mr.72 wrote:austinrealtor wrote:And if I have to give a little bit (lose the battle) to gain a lot (win the war), I'm willing to do so up to a point.
The problem is, we have already conceded the war, and we are now content to forget the irresistible irony: the very right which we have willingly given up is the one that was put in place to prevent the government from disregarding our other rights.
If I can regain the rights that are important to me, and all I have to do is pay some money for a license, shoot 50 rounds to prove my proficiency, and conceal my firearm while I carry, I'm OK with that for now. The world moves best incrementally. IMHO YMMV
This is like a wrongly-convicted man serving a life sentence in prison, saying "I am giving up on my appeal and restoration of my freedom, because at least I can get a second helping of dessert every once in a while".
It's institutional sleight of hand. They caress you with the hand you can see while they are stabbing you with the one you can't see. This is how we got here.
There was a day when you could walk into any hardware store or department store and buy a gun equivalent to modern (for the day) military arms straight across the counter with no paperwork and no government interference. There was a time in this country when corrupt politicians would fully expect that they would face a brutal, ferocious armed uprising if they tried to confiscate guns of free men. But now we are happily attached to the government's leash, jumping through hoops like a trick pony. We can engage in the theater of gun ownership, so politicians can pretend like they support rights because, see, look how many people have guns, and how great and legal and organized and documented and under the government's heel the whole operation is. This is not freedom. It is not freedom when they expect to force you to buy health insurance or face fines or jail time and we don't arm up and march in the streets demanding the heads of these tyrants. This is not the country whose forefathers drafted the Bill of Rights. Our rulers do not regard our rights as anything sacred, but only a nostalgic relic of a bygone era. This is not the country that patriots gave their lives and risked everything for 200-some years ago. This is a lot more like the countries we pat ourselves on the back for "liberating", but it's just transferring from a foolish and obvious tyranny to a new, modernized, easy to swallow tyranny that Americans who think they believe in freedom will support.
The funny thing is that we, Texans, think that we are somehow different. Even our governor makes veiled references to that-which-cannot-be-spoken. We have hyped up heroes who fought for Texas independence and were "king(s) of the wild frontier". This is no wild frontier and these heroes along with American patriots of the American Revolution have transcended from history to mythology, because we can no longer even imagine anyone who would be willing to die to preserve these freedoms. Yeah, we talk about how our men and women are going overseas to fight for "freedom" but the enemies who are successfully assaulting America are not in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's just the distraction. The enemies of American freedom have their names listed on the ballot and the rest are casting the votes. We are so anesthetized by our "security" that we cannot recognize freedom anymore, and we couldn't cope with it if we had it.
We won't fight for our freedoms because we are too afraid we are going to lose one of the floating ashes of our former liberty that we won't dare challenge and demand that our rights be recognized. This is not about restoring our rights. We have these rights, whether they are recognized or not.
If they come to confiscate your guns, are you going to risk your life to defend your right to keep them? Or are you going to hand them over? I think most of us are going to hand them over. And they know it. So we have already given up. They are taking their victory lap over and over, and we are begging to ride along.
They don't make an emoticon for the way I feel about this.
