Mosby Hold Your Horses! Critical THinking is HARD!

In both The Reluctant Partisan, Volume Two (in the chapter on Intelligence Analysis), and in Forging the Hero (in the chapters on building good “fortune”—hamingja—through good decision-making), I made the point that, one of the most important tools we have available is the ability to “wargame” our own positions on things. It is hard, especially with our most cherished beliefs, but we CAN play “Devil’s Advocate,” and find the chinks in our own philosophical armor, in order to figure out where we are making poor choices. That’s what I am going to do for a moment…

I was having a conversation with John Meyers (who I shall herein refer to as Meyers, because if I say “John,” or “JM,” it will get confusing as shit, really quick, even for me), who writes for ZeroGov occasionally, the other day. We were discussing an article at Patrick Henry Society website, by the lovely Kit Perez, about the futility of the typical gun rights rally.

In the course of the conversation, I made a comment to Meyers, about the fact that, as ineffectual as rallies and protests are, maybe people would eventually catch on that “…ignoring drama, and just living your life in accordance with your values might actually be the best path to real freedom?” I went on to lament “That’s crazy! What about ‘muh rallies!’ and ‘muh representative republican democracy?’ Because that has worked out so well for people…”

I went on to point out that cognitive dissonance is only dissonant if you recognize it, at least at an unconscious level. The fact is, someone who is so conditioned to “respe’t mah authoritah!” of the .gov, that they legitimately do not have even an unconscious recognition of the dissonance.

An example of this can be seen in something I noticed late last night.

A federal judge in Massachusetts just upheld Massachusetts’ Assault Weapons Ban, claiming that it was entirely Constitutional. Last night, I noticed a post on social media, shared by several RKBA advocates, saying that the original poster hoped that the case went to the US Supreme Court.

Be careful what you wish for…here is some critical thinking for you, presenting the problems with that, before we look at a solution…

(To preface this, I am not an attorney. I have never been to law school, and I am not admitted to the Bar in any state. If I am mistaken in any of this, and the attorneys among us want to correct it, feel free. To be clear though, by “attorney,” I mean “those people who have their names appended with juris doctor.” Not barracks and jail house lawyers.–JM)

Previous to Heller v DC, the last case the USSC heard, specific to the Second Amendment, was the 1939 US v Miller, involving the interstate transportation of a sawed off shotgun, by a known bank-robbing moonshiner (and to be clear, I have zero issue with moonshining…). In the Court’s decision, they said, “…it is not within judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment…” Ignoring the fact that, apparently, the justices were unfamiliar with the use of “trench brooms” in World War One, this is important, because one of the arguments commonly—and correctly—used by RKBA advocates is, “the 2A is NOT about hunting. It is about military weapons in the hands of the citizenry,” which the decision in Miller seems to support. Right?

Well, here is the problem…at least 20 times a day, I see or hear RKBA advocates point out—accurately—that AR15s, and semi-auto only AK47s, etc, are NOT military weapons, because they are not capable of select-fire, and they are NOT in common use by any military force in the US, specifically BECAUSE they are not capable thereof. Anyone see the problem yet?

In Heller v DC, the Court’s decision refers to Miller, “Miller stands only for the proposition that the Second Amendment right, whatever its nature, extends only to certain types of weapons. It is particularly wrongheaded to read Miller for more than what it said…”

In other words, my very non-attorney comprehension of this concludes that, the Court sees this issue as something akin to, “Sure, bring us a case that involves semi-auto only rifles, like AR15s and AK47s, and watch how fast we uphold every ban on them brought to us, setting precedent for further bans…”

The worse part is, in the interest of making fence sitters who lean to their own side feel better about this issue, the RKBA side has repeatedly pissed in their own oats, by taking great pains to point out that “No, really! These are NOT military weapons! That is just fear-mongering!”

The point of all this, of course, is not that I personally feel the Court was correct, in either Miller or Heller. Ultimately, the point is, I don’t give a shit what the Court says. I have to live my own life, in accordance with my own family and tribal cultural values, and when those values contradict the law, as handed down from on high, by the Court, I have to decide which is more important to me.

So do you.

You can go and protest and whine, and plead with your masters….err…sorry…I mean, “demand that your legislators…” not do what you don’t want them to do, but if you are going to take that route, you better make sure you can afford to bribe them….err…sorry…I mean, “make larger campaign contributions for their reelection…” than the special interest groups can. Or, you can say, “fuck them,” and live your life, according to your own values. If that means having “ALL THE GUNS!!!!” then, by all means, spend all of your extra funds on firearms. If you need to go elsewhere to get them, then go elsewhere. If you need to buy them on the black market, then buy them on the black market (to be clear, I am not suggesting that…I am just saying, if that is what is important to your values, you need to find a way to be intellectually honest with yourself, in pursuit of your values.)

If you are going to live in a place where firearms, or certain types of firearms are illegal though, and you believe you might ever…EVER…have to use them in defense of life, limb, or property, I would suggest you better spend just as much time planning on how to hide the evidence of their use and presence after the fact, as you do in poring over the websites and forums, deciding which cool-guys accessories to slap on them.

At the same time, as we live through the demise of the Empire, you could be more efficient. You could simply focus on becoming as self-sustaining, in your chosen communities, as possible, reducing your interactions with the System, to the greatest extent possible. This is done by building the tribal ties and networks discussed in Forging the Hero, and simply living your life, in accordance with the values you believe in. It doesn’t mean you won’t EVER have contact with the System, but the more you reduce it, the less common those interactions will be, and the sooner the system fails the rest of the way, under the weight of its own baggage and corruption.

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