Ethics From The Barrel Of A Gun

[Darrell]

Just a small sample:

The Founding Fathers of the United States believed, and wrote, that the bearing of arms was essential to the character and dignity of a free people. For this reason, they wrote a Second Amendment in the Bill Of Rights which reads the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, the Second Amendment is usually interpreted in these latter days as an axiom of and about political character — an expression of republican political thought, a prescription for a equilibrium of power in which the armed people are at least equal in might to the organized forces of government.

It is all these things. But it is something more, because the Founders regarded political character and individual ethical character as inseparable. They had a clear notion of the individual virtues necessary collectively to a free people. They did not merely regard the habit of bearing arms as a political virtue, but as a direct promoter of personal virtue.

The Founders had been successful armed revolutionaries. Every one of them had had repeated confrontation with life-or-death choices, in grave knowledge of the consequences of failure. They desired that the people of their infant nation should always cultivate that kind of ethical maturity, the keen sense of individual moral responsibility that they had personally learned from using lethal force in defense of their liberty.

Accordingly, firearms were prohibited only to those intended to be kept powerless and infantilized. American gun prohibitions have their origins in racist legislation designed to disarm slaves and black freedmen. The wording of that legislation repays study; it was designed not merely to deny blacks the political power of arms but to prevent them from aspiring to the dignity of free men.

The dignity of free men (and, as we would properly add today, free women). That is a phrase that bears thinking on. As the twentieth century draws to a close, it sounds archaic. Our discourse has nearly lost the concept that the health of the res publica is founded on private virtue. Too many of us contemplate a president who preaches family values and responsibility to the nation while committing adultery and perjury, and don't see a contradiction.

As they say, read the whole thing:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

Found over at Instapundit. An excellent read.

[FastRope71]

If we fail this test, we fail not only in private virtue but consequently in our capacity to make public choices. Rudderless, lacking an earned and grounded faith in ourselves, we can only drift — increasingly helpless to summon even the will to resist predators and tyrants (let alone the capability to do so).

This portion means more to me than any other part of the essay; and it is a GOOD essay.

Helplessness in summoning of the will to resist (contextually implied with force) is something that has become true even amongst us on this board, and the many other boards. If one of us were to stand out and say "the time for waiting is done, action is the only realistic path left", that poster would be ostracized, comdemned by his associates, and likely banned.

We may still have the means to resist with force, but even among the boldest claims made with regards to forceful action, the threat rings hollow.

Do I want to live in a time of civil war? No. I doubt that anyone who has given any significant thought to the matter would disagree. None the less, there are times when men must take up arms against those who would attempt to enslave them (even if only part time), those who would steal from him and his family, and those who would wrench away his dignity, his freedom.

To say that reading the whole thing is thought provoking is putting it mildly. The down side is there is a sense of defeat in knowing that so many of our brothers, sisters, and countrymen wish to bare their belly to whomever claims to have authority; even when that authority comes from illegal legislation, and corruption of honest offices.

[308Mike]

All of this is probably why JPFO is trying to push people to get back into a Bill of Rights Culture. BTW, Bill of Rights Day is coming up on December 15th.

We need to get people educated and believing in the idea that government does not GRANT anything, nor does the Bill of Rights. It needs to be pounded into people's heads that these are PREEXISTING INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and the Bill of Rights identifies certain rights (not all of them) and PLACES RESTRICTIONS ON GOVERNMENT.