Pay Attention Like it’s 1999
Below are choice excerpts from a column by Mike Vanderboegh, originally printed two years before the close of the Second Millennium. Read the whole thing here: http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/02/vanderboegh-classic-what-i-have-learned.html
From the Liberty Pole
June, 1999
by Mike VanderboeghAs an amateur historian of this sad century whose time is almost up, I would like to reflect upon six lessons I have learned in my studies. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the past.
LESSON NO. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you do not want to go because of who you are or what you think — kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent him. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. …
LESSON NO. 2: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms — kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
LESSON NO. 3: If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you be more easily identified — tell him to go to hell. …
LESSON NO. 4: Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is “democratically elected” does not mean he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932.
And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, does not mean be believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others.
The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate does not mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled “Showers” does not necessarily make you clean. …
LESSON NO. 5: Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as three wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms — socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism — have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. …
LESSON NO. 6: While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate.
… Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt.
Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices — good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people “useful idiots.”
De Tocqueville observed that “America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders.
Emphasis added. If you have ever wondered at the justice of God punishing a people for the sins of their leaders, Mr. Vanderboegh reminds us that we can be guilty both for what we have done, and for what we have failed to do. The duty of tyrranicide in a tyranny, the duty of impeaching, expunging, and convicting corrupt and treasonous leaders in a republic, is not one to be shirked lightly.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
