Their sacrifice will make them easy to round up when the revolution comes, but it does force the Feds to step back and rethink how much they can rely on state and local support if they push too far. The real question, of course, is whether the Feds have any intention of pushing that far.
Pretty strong language in the letter.
This, you see, is what is worrying.
ReplyDeleteBecause both the War of Independence and the War of the Rebellion started with the local governments, not just citizens, defying the national government, be that the British Crown or the Federal Government.
I read a story about Utah once that has stuck with me. I have no idea whether it's real or apocryphal. Either after Utah joined the Union or as it was preparing to, polygamy became illegal. Law enforcement was dispatched to arrest a man who refused to put aside either of his two wives. The man rode out to meet the officers accompanied by his grown sons: about a dozen of them, all large men, all armed. No violence was offered or threatened but the lawmen took a look at the assembled group, turned around, and went home.
ReplyDeleteI said to someone about a week ago that it would be interesting if, after all the upset over economic polices and social issues and abridging religion, what finally provided the spark was gun control. It would be interesting to discuss why that might be.
It would be interesting to discuss why that might be.
ReplyDeleteI would imagine it's because of the very nature of what gun control hopes to accomplish. The stripping of the People's right to resist. Incremental changes to tax policy, or religious freedoms ARE infringements of rights, to be sure. But by themselves, they simply remove those freedoms. The right to resist is a line that you cannot ever allow a government to cross. Doing so gives them the power to take everything else.
In shorter form, if you take someones' right to practice their religion, or to their earnings, or to any of the various and sundry things the government tries to get its hands into, then you remove that right but nothing further. If you remove the People's right to resist, you remove all their rights.
I think the Utah sheriffs already have been identified--as have all such who have not positively signed on to this President's agenda.
ReplyDeleteIt's not just gun control and religious freedom that's starting to cause an uproar. There's the other part of the 1st Amendment, too, and the Progressives' general (not only the persons in the White House or Congress) attempts to suppress free speech by demonizing dissenters and frequently outright lying about the underlying problems.
There's the arrogance of the Progressives in ignoring not only the opposition party but also their employers, the people. This last lead to the 2010 election outcome (the failure to follow through in 2012 was, I think, heavily contributed to by the inchoate nature of the anger over the arrogance and its lack of articulation).
There's the continued suppression of economic recovery by this administration's policies.
The failure of the recovery is a failure of long enough duration (with historical evidence of the past failures of these policies together with the successes of alternate, virtually opposite policies) that, when paired with Obama's avowed determination to transform our country, seems a deliberate suppression or an uninteresting side effect of the transformative process.
Eric Hines
Mike's got the sense of it, I think, though I would phrase it a little differently.
ReplyDeleteYou may not revolt over an infringement of (say) religion, choosing a lesser response instead. But you don't lay aside your right to revolt: you choose not to exercise it, for now. You choose to work within the system, or to protest in other ways, rather than to take up arms. But you retain your right, and the ability to exercise it later if you change your mind.
What's at issue with this right is that it affects not only your current choice, but the potential to change your mind in the future. It's more likely to provoke a revolt because it bundles up all past and future infringements into one choice, and it forces that choice on you now.
If local authorities cannot be forced - or even expected - to enforce federal immigration laws, why should they be expected and/or forced to enforce federal firearms laws?
ReplyDeleteIn fact they cannot be permitted to enforce Federal immigration laws. It's a good question you ask.
ReplyDeleteThe answer can only be that the executive is now determining the law in the absence of Congress. There is no law on Federal immigration. There is only administration policy, which on this question is that local authorities should turn a blind eye.
That is also where we are likely to be with the executive orders. There will be no law, in this case not because the Congress has passed one and it is ignored, but because Congress shall not have acted at all. But there will be a policy -- formalized by regulations and executive orders -- and that will serve where law used to be.
though I would phrase it a little differently.
ReplyDeleteAnd more eloquently than I did. Thank you, sir! :)