I come from a gun culture. I grew up hunting with a Remington twenty gauge shotgun I had received at age thirteen from my parents. It would ride to school with me (sometimes loaded) in the back seat of my mother’s car when I could drive. I walked fields after school until dark and would take my quarry home to be cleaned and possibly eaten that evening (if I had killed enough). I never once thought to use that gun for anything other than hunting.
I don’t hunt anymore, because I have lost my skill at hitting a moving target. Years of living in the city softens those skills. I still know the gun culture. I know the difference between an AR-15 and a Sig Sauer MCX. I know the difference between a single shot, an automatic and a semi-automatic. I know what an assault rifle is and the difference between a semi-automatic and an assault rifle. That said, I am hearing and seeing a lot that disturbs me from within the gun culture, specifically from some gun owners. The loudest voices are saying “the government is going to take all the guns away”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Secondly, these same folks, who cling to the second amendment like a life line, have no idea what it truly says. It reads “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The key phrase is “Well-regulated Militia”. The second part being “being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms”. It does not say, the people have the right to have the same armament as the Militia. In fact, if you do not believe in a living, breathing Constitution, then the very definition of weapon hasn’t changed in nearly two hundred and thirty years. Which means, you are welcome to keep your muzzle loading flintlocks. You can carry as many as you want and own as many as you want, but come war time, the militia may need them far more than you. That is why they come first in the amendment. So, you’d have to give them up, unless you are part of the militia. Do you now see how this works? In fact, the second amendment HAS been amended several times since its inception. Once to ban sawed off shotguns. Another to ban the sale of Thompson machine guns or the “Trench Broom” as it was so affectionately known. In 1934 one of its provisions was that owners of fully automatic firearms were required to register them with the predecessor agency of the modern Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).
Banning all assault weapons or all semi-automatic rifles is not taking guns out of your hands. Building a strong cross reference data base for background checks is not taking guns out of your hands. Requiring licenses for gun ownership and requiring teaching courses on safety and responsibility is not taking guns out of your hands. Putting a personal identifier chip within the framework of a gun to allow only the owner to discharge that weapon is not taking guns out of your hands. And lastly, if you are caught with an unlicensed gun, you should go to prison…no second chance. Will this make America safer? A little, but our love affair with our guns has turned into an ugly, possessive and singular love affair where there is no reason or sanity anymore. Much less respect of the Constitution.
But, I am of the school of thought where so much has changed and so many are blinded by fear and hate this may never come to be in my lifetime. I knew, after Sandy Hook, if nothing changed on the books, then so many more were going to die. Because if we weren’t moved to positive action by the cost of innocent children being shot down, then our society was very sick and in the throes of denial. This sickness is only going to get worst. The NRA will insure any and all types of weapons (save sawed off shotguns or Thompsons-because there’s no money in them anymore) remain for sale. And eventually, one will find its way to your neighborhood, or your grandchildren’s school or your daughter’s work place. And then what? Are you are going out to buy more guns. Or will you say enough is enough and finally do something about this insanity known as the gun culture.
Key word, INFRINGE.
As defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary: to act in a way that is against a law or that limits someone’s rights or freedom
Macmillian Dictionary: to limit or reduce someone’s legal rights or freedoms
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: to wrongly limit or restrict (something, such as another person’s rights)
Oxford Dictionary: Act so as to limit or undermine (something); encroach on
1) A Leftist says, “If it saves just one innocent life we should repeal the 2nd amendment and ban guns.”
2) I say, “If it stops just one murder, robbery, rape, etc., we should repeal immigration and ban all illegal aliens.”
It’s not the gun, the knife, the box cutter, the cyanide, the gasoline or the car that causes murders or suicides, it’s the MENTALITY of the violent person.
I’m sure most homes have a drawer in the kitchen full of knives & most also have at least one firearm & yet EXTREMELY rarely does a family dispute result in anyone even thinking of stabbing or shooting their kin or friend.
Bad people don’t obey laws so no amount of gun laws will keep the criminal from owning all the guns he wants, There are 24,000 gun laws and “they” still don’t get it. The laws need to be directed at the criminals. Bad people have owned full automatic weapons, grenades, rocket launchers, cyanide, dynamite, TNT & much else. Bad people can invent & make horrible weapons & bombs.
MAKE NO MISTAKE, THE LEFT ABSOLUTELY WANTS TO ELIMINATE THE 2ND AMENDMENT. What do uou think “they” want Con-Con for? Just one little “sensible” bite at a time.
My 7 to 12 high school had a gun club which was the most popular activity on campus. I was one of 4 faculty sponsors & the coach of the rifle team. We gave the Hunter Safety Course for shotguns & archery. Students brought their guns to school on the school bus or their vehicle, kept them in their hall locker ’till after school practice & back home with their guns. NEVER A PRPBLEM! During hunting season students & faculty had guns in the school parking lot for hunting before or after school.
I became a member of the NRA when I was at Ft Lewis & they were helping us with pistol marksmanship. I was an MP & made it my business to be expert with all the personal weapons.
The background check is a good idea but again it only pertains to honest people. There is a federal form you answer under penalty of perjury which is RARELY ever prosecuted. Even though I have bought wepons in several states including Va & have had concealed carry permits in Va & in Wa the last time I went to buy a gun I WAS REFUSED A BACKGROUND CHECK & THEREFORE HAD MY GUN RIGHTS TAKEN FROM ME.
At this time in our history the public needs personal protection more than ever. For one thing the police are not cutting the mustard & bad people are passing the background checks, not just falling throught the cracks but stampeding through an open barn door. Then we have our usual armed felons in our neighborhoods waiting to pounce. Not since 1776 until 911 have we had enemy soldiers, now in the form of radical Muslims terrorists on our soil. Since Obama & Holder came to power with the civil unrest they have fomented, we are in a state of ANARCHY. In every conflict between a police officer & a Black person, before ANY FACTS were known, in Boston or Fergurson or anywhere else, he ALWAYS blames the cop. The two of them encourage “protest”, blocking roads & disrupting other people’s rights to include freedom of speech & the right to assamble & he never uses the bully pulpit to calm riots involving arson & looting. I’m sorry but Obama is a racist & in every speech he goes back to our dark history of long ago of which NONE of US are responsible.
One last thought. We were young & we had parties. Never did a shot ring out. Never did a knife blade flash. We were friends. That’s why we were together having a party. No one carried a gun or a knife. Perhaps a bottle of Seagrams. Now days so often a “party”, gun shots, someone DEAD. Packing heat shows INTENT. Perhaps it’s the drug culture. From the mid 1930’s all through my school years & all through my 4 years in service I was never exposed to anyone using or involved with any illegal substance.
Whew, what a mess of misinformation.
First of all.it’s false that the 2nd refers to flintlocks. It says “arms”. The founding fathers were well aware that firearms would improve over time and so used that term to accommodate future developments.
Second, the phrase “”A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” has been ruled on by the U.S. Supreme Court who confirmed that the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right held by the people.
Third, by any definition of the term, the AR-15 is not an assault rifle.
A. An assault rifle can alternate between single shot and multiple shots. The AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle, meaning one pull of the trigger corresponds to only one round being fired.
B – The AR-15 is not that powerful when compared to common hunting rifles. Most hunters opt instead for more powerful rounds such as a .30-30 or a .308
C – The AR-15 does look like an assault rifle but it doesn’t function like an assault rifle. Are we going to start banning things because they LOOK scary?
Fourth, “chipped” guns are a long way from being perfected. At the present time there is a long delay ( three to seven seconds ) for the gun to recognize the owner. Seven seconds is a lifetime, in some cases, literally.
The other problem with “chipped” guns is the ability for the them to be disabled from a distance. Meaning some authority could “jam” the gun from a distance. I will refer back to the founding fathers on this one.
They did not include the 2nd amendment for hunting or for self-defense. They included it so that citizens could fight back against overreaching government.
I’ll leave you with this thought.
There are 200 million gun owners in this country, in possession of a trillion rounds of ammunition. If we were a problem, you’d know it.
The Girandoni Automatic rifle was in existence at the time of the founding and was carried on Lewis and Clark’s expedition.
The Thompson sub was available to anyone(cost around 40 bucks New) until 1930ish.
The Patriots had weapons FAR superior to the British brown bess and far superior skills.
You could not be more incorrect as to your comments about the meaning of the 2nd either.
In the Amendment the word “people” means EXACTLY what it’s meaning is. If they meant to permit the Militia or the Statr Police or the National Guard or the Home Guard to be armed, they would have said so. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect the PEOPLE from an oppressive government. When you have people who own weapons and who are skilled in their use a militia can quickly be formed. George Washington said, “Send me men who can shoot & salute!” In my day in the Army you could tell the country boys from the city kids. The rubes were hitting the bull’s eye with the M-1 Garand while the dudeds were seeing “Maggie’s Drawer” waving.
Our school gun club & rifle team was hooked up with the U S Army Dept of Civilian Marksmanship because it’s to the advantage of our military to have recruits who have shooting skills.
There is so much very wrong with some of our gun laws. In many areas, NYC, Chicago & others good citizens are denied their rights and thousands of citizens have been thrown in jail simply because they were exercising their gun right.
In many areas it is vry political as to who can carry a concealed weapon. As a native of NJ I would NEVER be allowed to cary & for the New Yorkers, forget it! Just now in NY violent criminals are paying certain corrupt cops & are getting gun permits.
The whole issue of gun control is a complete fraud. Now we have the BATF, Social Security numbers, Photo ID’s , fingerprints, background checks and after every mass murder we find the killer had a defect but was permitted to buy guns.
All This talk of banning the second amendment is no more than lip service. 78.9% of American Gun Owners are not, I repeat, Not going to hand over their guns. The loss of life on the government’s part (be it Federal, State or Local) would be horrifying if they tried to collect them. It is a mute point….It is not what They want….It will be what We The People are willing to give…
Hey, Mr Bell. Let me remind you, most of us did not want Obamacare but our president & congress shoved it down our throats. If “they” come to our houses for our guns & we resist they will do like at Ruby Ridge & return with a reinforced regiment of SWAT police & if that doesn’t work a few Abras tanks., maybe a missle from a drone. Who do you think will win?
There is talk of federal gun registration & the ONLY purpose that could possibly have would be future confication. So, if you own a weapon that big brother decides is too whatever & outlaws it’s possession, how handty they happen to have a list of all who own that weapon.
Charlton Heston, you, me & most gun owners say they will have to take our guns from our cold, dead hands, but do we really feel like laying our lives down in vain or in seeing our wife shot & killes as atRuby Ridge?
I will assure you of two things here today. Hillary Clinton will never be president of this failing nation and ‘they’ will never take gun from 78.9% of this population. You imply that law enforcement/military will kill the people that pay their salaries, send their kids to college, buy Christmas presents, pay for their families healthcare, buy their beer, pay for their boats and motorcycles ect. You Sir, imply that they will bite the hands that feed them??? Surely you jest.
No one shoved Obama-Care down my throat. If no one signed up for it and no one payed the fine, it would exist only as a figment of their imagination. We The People have become sheep. Facebook, Football, Food and Fu__ing…. That is all most Americans are concerned with.
As a student of history, I too have to take issue with this statement “It does not say, the people have the right to have the same armament as the Militia,” and its companion, “In fact, if you do not believe in a living, breathing Constitution, then the very definition of weapon hasn’t changed in nearly two hundred and thirty years, Which means, you are welcome to keep your muzzle loading flintlocks.”
At the time of the American Revolution, a major battle of which was fought just to the north of me by militia against the invading British army of Gen. John Burgoyne, the militias were comprised of the same people who went on to become the citizens of the new nation, the United States of America.
Those people who comprised the militias that stood up to John Burgoyne’s British army at Saratoga and his Hessian mercenaries in Hoosick, New York, called the Battle of Bennington, were the same people who subsequently voted to ratify the Constitution and its subsequent amendments, one of which happened to be the 2d amendment.
If one bothered to read the Declaration of Independence, which used to be required study when I was in kindergarten learning what it meant to be an American citizen, one would find these following passages:
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
end quote
That is what the militias were for back then, to stand up against that, as they did at Saratoga and the Battle of Bennington.
Burgoyne came south with some 6,000 crack British troops, plus Hessians and Indians.
He was met at Saratoga by common people from all over the north-east and even further, armed with what they were armed, even down to shovels, scythes, and pitchforks.
With respect to this issue of militia weaponry, in a passage from the HISTORY OF The Seventeen Towns OF Rensselaer County FROM THE Colonization of the Manor of Rensselaerwyck to the Present Time, by A. J. Weise, A.M., AS PUBLISHED IN THE TROY DAILY TIMES, TROY; N. Y. in 1880, it was stated with respect to those militias that stood up to Burgoyne and his army as follows:
In these dark and perilous days the men in the villages and upon the farms along the upper Hudson took up arms in defense of their homes, and were found doing duty in the different militia regiments of the county.
end quotes
“Took up arms in defense of their homes” means their arms, the arms they owned.
To get some further perspective, when it marched north to Stillwater to face Burgoyne in what is called the Battle of Saratoga, the force under Gen. Gates at that time numbered about 6,000 men.
Those 6,000 men who faced Burgoyne were armed with their own weapons, as there was no nation at that time to supply them with weapons.
Two days after assuming command before the Battle of Saratoga, General Horatio Gates wrote the following letter to General Washington, then with the army, in Bucks county, in Pennsylvania:
Van Schaick’s Island, August 22,
Sir: Upon my arrival in this department I found the main body of the army encamped upon Van Schaick’s island, which is made by the sprouts of the Mohawk river joining with the Hudson river, nine miles north of Albany.
A brigade under Gen. Poor encamped at Loudon’s ferry, on the south bank of the Mohawk river, five miles from hence; a brigade under Gen. Lincoln had joined Gen. Stark at Bennington, and a brigade under Gen. Arnold marched the 15th inst. to join the militia of Tryon county, to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix.
Upon leaving Philadelphia the prospect this way appeared very gloomy; but the severe checks the enemy have met with at Bennington and in Tryon county have given a more pleasing view to public affairs.
Particular accounts of the signal victory gained by Gen. Stark, and the severe blow Gen. Herkimer gave Sir John Johnson and the scalpers under his command, have been transmitted to your excellency by Gen. Schuyler.
I anxiously expect the arrival of an express from Gen. Arnold with an account of the total defeat of the enemy in that quarter.
By my calculation he reached Fort Stanwix the day before yesterday.
Cols. Livingston’s and Courtland’s regiments arrived yesterday and immediately joined Gen. Poor’s division.
I shall also order Gen. Arnold, upon his return, to march to that post.
I cannot sufficiently thank your excellency for sending Col. Morgan’s corps to this army.
They will be of the greatest service to it, for until the late successes this way I am told the army were quite panic-struck by the Indians and their tory and Canadian assassins in Indian dresses.
Horrible, indeed, have been the cruelties they have wantonly committed upon many of the miserable inhabitants, insomuch that it is not fair for Gen. Burgoyne, even if the bloody hatchet he has so barbarously used should find its way into his own head.
Gov. Clinton will be here to-day.
Upon his arrival I shall consult with him and Gen. Lincoln upon the best plan to distress, and I hope finally defeat the enemy.
I am sorry to be necessitated to acquaint your excellency how neglectfully your orders have been executed at Springfield—few of the militia demanded are yet arrived, but I hear of great numbers upon the march.
Your excellency’s advice in regard to Morgan’s corps, etc., etc., shall be carefully observed.
My scouts and spies inform me that the enemy’s headquarters and main body are at Saratoga, and that they have lately been repairing the bridges between that place and Stillwater.
As soon as time and circumstances will admit I shall send your excellency a general return of this army.
I am, sir, your excellency’s most obedient humble servant,
Horatio Gates.
end quotes
With respect to his statement “I cannot sufficiently thank your excellency for sending Col. Morgan’s corps to this army,” it is to be noted that Daniel Morgan’s men were riflemen chosen from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia regiments of the Continental Army.
At Freeman’s Farm in the Battle of Saratoga, they ran into the advance of General Simon Fraser’s wing of Burgoyne’s force and because of their rifles, every officer in the British advance party, including Burgoyne’s fighting general Simon Fraser, were wounded or killed in the first exchange.
So much for keeping your muzzle loading flintlocks, folks.
In closing, when attempting to cite American history as a justification for excising the 2d Amendment from the Bill of Rights, one would be well advised to keep in mind that some of us out here actually know American history, and so are not easily misled by foolish gibberish about militias at the time of this nation’s founding conjured up from thin air.
To close, for the record, as a combat veteran, I don’t like guns, I don’t own guns, and I don’t use guns.
Nonetheless, as an American citizen who swore an oath to the Constitution, I don’t feel I have any right whatsoever to deprive my fellow law-abiding citizens who do own guns of their right to own them.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Mr Bell, I hope you are right that Hillary will never be president of this naton, but I worry. The left is full of dirty tricks with “protests” at events & not allowing the other side to speak & now even a sorry spectacle in the House. They buy votes & expand their base and fool the gullible public into thinking gun registration will prevent or at least solve crime when it will do neither.
In the world of gun control they must be “reasonable” & “sensible” & so they ONLY want to control killer guns. They always take little bites. Many little bites & the cheese is gone.
Registration is the 1st step to confication. Should some tyrant president with a phone & a pen decide to take this route he/she wouldn’t take on all 300 million gun owners but little by little & with as much secracy as possible, knock on the doors of those who registered their AK-47’s. A few months later the owners of Uzi’s. They will work their way on down to the AR-15’s. the magnum hand guns & eventually all .223’s.
Really, on the right we are not at all good at protesting. We have cow-towed to one loss of our rights afer another & we watch as for ever our system sets killers, rapists & child molesters loose & allows millions of illegal aliens to drive drunk & shoot & kill Americans. Deportation means NOTHING & in Seattle some have returned more than 20 times. In America today obeying the law is optional.
While the left in congress is big on gun control, it’s part of their “agenda” neither side will work to enact “Kate’s Law”, which in my mind is far too week but the best we could hope for from our do-gooder leaders , and it would remove bad people from society & make us a little safer.
Mr Bell, I don’t think our government gives a damn about our happiness or our standard of living & whether we can enjoy our well deserved beer or not. Over the past 12 years or so our incomes have gone down, our taxes up, cost of living up, health care up & because of “climate change” energy costs are way up and that cost affects everything, jobs & the prices we pay for every item we buy.
At age 84 I have been lied to so much & bitten so many bullets that I am an absolute cynic. I, and many people, no longer believe a word this government says & when they propose a new law which sounds so reasonble, I look for, what really are they trying to force us to do now?
Mr Bell, I have just read your coments of 6/23 & you nailed it! We are sheep. Most people don’t know who the vice president is & are only interested in what you have enumerated.
As individuals we are powerless. I had my gun rights taken & I fought like hell, everything except picking up my eapons & rebeling & NO ONE would help me. My problem involves EVERY disabled person who can’t hop on down to DMV & pose for his wonderful photo ID. Not a one of my political leaders gave a damn, nor did the NRA of which I have been a Life Member since the Federal Gun Law of around 1970.
My one son is an ex Navy submariner & is self employed. Obamacare destroyed his healthcare & he now has no insurance. I guess he has to pay Obama a fine since he’s such a bad boy. I’m pretty well off being retired State of NJ & we pay plenty into Medicare which Obama reached in & grabbed billions for his “plan” & it seems the care we get is not what it used to be.
My father was born in 1893 & servd in the two WW’s; Army then Navy. My parents had little education but they could do everything. He became a city fire chief & was a Navy Commander. Dad told me of the 1st time NJ passed a sales tax, probably around 1930. NO ONE WOULD PAY IT, THE STORES COUDN’T COLLECT IT & IT WAS REPEALED. The best part was at the next eection most of the legislature was turned out. People had principles & they had guts.
In NJ the amendment to make the children into adults (and vote Democrat) was on the ballot in a non-binding referendum & the people voted it down. Our legislature defied us & ratified the very bad amandment. I think by election day it was forgotten.
Our rights are being taken one by one. A salt water fishig license, a fee, a permit, being told what kind of house is acceptable, what you can do in your car & what you can’t do, how to seat your kids, what shots the kids mus have & if you can smoke or not & God, don’t stop under that huge tree like we used to do & have a sandwich & a BEER & wear your PFD & if you have a drink you’ll fall overboard & drown. I don’t know if you noticed it but we are so well regulated with seat belts & helmets, etc that morticians are going out of business!
This is an interesting discussion about guns but as in Orlando the real issue is not guns but 50 years of neglect.
Keep your powder dry, your blades sharp and your eyes on your target…
Align your sights, get the target just over the front sight, take a deep breath, let half out & squeeze the trigger! Of course that’s with iron sights. Don’t shoot ’till you see the whites of their eyes. Where’s John Wayne when you need him most?
Over the years the number of bullets it takes to kill one enemy soldier has skyrocketed. From flint-locks & muzzle loaders to bolt action Springfields to M-1 semi automatic Garands, most shots were probably well amed but now with full automatic maybe the 1st round hits its target while the rest go off into the air. After a fire fight it was found that some, a few, riflemen never fired their weapon & also that some had had heart attacks.
I didn’t wear my belt in my Ford pick up because in over 70 years I never had an accident (luck is involved but it takes skill also) & the truck has a terrible blind spot in the right rear. With a belt on you can’t get a look for traffic in that area. I had to bend & start wearing my belt or I would be paying fines. I did not want a photo ID, my expired license had everything on it, but i had to bend because my bank & post office of 40 years requires I prove I am me & now I can buy guns again, I think.
When Nanny wants you to do something they apply force.
The Preamble to the United States Constitution, andy zahn, as quaint and out-of-dare and out-of-fashion as that document might be today, states as follows:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
end quote
Those words were ratified by the same people who had just rebelled against a tyrant king who had abdicated Government here, by declaring those people out of his Protection and who was waging War against them, plundering their seas, ravaging their Coasts, burning their towns, and destroying the lives of their people.
That tyrant king they had rebelled against was at the time of the rebellion transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
The tyrant king they rebelled against had excited domestic insurrections amongst them, and had endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of their frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, was an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
So when those people subsequently ratified a document that said “in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America,” those words had real meaning to them, especially the part about securing “the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” which happens to be us today in this country, you and I and all these other people in here, as well.
The phrase “We the People of the United States” has been taken by some to mean “government of, by, and for THE PEOPLE,” which would be you and I and all these other people in here, and the 300+ million elsewhere in this country.
So when you say that you and many other people “no longer believe a word this government says,” you are really referring to all your fellow citizens in this country who are, or used to be, anyway, the “government.”
What you are saying is that we are now a house divided.
We no longer have domestic tranquility.
As Abe Lincoln said, a house divided cannot stand.
That really seems to me to be what this discussion is about.
We no longer have common values in this country.
We no longer care about securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
What a sad state of affairs that is, is my thought.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Mr Plante, you pretty well said it. All those things seem to be gone. We are divided & back in the 1949’s we stood together. We really do not have justice with felons receiving a slap on the wrist & free to be “career criminals.”. Does anyone doubt the fact we have been & are being lied to? All the things our government is supposed to be doing for our defense & the common good seems to go to special interests; our tax dollars.
The Founding Fathers required a person own property in order to vote and that the person be literate, but that’s not fair to peole who pay no taxes and can’t read. Changes were made so people on the public dole could vote for officials who would provide the most benefits. I would guarantee if only taxpayers were allowed to vote the national debt would be about nil.
A basic concept was that the MAJORITY would rule. Now we have our entire society set on it’s ear with transexuals, about 1% demanding & getting unisex bathrooms, locker rooms & showers to cite but one example. We VOTE for something and an activist judge over rules us. Another concept was you had the freedom to do as you pleased as long as it didn’t take away another’s rights. We have all manner of laws now that are to protect us from ourselves and it’s no one’s business what we are doing.
The people are angry & this election will be a doozy but we have been on purpose divided so the status quo is assured. Half the Supreme Court believes the president can write laws & that we have no need for a congress and likely half the people feel a tyrant is a great idea.
I was on the water as a little kid & I did commercial fishing & that whole environment has just plain gone to hell with all the new laws & restrictions. That’s the way everything has become. They just can’t leave us alone!
We are lied to, andy zahn, because we tolerate it.
We accept it as our due, apparently.
Jack Nicholson was so right when he said in “A Few Good Men” that we cannot handle the truth, for if we could, we wouldn’t tolerate for an instant all the lies we are being told by our “leaders” on a daily basis.
There was a brief time right after WWII when citizenship responsibilities in a free nation were taught starting right on the first day of kindergarten.
We were taught a sense of place, and a sense of duty.
That was because just prior to WWII, Adolph Hitler of Germany was featured as TIME magazine’s Man of the Year (check it out on GOOGLE) and many Americans before the war were quite enamoured with Hitler, among them, George Herbert Walker and Prescott Bush, and our teachers wanted to make damn sure we would not get sucked in by a tyrant dictator like they had been.
As young Americans back then (I won’t call us children, since we were not treated as such) we were taught about the GOOD GERMANS who allowed Hitler to control their lives, as if they were nothing more than cud-chewing bovines, and there were at that time roughly 80 million of them.
Question everything is what we were taught was our duty as American citizens.
Do not join cults of adulation for any politicians.
Hold them to account!
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and eternal means more than five or ten minutes.
Then came the RED MENACE, commie-nism, and literally overnight, for young people, education changed rapidly.
Obey!
Do what you are told!
Do not question authority, lest you become suspect.
Those were the days of Eugene McCarthy and his witch-hunts.
So people did as they were told.
They stopped questioning.
They caved in, essentially.
And now we are here, except nobody seems to have a clue anymore as to where “here” actually is, beyond a state of confusion starting in Washington, D.C. and working its way on down into the very fabric of society, which is rent and torn as a result.
Which brings me to this following passage from p.210 of “Miracle At Philadelphia – The Story of the Constitutional Convention May to September 1787” by Catherine Drinker Bowen:
Patrick Henry boomed his alarums over the tyranny to be exercised by a supreme government in this ten miles square.
Luther Martin in the Maryland legislature referred ominously to “the seat of empire.”
Governor Clinton of New York – friend of Lansing and Yates, enemy of Hamilton – wrote, under the name of Cato, diatribes to the New York Journal concerning the ten miles square.
The court of the president would be held there, said Clinton.
In this place, men would see all the vices of princely courts: “ambition with idleness, baseness with pride, the thirst of riches without labor …. flattery …. treason …. perfidy; but above all the perpetual ridicule of virtue.”
end quote
Reading that last sentence, I think we are pretty much there, if not fully arrived.
As to citizens being armed, James Madison, a Virginian and founding father responsible in some part for the 2d Amendment being part of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention a U.S. president, said, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
That says nothing about having to be in a militia to own a gun.
Madison also said, “Do not separate text from historical background.”
“If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.”
On reading that, one can easily believe that Madison was far-seeing into these times we are now in.
And to close, Madison said this: It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
Something to think about, anyway, as loyal Americans are being tarred with the broad brush of “terrorism” just because they own guns.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Mr Plante, you are an amazing student of history & so few today have any idea & of course the truth is we are repeating our mistakes as we were told we would. I hope you watch Fox & catch O’Reilly as he too is an outstanding historian, writer & a work-a-holic.
I well remember WW II & the appeasing of Hitler byChamberlain & many others. I remember my Dad going to 90 Church St to join the Navy & going overseas leaving Mom & me alone. At 12 I was the man of the house & got my 1st taste of CORRUPTION in gov’t. Mom went to the ration board to get our ration stamps & a gov’t worker had stolen all of our meat stamps, so for 6 months we couldn’t legally buy any meat. Dad came statside & off we went to a new Naval Base in Ca where he was the fire marshal & had to hire, train, build the fire houses & do everything to protect against fire. The base had German POW’s & they gave us hair cuts at the Army depot next door. They were not Nazi’s, just young kids, Chritians, drafted into their Army. I spoke German with them & they appreciated it. In the base cafeteria I would say “Wei Gates & they would pile on extra food. I was a Navy brat & wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps. When Dad left the Navy he was a Commander & got a wonderful letter from HS Truman, anotherfrom Sec Forrestal and a great letter from his C O, Capt Ross. When he was mustered out at San Fransico in addition to his Honorable Discharge he received as all WW II vets received the “ruptured duck” lapel pin. When I left the Army I got my Honorable Discharge & 6 cents a mile travel pay.
I was in the Army ROTC during the McCarthy hearings & besides being a fraud as to his WW II record he was a beligerent ass. At every chance we watchedthe hearings rooting for ARMY. Finally the Army lawyer took him apart. The whole thing was over G David Shine who was on McCarthy’s staff being drafted & the Army refusing to give him a commission, Shine was in the 71st Inf Div MP in Anchorage, my outfit after it became the 4th MP’s at Ft lewis & the men remembered he was a good soldier& did his duty.
When I was in 8th grade we were very patriotic. All the great songs & all the verses of the Anthem. We said the pledge, had a bible reading & recited the Lord’s Prayer. Mess up, the teacher was the boss, & big trouble. We were taught basic skills & not all this left wing garbage. Later in life I taught 8th grade & discipline was eroded and I never became a member of the left wing NEA. At the end I belonged to nothing & I stood my ground. When I retired the local association had a retirement party & I received a wall plaque.
My war was the Korean Conflict & I wonder, did we belong in that place & in that war? Maybe now we do with the way N Korea is acting but funny, the South Koreans don’t seem to appreciate our great sacrifice. I did not go to Korea & when I went on active duty the fighting had stopped. I was sent to Fairbanks, AK & in WW II they were the elite Ski Troops & now they are the Arctic Warriors but when I was there we were nothings.
That probably was the last war we had any business being involved with & your war was a sensless horror. Westmorel and & LBJ were lying & saying how well things were going, how moreof them than of us were being killed, how just one moe division, justanothe billion dollars &we would win. Only George Romney had the wisdom & the guts to know he had been brainwashed & to say it & for that his political career was over. Another great story was Quale mis spelling potato & that was the end of his career!
Whether a war is justified or not, it’s not up to every draftee to decide whether to serve or run to Canada or claim a religious objection. We are permitting people to regard the law as optional & we wonder why our society is lawless. A famous man, I forget who, said ” My country, my country, right or wrong, my country. Sgt York was a conscience objector but did his duty & won a CMH. Others have served as Medics, etc. No SANE person wants to kill another human but war & self defense are special cases.
By the way, Mr Plante, THANK YOU FOR YOURSERVICE!
As I said, andy zahn, I went to kindergarten right after WWII, when the horror of that war was still on the minds of all the adults, men and women both, whether they served in the military or not, and that is where my values come from, including a mandatory knowledge of history, because if you don’t know where you came from, you sure as hell are going to have a hard time knowing where you are heading.
The national guard unit from up here, the 105th Infantry Regiment, had been federalized and became a part of the Army’s 27th Infantry Division, and those people ended up serving on Saipan, where they bore the brunt of a banzai attack by some 3,000 Japanese troops on that island.
Two men from this area, William O’Brien and Thomas A. Baker, were awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor from that battle.
Since we are on Charles Corneller’s dime in here, where the subject is “finally doing something about this insanity known as the gun culture,” and “assault weapons,” which can be Bic pens, salt shakers, good heavy glass ashtrays, beer bottles, rocks, clubs made of cocobolo wood, bamboo spears, etc,, a brief account of that battle seems appropriate, because that was a real assault, and I grew up surrounded by those who bore the brunt of that assault, and lived to tell about it.
By 7 July, the Japanese had nowhere to retreat.
Saito made plans for a final suicidal banzai charge.
On the fate of the remaining civilians on the island, Saito said, “There is no longer any distinction between civilians and troops.”
“It would be better for them to join in the attack with bamboo spears than be captured.”
At dawn, with a group of 12 men carrying a great red flag in the lead, the remaining able-bodied troops — about 3,000 men — charged forward in the final attack.
Amazingly, behind them came the wounded, with bandaged heads, crutches, and barely armed.
The Japanese surged over the American front lines, engaging both army and Marine units.
The 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 105th Infantry Regiment were almost destroyed, losing 650 killed and wounded.
However, the fierce resistance of these two battalions, as well as that of Headquarters Company, 105th Infantry, and supply elements of 3rd Battalion, 10th Marine Artillery Regiment resulted in over 4,300 Japanese killed.
For their actions during the 15-hour Japanese attack, three men of the 105th Infantry were awarded the Medal of Honor — all posthumously.
Numerous others fought the Japanese until they were overwhelmed by the largest Japanese Banzai attack in the Pacific War.
end quotes
The “assault weapons” of choice of the Japanese in that assault were not rifles at all, but swords, and many of those survivors who were around me when I grew up bore the wounds of sword cuts, not bullet wounds.
Many of those who died, died not from bullets, but from swords, and those who survived would tell you from first hand experience that the sword is a very formidable “assault” weapon.
Those are the people from whom I got my values when young, and no part of those values had anything to do with what Charles Cornweller calls “this insanity known as the gun culture.”
Like Charles Cornweller, I grew up around guns, living out in the country as I did.
I was taught to shoot in the Boy Scouts when 10 or so.
A large part of that training was on GUN SAFETY.
YOU DO NOT POINT WEAPONS AT PEOPLE, PERIOD!
You don’t point unloaded weapons at people.
I was in the woods by myself with a sixteen gauge shotgun when I was 12, and had a hunting license, and at no time, given all of the freedom to carry a loaded weapon, did I ever think to use it on another human being.
That thought alone was anathema.
I was surrounded by combat veterans from WWII and Korea, most of whom were armed, many with M-2 carbines, and not once did you hear of somebody taking a gun of any kind and using it to commit violence on another person.
Down in New York City back then, where gun violence was fairly prevalent, like it is up here now in the two cities near me, with their drug and GANGSTA cultures, the home-made ZIP GUN was the weapon of choice as an “assault weapon.”
A “zip gun” fired ,22 shorts or maybe .22 LR’s through a piece of car antennae fitted to a piece of wood shaped like a pistol and it was fired using a sliding door latch filed to a point on the end with a rubber-band as the motive force.
For close-in fighting in a gang war, they were said to be quite effective.
When the British, who were armed with guns and bayonets, tried to subdue the Ghurkas of Nepal, the Ghurka “assault weapon” of choice was the Kukri, a Nepalese knife with an inwardly curved blade that are still carried by Ghurka troops today,
Anyone interested in how that struggle went for the British will find out, upon study, that the gun-carrying British lost against the kukri-wielding Ghurkas.
So the knife and sword can in fact be superior “assault weapons” in the right hands compared to guns.
With respect to “assault weapons,” which is a most ridiculous-sounding term in the mouth of a pandering politician, I was a light-weapons infantryman, an 11 Bravo, in Viet Nam in 1969 out near the Cambodian border north-west of Saigon, and south of Tay Ninh and the Saigon River.
As an infantryman, I participated, as did many others of that generation, in “combat assaults” from helicopters.
In all of those combat assaults, I never carried an “assault weapon,” and to be truthful, in my time in the military, I never used the term, nor did I ever hear it used, since there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.”
The first time I heard the ridiculous term being used was fairly recently in this country, with the term spilling from the mouths of ign0rant politicians who, as a writer above here says, apparently want to ban weapons they think are scary looking.
When I went on “combat assaults” as an infantryman in Viet Nam, I carried an M-16 A-1 automatic rifle, not an “assault weapon.”
In the military, at least when I was in, the “assault weapon” was me, the infantryman, whether I was bearing weapons, or not.
Guns do not kill.
People with guns kill.
That is the way it has been since the Chinese invented the first guns during the 13th century AD, which, if my math is right, was something like 700 years ago now.
From China, the invention was later transmitted to the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, and from Europe, to here, so that by now, the gun is literally as common as dirt, and as the New York City ZIP GUN proves, they are quite easy to make.
Which brings us back to Charles Cornweller and what he calls “this insanity known as the gun culture.”
In his post, Charles says, “And eventually, one will find its way to your neighborhood, or your grandchildren’s school or your daughter’s work place.”
My response is that up here near Albany, New York, they already have.
GOOGLE “gun violence in the Capitol District area of New York” and see what you get.
Several years ago, an Albany Police Lt. was killed by a FEDERAL PAROLEE armed with an Uzi.
Several years ago, already, a little girl was killed by a 13-year old boy who was firing at some other boys, and missed.
Some dude went into a McDonald’s in Troy and opened fire, but did not do a lot of damage to people because of poor gun control.
Tune into the TALK RADIO 1300 blog up here and day after day after day you will read about somebody shooting somebody else, to the point of where it is so common people don’t even think about it anymore.
One 13-year old was arrested up here with a Smith & Wesson .40 caliber handgun, which I understand is a pricey weapon.
Where did he get it?
Probably stolen, but who knows.
Which takes us to Charles Cornweller’s statement “And then what?”
“Are you are going out to buy more guns.”
“Or will you say enough is enough and finally do something about this insanity known as the gun culture.”
Charles, frankly, like rabies in the animal population, there is really no effective treatment that I can think of to cure “this insanity known as the gun culture.”
Certainly the police up this way have not yet found a cure for it, and I don’t think they will.
There was a time when the insane were put in special places called asylums, especially the criminally insane, and sociopaths and psychopaths who had committed acts of violence, but then, the asylums were banned as a violation of the civil rights of the criminally insane, and they became a part of mainstream America, just like the law-abiding folks who now want to own a gun to protect themselves from the insane dude who does have a gun, or who wants to commit an act of violence.
Just last night up this way, a homeowner shot some apparently-crazed dude who was trying to break through the guy’s front door.
According to the news report, the home-owner shouted a warning through the door, which did not deter the attacker, so to protect himself, the home owner shot the attacker.
Should he have done otherwise?
To close, I don’t think we have a problem with guns in this country.
What I think we have a problem with is criminally-insane people running loose in this country, the GANGSTA culture, and the drug culture, which are glorified in modern “music,” and as long as violence is glorified, be it in music, or video games, we are going to have acts of violence being committed.
Just the other day up this way, one of the local hoodlums in the drug trade up this way left this green earth, not the victim of gun violence, but because he was stabbed with a knife.
So maybe while we are banning “assault weapons,” we really should ban knives as well.
And when we ban knives, we really better consider banning rocks, the original “assault weapon” of choice before the thigh bone of an animal became popular.
Charles, I wish I had an answer for you, but in truth, I don’t.
Trying to find a rational cure for irrational acts itself seems on the insane side to me.
As to militias, James Madison said, “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”
I think a lot of law-abiding loyal, sane Americans would find it hard to argue with that.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
The liberal media invents terms to show how smart they are & to put down things they don’t like. Assault weapon is one, saturday night special another & I just love “boots on the ground”. Most of these bright people have never served, never even held a weapon & don’t know the difference between a clip & a magazine.
I began with a good air rifle & in Ca went off into the foothils with my ..22 rifle plinking. I was an excellent shot & I was ambidextrous, mostly shooting left handed. Dad having been a Pvt & then an officer in the Army in WW I made me switch to shooting right handed because he knew all the military weapons were for right handed people. I watched my left handed friends on the KD range with the M-1 rifle & the M-1 carbine & all the trouble they had with spent cartridge cases going inside their helmet liners & all the trouble they had inserting a new clip or magazine. I qualified expert with both shoulder weapons & also with the 1911 A-1 .45 pistol. As a weapons platoon leader & as a company commander of a rifle company in Alaska I was supposed to be armed with an M-3 carbine but we didn’t have any so I had the old M-1. Just as good because I don’t think I had my own weapon & I don’t think I had it zeroed & probably had a different weapon each time we went into the field.
I was sent twice to the Arctic School at Ft Greely where the summer course was heavy on mountain & glacier climbing & the Commandnt was 10th Mountain in WW II so we were to teach our troops mountain warfare if it would become necessary.
We were not being shot at & we didn’y have jungles & rice paddys so we were lucky & should be thankful but we had 65 below zero, sleeping in bags on an air mattress in the snow,
maybe a tent, maybe a stove with fuel & out on skis then in the muskeg & tundra with trillions of mosquitoes. One thing, all the bachelors were very unhappy & there was a bonding of junior officers, NCO’s & EM so we all got along & didn’t bug each other.
Like we both said, we never had a thought to ever do harm to anyone with the guns we owned, nor did any of the people we knew, nor did any of my school gun club members. Violence is a mental condition & a weapon can be anything, some more deadly than a firearm. As a retired educator I can say our government is the best at educating but much of what they teach id evil. By legalizing abortion they have taught us that life is cheap, killing another person is OK. By nor REALLY dealing with criminals & now in Va wanting to let felons vote they are teaching that laws don’t matter & crime is not THAT bad. By handing out welfare & food stamps they are teaching you can live off the work of otherss AND by handing out ALL the benefits to “single moms” they are teaching a father in the home is not required & that one brings on a world of trouble & we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Our country is in very deep trouble & it’s almost necessary to keep at least one weapon handy & that means loaded & with no block on the trigger. Circumstances may prevent this like kids in the house. We always had weapons & we, like my Dad did, taught our kids about our guns & about their proper use & gun safety. At that time the guns were unloaded & the ammo stored separate. Things then were not this bad! Now we have everyfelon armed, home invasions a new fad. Illegal aliens & deportees about. The threat of radical terrorists and the country in a state of anarchy, even in the House of Representatives! We are not far from a state of civil war and one truth about guns: you must be aware that an attack is imminent & have the weapon in your hand. Cops are being murdered because they have no idea some b*****d is about to shoot them in the back or as they sit in their squad car & their 9mm is in their holster. Our “fearless leader” has the police even afraid to defend their own lives.
Something that bothers me; Brokow & “The Greatest Generation”, Anyone who ever wore this uniform is JUST as great. You only have one life to give & it doesn’t matter if it’s in France or Iraq or even in basic training. The kids today are fantastic!
andy zahn, thank you for your service, and for your father’s service, as well, and welcome home to the both of you!
The next time I play Amazing Grace and Taps for fallen and deceased veterans, I will be sure to include your father’s memory on the list.
You are so right, andy zahn, when you say violence is a mental condition & a weapon can be anything, some more deadly than a firearm.
Acts of violence are committed by violent people, not by weapons.
Some years ago, we had that proven up here when an unarmed violent person in Albany, our corrupt capital city, was able to physically take on two Albany Police Officers and get the weapon off one of them, and then use it to shoot both of them.
The supposedly un-armed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri actually had his hands on the weapon of the cop who finally shot him, according to a Justice Department report.
Any martial artist knows that the fist of a person, especially a strong person, or a trained person, is itself a weapon, and it is foolish to think somebody using their fists on someone else is “unarmed.”
As to teaching, I think it is more indoctrinating these days, as opposed to educating.
Indoctrination tells you what to think, while educating tells you to think about what you are being told – the art of critical thinking and analysis.
But my goodness, how could we have and hold a REPUBLIC if everyone was actually thinking for themselves, as opposed to listening to the voice coming over the loudspeaker with the order of the day?
When I was young, we sang “My Country Tis of Thee” in the morning, we pledged allegiance to the flag, and we had a moment of SILENT prayer.
This was right after WWII, when there were still Displaced Person camps in Europe.
Our silent prayer wasn’t to ask God for something, although perhaps some did, a new Mercedes-Benz to make amends to all their Porsche-driving friends or something like that.
No, it was a PRAYER OF THANKFULNESS for what we did have, which was LIBERTY, not freedom, as it taught today.
It was a prayer of thankfulness that we had been born here, and not war-torn Europe or Stalin’s Russia.
We didn’t sing “My Country Tis of Thee” like a bunch of out-of-tune parrots.
We focused on the words, and the meaning of the words – SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY!
We studied what LIBERTY meant, versus freedom.
Your freedom to extend your arm stops short of the physical being of anyone around you, unless, of course, you are defending yourself, and then you only use the force required, not excessive force, and it was incumbent on each individual in society to know the difference, or else, there could be no civilized society.
Those rules were supposed to apply to everyone equally.
Violence, be it with words, or deeds, was unacceptable.
Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you.
In my experience, that all began to change in the early-1960s, and that change accelerated as the Viet Nam war accelerated.
“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear, there’s a man with a gun over there, telling me I got to beware!”
Consider this testimony of Secretary of State John “Jack” Kerry before subcommittees of the U.S. Senate, April, 1971, to wit:
There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones.
I conducted harassment and interdiction fire.
I used 50-caliber machine guns, which we were granted and ordered to use, which were our only weapon against people.
I took part in search and destroy missions, in the burning of villages.
All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare, all of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this is ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down.
And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lieutenant [William] Calley, are war criminals.
end quote
Violence became a way of life, not something to avoid.
Violence was alright. because it was sanctioned, endorsed, and encouraged and taught by the federal government of the United States of America.
In Viet Nam, we became un-American, and we lost, plain and simple.
We got onto the wrong side of Divine Providence, and it went against us.
People don’t generally know this, but Ho Chi Minh worked at the Parker House Hotel in Boston baking Parker House rolls when he was young, and as every American should know, but generally don’t, Boston is very much the birthplace of the American Revolution against a tyrant British king.
Ho Chi Minh embraced those ideas, including the words of the Declaration of Independence, which serves to define tyrannical acts by a ruler unfit to be the ruler of a free people, and he took them back to Viet Nam, where they were instilled in the minds of a people who were then suffering the tyranny of the French, who were their masters in what was supposed to be their country.
So when we went to Viet Nam after the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu, we were viewed by the Vietnamese, and this was told to me face-to-face by intelligent, articulate Vietnamese, as betrayers of our own supposed ideals I learned when I was young.
Those people knew more about our history than we did, because to be an American, you don’t have to know a stinking thing about anything, all you have to do is to be born here.
Quite a story, andy zahn, and it is far from over.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Mr Plante, thank you for your very kind thoughts about my Dad & myself. You only know a part. My dear wife is also a veteran of both the RCAF & thr USAF. Three of my sons served; one a Navy submariner, an0the on a Navy Frigate and one a helicopter pilot in the NJ Nat Guard. 3 generations of Army officers. I was career & Gung-Ho. That’s how we all were in my college ROTC & in the Pershing Rifles. Many stayed 20 or more years. I went through jump school & was going to go to Ranger school but at Benning they were mean to us & they lost about the entire class of 1954 out of West Point. who were Infantry. In my Inf Battalion they lost their Asst S-3 & the S-3 & shoved me in there & I wasn’t even an Inf officer. I had to teach myself & did a damn good job/ I had no complaints & I had to handle all the training tests plus everythin else.
I read “Fortunate Son” by Lewis Puller the son of Lt Gen Chesty Puller, USMC & I could cry. Young Puller was following in his Dad’s footsteps & was a Lt in the Marines in Viet-Nam. He was being shot at & ran to get away from the gunfire stepping on a mine & losing both legs. He had no reason to feel ashmed but he felt he had disgraced his father by running. He spent a year at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, could not use artificial legs & was stuck in a wheel chair. He became a lwyer & ran for congress before my time in this district, the Eastern Shore. The press in Norfolk was biased & helped the Republican, Paul Tribble who became a representative & then a U S senator. Not too long ago Lt Puller ended his life. I wish I could have reached out to him.
Lt Kerry of the Swift Boats was a fraud & the speach he gave while we were at war was akin to Jane Fonda. Adm Mc Cain may not be my ideal as a senator but he is one hell of a war hero & Trump was an ass to attack his war record & to bad-mouth all POW’s; and from a man who beat the draft.
I am from Near Newark, NJ & spent my career “on vacation” at the Jersey Shore! Why would I, the 2nd best math teacher in NJ want to teach in a ghetto school, ride the subway, get mugged & tryto teach kids who are out in the streets shooting drugs? I’m joking about being 2nd best. actually I went to where we had the 2nd highest salaries in NJ> The law changed & I was able to retireat 55 & GOOD-BYE. We voted with our feet & moved to the Eastern Shore. Just on taxes alone we are probably around $10,000 a year better off.
How about you? Still in Albany? Think about it!
War is hell & killing goes both ways & it’s kill or be killed. We won WW II & we fought the war as it had to be fought & there was a lot of collateral damage. We were not the ones who asked for it. Truman was right in dropping the two bombs. We would have has a million casualties & the Japanesewould have lost even more. It was like surgery. Pain now to avoid far worse pain later. A soldier on the battlefield should never forever regret the fact he killed an enemy soldier. It’s OK to feel bad but the soldier meeds to get over it. It’s a different story in the case of Lt Calley. Truth is, Calley should never have been commissioned. If his men knew he was giving an illegal order they were obligated to disobeywhich is easier said than done. It’s never right to intentionally kill women & children or any inocent civilians. What our government did at Ruby Ridge & at Waco was dead wrong & no one got prosecuted, in fact they were promoted. When I used to shoot a deer. generally in the neck, Ifelt glad & thanked God for the food I had for my family BUT I felt deep sorrow for the life I had just taken.
I have guns for self defense & I’m not trigger happy. I know the difference between my wife walking around & the sound of a window or door being forced open. My guns are put away out of sight. Naturally I have no desire to ever shoot anyone but if someone dares to break into my house I would regard it as suicide by home owner.
As MP duty officer at Ft Lewis I carried either my own accurized .45 or my .357 magnum S &W & I could hit a small target at 50 yds. If I was in the same spot as the cop in Fergurson I too would have done the same thing. What the bleeding hearts & the racists loose sight of is that there are a lot of murders each year by unarmed violent people. Once the “young boy” got the cop’s gun, I think then he would be armed & the cop unarmed & likely the cop’s wife would be a new widow.
Getting back to a soldier killing another soldier; nothing to regret forever. My one son is a railroad engineer & supervisor for NJT & he has run people over who are on the tracks & has to investigate when engineers under him have that happen. That & a car on the tracks. It’s ugly & it’s sad but there’s nothing the operator can do to preent this. At times it’s a suicide.
A lot of gun deaths are suicides. That person would do it any way he wants to & sometimes he turns on the gas endangering the whole neighborhood. When I was a kid my great uncle did just that in our house. A person doesn’t see a gun & say I think I’ll kill myself today. Guns, knives, ropes, propane gas cooking doesn’t cause suicides! If that were true all cops, soldiers & meat cutters would be dead to name a few. But a theory is a theory & climate change is caused by fossil fuel but not for the 1st two hundred years. It’s been a GREAT discussion! Thanks.
Andy
General of the Armie”S” John “Blackjack” Pershing, the only man to ever hold that title. Ike & the others did not have the “S”. Blackjack because at one time he commanded a Blackregiment. As a young officer at the U of Nebraska he formed the Pershing Rifles. It is an Honor Society of the ROTC where cadets who want more military training & exposure sign on. You go through a trial period & if up to it get to become a member at a big beer bust. (in the old days!) Extra drills & classes & competitions with inspections from battalion & regimental Hq. I was elected the Company Commander of our PR Company by the members. I was also the regimental commanderof the entire ROTC. I just did some research on Pershing Rifles & found that Colin Powell & Jack Keane had been members plus a bunch of generals, etc. I see & listen to Gen Keane on Fox & I am truly impressed .He is well spoken, articulate, a perfect gentleman and knows tactics and strategy plus international relations,well versed in middle east affairs. I hope Trump is elected, even a 5 year old Trump would be better than a 7o yr old Hillary & I would hope he surrounds himself with the likes of Gen Keane & Sheriff Joe.
I go back to WW II & the leaders we had & today we have nothing to compare. FDR, HST, George Marshall, Ike, Bradley, Patton, Ridgeway, Stillwell, Merrill, Wainwright, Taylor, Nimitz, Halsey, the industrial, rail, manufacturing transportation & coal industries & how they put it all together, in secret, and while they were training the new recruits they were building their guns, ships, tanks, planes & moving it all either to the East or West and on D Day the greatest operation in military history! Meanwhile rationing & providing for the military & the civil poulation & the Coast Guard & the FBI catching spies & no Miranda, No civil court, No high priced legal team; a military tribunal & a firing squad or long prison term.
It wasn’t nice, wasn’t legal but we had no Jap spies. Dad’s secretary on the Naval base was 2nd generation Japanese & personnel wanted to fire her. Dad said no way! Her brother was fighting in Europe in the Go For Broke regiment. Her parents were probably interred.
Today, we have had decades of dumbing down and highly educated people who don’t know the fisrt thing about the field they are in charge of & so the wheels have come off the wagon!
While we are on this subject of gun violence and violence in general today in the United States of America, I am reminded of a friend who joined the Army out of high school back in the 1960s and ended up a paratrooper in the 82d Airborne.
He was twice wounded in Viet Nam, but the first time he was issued live ammunition for his weapon on a “deployment,” as opposed to training on a range, was not in Viet Nam.
It was in Detroit, Michigan, in 1967, the same year I enlisted in the U.S. Army.
Talk about violence, alright, there was plenty of it there, far more than that nightclub in Orlando.
According to the casualty count, it was as follows:
82nd Airborne Division: 0 killed, 5 wounded
101st Airborne Division: 0 killed, 3 wounded
Michigan Army National Guard: 1 killed, 55 wounded
Michigan State Police: 0 killed, 67 wounded
Detroit Police Department: 1 killed, 214 wounded
Detroit Fire Department: 2 killed, 134 wounded
Civilian casualties: 23 killed, 696 wounded
For those with short memories, or for those in America today too young to remember, the 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan which began on a Saturday night in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967.
The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, just north of the corner of 12th Street (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount Avenue on the city’s Near West Side.
Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit’s 1943 race riot.
To help end the disturbance, Governor George W. Romney ordered the Michigan Army National Guard into Detroit, and President Lyndon B. Johnson sent in both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions.
The result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.
The scale of the riot was surpassed in the United States only by the 1863 New York City draft riots during the U.S. Civil War, and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
And people in America today are surprised that we have violence in this nation, to the point of where law-abiding loyal Americans want to have guns in their homes to keep them safe.
Go figure.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
At that time they were having riots in Newark. Dad was a retired Irvington fire chief, then living at the Jersey Shore & after the riots visited one of his old fire stations. He noticed a lot of steel welded onto a fire truck & asked what that was about. It was to protect the firefighters from rocks that were being thrown at them as they were helping out in Newark. IT WAS UNHEARD OF THAT ANYONE WOULD EVER TRY TO HURT A FIREMAN WHOSE ONLY MISSION IS TO DO GOOD & SAVE LIVES & PROPERTY. We now have a different kind of animal!. UPSTATE NY A CONVICTED MURDERER WHO SERVED HIS TIME GOT A GUN & FIRED ON 2 VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS KILLING ONE.
LBJ sending in the 82nd & the 101st was a violation of the Posse-Comitas Act so how did he get away with that? Kent State is another case of deadly shooting of civilians. My son tells me the Orlando killing is dwarfed by the Army’s massacre of Indians in our history.
One of the tasks the MP’s are responsible for is riot control. During the anual training test for the 4th MP’s I was in charge of putting down a riot. The rioters were soldiers from perhaps the National Guard play acting. I did everything by the book & when we moved on them with fixed bayonettes in a wedge formation the rioters ran all over the place not staying on what was supposed to be streets & what were supposed to be buildings. DO OVER! They made me look like an ass & I was PISSED. As we went back into formation I told my men “IF THEY DON’T BEHAVE, STICK ‘EM!” Lucky they behaved this time because if anyone did get stuck I would be writing this from Leavenworth! We would not be allowed to do riot control against Americans here in the states but only in an occupied country.
Anothe job the MP’s have is RAIDS. We don’t get tested on this but we know what to do. As I watched Waco on TV Iwas screaming NO! NO! Suprise is key. You do a raid at 3, 4 or 5 am when you hope they are sleeping.The Waco thing was on TV in broad daylight with the Davidians no doub twatching as the FBI & BATF looking so military in their SWAT suits climbed a ladded onto a roof where they were met with gun fire. It was a stage play to show how macho our FBI & BATF are & all those women & kids got killed & nothing happened to Reno or anyone.
Madigan Army Hospital ran an exercise called”Operation Fireball” where a nuke had gone off & wounded were being evacuated to the hospital. I was in charge of the 4th MP’s who were doing the traffic control. The exercise went OK but I don’t know if it really proved anything.
Hillary & Tim Kaine want ANOTHER gun law to keep guns out of the handsof criminals & terrorists. The answer is simple. One new law that says “Criminals & terrorists are not permitted to obtain guns”.
Ike put federal troops in Little Rock to see to integration & federal troops ran the WW I veterans, who wanted their promised bonus, out of Washington, so it seems our leaders only obey laws when thev see fit. Obama never saw a law he saw fit to obey!
The key to all of this is our violent culture & we have become this way over the last 50 years or so. My students back in the 50’s & 60’s were entirely sane & trustworthy & brought their guns to school for practice & instruction & never a hint of a problem. Try that today!
The liberal, progressivem, secular left has taken over & they have destroyed every part of our values & heritage.
The incident with the veterans was the beginning of the rift between Ike & MacArthur because Ike found sending troops against former soldiers distasteful while MacArthur found enjoyment. Personaly I did not find MacArthur a great military leader in WW II although he was PERFECT for accepting the unconditional surrender and then the occupation of Japan. He was a wordsmith & his “Old soldiers never die” is a classic. Apparently he was a great leader in WW I & he & Patton were great heroes.
With respect to “violence begetting violence,” in his “Second Treatise of Government, Chapter II, Of The State of War,” the political philosopher John Locke mused as follows:
For by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred; and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so, may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
end quote
For those unfamiliar with the name and context, John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the “Father of Liberalism”.
Locke’s writings, including that passage above here, influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries, our political forebears.
With respect to that influence, his contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.
According to that political theory, which I have never seen controverted or refuted by any more modern political theories, it seems that “violence begetting violence” is destined to always be a part of our national dialogue and heritage in this country.
Incidentally, after the American Revolution, the Public Advertiser, a newspaper in London, England reminded its readers that the so-called American patriots were cowards, murderers and traitors when John Adams was appointed U.S. Ambassador to that country at the conclusion of the American Revolution.
Another political theory extant at that time was found in the “Leviathan” of political philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
In the “Leviathan,” Hobbes’ overall project was to explain by what reasons a commonwealth may govern men, and then to establish the best possible way for this government to function in order to accommodate the desires of its denizens.
Beginning his argument at the most basic level, Hobbes argued that man exists in the external world as a reactive creature that senses objects and is driven to act by the constant motions of the world.
According to Hobbes, and again, I have never seen this refuted or controverted, especially today, with all this violence swirling around in the world around us, these constant motions lead to man’s constant and insatiable desires and wants, which in a state of nature pits everyone against another in a perpetual state of war, where men are equal in that anyone can kill anyone else, and as such men live in a constant state of fear and anxiety.
Today, in fact, we are living in a perpetual state of war, a time of war without end, and as a result, people today do live in a constant state of fear and anxiety and thus, wish to possess firearms to destroy a man who makes war upon them, for the same reason that they may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so, may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
Considering the “Leviathan” was written in 1651, which book established social contract theory, the foundation of most later Western political philosophy, including ours today, and not much has changed since then with regard to people being at war with other people, and violence endlessly begetting violence, as it has been doing for all of my life now, on a seemingly escalating basis, it seems that what we really desperately need is a new national political theory or philosophy that stresses violence is not the way.
But let’s face it; political philosophy and political theory are simply that in that they don’t change people’s habits.
If, as these political theorists whose un-refuted theories shaped the thoughts of our political forebears say, the natural state of mankind is to be at perpetual war with each other, then it seems to me that violence begetting violence will be our legacy to the world, and outside of not committing random or intentional acts of violence ourselves, there is little or nothing we can do to change this violent status quo.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
@ Paul,
Everything we do is a personal choice. Free will is the core essence of humanity as a species. Each and every one of us would have to decide whether or not to kill or be killed in a situation where life is threatened. But, the great unknown is; like death, we do not know the repercussions of what it means to take a life. Only through religion and the ancient teachings are we told it is a sin. Yet we wage this sin at such a scale as to make it laughable and an affront to that which deems it a sin. As for me, personally, I would rather be killed, then to kill. I truly fear the repercussions of stealing the life force from another, no matter the circumstance.
Now, if my family were threatened, I think I might have another view on the matter. But, as for me, I would stand by my principal.
Mr Plante, yout knowledge of so much history & your having all the numbers at your fingertips is amazing. You must be a professorof history or of philosophy or at least a teacher somewhere. Have you written a book or considered it? Your writings & your experiences are very interesting.
I am not going to return to this page but I’ll look on the page where you preented the topic of violence. Best of luck,
Andy
Chas Cornweller says “everything we do is a personal choice” and “free will is the core essence of humanity as a species.”
“Each and every one of us would have to decide whether or not to kill or be killed in a situation where life is threatened, but, the great unknown is; like death, we do not know the repercussions of what it means to take a life.”
end quote
As a combat veteran, Charles, I can say that I personally have at least an inkling of the repercussions of what it means to take a life are, and from personal experience, I can say that I have observed those who seem to relish in it, taking lives, I mean.
It is a form of sport to them, just as it is to the sick pups who take lives with Barack Obama’s drones and HELLFIRE missiles.
But there, I have just made a value judgment, haven’t I, calling them sick pups when there are many, starting with Barack Obama, who would call them true American heroes, keeping us safe from God alone knows what, but safe, nonetheless.
Viet Nam was all about body count – dead people in a pile, whether men, women or children.
The fact that they were dead in the pile was sufficient evidence that they were “THE ENEMY.”
What hogwash.
And yet, body count is what got officers promoted, so it had to be done – kill a commie for Christ as the sky pilots would say!
I thought those days of body count were long since over with the end of the Viet Nam war.
How wrong I turned out to be.
I thought people in this country were finally sick of the slaughter, and sick of the sickness of killing people in other countries for no discernable reasons, other than if we didn’t, a domino was going to fall and that would be the end of us.
What crap!
And yet, we still fall for it, all these politicians including Hillary Clinton telling us that ISIS is going to come here and kill us all, all 300+ million of us, as if we were a nation of bleating sheep, as an excuse for waging endless war in other countries, which promotes and provokes further violence.
After Viet Nam, Charles, I said from this day forward, I will fight no more forever, and each day, I try very hard to live up to that promise.
I avoid violence by not being violent.
I am not armed, nor do I wish to be.
If someone is going to try and kill me for some reason, and they succeed, oh well, I’ll be the first to know.
That might be the end of my earthly life, but it won’t be the end of me, so I don’t trouble myself about it.
I’m certainly not going to go out and get a gun to prevent it from happening.
Free will, Charles.
That is my exercise of it.
In closing, I think you and the Cape Charles Mirror, which I think highly of, and wish we had up here where I am, have done a public service by airing this topic.
I would hope that it would make people have to give this subject some thought, beyond the trite and shallow sentiment that violence is caused by guns.
Violence is caused by violent people.
If society is sick and tired of violence, then the way to get rid of it is not by banning guns.
The way to get rid of violence is to stop producing violent people, and that begins in the home, and the community.
If we want to end violence, then we should give some real serious thought as to not putting violent people in the White House.
If we want to end violence, then as a nation, we should be telling Barack Obama to stop bragging about the people he is killing.
Without that as an example, perhaps then common people won’t consider killing such an attractive alternative to solving their own problems in life.
My thoughts, anyway.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Si vis pacem, para bellum
“If you want peace, prepare for war”.
From Book 3 of Latin author Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus’s tract De Re Militari (4th or 5th century), although the idea it conveys is also present in earlier works, such as Plato’s Nomoi (Laws).
From World Wars And Revolutions by Walter Phelps Hall, PhD, of Princeton, copyrighted 1943:
WHY WAR WAS THOUGHT OUTMODED
On June 28, 1914, an Austrian archduke was shot at Sarajevo in the Balkans and within five weeks the greater part of Europe was at war.
Four years later, the German Reich, hampered by impotent allies, lamed by empty stomachs, hammered by Foch’s armies, ceased to be.
The German High Command had lost their war; and many, blinded by victory and confused by rejoicing well-nigh universal, believed all war banished from the world.
Instead, within one generation, in a short twenty years, a murkier and more murderous hurricane than that of 1914 came roaring out of Central Europe, to sweep every ocean, to engulf continents.
The war of 1914-18, the first World War, burst on a relatively unsuspecting world.
Few even of the statesmen of that day were convinced of its coming.
True, in 1911, 1912, and in 1913 there had been little wars involving European countries.
That trifling and semi-comic conflict between Italians and Turks in 1911, involving Libyan oases, did not really threaten Europe’s peace; and the two Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, though bloody enough to satisfy Tamerlane, seemed far away from the main currents of European civilization.
Certain savants held that these might even be considered harbingers of coming world peace, since in less enlightened times such frontier wars might well have involved one or more of the great powers, all of whom were now too sagacious to draw the sword.
end quote
And now we are in a time of never-ending war, like a scene straight out of Orwell’s 1984.
Si vis pacem fac bellum.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
As we ponder the subject of violence in here, it is interesting to note that the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a British news organization, has estimated the our president, Barack Obama, who has us mired in endless wars, has carried out 373 drone strikes in Pakistan during his administration, killing as many as 634 civilians, and it estimates that as many as 101 civilians were killed by Obama’s drone strikes in Yemen beginning in 2011.
Body count.
It is how Obama proves his manhood to us, and we cheer him on, because he is keeping us “safe,” although from what, he is unable to say.
And we wonder why we have violent people in this country.
A big mystery, isn’t it.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
Freedom is not free,
but the U.S. Marine Corps
will pay most of your share.
When I was young, right after WWII, every morning, we pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the REPUBLIC for which that flag was supposed to stand.
We were taught that if you are going to pledge allegiance to something, then it would behoove us to know what “allegiance” actually meant, and what duties and/or responsibilities that placed on the person so pledging.
To pledge allegiance to a REPUBLIC means knowing what a REPUBLIC is, what it means, and why we have, or actually, past tense, now, had a REPUBLIC as opposed to all the other alternatives such as a military dictatorship.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines a REPUBLIC as a COMMONWEALTH, where COMMONWEALTH generally designates a republican frame of government – one in which the welfare and rights of the entire mass of people are the main consideration, rather than the privileges of a class or the will of a monarch.
When the privileges of a certain class and/or the will of one who would be a monarch become the main consideration, as they have become today in this country, then we clearly no longer have a REPUBLIC.
When we no longer have a REPUBLIC, then the pledge of allegiance becomes meaningless, and society such as was supposed to structured by OUR Constitution begins to break down, as it is, and anarchy and violence become prevalent, as opposed to order in the land.
Allegiance means the loyalty of a citizen to his or her government.
In our case, we were taught, OUR government meant government of by, and for the people, not the Republican Party, not the Democrat Party, and not the United States Marine Corps, or the Barack Obama administration.
What we used to pledge allegiance to, back when it still meant something, was that which was described and defined in the preamble to the United States Constitution, to wit:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
end quote
Nowhere in there do you see the word “freedom.”
What you do see is the phrase “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
“Secure” means to “fix or attach firmly so that it cannot be moved or lost,” or so we were taught when I was young.
When we pledged allegiance to the flag and the REPUBLIC for which it stands, that is what we were pledging personal allegiance to, the securing of the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and to our posterity, our children, their children, and so on down the line.
Each person in the room was supposed to take that pledge to heart.
It was supposed to be a personal obligation for each and every one of us, but it turned out not to be so, as I have learned in the intervening years.
The pledge, or oath, of course, was never enforceable.
If it meant nothing to a person, and it doesn’t to a lot of people, nothing was going to happen to them.
Nobody was going to take away their birthday, or kick them out of the country.
So on my lifetime, we went from securing of the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and to our posterity, to having “freedom,” which has been interpreted as being able to do anything you want to do, and nobody can stop you.
When you can do anything you want and nobody can stop you, then the concepts of law and ORDER go right out the window, and guess what, we find ourselves here in the United States of America in the year 2016, with a nation engulfed in wanton violence, because people can do whatever they want, and nobody can stop them.
Stuart Bell, with all due respect, as a twice-wounded ARMY combat veteran with a Silver Star, I don’t want “freedom” provided to me by order of the United States Marine Corps, for to me, that would not be freedom at all, just another form of oppression, which would simply spawn even more violence in this already mentally-sick nation.
If the Marine Corps can secure the blessings of LIBERTY to ourselves and to our posterity, our children, their children, and so on down the line, I would be happy to have it be so.
But please, Stuart, don’t impose on me and mine your Marine Corps version of freedom, and in the course of doing so, strip away our liberty with a militarily-imposed doctrine.
As we head into the 4th of July, which used to be “Independence from Tyranny” Day, it would be wise to remember that that is what OUR revolution was all about in the first place, a revolt against having an English king’s English army aided by Hessian mercenaries imposing the king’s freedom on us at the point of a bayonet.
And Stuart, on behalf of this Army veteran who shed blood in defense of this nation’s Constitution, please enjoy this Independence Day, and while doing so, perhaps you could meditate for a moment on why you have the day to celebrate in the first place.
Signed, A Loyal American Citizen Who Has Not Forsaken His Oath To OUR Constitution
Paul Plante, RVN 1969
When I was young and just starting school and my education as an American citizen, which is what education was for during a little window of time between the end of WWII, and the rise of national paranoia over the specter of WORLD COMMUNISM in the 1950s, which paranoia changed the course of education for young people, at least in my community, World War II was just over and it was still very much on the minds of all the adults who surrounded me in my small community from whom I took my early values, values which I still retain, as in all the intervening years, I have not found anything better to replace them, and many things far worse.
For us young Americans just entering kindergarten, education meant among other things studying that war from a psychological perspective, especially the phenomenon of the Hitler Youth.
For those unfamiliar with the term, the Hitler Youth was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany whose origins dated back to 1922.
From 1933 until 1945, the Hitler Youth was the sole official youth organisation in Germany and was partially a paramilitary organization.
We were taught that the members of the Hitler Youth, children like us, albeit a few years older than we were then, were viewed as future “Aryan supermen” and were indoctrinated into racism.
One aim of the Hitler Youth, we were taught, was to instill the motivation that would enable its members as soldiers, to fight faithfully for Nazi Germany, which had just happened with WWII.
The Hitler Youth were used to break up Church youth movements, and in anti-Church indoctrination, used to spy on religious classes and Bible studies, and interfere with church attendance.
After the boy scout movement was banned through German-controlled countries, the Hitler Youth appropriated many of its activities, though changed in content and intention, with many activities closely resembling military training, with weapons training, assault course circuits and basic tactics.
We were taught right at the beginning of our education that we were not ever to become “Hitler Youth” in this country, which is to say, mindlessly indoctrinated into a belief system without ever questioning it.
For that reason, each morning, in addition to the Pledge of Allegiance, we sang “My Country Tis of Thee,” not as a mindless song to sing, but as a learning tool and a meditation on what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America, as opposed to any other nation on the face of the earth without our federal Constitution.
My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
As children, we were taught that the emphasis in that first sentence is on MY, possessive.
I am the citizen of a REPUBLIC with a government constituted not by a king, not by a tyrant, not by a military junta, or military dictator, but by the PEOPLE for the purpose of forming a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
To promote the general welfare of all in the commonwealth and to insure domestic tranquility, as an American citizen, I must be the best I could be, whether ditch digger or rocket scientist, and all I could be, as opposed to less.
Hence, it was my obligation to become educated, not indoctrinated like a Hitler Youth.
Which took us back to “My Country Tis of Thee,” and these words, to wit:
From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!
end quote
Let freedom ring.
What exactly does that mean, anyway, to let freedom ring from every mountain side?
Does it mean freedom TO do anything you want, and nobody can stop you?
Or does it mean instead freedom FROM something, like fear, tyranny and oppression?
We were taught the latter.
We have liberty to do things, and say things, and think things, and believe things, so long as these things do not make the Union less perfect, or serve to deny Justice, or disrupt domestic Tranquility, or lessen the common defense, or degrade the general Welfare because we are free from fear of tyranny and oppression in this Republic, thanks to our Constitutions and Bills of Rights.
That is reflected in the Preamble of the Constitution of the State of New York, where I am, as follows:
We The People of the State of New York, grateful to Almighty God for our Freedom, in order to secure its blessings, DO ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION.
end quote
When the first Constitution of the State of New York was established on April 20, 1777, the State of New York, with the other twelve new states, was at war with the King of England, and the blessings of liberty for the people of America and New York State and Virginia, for that matter, were far from being secure.
Just two years earlier, on June 17, 1775, early in the Revolutionary War (1775-83), the British had defeated the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill in Massachusetts.
In July of 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed by Congress on July 4, giving us this national holiday we celebrate this long weekend.
One year later, in 1777, British General John Burgoyne was preparing to “invade” New York State from Canada in order to split the colonies and end the revolution by isolating New England, the perceived heart of the rebellion, and then focusing on crushing that seat of discontent, with the emphasis on the word “crush.”
Towards that end, a large army –about 10,000 soldiers, Native forces, loyalists, camp followers, and others– were to invade south from Canada into New York.
Making their way along Lake Champlain to the Hudson River, they would continue south, eventually reaching Albany, and once in Albany, they would set up winter quarters and open communications lines with the City of New York, also in British hands.
In the meantime, a second British army, led by Colonel Barry St. Leger, was to depart from Lake Ontario and invade eastward into New York and upon arriving at the Mohawk River, they would follow it to its confluence with the Hudson where they were to rendezvous with Burgoyne’s forces.
General William Howe and his British troops in New York City were to then push northward into the Hudson Highlands, capturing a few forts in the south part of New York and giving American defenders near Albany the appearance of being invaded from both north (Burgoyne) and south.
By August 1777, Burgoyne had successfully captured Fort Ticonderoga, defeated fleeing American troops at Hubbardton (Vermont), and had taken a few supply depots just north of where the Hudson takes a sharp turn west where his army would stay at Fort Edward, on the edge of the river.
Remaining there the month of August, 1777, Burgoyne sent a contingent of about 800 of his rented German troops toward Bennington, Vermont, only to lose these men to American militia soldiers in a battle on the New York side of the border.
In early September, 1777, Burgoyne’s army began their southward march again, with soldiers marching on the river road, while many of the supplies were floated on boats down the Hudson.
Meanwhile, the Northern Department of the American Army, commanded by General Horatio Gates was keeping busy with its own preparations so that starting September 12, 1777, they began to build formidable defenses on Bemis Heights, a ridge of bluffs, two miles north of the village of Stillwater which overlooked both the Hudson River and the river road.
Defenses at Bemis Heights were formidable indeed, with cannons there that could hit the river and the road, while fortified lines on the flood plan controlled the road.
The natural “bottleneck” in the river valley would funnel the British right into American gunsights, nor could the British go east around the position, for the rough terrain there and lack of good roads prevented much movement.
Knowing all this, the 8500-man American army also built a long fortified wall about ¾ of a mile west from Bemis Heights, and then ¾ of a mile south –forming a large “L” shaped line, which combined position, defended with 22 cannons, was well suited to deter the British from invading any farther.
On September 19, 1777, Burgoyne had split up his 7500-man army into three columns to sweep around where he believed the Americans might be, with one column of British troops moving west about 2 miles inland and then beginning to move south, while a second column of British troops moved about a mile inland before moving south, and the third column, made of German troops, moved along the river road and defending British supplies.
About noon on the 19th, scouts from the center column encountered Colonel Daniel Morgan’s American light infantry and riflemen at the farm of John Freeman, a loyalist who had gone north to Fort Edward to meet up with Burgoyne’s army.
Thus began the fighting, which grew very fierce, as the battle swayed back and forth, each side taking and retaking the field.
On September 22, Burgoyne got word from Clinton that he could send troops north from New York City at any time. Burgoyne expected assistance, and ordered his troops to dig in and await it.
By the first days of October, Clinton’s men had moved northward, capturing a few American forts.
Part of their number also attacked Kingston, and a small number got about 30 miles south of Albany.
By mid-October, Howe had ordered Clinton back to New York City to supply reinforcements for Philadelphia so Clinton had to turn away, while Burgoyne’s army grew short on time, supplies, and manpower; their now 6800-man army having been on half-rations for the last two weeks, and winter not being far away.
On October 7, 1777, Burgoyne sent out a 1500-man “reconaissance-in-force” with several cannons to probe and bombard the American left.
Around mid-afternoon, the Americans, aware of the British movement, attacked.
Their now 13000-man army was able to push the British back.
As the British withdrew, one of their beloved Generals, Simon Fraser, was mortally wounded by one or more of Morgan’s riflemen.
British forces hastily fell back to one of their defensive positions, the Balcarres Redoubt.
It was strong, well defended, and able to deter the Americans.
Several hundred yards north, the Breymann Redoubt was not as well suited to the defense.
It was also defended by less than 200 German soldiers and officers –no match for the nearly 1300 American soldiers attacking it.
By nightfall, the Americans held the Breymann Redoubt.
Not long after that, Burgoyne was forced to surrender, and American history was written.
The War of Revolution was far from over, but thanks to Americans with guns, a large measure of freedom from fear, freedom from tyranny, and freedom from oppression at the point of an English bayonet was won at Saratoga.
Not freedom to do anything we want, with no one being able to stop us.
That is not liberty, that is anarchy, which is the road to more tyranny.
Something to think about, anyway, on this day before the 4th of July.
From every mountain side, Let freedom ring!
Happy Independence Day weekend, everyone, may it be a safe one.
Paul Plante, RVN 1969