Tweet
(With Thanks to schoolmasters Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mao Tse-Tung and Pol Pot for the Teaching.)
by Mike Vanderboegh
Reflect upon these six lessons. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the last.
Lesson No. 1
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don't want to go because of who you are or what you think-- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation, which practices this lesson, will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of liberty.
Lesson No. 2
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms-- kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
Lesson No. 3
If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm, so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified-- tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny, which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren't on their list.
Lesson No. 4
Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is "democratically elected" doesn't mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn't mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn't mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled "Showers" doesn't necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of "is" is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants-- but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
Lesson No. 5
Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as two wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms-- socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism-- have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. Ask the 200 million dead that collectivism brutally slaughtered in this century. Leaders such as Bill Clinton who view the Constitution as inconvenient and ignorable are harbingers of tyranny.
Lesson No. 6
While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate. And anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no "house rule" that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos. Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt. While there is no "Collective guilt" to the crimes of a regime (all such crimes being committed by specific criminal individuals), there is certainly "collective responsibility"--especially for those who watch the criminals at work without objecting or interfering. A French journalist of the last century wrote "I must speak out for I will not be an accomplice." Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices-- good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people "useful idiots". De Tocqueville observed that "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders. As we move from the Twentieth Century into the twenty-first, we should take care to remember the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah. If we wish to avoid the butchery of the Twentieth Century and the righteous judgment of the God of our antiquity, we would do well to keep our Bibles, our Constitution and our firearms close at hand.
================================================== ==
The Ten Truths of Tyranny
Unknown
1. Any law the electorate sees as being open to being perverted from its original intent will be perverted in a manner that exceeds the manner of perversion seen at the time.
2. Any law that is so difficult to pass it requires the citizens be assured it will not be a stepping stone to worse laws, will in fact be a stepping stone to worse laws.
3. Any law that requires the citizens be assured the law does not mean what the citizens fear, means exactly what the citizens fear.
4. Any law passed in a good cause will be interpreted to apply to causes against the wishes of the people.
5. Any law enacted to help any one group will be applied to harm people not in that group.
6. Everything the government says will never happen, will happen.
7. What the government says it could not foresee, the government has planned for.
8. When there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential government services, the citizens will be given the choice between higher taxes or the loss of essential government services.
9. Should the citizens mount a successful effort to stop a piece of legislation, the same legislation will be passed under a different name.
10. All deprivations of freedom and choice will be increased rather than reversed.
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrongdoing which will be imposed on them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglas, 1857
by Mike Vanderboegh
Reflect upon these six lessons. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the last.
Lesson No. 1
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don't want to go because of who you are or what you think-- kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant's executioners. Any nation, which practices this lesson, will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of liberty.
Lesson No. 2
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms-- kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
Lesson No. 3
If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm, so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified-- tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny, which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren't on their list.
Lesson No. 4
Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is "democratically elected" doesn't mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn't mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn't mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled "Showers" doesn't necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of "is" is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants-- but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
Lesson No. 5
Our constitutional republic as crafted by the Founders is the worst form of government in the world, except when compared to all the others. Capitalism, as well, is a terrible way to run an economy, except when compared to all other economic systems. Unrestrained democracy is best expressed as two wolves and a sheep sitting down to vote on what to have for dinner. The horrors of collectivism in all its forms-- socialism, communism, national socialism, fascism-- have been demonstrated beyond dispute by considerable wasteful trial and bloody error. Ask the 200 million dead that collectivism brutally slaughtered in this century. Leaders such as Bill Clinton who view the Constitution as inconvenient and ignorable are harbingers of tyranny.
Lesson No. 6
While nations do not always get the leaders they deserve, they always get the leaders they tolerate. And anyone who tells you that "It Can't Happen Here" is whistling past the graveyard of history. There is no "house rule" that bars tyranny coming to America. History is replete with republics whose people grew complacent and descended into imperial butchery and chaos. Dictators count on the assistance of people who are complacent, fearful, envious, lazy and corrupt. While there is no "Collective guilt" to the crimes of a regime (all such crimes being committed by specific criminal individuals), there is certainly "collective responsibility"--especially for those who watch the criminals at work without objecting or interfering. A French journalist of the last century wrote "I must speak out for I will not be an accomplice." Evil tyrants require, indeed they depend upon, willing and unwilling accomplices-- good people who would never think of harming a soul themselves. Lenin called such people "useful idiots". De Tocqueville observed that "America is great because America is good. When America ceases to be good, she will cease to be great." As related in the Old Testament, God judged nations based upon the immorality and criminality of their leaders. Entire peoples were scourged because of their failure to remove corrupt leaders. As we move from the Twentieth Century into the twenty-first, we should take care to remember the ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah. If we wish to avoid the butchery of the Twentieth Century and the righteous judgment of the God of our antiquity, we would do well to keep our Bibles, our Constitution and our firearms close at hand.
================================================== ==
The Ten Truths of Tyranny
Unknown
1. Any law the electorate sees as being open to being perverted from its original intent will be perverted in a manner that exceeds the manner of perversion seen at the time.
2. Any law that is so difficult to pass it requires the citizens be assured it will not be a stepping stone to worse laws, will in fact be a stepping stone to worse laws.
3. Any law that requires the citizens be assured the law does not mean what the citizens fear, means exactly what the citizens fear.
4. Any law passed in a good cause will be interpreted to apply to causes against the wishes of the people.
5. Any law enacted to help any one group will be applied to harm people not in that group.
6. Everything the government says will never happen, will happen.
7. What the government says it could not foresee, the government has planned for.
8. When there is a budget shortfall to cover non-essential government services, the citizens will be given the choice between higher taxes or the loss of essential government services.
9. Should the citizens mount a successful effort to stop a piece of legislation, the same legislation will be passed under a different name.
10. All deprivations of freedom and choice will be increased rather than reversed.
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrongdoing which will be imposed on them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglas, 1857
Comment