It’s remarkable how the real world always illustrates the Founders’ wisdom, graphically and undeniably. Take the current situation in Iran. It’s a country with a great history, full of intelligent people run by a bunch of backward, semi-human savages with a ridiculous apocalyptic theology that is so brutal it killed 30,000 or so of its own people a few months ago just to stay in power. And now it’s still in power, at least over its own people, despite the United States and Israel righteously devastating its conventional military capabilities. You can sync its navy, shoot down its Air Force, and smash its missiles; the power on the ground requires contending power on the ground. Our glorious alliance with Israel – suck on that podcast dorks – cannot kill every goat molester with an AK-47 and a conviction that the more he murders, the more virgins he gets. That job belongs to the people of Iran, and unfortunately, they don’t have the tools to do it. They are disarmed, and therefore, they are serfs, not citizens, much like the English and Australians. In Iran, the answer to the problem of securing freedom and justice is the same as it is here in America and everywhere else:
Guns.
Guns are freedom. Guns are liberty. Guns are the last bulwark – a real one, not one that enjoys watching the pool boy cavort with his wife – of freedom. Of course, it’s not actually guns that secure freedom. It’s violence. Some dumb people will tell you violence never solves anything. The only people who can tell you violence never solves anything are people for whom the problem of violence has been solved by other people who know what the hell they’re talking about and who use violence to solve the problem of violence. You know, like in America. Only in a place like America can people be so safe and secure and prosperous – something secured by men with guns – that they can belittle and be right those who do the dirty work of doing so. It’s particularly galling that those who benefit from freedom use their freedom to trash the way those who give it to them do so.
And who gives people freedom in America? Well, technically, it’s God who gives Americans their freedom. The right to be free was endowed by our Creator and is not granted at the whim and will of mere mortals in government or elsewhere. But having a right doesn’t mean anything unless you can defend that right, unless you can protect that right from people who would take it away from you. The people of Iran have a God-given right to be free and look at them. They live or die at the whim of a bunch of psychotic primitives who pack heat and have ensured that they can’t. Freedom without firepower is just words.
In America, we are free because We the People maintain the ability to use violence against those who would suppress us. Yeah, the government has cops and an Army. That’s about 2 million or 3 million people who can be put on the street to suppress us, should the government choose to do so. But it’s outnumbered by about 30 to one by Americans with a rifle in their closet. A lot of dumb people will tell you that normal people can’t stand up against a military that is turned against the people, even with privately owned firearms. Hollywood is famous for trying to run down the idea of armed citizens protecting themselves, their families, their communities, and their culture with firearms. But, even putting aside the fact that a significant part of the military is never going to turn on its brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and friends in order to impose the will of some dictator, there’s no way to get past the tactical problem posed by being outnumbered 30 to 1 by members of a culture that, in its genes, loves to fight.