Saturday, April 02, 2011

The shock troops of the counter-revolution

If and when we do have a communist revolution, Mikeb30200 seems to have identified one source for the shock troops of the counter-revolution. Mikeb quotes Mike Vanderboegh saying,
Okay. . . If you try to take our firearms we will kill you. ...

Our God-given, natural and inalienable rights are not subject to modification by law or negotiation. ... We will fight, even though it means our deaths. This is an alien concept to most collectivists but it is nonetheless true. Pass another law -- any law -- that further restricts our free access to arms and you'll have a civil war on your hands in short order.
Bravado? Probably. Fringe extremism? Almost certainly. But can this sort of violent sentiment be harnessed by the right sort of leadership? Almost certainly.

I have conflicted feelings about this guy. I'm a philosopher: we don't (with the possible exception of George Orwell) tend to find ourselves on the front line of any cause, and none of us, not even Orwell, have the kind of fanatical intensity that Vanderboegh displays. On the other hand you don't have any kind of revolution — good or bad — without stirring up comparable feelings and passions. Yes, it's all well and good to sit in one's ivory tower and wring one's hands about irrational passions. (Vanderboegh is apparently willing to die to protect his right to... what? His right to die to protect his rights?) But to renounce these violent passions is to fully support the status quo.


It's hard to control these passions once aroused, without repression as egregious and objectionable as what the revolution was started to cure. Should we simply, contra Ben Franklin's lament, "despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest"?
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2 comments:

  1. Dutchman64/3/11, 5:48 AM

    Larry,

    I prefer the term "restoration" to "counter-revolution." I am working to defend/restore the Founders' Republic against the Gramscian revolutionary forces. I have much in common with Orwell, Whittaker Chambers, and any North Vietnamese Hoi Chanh for we are/were all former communists. We make the best anti-communists because we know all the collectivist lies from experience. (If you disbelieve me, you may find my "Benedict Arnold Period" papers in the archives of the Ohio Historical Society, documenting a progression from SDS to YSA to SWP to PLP public party to PLP secret party cadre.)

    If you wish to categorize me I think of myself now as a Christian libertarian, and I eschew all political parties. I refer you to the following posts:

    http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/05/missed-anniversary-vous-les-americains.html

    http://westernrifleshooters.blogspot.com/2008/08/vanderboegh-birmingham-race-and-armed.html

    Hope this helps you to figure me out. I am not responsible for the predictable collectivist cognitive dissonance engendered thereby.

    Mike Vanderboegh
    The alleged leader of a merry band of Three Percenters, now pulling double duty as ATF Scandalmonger-in-Chief on the Project Gunwalker Scandal.
    GeorgeMason1776@aol.com
    http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com
    ("As denounced by Bill Clinton on CNN!")

    ReplyDelete
  2. Larry Hamelin4/3/11, 7:44 AM

    Mike,

    You *really* need to read The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer.

    I suppose I'll see you on the front lines, although not on the same side.

    ReplyDelete

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