2nd Amendment Truth

 

U.S. Representatives Nadler and Massie went at it this last week (5/6-10/2024) about the Second Amendment, with Rep. Nadler neglecting to include all the words of the amendment when he presented his analysis of its' meaning. Generally, this debate comes down to a disagreement about whether the founders were trying to make sure the militias had sufficient numbers of muskets, or if the 2^nd somehow applies to individuals. Most of the time, even the conservatives miss the real point because the 2^nd Amendment has, like much of our Constitution, been twisted almost completely out of shape and meaning. So it is time we go way back and get to the truth of the matter.

At the time the 2^nd Amendment was written, late in 1789, militias were an official part of our governing structure. Local militias were under the authority of the local sheriff, and could be called on to suppress crime and insurrection, and to repel invasion. Their most important function, however, was to be the ultimate check on tyrannical government. While some local sheriff and his militia could not mount much of a defense on their own it was reasoned that if the government in Washington DC was becoming despotic, the sheriffs, and their militias, when united in action, could muster sufficient force to deter a tyrant. This structure, resembling a Swiss style army of the people, also ensured some rogue sheriff could not get too out of hand.

Nonetheless, since this arrangement allowed for locally controlled military force, the question came up of how is such military force to be regulated so that it does not become a tool of local tyranny, with the local authorities running roughshod as bullies over the local populace. This problem is not easily solved, since simply allowing central government authorities to regulate the militias defeats the most important purpose of the militias. It is highly doubtful that a local military force which is regulated out of DC, like our modern National Guard, will ever get orders to oppose a tyranny arising out of DC.

So the question is; How do you regulate the militias (which is necessary if we are going to continue to have a free nation) if we can't allow the central government to do the regulating. The answer was to ensure that all individuals have the right to keep and bear arms. This guarantees that the local militia, and the sheriff that leads it, do not have a monopoly on firearms, which will keep them from getting too pushy toward local residents.

Historic evidence that this plan worked comes to us from the early days after the Civil War, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan got away with their campaign of terror largely in states where the Black former slaves were prohibited from owning guns. Then local military force could and did run roughshod over that community.

Bill Russell, he of basketball fame, related a story from his family history. The Klan came calling one night at the home of his Grandfather. When he met them at the door with a rifle, and the obvious ability to use it, the Klan left and never came calling again. Proving that the best way to regulate militias is to ensure that every citizen can be armed. What's more, the the truth remains that the best way to prevent national tyranny, to secure freedom, is to have local militias.

Now let's look again at the actual words of the 2^nd amendment. Keep in mind that this interpretation uses all the words written there, it doesn't add any other words, and it does not have to change the meaning of the word “regulated” and pretend it means “supplied,” as some misinterpretations do.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Death Spiral and Social Security

 

Lots of folks seem concerned about declining birth rates in the civilized world, and well they should be. If we don't resume forming ourselves into families, our cultures will disappear. Simple as that. Many bold but ineffective solutions are being hoisted into view this week, but none of them are likely to reverse the downward trend because none of them even mentions the obvious cause of the declining birth rate in the welfare state nations.

The root cause of our declining birth rate (and incidentally, also the cause of our national moral decline) is Social Security. Not how that federal program is run, or its solvency, but rather the very existence of Social Security itself is what is causing birth rates to decline.

The logic behind this claim is simple. Before the age of Social Security (big government funded old age pensions being the product of Kaiser Wilhelm's socialist mind in the 1880's, or was it Bismark?) the normal person saw the family, and especially the children, as our old age insurance. That is why we wanted to have a lot of children, and why we put so much effort into strengthening their moral character. Our future well being was dependent on both their healthy strength and their good morals.

With the advent of Social Security, all of that changed. By making big government, and not the next generation, the central pillar of old age planning, Social Security diminished the vested interest people had in the well being, morality, and even existence of their children. While the deeper cultural effects took a few decades to get strong purchase (the Generation Gap of the 60's), the existence of Social Security in their personal future changed, or allowed the change to happen in, the way that original generation with Social Security in their future envisioned the long arc of their lives. They would have immediately sensed that the only relationship that they had to maintain for their entire lives to ensure a decent life is the relationship with that same federal government. The family, and the communities families formed, became no longer the only, or maybe even the primary, provider of last resort: The provider of last resort being the institution which must and will respond to our vital needs. Since the establishment of Social Security in 1935, being the provider of last resort has increasingly become the role of the federal government and less and less the role of natural families. Or the communities families compose..

Since its beginning, Social Security has behaved like a kind of corrosive poison, acting on the family at the molecular level, tending to separate each individual from every other individual. It doesn't force the separation, but it allows it. It is like a string. You can't push something with a string, but if the string that is holding things together is cut, then it allows that separation. By cutting the materialistic, self interested bonds of family, (as cynical as that sounds) the bonds that really hold families together, Social Security has allowed the natural forces of selfishness to drive the component familial members apart. Especially in the lower and middle classes where materialistic needs seem better served by government.

What's more, Social Security is also, obviously, the untouchable third rail of American politics so much so it is going to be well nigh impossible to terminate. The great resistance this will raise is, in itself, evidence of why we simply must terminate it. The great hysterical passion aroused by the idea of ending Social Security is due to so many people feeling that they are dependent on it to live. In fact, we as a society should start by admitting that we are totally addicted to it and we will behave like addicts if our dope supply is imperiled. Then we must realize that it is our addiction to the federal tit that is eroding our will to procreate. It is killing us as a people. Then we must, for that vital reason, snap ourselves out of this spell and terminate Social Security.

As a Boomer, now in my early 70's, I am still adamant, as I always have been, that when we move away from Social Security, we do it in phases, taking care for those who are already on it. But those changes can be accomplished compassionately without keeping the federal government in charge of our lives.

To sum all this up, we must end Social Security because it is an addictive, corrosive social poison which is surreptitiously draining us of our will to live.

It is not clear if we came to this happy pass by shear happenstance or if someone had this scenario in mind from the beginning, but that does not matter. Yes, we have been rendered, via socialism in general and Social Security in particular, into a people ripe to fall to totalitarian tyranny. Maybe it is a plot, maybe not, but honestly, that does not matter and it is not the point.

The only thing that matters, the only point to be made about Social Security is that we must acknowledge it is the single reason for declining global birth rates. With that acknowledgment we must also realize that the only way to reverse this civilizational death spiral is to end Social Security.

Should be easy. It's just a matter of life and death.