Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment Intended consequences?

So - is it just my imagination, or does it seem as if we (the NRA) might just have pulled a fast one by allowing the commielibs to think they had a chance at reviving the AWB in the manner they so attempted? We now have a vote record to look at this November, and they have...nothing (come sept).

Maybe, I'm just looking at the bright side. Sometimes patience pays. Soon I'll be buying those hicaps on the cheap - and I have five months to save up. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

-FreeMe

Brings up an interesting question: Do you really think Hi-caps will go from their current insane price back to cheap in a hurry? I have doubts...

Absolutely. Prices have become artificially inflated due to the limited supply, which was brought about by the ban. Lose the ban, and we will see manufacturers cranking out new hi-cap mags again. Prices will return to normal, in fairly short order. Its the natural law of supply and demand.

Gosh, I hope so.
We'll see.

The same thing happened to foreign military weapons after the ban on their import was lifted in '86. Foreign weapons that were extremely rare here suddenly were flooding into the country. Now there's a two tier market; those weapons imported before '86 and those marked as imported after.

Well - I expect supply&demand to kick in eventually.

The bigger question is whether I can put together the bucks so I can actually own something that will accept the hi-cap mags. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

-FreeMe

If the AWB sunsets, yes--all sorts of preban-style things will get really cheap. I'll be buying M14 and Glock 17 magazines by the dozen. I'll also probably buy a couple or three FALs with all the evil features I can think of--and so will every other gun person in the country. We'll buy everything we need; then we'll buy everything we want; then we'll buy a bunch more stuff just in case it gets banned again sometime in the future. Manufacturers will add shifts to turn out enough stuff to keep the buyers happy, and will wind up with warehouses full of it.

And that's why, in my opinion, the AWB will not sunset. Democrats and Republicans aside, the government cannot allow it to happen. It has made quite a bit of progress in the business of disarming the populace and making guns and the gun culture socially unacceptable. A great deal of that will be lost if the AWB sunsets and the populace is suddenly again armed to the teeth. The work of at least the last ten years, and arguably much more, will be undone in a few months. In those ten years, the government has become much larger, more powerful, more oppressive, and more impenetrable--especially under Baby Bush with his pet USA PATRIOT Act--with the assumption that the people, disarmed and cowed as we are, are not formidable enough to stem its growth. Give us guns and balls, and all of a sudden some serious retreating might be necessary: a single incident of citizens standing up to an oppressive regime, in this Internet age where the government and its lapdog media can no longer completely control the spin, might well be enough to galvanize quite a number of people to action, and the government can't have that.

So I think the AWB will be renewed and perhaps possibly strengthened. It may bear a political price for Republicans, but then Republican and Democrat are simply two masks worn at different times by the same State, and that State cannot tolerate the sudden loss of all the ground it has gained over the past decade. Whoever stands in the way of the AWB will simply be rolled over and destroyed; it's too important to play politics about.

Hopefully I'm wrong. We'll see.

Well my favorite MBR only holds 8 rounds (M-1 Garand) and my highest cap handgun only holds 9 + 1 (Colt Commander .38 Super) I guess I am good to go. Heck my "reach out and touch" only holds 5(Griffin & Howe Mauser in 30-06).

Now if I could get a bloop tube and HE & Willie Peter rounds for it, that would be a different story.:)

Barak, good to see you again. Been a while. Still an anarchist? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

You too.


Yeah, I know--kind of embarrassing. But I haven't found anything more extreme yet... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Barak,

I fear that you are correct. There is no way that this law will sunset. It could not have been passed in the first place if Republican politicians had exhibited the same dedication to defending the Second Amendment as the Democrats did to destroying it.

America has been betrayed by Washington based politicians. Citizens do not know what is intended for this nation. The average working class Democrat or Republican has no idea what is in store for America.

Democratic voters seem plugged into the tattered, too often repeated mantra of the left. They believe Republicans want to give tax breaks to the rich. They also don't care about poor people. Being Black I should be particullarly susceptable to this one. Republicans want to put us back in slavery. Think about these notions. What is a good Democrat supposed to say? To make sure these evil Republicans don't give the rich too much of a tax break, just keep on taking more & more of my money? Does that make sense?

I vote Republican but I don't know anyone who is super rich. I know a few people who are well off. I know them to be honest, moral, hard working folks. They earned their money. I am not against a tax break for them. I am also not willing to forgo a reduction in my taxes to assure that they do not get tax relief. Personally, if you think that, I think you are nuts. Oh Oh! Forgive me please. Let me rephrase that. I think that you may not be thinking clearly. I don't want to offend anyone.

I did hear recently that people like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, etc., are multi-millionaires. Frankly, they are so far above the Average American's reality that they feel perfectly comfortable telling the faithful to sink further into poverty in order to help the less fortunate.

To get back to the Assault Weapons Bill. I have lost hope. That causes me to to be in agreement with you Barak. Even though it is probably too late, I will attempt to unmask the Republican politicians where I live. We know where the Democrat's votes will be. It is Republican politician's feet that need to be held to the fire.

If the Republicans tell you that compromise is that the only way they can fight your fight is by staying in office, let them know that their being in office is not your primary concern anymore. Tell them that you will be looking at things like their voting records on immigration, & how that record coincides with our wishes to close our borders. If they voted for admitting more & more immigrants into America over the years ask them why they didn't ask you first. Under the radar screens they have changed the face of America. Take a good look at what diversity has done to this country. It was fine when America was a melting pot. That is no longer the case. Today we are a bunch of competing special interest groups. Thank your elected representitives on both sides of the aisle for that.

We are in a fight for existence. Let them know that before we lose our national sovereignty, they will no longer be in office. They will have to have found a real job. At least make a few of them sweat.

I want to apologize. I made some corrections to this post that did not take. I regret that but the bottom line is that I agree with Barak in his skepticism. I also believe that we have been betrayed & need to do something about it.

Well, I can't claim to be an average Democrat or Republican...but I don't know what's in store for America either. I don't believe in any shadowy capital-C Conspiracy that's carefully guiding the country along a predetermined path toward a specific goal. But I have observed that the lessons of history teach us that the objective of government is to blindly become ever bigger, more powerful, and more oppressive, until something is done about it.

But the government of an armed populace faces a limit to the oppression it can inflict before the people themselves rise up and do something about it. If it wants to grow past that limit (and it does--all governments do), then somehow the people have to be disarmed. I'm not too concerned about nationwide door-to-door confiscations; they'd simply be too dangerous. The government would run out of goons pretty quickly, and once word got out about what happens to government goons who try to confiscate weapons, it'd have a tough time finding more. The government seems to be having much more success at simply making the gun culture socially unacceptable. There is a very high percentage of teenaged boys today who have never even held a gun, much less actually fired one. There are many wives and children who look distastefully on their husband's or father's gun cabinet and, when he dies, gratefully load them in the car and drive them down to the sheriff's office to take advantage of "buy-back" programs. There are many hunters (at least one of them here in this very forum) who have been successfully indoctrinated that militarily-useful guns should be held only by the government military. And there are a number of good folks in the gun culture who don't believe any of that, but who also don't have any militarily-useful guns because the AWB has made them too expensive.

In other words, when the government finally begins to approach the limit of how far it can oppress an armed populace, the populace will already be disarmed to such an extent that only small, isolated confiscations will need to be done, in numbers low enough that overwhelming force can be applied to increase the safety and success factors.

So things are going pretty well for the government at this point. Sunsetting the AWB would be (or at least could be) a blow so heavy as to be intolerable.


Be careful about making too many distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, and between black people and other people. The government wants to make slaves of all of us. At the moment, it still has to get votes from people to do so; therefore, when the votes can be more successfully seduced by a Democratic pick-up line, the government wears a Democrat mask; when by a Republican, a Republican mask. But it's still the same government. (Have you seen the bumper sticker that says, "No matter who you vote for, the government always wins?")

The government will never be made smaller or weaker by the free choice of politicians, because in so doing they also make themselves smaller and weaker; and they spent all that money and effort getting elected to be powerful and influential, not smaller and weaker. It can only be reduced in size and power by the people. Voting for politicians who make small-government promises is like telling the fox, "Okay, I'll put you in the henhouse one more time--but only if you promise to leave one or two chickens alive this time." Think he'll promise? Of course he will. And what about those spared chickens? No way. He'll have an excuse why he couldn't manage it this time, but he's sure next time he'll be able to do it.

If politicians are to make the government smaller, they will have to do so because they are convinced that becoming smaller and weaker is preferable to the alternative--perhaps being hanged from every lamppost in Washington. You don't convince a politician of that by voting for him.


Excellent.

Have you heard of a singer/songwriter named Steve Vaus? I'm not impressed by his personal politics (he's a Baby Bush shill), but he does talk (and sing) a good line. He has a song called "I'll Remember In November" that goes like this:

Remember me? You're takin' all my money.
Remember me? You gave my job away.
Remember me? Or am I just a number
Who's white and straight and doesn't qualify for foreign aid?

Remember me? I helped you get elected:
But you haven't done one thing you said you'd do!
But even though you'd rather not remember me,
I'll remember you.

I'll remember in November
As I step into the little booth;
I'll remember in November
To vote
For anyone but, anyone but
You.

Remember me? I served my country proudly.
Remember me? I love the USA.
Remember me? Or am I just some bumpkin
Who you didn't think would notice the bounced checks and midnight raids?

Remember me? I wrote you all those letters,
Thinkin' that you cared what I thought, too.
Well, even though you often just forget to remember,
I'll remember you.

I'll remember in November
As I step into the little booth;
I'll remember in November
To vote
For anyone but, anyone but
You.

I agree with nearly everything Barak says. However, I believe that like many on this board, he may be putting too much importance on an armed populace. Before any of you have a seizure, let me explain myself. First, I do believe than an armed populace is one of the best protections against tyranny and I am against any effort of any kind to curtail the ownership of any kind of weapon by American citizens. I sincerely hope the AWB sunsets and is gone forever.

However, I think things are pretty bad right now, and we all have as many guns as we need if we wanted to do something. I think the government has done a very good job of indoctrinating us all. In short, a gun is only a worthless hunk of metal and wood without the will to use it. I don't see anyone in this country developing that will anytime soon. Just look at some of the past posts on this forum. Presumably everyone on this board owns guns and is concerned about freedom, yet just look at the lack of concern when we discuss things like the police and their actions in this country. Everyone bemoans the power of the state, yet when the main representatives (the police) of that oppresive state come knocking on some poor schmuck's door, 80% of the people on this board say that he got what he deserved and that police are fully justified in using their thuggish powers.

I'll close with a comment on our occupation in Iraq. Everyone agrees that Saddam was a bad guy. We have heard from countless Iraquis how bad he was and how glad they are he is gone (even if they're not happy we are there). Yet, the Iraquis are and were armed to the teeth. Every Iraqui household has several AKs and other weapons. It is telling that recent U.S. arms control efforts over there have been limited to trying to get them down to one AK-47 per household, and they are screaming and howling in protest. I remember one guy who was quoted as saying something to the effect that Saddam was very, very, bad and did all sorts of bad things, but even he did not try and take away our guns.

I see a situation where the government lets us keep our guns and lets us march right into the jaws of tyranny spouting all the while about how we are the "most free country on earth" and that "we're number 1". What do guns matter if they do whatever they want to us anyway? Saddam never let an armed population get in his way. In fact, the lesson to be learned is that they may never try and take the weapons because to do so would be to provoke the kind of reaction that they fear. No, instead gun ownership may be curtailed some, but you can bet the gun owners will be the ones saying things like "America, love it or leave it" and other worthless tripe without ever really examining what is going on over here.

Those are some good points.

Let me start with Saddam. I think Iraq is kind of a special case because of all the oil. Most governments depend for their income on the productivity of their citizens. A parasite can't kill its host, or else it dies. The government must always stay much smaller than the people, or else the people won't be able to support it; and if it is much smaller than the people, the people should be able to easily overthrow it (or, preferably, cow it into submission with the credible threat of being overthrown) when they decide such is necessary.

Saddam's government, though, was financed by the sale of Iraqi oil, not by the people. He could make the government almost as big and oppressive as he wanted to, and as long as the oil kept flowing, he was in no real danger of being overthrown. The oil financed Saddam, and Saddam brutalized the people: there was no parasite/host closed loop the way there is in most countries where the people support the government and the government oppresses the people.

But I agree with you on the current irrelevance of an armed populace in the US. There's no widespread will to threaten the government with anything, therefore individual weapons are currently of no real political value. However, one cannot always forecast the future from the present. The government will continue to become more and more oppressive; I can't believe that bread and circuses will continue to distract the people forever.

I envision the following scenario one day becoming plausible. At the front door are a couple of uniformed government goons, talking to the man of the house. In his hand he holds a photograph. "No, sir," he says to one of the goons. "I'm afraid I haven't seen him. But if I do, I'll be sure to call the number you gave me right away." Meanwhile, in the kitchen, the man in the photograph sits at the table eating a hurried meal the woman of the house has prepared for him. "I don't know who you are or what you've done," she whispers savagely, "but if they're looking for you, that's good enough for me."

If that dream ever comes true, that will be the time when individual weapons become politically effective. And if we're going to have them then, we need to hold onto them now.

What guns? I turned in some cheap ones at a buy back and sold the rest at a gunshow before they closed the loophole. They can have my slingshot if they want it.

I agree with you Barak. However, I'll throw another variable into the equation. I foresee a rapidly approaching time when technology owned by the state and so expensive that only the state can afford it will make the current chemically activated (firearms) weapons irrelevant. Sure, they will still be able to kill when used unexpectedly, but there will be means to neutralize them when needed. I've heard of a microwave weapon in development, that when focused, heats any metal up to two klicks away to the point that it cannot be held. It makes one come out of your clothes to keep the buttons and zippers from burning you. Star Treck? Maybe, but I view the development of "Non-Lethal" weapons as a serious threat to our liberties. As long as the state has to kill you or at least threaten you with deadly force, then there will be a certain amount of restraint on its part from whatever residual moral center it possesses. But woe to us on the day that they can round us up without seriously hurting us. We will be like toddlers escaping from a playpen. We'll need to be rounded up, of course, for our own safety, but it will not be necessary hurt us badly to do it. All restraint will then be gone from government.

We may be a long time away from such a scenario. But, then again, I think we are a long ways away from any open rebellion or resistence and they have a long time to figure out all sorts of new gadgets.

Eventually, things will get bad enough that people will just stop doing whatever they are doing and the government will collapse. However, I have no hope that anything better will come along. Our country is already so far gone that we could not have anything like an intelligent revolution on par with our founders. Any revolution we might have now would be more along the lines of the French and simply replace a terrible situation with an unthinkable one. I see things getting much worse before they ever, if ever, get better.

Good point Joe. What makes it worse is that government has decided that it can tell citizens which technologies they are allowed to have, while no limits are placed on them. Take armor piercing bullets, for example. If we were free to acquire countermeasure technologies (such as armor piercing bullets vs armor), it would be less threatening to liberty. But they intend to take control of all potential countermeasures, so the balance of power (between the people and the government), intended by the Founders, has been effectively circumvented, and nobody cares because they are all brainwashed into thinking the Second Amendment was for duck hunting, and why would you need armor piercing bullets for that? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

It's a point, Hawkeye, but I'm not sure the situation is quite that gloomy. If it ever does come down to a fight, it's not going to be a stand-up fight, with force against force.

If all we've got is old Turk Mauser 98s with corrosive 8mm ammunition, then we'll wait for an opportunity to sneak in close and cap three or four grunts at a time--and maybe steal some more advanced weapons in the bargain. It'll be a situation much like what's happening in Iraq these days. We'll get one or two a day over a period of months or years; occasionally a whole truck- or chopper-load.

If we have scoped bolt-action hunting rifles, we'll probably form sniper teams to knock off high-ranking officers or politicians from far enough away to disappear before we're found.

If we have neither, we'll improvise explosives and carry them into bases with truckloads of food or something.

We wouldn't have to take territory, and we'd already be behind the enemy's lines. All we'd have to do is A) sap their will to continue the occupation, and B) provide encouragement for the people who supported us enough to give us food, supplies, and information, but not enough yet to take up arms themselves.

And finally: the government does not tell you what you can have. It merely tells you what it will lock you up for if it finds it in your possession. Right now, the black market in full-auto firearms and banned ammunition is not very big, because a lot of people in the gun culture still pride themselves on being "law-abiding citizens." Eventually it will become clear to them that their consciences will no longer allow them to be so law-abiding, and the black market will begin to flourish--whether it's AK-47s, RPGs, and Strelas smuggled in from overseas, or M-16s, LAWs, and Stingers that fell off an Army supply truck.

Barak:

I appreciate your response. I have several things I would like you to consider. First though, it seems you have given a great deal of thought to what is happening to America. So have lots of others on this site. I can't remember all their names but I salute you all, with possibly one exception.

When you mention my being careful about making distinctions between Democrats & Republicans, let me assure you that I recognize how they work in concert. When people automatically dismiss the possibility of conspiracies I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Before & during the civil rights struggle I had a very definite perception of Republicans/Conservatives. They were all rich, white, bigoted & spouting conspiracy theories. Then I met a few conservatives & began to interact with them. We shared an interest in the shooting sports.

When they talked about conspiracy I didn't dismiss the things they said completely, because they were nothing like the conservatives in my mind before I met them. They gave me books to read that presented information I had never been exposed to. It took a long time to come to the conclusion that they may not have been as off base as they were painted to be.

Now, thirty years later, I know that they were correct. Not just believe that they were right, I know they were right. The conspiracy, that involves at least some of the most powerful members of both parties, past & present, is more monstrous than we imagined back then.

On other posts on this site members talk about how many young Americans there are who know nothing about guns. Never held or fired one. Obviously they will have little interest in defending the Second Amendment. Not only that, they have been trained to distrust anyone who does. They got that way in school.

I have mentioned my research into public schools. That research, which is finally completed, has confirmed a conspiracy that will destroy America & make it a member of the infamous "New World Order".

I know. I can hear the groans. I used to have the same reaction when I first heard the term. Now I don't groan. I feel rage. I feel helpless. What do I do when I know, & can prove beyond the shadow af a doubt, that this nation has been betrayed by its elected representatives, & realize that it may be impossible to get people to believe it.

Understand, I'm not asking anyone to believe me. I'm nobody. What I ask is for people to read the words of the people who are involved in this treason. Educators, leftist politicians, leaders of curriculum developement. They are convicted by what they say, what they write, & what has happened to this nation over the last fifty years.

Public schools are responsible. They deliberately undermine the education of children. They deliberately damage children, parents, our values & our constitution. Schools have always been targeted by governments to preserve themselves & retain power. In totalitarian nations, controlled by despots like Sadaam Hussein, or Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc., this truth is almost universally recognized. It has never been in evidence in America. It is here alright, just not recognized.

Our Founding Fathers wrote documents that I believe were divinely inspired, that have maintained our republic for more than two hundred years. America has become the major military power on earth. It has defended itself against foreign attackers. Lots of blood has been shed in its defense. Shed willingly by its citizens who had no doubt that their country had to be preserved. Today our freedoms surpass those of most of the other nations of the world. Those freedoms have been, & continue to be used to destroy us.

Before the beginning of the twentieth century there was a conflict between proponents of the capitalist & Marxist economic systems. Marxism is a proven failure. It has also been, when in power, totalitarian & genocidal.

In the beginning of the twentieth century Behavioral Science was in its infancy. Europe was the birth place, & it did not take long for those in power to recognize it as a tool that could afford a kind of control that surpassed any possible by use of brute force.

At the same time in America some of the major industrialist, monopolistic leaders of the times became aware of the new tool. Their goals coincided with the goals of the Marxists. Absolute control of the people. Men like Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford & J. P. Morgan financed the developement of this new 'Science", & even assisted the behaviorists in moving to America when things in Europe became too threatening & chaotic. These people found employment at places like Columbia University, & spread to other places of higher education across the country. ( This piece of information eluded me for most of the years I spent looking at how public schools have turned into nothing more than incubators for the new citizens of the world. Only literate enough to perform the jobs that will be designated for them by the "Elite", who will control every single facet of our lives.) I remember how I felt when I was told by the counter man in a restaurant in Philadelphia that a new law prohibited serving eggs over easy or medium. For my own good of course. Consider mandatory warnings on cigarrettes, alcoholic beverages, & other things we have taken for granted for so long. Now it is becoming a crime to be overweight. What next? Remember that some dweeb you will never know has decreed these changes in your life. The indoctrination is leftist & increasingly intrusive.

When I finally discovered the role the Robber Barrons played in things I understood how the educational systems were given over to the control & the behavioral techniques of the radical left.

The truth is that at the top the elite are all the same, left or right. They are all rich. None of them give a damn about any of us. We are all average. That means nobody in their universe.

I wish that I could share proof of what I am saying here. In fact I will be happy to. I am not very proficient in operating within this site. I plan to try to contact the web manager for help. I will also ask his advice as to whether it is appropriate to direct members to the information I refer to.

Take it or leave it as you choose. Absolutely no hard feelings from me if you choose not to. I have committed to doing all I can. Ultimately it is in God's hands. I respect most of the members who post here. I learn from you all. With perhaps one exception.

This also says much about how we got here!


The Two Cultures
With All Due Respect
by Fred Reed




As the culture dies, the schools fail, the cities teem with
functional illiterates and our children turn into tattooed
primitives cosseted by a civilization whose origins they barely
know, I watch them with�I will say it plainly�contempt. A mild
contempt, but contempt. Sadness also, for they have lost much,
but yes, a contempt I do not want yet cannot escape.

So, to judge by my correspondence, do many people old enough
to read fluently. None use the word "contempt." The taboos are
too ingrained, the penalties too harsh, the unspoken laws
protecting everyone's self-esteem too punitively policed. Again,
it is not a contempt that people want to feel: All would prefer
that things not be as they are. Yet contempt is unmistakably
what peers through their letters.

Contempt is the proper reaction to the contemptible.

I sometimes think the country is dividing itself into two cultures.
The first, and much the smaller, will be of those who read widely
and know much, who are cultured and live in a wider world than
the merely present. The second will be of those who received
high grades without understanding that they were being cheated
by their elders. An abyss will separate the two.

The chain of cultivation, once broken, is not easily rejoined. We
are doing everything we can to break it. It is a shame. People
deserve more. We are doing this, as nearly as I can tell, so that
the dull and uninterested will feel good about themselves. We are
doing it to conceal that some of us are better than others.

Yes. Better. That word.

In the past it was recognized that certain qualities were superior
to others, and that people who cultivated those qualities were
superior to those who didn't. The honest were thought superior
to the thieving, the kind to the cruel, the provident to the
shiftless, the wise to the foolish, the learned to the ignorant.
Today one must not hold these views. They constitute the crime
of elitism, which is the recognition that the better is preferable
to the worse.

One must never, ever notice that some people are better than
others.

Not to notice the inescapable requires either stupidity or moral
blindness. Since few people are very stupid, we have chosen the
road of blindness. We feign stupidity for reasons of politics.

It takes some serious feigning. If I said that Mother Theresa was
no better than the Hillside Strangler � "she wasn't better, just
different" � people would laugh. If I said that Albert Schweitzer
was of greater worth than an illiterate drug-dealing parasite in
what is called the inner city, I would be called a racist. If I said
that a white suburban kid who couldn't do long division
amounted to a medieval peasant without the excuses, I would be
called, spare me, an elitist.

Which I am.

What, pray, should one feel toward intelligent people who cannot
read without squinting laboriously, who know less of their
language than a fourth-grader in 1954, have a shaky grasp of the
multiplication tables, cannot write a coherent paragraph, and
seldom read a book? Respect comes to people who merit
respect. It isn't an entitlement. Contempt also comes to those
who merit it. And should.

I do not scorn, say, savages from Papua-New Guinea who wear
penis gourds, eat huge grubs from within logs, and peer at
distant airliners as those vouchsafed a glimpse of divinity. It is
unreasonable to blame them for not having profited from
opportunities they didn't have. I watch them with wonder, but not
contempt.

But the lazy, shiftless, deliberately half-lettered, the feckless and
socially worthless � yes, worthless: that, and "shiftless," are
words that could well be resurrected � those who have had every
opportunity to better themselves but couldn't summon the
effort�for them I cannot help feeling pity. And contempt.

And what should one think of the bloated welfare mother with a
second-grade education, with a litter of five she can't feed and
won't school, by twenty-five fathers she can't remember, who
spends her limited time between couplings in watching Oprah
and feeling abused? The best I can come up with is revulsion.
And pity, yes. Being a public uterus cannot be pleasant. Yet I will
not pretend that it is admirable.

And what of the mall children of the suburbs, who leave high
school with less arithmetical fluency than I had in the sixth
grade in 1957 in the schools of Alabama? I didn't know arithmetic
because I was particularly meritorious. I was a barefoot
Southern kid with a BB gun in one hand and a fielder's glove in
the other. I knew arithmetic, we all knew arithmetic, because
the society, the schools, and our parents made it plain that we
ought to know it, and in fact were going to know it, at which
point the conversation was over.

This brings us to a greater question: What should one feel other
than contempt for a society that, enjoying virtually unlimited
resources, deliberately enstupidates its children? We don't have
to do it. We choose to. We are ruining our society on purpose.

Today I see mall rats who go through high school with the red
puffy eyes born of dope, and literally count on their fingers to do
multiplication. On graduation they take one course at the
community college, play video games, and hang out pointlessly
with their friends. I've got more respect for dirt. You can grow
plants in it.

I once wrote a column on the almost comic state of regained
subhumanity. A friend of mine responded:

"Johnny can't add coz (a) his grade school teachers are moron
socialists, (b) his parents are mouth-breathing, TV watching
losers, and (c) he's majoring in sociology so he can get a gov't
job like everyone else."

I can't see much wrong with that analysis.

The desire to disguise differences in merit by ideological
cleansing, and the atmosphere of pre-human irredentism now
earnestly promoted in what were for a time the schools, will
promote precisely the elitism they pretend to vanquish. Those
who achieve will always look down on those who didn't bother.
This is certainly true in regard to schooling. As the gap increases
between the few who know their history and literature, and those
who gurble ungrammatically about their favorite situation
comedies, the contempt will become sharper. Two cultures.

Maybe self-esteem comes too high. Besides, who will have
greater respect for themselves, the puzzled and half-literate, or
those who read confidently and know that they have been well
educated? If you want to respect your self, do something worthy
of respect. Now there's a concept.
August 18, 2003
Copyright � 2003 Fred Reed

I love Fred Reed. His articles are always entertaining and insightful. However, that one is somewhat depressing. It is also an example of precisely why I am so pessimistic.

Barak - You may take your old 98 Mauser and do some good, but you will never be able to count on any support from anyone and, in the end, you will be just another kook. The masses will believe it because Fox News tells them so.

We have already reached the point where the average person is incapable of understanding things well enough to ever have an intelligent revolution. As I said earlier, we may eventually reach a point where the peasantry can no longer support the bloated corpse of government, but what then? Who will know enough to accomplish anything but mindless slaughter?

We are losing our Culture. Read something from 150 years ago written for the average reader. It was full of allusions to Shakespeare and the Bible that, presumably, the reader understood. Greek mythology was something that was taught in the schools so that we would all have a common understanding from where we came. No more. The most expensive education one can buy today, is nothing more than a vocational school. College teaches nothing but a set of narrow skills (not too well I might add) and graduates are, by the standards of earlier generations, idiots. We are doomed, doomed, doomed.

Amen brother.

Now, about the education: I have somewhat of a unique perspective, having experienced the East-German, West German, and American High School systems, and the American college/university system.

Why is the American system (HS) such an under-achiever?
The East/West german HS systems are stellar compared to what I have experienced here. But why?

It was engineered to be so. America was a shining example of the success of ordered liberty. That could not be allowed to continue.

Matthias

It has always struck me that in European countries, including the former Eastern Bloc, they understand that a government cannot control what people think. Sure, in the Eastern Bloc strict prohibitions were put on what people could do and, even, what they could say. However, there seemed to be the admission, at least tacitly, and the understanding from the governments that the actions of the people did not necessarily represent their true thoughts. Likewise, in Western Europe today the societies are much more socialistic than ours here in America. Yet, public discourse seems to be more valued and people understand at every level free expression is valuable. I have had better conversations sitting on a porch in Germany a 2:00 a.m. speaking to my hosts in a mix of pidgen German and pidgen English than I have had over here in quite some time.

Now, in America, we have always understood that government restrictions on what people could do or say should be quite limited (Rights of Englishmen and all you know). Yet, the urge to control remains. Therefore, I believe our culture has taken the path of seeking to control what people think so that they remain free to act or say what they want, but, of course, what they do or say naturally becomes less contriversial. By doing so, we remain free to trumpet our moral superiority and point out that we are more free than other countries, but in reality, we are just fooling ourselves. The dumbing down in the last century is just a natural progression of this process. It is much easier to control what people think if they are generally on a uniformly low intellectual level. Therefore, schools must not teach too much.

All of this goes back a long ways. Since the Civil War the triumphant force in American culture is the New England Yankee attitude. Keep in mind, that this culture is the same one that delivered Oliver Cromwell and totalitarian theocracy to England in the 17th century. One hundred years ago there were books aplenty where this was discussed, particularly among Southerners. Today, you would be lucky to find 1 person in 20 who knows who Oliver Cromwell was and can tell your the difference between a "Cavalier" and a "Roundhead". Today that Puritan spirit manifests itself in the secular "do good" ideology that most of us hate so much. Remember, these people are not content that you act a certain way or refrain from acting a certain way. They want you to think a certain way as well. All of those who don't are vilified and portrayed as bad people. It is not enough that you ignore homosexuals, you must embrace them.

This Puritan influence has destroyed the Republic. We see it manifested in little ways that most of us never even consider. Our history has been a continuous struggle between these Puritans and others, notably the Celtic (Scots-Irish) attitudes. It is an age old struggle and in it lies the true roots of the Civil War. Read some books. One hundred years ago, all the Southerners knew this and that is why they felt such a loss after the War. Our forefathers knew that we had lost much more than a War. They knew that we would eventualy lose our minds and our ability to think.

In years gone by, damn near too many, when I attended school one attended school to gain knowledge, learn HOW to think and to learn how to solve the problems one might come across in the future. Now young people attend school to be TOLD what knowledge will be useful to them, to be TOLD WHAT to think and to learn that there aren't any problems that GOVERNMENT can't solve.

legs-
I hope you are a fan of Thomas Sowell (economist, author, columnist), if not you should be. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
Kirt
Thomas Sowell:

Maybe our American HS try to hard to prepare students for their future jobs. I think a successful school must try to prepare students for [i]life[/b], enlighten them, teach them about the world, regardless of future practical use of that knowledge.

A M E N Sir, they used to teach us HOW to learn, not USE a calculator!

My thoughts, too. Heck, I can't think of a practical use of my knowledge of Shakespeare, Goethe, Greek history, etc...but it was fun learning it, and it is fun having the knowledge.

Well, the best part was I learned to read. That is the key to ALL learning IMHO.

TLee:

I had never heard of Mr Reed until now. Years ago there was a saying on the streets in North Philly. 'Tell it like it T I tis, not like it T W Twus" . Fred Reed did both.

Thanks for the introduction TLEE.

I love the guy, totaly UNPC!

Bend:

I certainly am a fan of Thomas Sowell. I have been for a long time. I sure wish I could see more of him on Fox News, & less of these screaming left wing idiots who seem to be there all the time.

I'm thinking of a guy named Charles Barron, a NYC Councilman. He raves. He froths at the mouth. Once he said he "would never let them ( whites ) forget slavery. He has said that he has to restrain himself sometimes when he is overcome by the need to just walk up to a white man & punch him in the mouth.

This guy says he is a former Black Panther. I have caught his act a few times. I think that if he was a Panther he was a member of the Ladies auxilliary. At least that is the way he looks to me.

It would be wonderful to see Thomas Sowell debate this guy on national TV. If the moderator prevented Barron from shouting down Mr Sowell. Lefties use this tactic & too frequently Fox News commentators allow it to happen.