But your thinking it is.
Progressives denigrate those of us that stand on the Second Amendment by pompously saying “You don’t need that”. The State will protect you, they say. We are an Enlightened Society, they say. We have Progressed past that, they say. The other “tell” from these folks, in trying to defend the notion that their outlook and world view should be yours is “I don’t know anyone that has / does…“.
Sidenote: whenever someone starts talking that way about individual freedoms that pre-date the Constitution, like the right to self-defense, you know that they are a Big Government enabler and nascent totalitarian – what you have or what you want posses (or even to speak) is none of their damn business (as opposed to the ’68 Camaro that TMEW says I don’t need)
Problem is that when they use the force of government to enforce that outlook on everyone, it shows their contempt for basic American political philosophy – and a handle on basic human frailties and nature of fallen Man. This, in part, from Repair_Man_Jack at RedState (emphasis mine):
At this point the Missouri State Police relieved the local police of responsibility and ordered them to pull back from the scene. This created a vacuum that was immediately filled by thieves and looters. As shown in the YouTube atop the post. They decided that avoiding more bad publicity was better than taking the risk of stopping the looting of businesses and stores in Ferguson. When Fred Reed wrote his old cop column at The Washington Times, he encountered the same problem in Washington, DC when White officers were accused of racial profiling. He received the letter from an officer describing the “Just let them eat each other” philosophy of policing.
Fred — After having read your article on 11/20/00 I have to state that YES!! We on the P.G.P.D for the most part are now looking the other way. After almost [deleted] years on the job I find this disheartening but a necessary fact to survive in today’s, what appears to most officers, an ANTI-POLICE environment. We are even being told by some supervisors to keep a low profile so “you’re not next on the front page”! I became a police officer to help people [deleted] years ago in P.G. County . . . but I now share the attitude of most officers, just let them eat each other, we have to survive..
So this is what happens when the Progressive worldview begins to fall apart – when people act closer to their baser nature, when the thin veneer of civilization gets ripped away? And when the State itself decides, at last, to leave the populace alone (having already stripped that populace of the traditional moral norms of Civil Society that used to act as human behavior circuit breakers), the other part of the Progressive equation, that The State will always be there to provide and protect you and maintain order, goes dark.
“What then, Progressives? What then?” How are the law-abiding to protect themselves when there is no State?
So that leaves the citizen where? In desperate need of a firearm. The police will either overact massively or they will just let the looters eat you. I’m still reminded of the old 8mm films I saw of the Rodney King Riots in LA. There was one island of LA that wasn’t featured in the film. That ran from Vermont and Pico to 3rd and Olympic. It was Korea Town and it wasn’t seriously looted because the people that lived there organized a citizen’s militia and defended their stores all night long.
My, my, a citizens’ militia – as in “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“. After all, a militia can be a voluntary association for some amount of time for a specific purpose, and with that purpose fulfilled, disbanded.
When people tell you the 2nd Amendment is outdated, compare what happened in Korea Town during the LA Riots to what happened on La Brea. When people tell you the 2nd Amendment is for troglodytes, remind them that our President was too busy golfing to care that Ferguson, MO was on fire. When people tell you that the 2nd Amendment is for Red Neck Losers, remind them that the Missouri State Police ordered their officers to do nothing while looters attacked and destroyed people’s businesses. There are times when the only protection you have for your life, liberty and property is the weapon you can place in your hands.
Remember, Constitutional Rights were not given to us by Government; the Constitution only enumerates Rights due to each of us by dint of being a citizen – those Rights predate the Constitution (no matter how Progressives wish to “blather that”).
