I Can’t Believe How Dumb We Are – a PostScript on San Bernadino

The shootings in Riverside, California happened about an hour and a half drive north of where I live, maybe less. (Okay, I’ve done it in less on my motorcycle, but don’t ask how fast. None of your business is how fast as I was going.)

I am told by the President, in only the third broadcast from the Oval Office during his Presidency, three things. Two matter for my purposes. (The third was the self-evident stupidity that we shouldn’t be picking on otherwise law-abiding Americans or guests who happen to be Muslim. As an aside – DUUUUH. It’s one of the reasons why people first came to this land, fleeing religious persecution back on the Continent. It was one of the driving forces behind the Constitution and the First Amendment. It’s at the heart of the entire Enlightenment, in fact, and what we believe as decent, humane, tolerant human-beings. You have to be free in your own conscience or you’re a slave. There is no more important Freedom than to be free to believe in whatever you want about the origins of the universe, its creation, and your own place in it. Thanks, Mister President for even bringing it up and giving it life, you dolt.)

Anyway, here are my two big takeaways from the President’s Oval Office speech:

1 – We are in a “new phase” of the “War on Terror” and it is, apparently, not good. Terrorists may be “home grown” and “radicalized (!!)” right here at home (just like Tim McVeigh, or Major Nidal Hassan, or any other domestic terrorist);

2 – We absolutely must do something to de-arm (and possibly disarm) the populace of this country.

Now, there are a bunch of other (standard) bullshit details and so people don’t think I’m not giving them their due, I’ve dealt with them below.* They are uniformly dumb, mostly violate the Constitution (each in several different ways), and a sideshow to my main point: the logical, and factual, stupidity of uttering these two things (together) in a speech (ever):

“We’re in a new phase of a war; [and] We need our population to have stricter gun controls and less guns available to the citizenry.”

I really don’t know where to start with this, it’s so mind-numbingly dumb. Worse yet is that no one called him on this. And no one likely will. The media just regurgitates his bullshit without a critical thought about any of the premises or conclusions, without regard to either historical precedent nor logical absurdity of the claims.

First, nowhere – ever – has it proven to be a good idea, if one is a nation facing assault from outside invaders, to de-arm the populace, in any way.

Let me offer the same kind of education I had as a young officer and officer candidate. Let’s imagine you – yes, you, who are reading this (or as my instructors used to say, “Yes, YOU, Lieutenant. You’re in fucking charge, right?”) – let’s pretend that you are tasked with invading one of two countries:

Now, please, O Military Strategist, tell me which country is harder to invade and/or carry out operations against?

Anyone with a triple-digit IQ – and those with a double-digit IQ have at least a 50/50 chance of getting it right, so we can conclude that statistically there is a “consensus” that you invade Country Beta. (I know how much Progressives like consensus versus science, so I’ll appeal to anything that might work at this point).

It’s always easier where the citizens aren’t armed. Always.

It’s been true since before the Spartans proved it. It was true when the Russian people burned Moscow in front of Napoleon’s advance and starved his Grande Armée to death on its march in and out. (Typhus helped, too). It was true in the specific case of this country, during the American Revolution.

I don’t want to return to my “pants-shitting cowards” comment because, well, I’m not exactly proud of saying that, but…. if the crappy trousers fit…. know what I mean?

It has been true since we fought in tribes and before. If you had to attack a village where every single person in that village, from the oldest to the youngest, was trained in arms and willing to fight – and yours wasn’t? Well, you’d be a fool to even attempt it if you didn’t think you could wipe them out completely. Conversely, if you were attacking a village/city/nation where only a certain segment of the population was trained to fight and fought – and was also the only segment of the population armed? Well, unless you like the potential of getting your ass kicked, you’d attack the people and the places that weren’t armed and didn’t fight. Especially if you perceived you could break the whole tribe/village/nation’s will to fight by doing so. The latter is, by US doctrine and definition, the whole point of terrorism.

So, again, if we accept The President’s premise that our Nation is at WAR, can someone, anyone, please tell me what logical or factual support there is for then “more weapons regulation, specifically to keep weapons out of the hands of the populace??” You don’t need to be General Patton to figure out that disarming the populace when faced by outside aggression is a bone-headed idea of the highest order. Imagine this: we’ve just been attacked by people who align themselves with our avowed enemy and their purpose seems to be to attack unsuspecting, everyday Americans. Best solution for everyday Americans…? Take away the citizens’ right to own guns – of the exact same kind and caliber that the people claiming to be at war with us just used.

Fucking. Brilliant. 

Find me any one with any military experience at all, or a genuine understanding of military history, who would agree this is a great strategy for a nation facing these kinds of attacks. I guarantee you will find no one in the profession of arms who would say that they’d want to invade Country Alpha over Beta. No sane person could possibly conclude that less arms in the hands of the people has any historical precedent for working. Moreover, if the claim is, “well, it’s not really an invading army, it’s just individuals trying to terrorise people…” then the question still remains: why would it ever be a good idea to make the people defenseless against such an attacker?

Now the ONLY possible (seemingly) rational answer is the following syllogism: (1) if we make certain guns illegal, and/or really hard to get, then (2) NO ONE – not even terrorists intent on killing innocent civilians – will ever possibly be able to get a gun. Therefore, (3) we’ll all be safe.

To write out this kind of fabulist thinking, to give it voice, almost causes one to giggle. Because, yet again, no one with a triple-digit IQ or even a high-schooler’s understanding of history, believes that Prohibition works. And that’s just the first premise.

We did not stop people drinking alcohol by making it illegal (and having stiff penalties) for drinking alcohol.

We did not stop people doing drugs by making it illegal (and having super stiff penalties) for doing drugs.

We did not stop people committing acts of terrorism by making it illegal (with complete loss of due process and other rights) for even being suspected of committing acts of terrorism.

We did not make people stop being racist or bigoted by making it illegal to be so.

We did not end poverty by declaring war on it. (And on and on and on and on…)

We will not make anyone more safe – during a time of war (or at any time) – by disarming or de-arming the population. (No, not even in Australia, where their voluntary turn in – or else! – only netted about 7% of their nation’s guns.) The only people who ever disarmed the populace did so to ensure one thing: no uprisings by people who could possibly overthrow them. I wish that weren’t a historical fact, but it is. Here is a link to the “sword hunts” of Japan, under the various Shogunates, as just one example.

An armed populace is the single greatest threat to any invading army – or any single invader. This is because armies are comprised of people. And people can be killed pretty easily with guns. (I know this from having seen it. You can take my word on it. Or ask a nurse who works in a big city ER – they see plenty of gunshot wounds.) This is because the single greatest threat to anyone who is armed is lots of people you can’t account for who are also armed. It only takes one bullet to stop a tank – just shoot the tank driver when he’s unbuttoned, or finally has to stop to take a poop.

Think I’m kidding? Ask the troops who fought in “Black Hawk Down.” I’ve served with two of them in Afghanistan. One still carried some fragments – and the scars – from being shot by some locals from he-doesn’t-know-where. Local “civilians” just…joined in, and started raining down hell, on the soldiers trying to (originally) grab Aidid and later, those just trying to pull their buddies out of that shitstorm.

Watch the movie. Or read Bowden’s book. Or talk to someone who has survived it.

This is not rocket science. I happen to have some firsthand experience walking around in countries where some portion of the population is openly hostile to your existence – or has put a bounty on your head. In the early part of the war, certain Taliban commanders who had fled into Pakistan during the US invasion, put bounties on the heads of and US “spies.” In some cases they ran about $150,000 US, if I recall correctly. I didn’t take it too personally, though. We’d put bounties on everyone’s head from Bin Laden on down, in crazy amounts – $25,000,000.00 for Himself, which most of the locals found so high as to be absurd when converted into local currency. (It’s a separate lesson in market economics for another time).

In any event, imagine if, while I was in Afghanistan, tromping around the eastern regions, with a known terrorist threat against American citizens, if the commander had said the following:

Of course, he would be excoriated. He would be vilified. People would be asking for him to be relieved (and rightfully so). It’s laughably stupid for any commander to suggest such a thing…

Yet somehow, We, the People – the now huddled sheep – are told by our Commander-in-Chief that we should have our rights reduced, that we should be de-armed or disarmed, while we’re simultaneously told that we’re in a new phase of our War with Terror. Or against Terrorists. Or the New Phase of the War on Terror. Or whatever they’re calling it. And the government is going to take care of us all. Promise.

Right. And (big G) Government has such an awesome track record in that regard!

“Well, I mean, aside from the original 1993 bombing of the WTC. Or the bombing of the Air Force barracks at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Or the bombing of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam in 1998. And not the USS Cole in October 2000. Don’t count those. But we totally learned after 9-11, though.”

• Right. So government totally got the two San Bernadino shooters before they killed all of those people, right? Well, ahem, uhhh, no.
• Okay. They got that guy who attempted to blow up the car bomb in NY City in 2010, right? Hmm. Ahh, nope. Local citizens first noticed the car smoking and THEN they alerted security.
• How about the shoe bomber – they got him, right? Well…. No. Passengers on the plane got him after he’d tried to detonate the explosives in his shoe that he smuggled onto the plane.
• But how about the underwear bomber, they got that guy, though, yes? Not exactly… well… No, to be precise. He got PETN onto the plane and caught his own dumb ass (and leg) on fire, as well as the wall of the plane. A passenger tackled him while the flight attendants put out the fire.

What new phase are we in again? Is it new because now terrorists have switched from bombs on planes to guns in gun-free zones? This is what our President is selling a breathless American public?

I have to laugh. I don’t know what else to do.

I’ll say it again. You want to be safe, you’ve got only two options:

1. You can keep pretending that we need to disarm the population and rely upon ONLY the police to protect us from terrorists, live in a security state, tell ourselves it’s all okay and that Big Brother is going to protect us; OR
2. (A) You can grow up. Be a fucking man. Yes, I am speaking directly to Men out there, and specifically any beta males who go along with this crap as a way to hide their cowardice. Quit being a fucking pussy. Take responsibility for your safety, your family’s, and those around you. And, yes, I know there are perfectly capable women out there, too. I’ve served with them – in combat – and you haven’t, so don’t distract from the issue of your cowardice. I’ve also done an okay job, in my humble opinion, to raise the kind of women who can take care of themselves, too. Therefore… 

(B) If you can’t do it yourself, or won’t, then – for fuck’s sake – support a woman near you who will. And/Or get out of both her way – and my way – and let us do it if you won’t. Don’t actively hamper my ability to protect myself and my family by making us criminals simply for trying to be prepared to save your yellow ass if the moment does arise.

1. Ask Congress to pass legislation banning people on the No-Fly List from owning weapons. Okay. Barn door after horse gone, but whatever. Here’s what I love though. How do you actually wind up on those No Fly Lists, anyway? And what happens if your name is on there incorrectly? Hey, wouldn’t you know. We already have a lawsuit telling us the answer! My favorite quote has to be this:

“Rahinah Ibraham is not a suspected terrorist. She was a scholar and doctoral candidate at Stanford University in the United States from Malaysia with a valid student visa. She ended up on the no-fly list on what turned out to be a clerical error. It wasn’t even a case of mistaken identity. An FBI agent literally checked the wrong box when filing paperwork in 2004. It took a decade of fighting with the government to fix this problem. Why? Because the system by which the government adds people to the no-fly list has absolutely no transparency or due process in its appeal process. Until this year, the federal government wouldn’t even confirm that an individual was even on the no-fly list, which coincidentally made it a challenge to fight one’s inclusion. A judge in 2014 ruled that the government violated Ibraham’s and others’ rights by mistakenly adding them to the no-fly list and refusing to fix the problem.

Sounds like a peachy idea to have some nebulous secret bureaucracy capturing the names of people and then using it to prohibit them from moving about the country. What a wonderfully progressive idea by our Constitutional scholar of a President. I suppose as long as it denies citizens of only their Second Amendment rights, he’s cool with it. I get that’s how it works with Progressivism. It’s just a new name for tribalism. What matters is not the content of your character, nor the quality of your ideas, but the causes to which you ascribe or the victim class to which you belong. This means that because it’s Obama suggesting that we should be able to put American citizens’ names on secret lists and then deny them their civil rights, there can’t possibly be anything wrong with it.

Let’s speak like adults. We know what kinds of names are going to end up on this list. They’re not going to be Samuel L. Jackson’s or Charles Emerson Winchester III’s. I suspect there will also not be many Schlome Rosenberg’s, either. Try to imagine a President (or candidate) suggesting that we should unilaterally violate the civil rights of Muslims, simply because they’re Muslims.

The President has simply couched his assault on the rights of Muslim Americans in different terms, and certainly with a much smaller scope, but the same result in outcome: Muslims will certainly be targeted by name or appearance or ties through some emails that have been intercepted but they’re not allowed to know about, etc., for heightened government scrutiny and prevented by our government from taking a plane. All because they happen to show up on a No Fly List the government only acknowledged existed last year. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong with that?

2.  “President Obama called for new measures to tighten national security, including a review of the visa program that one of the San Bernadino attackers used to enter the U.S. last year.” (WSJ, p. A6). Again, barn door, horse is already gone, but okay. More theater. We’ll review our bureaucracy. Charming.

3.  “He [the President] also sharply pressed for Muslim leaders to be more active in stopping radicalization[.]” (Id.)
Really? Now the President is reduced to asking for help from the clergy?? Holy shit. That should stop all of this terrorism nonsense cold. Tout de suite! I mean, why didn’t anyone else think of that, after all this time? Truly. A genius plan. Surefire winner.

4.  “The President urged lawmakers to pass a new resolution authorizing the military campaign against Islamic State…” – which he’s already doing, without such authorization. So… this is awkward. If you believe you can Constitutionally take military action against ISIL without authorization, which is exactly what you are already doing, and have been doing, with both special ops troops on the ground in theater, and thousands of sorties flown over Syria and Iraq against ISIL, you need an authorization from Congress because…? This exact same thing is what got Nixon excoriated during Vietnam – and led to the passage of the War Powers Act – which this President has absolutely wiped his ass with repeatedly. And this will make things safer on the streets, how exactly…?

You get the kind of government you deserve. We wanted a nanny state to dole out the goodies, and now we’re finding out that one of the goodies – when you give government control over everything – is security. Now enjoy what it’s like to have to rely upon the almighty bureaucracy for personal security, dumbasses.

Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.