Of Guns & Governors - MINDSETTER™ Travis Rowley
Monday, April 06, 2020
As certain as it is to offend liberals’ outlook on conflict resolution, it still must be said that a punch to the mouth remains the final safeguard of the civil society. Undergirding all the polite etiquette we are accustomed to is a threat of violence directed toward even the most unassuming gentlemen.
It’s easy enough to understand military diplomacy and the need to physically apprehend criminals at the hands of a law enforcement apparatus. But the same principle resides in the specter of everyday life. That is, breaches of basic decorum could possibly – and often rightfully – be met with measures of force.
Try this. Isn’t there an almost-universal appreciation whenever a bully receives his comeuppance? When witnesses hesitate to inform proper authorities once someone is finally bullied back, aren’t they celebrating something other than informal justice – the restoration of an unspoken understanding that, for civilization’s sake, serious social offenses will be met with physical consequences?
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOf course, they are, because the violation of this understated equilibrium is intolerable. To accept its decay would be to eradicate the trust that’s required among men in a civil society.
Impending violence must reside everywhere as a last resort.
The Second Amendment
Recognition of this natural principle steers us into the wisdom behind America’s Second Amendment, and why it resonates so strongly with people who understand the encroaching nature of government.
A right to bear arms is not only a check against perpetrators who have been licensed to commit legal violence. It’s also a deterrent to those conditions that would spawn such a standoff between citizens and the state.
That is to say, before the Second Amendment is a weapon against an active tyranny, it serves to institute trust between the People and their government.
We have seen this dynamic played out for several weeks, as the vast majority of Americans have acquiesced to appalling government decrees to shutter their private businesses and drastically alter their private lives.
This recently culminated in Rhode Island with Governor Gina Raimondo (D) exercising perhaps the most egregious authoritarianism yet. “Far too many house parties of more than ten people. Knock it off,” Raimondo commanded as she addressed reports of Rhode Islanders not taking the culture of “social distancing” seriously enough – which prompted her to issue a new “stay at home order.” Raimondo explained, “If you’re not getting food, medicine, gas, or going to work, it’s pretty simple. You can go for a walk, to the park, outside, if you do it with ample social distance.”
The Governor would go on to announce that the State Police had been ordered to “pull over drivers with New York license plates and force them to self-quarantine for 14 days,” and that “law enforcement officers and the National Guard will be ‘going door-to-door’ in coastal communities, asking people if they've been to New York and requesting their contact information.”
“Yesterday I announced and today I reiterated: Anyone coming to Rhode Island in any way from New York must be quarantined,” the Governor said. “By order. Will be enforced. Enforceable by law.”
Don’t count on Raimondo’s radical paternalism to give Democrats reason to pause the next time they want to rhetorically ask, “Why do you need an assault rifle with 30 rounds?” A primary ideological deficiency of progressivism is to lack the discipline to imagine (or remember) that one of its own could ever unleash totalitarianism.
For progressives, everyone’s a Nazi. Except them. You know, the people who outwardly believe in the state’s power to reshape society.
Compliance and Trust
That’s not to say that the leftists necessarily yawned at Raimondo’s audacity. But the expressions of shock and outrage across the political spectrum were also accompanied by widespread compliance.
Right-wingers across social media made famous this quote by Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Compelling.
But words are cheap. Cooperation with the Governor’s edicts still seemed to be the most popular response. I happen to be acquainted with a lot of libertarians and strict constitutionalists, and I’ve yet to receive an invitation to the freedom bunker. Judging by their online rhetoric, however, one might expect them to have organized some sort of “Social-Distance-Resistance” rally at the State House!
Or something.
But nope.
Instead, we find Jamestown resident Laura Percopo, who recently traveled back to Rhode Island from a second home in New York, applauding the visit she received from the National Guard and Jamestown Police last week. “I felt singled out at first but it’s for the best,” Percopo said. “The Jamestown police were phenomenal. The woman was delightful from the National Guard. Very knowledgeable about what was going on and they were very nice.”
This astonishing amount of tranquility can be at least partially explained by one simple fact: People still have their guns.
The fact of the matter is this: Gina Raimondo is not Adolf Hitler. And everyone knows it.
By the way, neither is Donald Trump.
With that said, if it is ever determined that more sinister motives are in fact fueling the government’s COVID-19 response, well, people still have their guns.
Securing America
Putting aside the fact that many Americans have certainly lost a revolutionary sense of independence, it’s easy to understand why many liberty-loving Americans have been so obedient in the face of shocking levels of extra-constitutionality.
Trust.
A culture of trust made possible by the ability to freely gather information (1st Amendment) coupled with the threat of a bloody conflict (2nd Amendment).
American society is amazing and ironic. Just as capitalism makes possible doses of socialism, the Second Amendment allows for traces of tyranny when collective action is required.
Although it’s a disputed quote, Thomas Jefferson is believed to have remarked, “When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” And Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is believed to have once warned that “to invade the United States would prove most difficult because behind every blade of grass is an American with a rifle.”
Our own politicians and armed government agents are also aware of just how much firepower, in an instant, can be pointed down from residential windows.
Don’t ever relinquish or compromise your Second Amendment rights. Because that is the teetering violence that sustains the American Experiment.
Travis Rowley is a former Tea Party / Republican activist and GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™.
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