed, vigilant, and freedom-loving people. If the people lack sufficient arms, or are unaware of what’s being done to them and its probable consequences, or are insufficiently attached to individual liberty as a sacred principle to rise up in its defense, they will fail to restrain the depredations of the State, whether by inability or unwillingness. That’s why totalitarians always:
- Target the educational and communications sectors of a nation first and foremost;
- Strive to divide the people, setting some against others;
- Forbid the private ownership of weapons.
Items 1 and 2 have been under way for decades. The Left’s conquest of the educational and communications sectors is nearly complete. It has used those levers to create several deep divisions among us. The Usurper Administration is working on item 3. If it should succeed in disarming the citizenry, the fat lady will have sung this opera’s final aria. It could hardly be simpler. Yet it appears too complex for most Americans of today. Why?
I was a little girl in San Francisco in the 1960s, but I certainly remember the rebellious spirit that animated the youth of the 1960s and early 1970s. They were pushing back against the traditional values of their parents and teachers.
In leftist Marin, though, in the first decades of the 20th century, the young people were entirely in sync with the leftist values of their parents and teachers. That appears to be true in liberal enclaves across America. It’s also the case that young people in changing communities (traditional homes, leftist teachers’ unions), will hew to their teachers’ values. My generation sneered at the teachers. (I still do because, with few exceptions, I found my children’s teachers to be singular ill-informed and not very bright.)
I assumed that, eventually, conservativism would intrigue these young people because it was the opposite of the stifling conformity imposed on them in their communities and their homes. After all, the media, the entertainment world, and the history books constantly tell us that the youth movement in the 1960s was a rebellion against the stifling conformity of 1950s America.
There hasn’t been a counter-revolution, though. Today’s young people are more sheeple-like even than my now-grown kids were.
I added the emphasis.
I’ve had little contact with teens these past couple of decades. If Bookworm is correct, there will be no pro-freedom uprising by the current crop of young Americans (i.e., the 18-34 age bracket). The best of them simply aren’t interested; the rest have their hands out for freebies. Guns? Forget that; these tykes aren’t even interested in owning a car.
We old farts haven’t “uprisen” either. Most of us are too busy arranging to protect ourselves, our spouses, and those sheeplike kids; the rest haven’t the strength or the stamina. (I’m in the latter group.) That makes the near-term prospects for an uprising look bleak. The Usurpers will probably get most of what they want, if not all of it.
What about the longer term? Is there no possibility of an unindoctrinated generation of pro-freedom rebels willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for liberty and justice?
Where would they come from? Certainly not from our existing educational institutions. Nor could they learn what they would need from the media of today. The barons of technology would surely impede their communications, so they might not even be able to find one another. As for arms, if the Usurpers succeed in destroying private weapons rights, where would they get them?
It’s not looking good, Gentle Reader. It looks very much as if the future of freedom is in the hands of today’s Americans: you and me. And we’ve been sitting on our hands, waiting for someone else to shoulder the burden.
I think I’ll go bash my head against the wall for a while.
