Many Americans are baffled. Why, they ask, would Republicans refuse to act when semiautomatic weapons designed for the battlefield are used against our children?
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE was required reading in my undergrad Modern European History class, ca. 1973, I've read it several times since, and I frequently recommend it to others.
I finally subscribed, after considering it for several weeks. I've got too bloody much great stuff to read every day, but it dawned on me that the Hartmann Report is always one of the first emails I open, right up there with Lucian Truscott, Joyce Vance, and Heather Cox Richardson, so -- I'm in.
Spot on. The 2nd Amendment was written to arm people against slave revolts. Nothing much has changed. In the 1920’s, the KKK went to Germany and taught the ‘Brown Shirts’ how to roll. Fear. Fear of ‘mud people, Jews; it was in the White Power literature 50 years ago and remains today.
Thank you. I wish more people realized this -- and sensed the connection between the slave owners' support for the 2nd Amendment and the number of white gun enthusiasts who see unlimited fire power as a way for keeping people of color in line. I recommend Carol Anderson's excellent history of the 2nd Amendment, THE SECOND: RACE AND GUNS IN A FATALLY UNEQUAL AMERICA, to anyone who wants to know more.
The 2nd Amendment had a dual purpose. The United States had no standing army of any significance at the time., And militia's proved to be nothing more than musket ball catchers, they would fire, then run from the British bayonets Gen Morgan used this propensity, to good effect at the battle of the Cow Pens, where he had the militia stand on the top of hillock and fire, then retreat behind the hill, the British then followed them only to be met with regulars, laying down and hiding then standing up and shooting the British.
Wellington copied Morgan and used the technique at Waterloo.
Anyway the militia was suppose to act like a delay, it proved useless.
The other, and probably primary motive was to ensure the slave patrols were well armed.
Planters had a constant problem, harsh planters who mistreated their slaves, served as motivation for slaves to run off to a neighboring plantation where they were better treated.
That was the purpose of slave patrols. It wasn't until latter in the 19th century that some slaves, close enough to non slave states, took to running away to freedom. There was zero chance otherwise that a slave, walking alone along a road or trail, needing food and shelter could actually escape. The underground railroad was a northern institution, the north's answer to the Fugitive slave act. An act which was enacted by the Federal Government to appease the slave owners, which made it a crime for anyone to harbor a run a way slave, even as far north as Vermont and New Hampshire.
Of course there was a constant fear of a slave revolt, and most certainly an individual slave, here and there, turned on his owner. The first real revolt, which scared the stuff out of the south, was the Nat Turn revolt of 1832.
You make important points, but you may be underestimating the impact of the battles waged by former slaves in the French colony we now know as Haiti. Slaveowners in the South were quite aware of it, and it culminated with a victory for the former "self-liberated" slaves almost three decades before Nat Turner's rebellion. Slave revolts
I think it's also safe to say that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 didn't come out of nowhere. If "fugitive slaves" weren't a pressing issue in some quarters, would there have been a need for such legislation? (It was passed about a year and a half after the unrest began in Saint-Domingue, but I don't know if there was a connection between one and the other.) The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was much more stringent, of course, and reached more heavily into the northern states -- at a time when the abolition movement was far stronger than it had been in the early national period (to put it mildly!). It provoked widespread resistance and occasional violence, when law enforcement attempted to take escaped slaves into custody.
Contrary to your belief that there was "zero chance" that a slave could escape -- well, quite a few did, and not only from the border states, although it's true that escaping overland from the Deep South was extremely difficult. Escaping by sea was somewhat easier, though still very, very risky. And was the underground railroad really "a northern institution"? I'm not sure it was an institution at all, at least not the way we think of institutions. Some parts of it were better organized, i.e., more formal, than others. This National Park Service web page includes a neat map showing some of the routes the enslaved used to escape: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm
Thanks for the reminder. Yep the revolution in Santo Domingo did influence attitudes in plantation states.
There was a book I read years ago with that title (Revolution in Santo Domingo). First the slaves revolted against the white planters, once they were gone, they vented their spleen and rage on mulattos, the octaroons.. it turned into a racial ethnic cleansing.
The French planters fled to the south, and a lot of them settled in Alabama, naming their county Marengo County, after the first victory of Napoleon in the Battle of Marengo), they tried to grow grapes and create a wine industry, but lacked the knowledge, the effort failed and Marengo County which is in the black belt, so named because of the black gumgo which is ideal for cotton growing (a combination of clay and bottom soil from the overflow of the Cahaba river, so they sold out to the incoming white settlers from Georgia and South Carolina.
Thanks for correcting me as regards my ill advised comment about zero attempts to escape from the deep south.
There of course has to be successes, but surely miniscule considering the difficulties or a lone black person alone and at large in the paranoid and schizoid deep south in the 18th and 19th century.
What I know of the Underground rail road is that they were safe houses in the north, I wouldn't call it a northern institution, and I would not call it an institution as it was not organized,, per se.
Groups of like thinking people like Quakers and other abolitionists, would get together, but it wasn't long before the authorities knew who the "conductors" were, a hazardous undertaking.
From what I have read, most of the "railroad" was in the north east, especially the border states, where the goal was to escape into Canada.
I know about the poem or story which had instructions,like following the north star, or the "devils smile" a bridge over the Ohio river. And surely there were abolitionist sympathizers in Kentucky, but further south you went, the more chances of getting caught, and the greater the risk, regardless of one's sympathies.
Yes, slaves did escape from the deep south, such as the guy who was freed from the Epps of Virginia in 12 years a slave, but that was with the help of a friendly white who managed to deliver his letter to a friend and associate in the north.
Even in cultures where slaves are the same race as the master, like the Vikings, escaping slavery was almost impossible.
Yet there are exceptions, always and lots of success stories. Too bad we don't have records of them.
Thom, this piece is seminal and profound. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to help decent Americans understand the “long game” that Fascist loving billionaires, theists, misogynist and Racists have employed to take over the nation by stealth.
People may want a single concept to wrap the whole Fascist movement in, but it is an amalgamation of deeply rooted concepts of demonization by elite Whites to rule the world.
Surviving the era of Neo Fascism will be a nightmare, one exacerbated by powerful new AI technologies that will enable Orwellian surveillance far beyond anything he imagined and incite fanatical violence by a populace unable to discern what reality is.
The Neo-Fascist era is only a transition to the ultimate goal, the return of high-tech Feudalism.
I sincerely thank you for continuing to raise the alarm. It seems like violence and mayhem us all we see anymore. It scares me and I don't understand why it doesn't scare the Crap out of everyone. How did we get from Where Have All The Flowers Gone to this? How do people become so complacent that they just ignore what's going on right in front of them everyday?
I remember you talking about Milton Mayer many years ago and thank you for the up date. These are scary times and most of our society does not have a clue. We are called too far to the left by some of our friends.
Your description of where we stand is very cogent.
I've been writing about it since last October (https://medium.com/@The_Last_Age/neo-fascism-db29ef692008). I cited a book there, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, written by Jason Stanley whose father personally experienced Germany in the 30's and who felt our current times here in the U.S. strongly resemble those of Germany then.
Those tours Repubs are offering to tourists -- many of them are probably casing the place so they'll know their way around. It won't surprise me if I hear that George Santos has been brought in by the Maga's as an inside man; heck, he's probably designing false security cards right now, just as he masterminded an operation that made false credit cards. What does he do behind the closed door of his office? -- he sure isn't doing work for his constituents, who all know his far-fetched stories.
Oh my God , it is here. I fear we’re handling it in an inefficient and very frightening manner , that feels like we cant propel ourselves forward or backward or wherever it is we are supposed to be with whatever we are supposed to do.
What can we do ?
To see it happening is to witness evil . Truly dark, dank and frightening .
The hateful outbursts from Trump and Marg. T. Greene, Fox news , accusations fly . They insist ‘they are the victims’ . Trying to ‘make America great .’
They are making America toxic.
I worry so much for my children and grandchildren . God help us all .
It's a simple but tried and true formula: Insecurity begets fear; fear begets hate; hate begets violence. Lies, ignorance, gullibility, and lack of self-awareness begets Republicanism, infusing insecurity, fear, hate, and violence into the lost souls and weak minds of fascist followers to amass ungodly power for their fascist leaders.
2023 America is just the latest incarnation of evil plaguing humankind from the inception of consciousness. To remain silent is to hasten the end of democracy and the failure of evolution.
Logic and judgement has been tossed aside by the Republicans---they listen to their gut and all that emotion about their precious 2nd Amendment. If only they valued our children and their children as much.
Meanwhile those of us USING our prefrontal cortex are definitely seeing where Thom's through-lines lead.
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury.
"The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed." Simone de Beauvoir.
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic" James Dresden
"Good education is not what fills your head with facts but what stimulates curiosity. You then learn for the rest of your life." Neil Degrasse Tyson
"Missing are ends which have democratic experiences at the center. There are occasional references to citizenship education along with the dispositions required of the good citizen. But this is a view of citizenship that is primarily passive and lacks an articulated concept of the active, participatory citizen and citizenry." Professor Bruce Romanish (Speaking about traditional public schools.)
“And because what is not taught in school can sometimes be as influential or formative as what is taught, the hidden curriculum also extends to subject areas, values, and messages that are omitted from the formal curriculum and ignored, overlooked, or disparaged by educators.” From the "Glossary of Education Reform".
"Public school was never in business to produce Thoreau. It is in business to produce a man like Richard Nixon and, even more, a population like the one which could elect him. Jonathan Kozol
"Standard school teaches compliance with hierarchy; obedience to authorities for whom one does not necessarily respect; and regurgitation of meaningless material for a high grade. The standard classroom socializes students to be passive; to be directed by others; to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities; to pretend to care about things that they don’t care about; and that one is impotent to change one’s dissatisfying situation."
― Bruce E. Levine, Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person's Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models
The precursor to fascist tendencies and authoritarian inclinations was the movement by the religious moralizers and capitalism promoters who preached (their "well-packaged lies") that society needed to be engineered by passing laws requiring children to be indoctrinated with their particular conceptions of the good life and their beliefs in schools modelled after the Prussian military academies. One could not imagine a better methodology for discouraging the reading of books. Fascism is the logical conclusion to forced learning and enforced behavioral control of children. Brilliant educators and dedicated child advocates such as Arne Duncan and Randi Weingarten have failed to recognize what they are contributing to and what is happening on their watch.
Mr. Stuart R. Hayes relied way too much on Elbridge Gerry's fear of the military part of the constitution,and from my understanding, he basically refused to sign the document on the grounds there should be no army. I am slightly confused about Gerry's position, but it does seem he thought the Mass. govt. had overreacted against the western farm revolt, commonly called Shay's Rebellion. But overall Shay's Rebellion was a wake-up call and directly resulted in an understanding of the elite in the various states that the power brokers didn't to prevent internal strife both within and between the states. That would tend to indicate that Mr. Hayes was incorrect. In the Federalist Madison does address the concern of balancing state militias against the federal army. Nowhere does Madison address the idea that states shouldn't be able to regulate guns within their boundaries and Madison, personally, did not thing individual citizens needed guns. The concept that the 2nd amendment was somehow absurd. The Mass. Bill of rights of 1780 does say the state needed to be able to defend itself, but to say it means individuals should be able to have private militias or guns was the opposite of its meaning. It explicitly says to prevent runaway military dictatorship the state (the legislature) must have full control of any regulation or use of force via weaponry and any action of any group or individual contrary to legislated authorization. When the incorporation theory began to take hold in jurisprudence, both the states and the courts saw that that amendment's purpose was so clearly obvious it was non-incorporable. When ex-Chief Justice Burger retired, he wrote an entire book countering the current judiciary's interpretation. For the most part the intent was not as much to protect the states from the federal military but to enable the states to be able to engage in state militias to protect itself from its own citizens. And in fact the Whiskey Rebellion began actually before the passing of the 2nd amendment and had to rely on federal military initially. But the 2nd was always meant to protect the states from the citizens. Even at the start of the civil war there wasn't any talk on either side about arming its citizens against the state, although we know there was in both sections armed resistance to be drafting of citizens who had no allegiance to their sector's cause. Notably in western North Carolina, mountainous Virginia , and many of the border states. Neither the north or south wanted to encourage internal armed rebellions and the south often tried to take away and seize all arms that were non-military. So much for the theory because it is another attempt of reinvention that never existed. In 1870 Tennessee there were at least three cases limiting the rights of individuals to bear arms individually (James Andrews, Frank O'toole, and Elbert Custer). Cruikshank, the next year, while a pretty bad case for civil rights, was a supreme court decision saying states could regulate who could have guns and the 2nd amendment only stated that the federal govt. had no authority to prevent any state that chose to regulate control of guns in its own state. Presser was the first case to confront the right head on and said individuals could have a gun right (for hunting or personal defense) but any attempts to form unauthorized citizen militias was unconstitutional, .we could go on. It wasn't until Heller in '08 that any court ever suggested an individual right protected by the 2nd amendment, although as Mr. Hartmann suggests the agitation began nearly forty years before Heller.
Apparently, as Mr. Hartmann illustrates, the implications of Heller are that if guns cannot be controlled then it must be all right to use guns. No need to wring your hands in anguish if your kid is killed by a gunman, because Heller allows people to use guns, and if guns can be used, it is implicitly implying murder is not a crime. So from my own ignorant perspective shooting people with guns is okay because of our right to use guns. So wake up call, how can we say shooting people is a crime at all if there is no laws that can be made against their use. So yeah, that congressman from Tennessee, whatever his name was, nothing any legislator can do about people shooting people if scotus says individuals have a 2nd amendment right not only to possess guns but to use guns. Frankly with our current court gleefully cheering on the dissolution of society, I doubt any laws, even red flag laws would almost certainly be stricken down. Sorry this is an obscene post, forgive me. But how else can one talk about what is going on with guns and not be obscene? How else?'
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE was required reading in my undergrad Modern European History class, ca. 1973, I've read it several times since, and I frequently recommend it to others.
I finally subscribed, after considering it for several weeks. I've got too bloody much great stuff to read every day, but it dawned on me that the Hartmann Report is always one of the first emails I open, right up there with Lucian Truscott, Joyce Vance, and Heather Cox Richardson, so -- I'm in.
Thank you! :)
Spot on. The 2nd Amendment was written to arm people against slave revolts. Nothing much has changed. In the 1920’s, the KKK went to Germany and taught the ‘Brown Shirts’ how to roll. Fear. Fear of ‘mud people, Jews; it was in the White Power literature 50 years ago and remains today.
Thank you. I wish more people realized this -- and sensed the connection between the slave owners' support for the 2nd Amendment and the number of white gun enthusiasts who see unlimited fire power as a way for keeping people of color in line. I recommend Carol Anderson's excellent history of the 2nd Amendment, THE SECOND: RACE AND GUNS IN A FATALLY UNEQUAL AMERICA, to anyone who wants to know more.
The 2nd Amendment had a dual purpose. The United States had no standing army of any significance at the time., And militia's proved to be nothing more than musket ball catchers, they would fire, then run from the British bayonets Gen Morgan used this propensity, to good effect at the battle of the Cow Pens, where he had the militia stand on the top of hillock and fire, then retreat behind the hill, the British then followed them only to be met with regulars, laying down and hiding then standing up and shooting the British.
Wellington copied Morgan and used the technique at Waterloo.
Anyway the militia was suppose to act like a delay, it proved useless.
The other, and probably primary motive was to ensure the slave patrols were well armed.
Planters had a constant problem, harsh planters who mistreated their slaves, served as motivation for slaves to run off to a neighboring plantation where they were better treated.
That was the purpose of slave patrols. It wasn't until latter in the 19th century that some slaves, close enough to non slave states, took to running away to freedom. There was zero chance otherwise that a slave, walking alone along a road or trail, needing food and shelter could actually escape. The underground railroad was a northern institution, the north's answer to the Fugitive slave act. An act which was enacted by the Federal Government to appease the slave owners, which made it a crime for anyone to harbor a run a way slave, even as far north as Vermont and New Hampshire.
Of course there was a constant fear of a slave revolt, and most certainly an individual slave, here and there, turned on his owner. The first real revolt, which scared the stuff out of the south, was the Nat Turn revolt of 1832.
You make important points, but you may be underestimating the impact of the battles waged by former slaves in the French colony we now know as Haiti. Slaveowners in the South were quite aware of it, and it culminated with a victory for the former "self-liberated" slaves almost three decades before Nat Turner's rebellion. Slave revolts
I think it's also safe to say that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 didn't come out of nowhere. If "fugitive slaves" weren't a pressing issue in some quarters, would there have been a need for such legislation? (It was passed about a year and a half after the unrest began in Saint-Domingue, but I don't know if there was a connection between one and the other.) The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was much more stringent, of course, and reached more heavily into the northern states -- at a time when the abolition movement was far stronger than it had been in the early national period (to put it mildly!). It provoked widespread resistance and occasional violence, when law enforcement attempted to take escaped slaves into custody.
Contrary to your belief that there was "zero chance" that a slave could escape -- well, quite a few did, and not only from the border states, although it's true that escaping overland from the Deep South was extremely difficult. Escaping by sea was somewhat easier, though still very, very risky. And was the underground railroad really "a northern institution"? I'm not sure it was an institution at all, at least not the way we think of institutions. Some parts of it were better organized, i.e., more formal, than others. This National Park Service web page includes a neat map showing some of the routes the enslaved used to escape: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm
Thanks for the reminder. Yep the revolution in Santo Domingo did influence attitudes in plantation states.
There was a book I read years ago with that title (Revolution in Santo Domingo). First the slaves revolted against the white planters, once they were gone, they vented their spleen and rage on mulattos, the octaroons.. it turned into a racial ethnic cleansing.
The French planters fled to the south, and a lot of them settled in Alabama, naming their county Marengo County, after the first victory of Napoleon in the Battle of Marengo), they tried to grow grapes and create a wine industry, but lacked the knowledge, the effort failed and Marengo County which is in the black belt, so named because of the black gumgo which is ideal for cotton growing (a combination of clay and bottom soil from the overflow of the Cahaba river, so they sold out to the incoming white settlers from Georgia and South Carolina.
Thanks for correcting me as regards my ill advised comment about zero attempts to escape from the deep south.
There of course has to be successes, but surely miniscule considering the difficulties or a lone black person alone and at large in the paranoid and schizoid deep south in the 18th and 19th century.
What I know of the Underground rail road is that they were safe houses in the north, I wouldn't call it a northern institution, and I would not call it an institution as it was not organized,, per se.
Groups of like thinking people like Quakers and other abolitionists, would get together, but it wasn't long before the authorities knew who the "conductors" were, a hazardous undertaking.
From what I have read, most of the "railroad" was in the north east, especially the border states, where the goal was to escape into Canada.
I know about the poem or story which had instructions,like following the north star, or the "devils smile" a bridge over the Ohio river. And surely there were abolitionist sympathizers in Kentucky, but further south you went, the more chances of getting caught, and the greater the risk, regardless of one's sympathies.
Yes, slaves did escape from the deep south, such as the guy who was freed from the Epps of Virginia in 12 years a slave, but that was with the help of a friendly white who managed to deliver his letter to a friend and associate in the north.
Even in cultures where slaves are the same race as the master, like the Vikings, escaping slavery was almost impossible.
Yet there are exceptions, always and lots of success stories. Too bad we don't have records of them.
Thom, this piece is seminal and profound. I spend a lot of time and effort trying to help decent Americans understand the “long game” that Fascist loving billionaires, theists, misogynist and Racists have employed to take over the nation by stealth.
People may want a single concept to wrap the whole Fascist movement in, but it is an amalgamation of deeply rooted concepts of demonization by elite Whites to rule the world.
Surviving the era of Neo Fascism will be a nightmare, one exacerbated by powerful new AI technologies that will enable Orwellian surveillance far beyond anything he imagined and incite fanatical violence by a populace unable to discern what reality is.
The Neo-Fascist era is only a transition to the ultimate goal, the return of high-tech Feudalism.
I really wish to hell that I am wrong.
I wish you were wrong, too, but you're not...
Well, that’s two of us. Thanks Thom
I sincerely thank you for continuing to raise the alarm. It seems like violence and mayhem us all we see anymore. It scares me and I don't understand why it doesn't scare the Crap out of everyone. How did we get from Where Have All The Flowers Gone to this? How do people become so complacent that they just ignore what's going on right in front of them everyday?
This is absolutely terrifying!!! The MAGA fascist movement must stop before too late.
I remember you talking about Milton Mayer many years ago and thank you for the up date. These are scary times and most of our society does not have a clue. We are called too far to the left by some of our friends.
Your description of where we stand is very cogent.
I've been writing about it since last October (https://medium.com/@The_Last_Age/neo-fascism-db29ef692008). I cited a book there, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, written by Jason Stanley whose father personally experienced Germany in the 30's and who felt our current times here in the U.S. strongly resemble those of Germany then.
Those tours Repubs are offering to tourists -- many of them are probably casing the place so they'll know their way around. It won't surprise me if I hear that George Santos has been brought in by the Maga's as an inside man; heck, he's probably designing false security cards right now, just as he masterminded an operation that made false credit cards. What does he do behind the closed door of his office? -- he sure isn't doing work for his constituents, who all know his far-fetched stories.
Thank you Thom for the education you've given me since 2004.
Indeed, I was able to recommend Mayer's book to a fellow reader the other day, along with
theauthoritarians.org.
Essential reading.
Oh my God , it is here. I fear we’re handling it in an inefficient and very frightening manner , that feels like we cant propel ourselves forward or backward or wherever it is we are supposed to be with whatever we are supposed to do.
What can we do ?
To see it happening is to witness evil . Truly dark, dank and frightening .
The hateful outbursts from Trump and Marg. T. Greene, Fox news , accusations fly . They insist ‘they are the victims’ . Trying to ‘make America great .’
They are making America toxic.
I worry so much for my children and grandchildren . God help us all .
It's a simple but tried and true formula: Insecurity begets fear; fear begets hate; hate begets violence. Lies, ignorance, gullibility, and lack of self-awareness begets Republicanism, infusing insecurity, fear, hate, and violence into the lost souls and weak minds of fascist followers to amass ungodly power for their fascist leaders.
2023 America is just the latest incarnation of evil plaguing humankind from the inception of consciousness. To remain silent is to hasten the end of democracy and the failure of evolution.
Logic and judgement has been tossed aside by the Republicans---they listen to their gut and all that emotion about their precious 2nd Amendment. If only they valued our children and their children as much.
Meanwhile those of us USING our prefrontal cortex are definitely seeing where Thom's through-lines lead.
Reminds me of Rod Serling's Twilght Zone...
"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury.
"The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed." Simone de Beauvoir.
"When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic" James Dresden
"Good education is not what fills your head with facts but what stimulates curiosity. You then learn for the rest of your life." Neil Degrasse Tyson
"Missing are ends which have democratic experiences at the center. There are occasional references to citizenship education along with the dispositions required of the good citizen. But this is a view of citizenship that is primarily passive and lacks an articulated concept of the active, participatory citizen and citizenry." Professor Bruce Romanish (Speaking about traditional public schools.)
“And because what is not taught in school can sometimes be as influential or formative as what is taught, the hidden curriculum also extends to subject areas, values, and messages that are omitted from the formal curriculum and ignored, overlooked, or disparaged by educators.” From the "Glossary of Education Reform".
"Public school was never in business to produce Thoreau. It is in business to produce a man like Richard Nixon and, even more, a population like the one which could elect him. Jonathan Kozol
"Standard school teaches compliance with hierarchy; obedience to authorities for whom one does not necessarily respect; and regurgitation of meaningless material for a high grade. The standard classroom socializes students to be passive; to be directed by others; to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities; to pretend to care about things that they don’t care about; and that one is impotent to change one’s dissatisfying situation."
― Bruce E. Levine, Resisting Illegitimate Authority: A Thinking Person's Guide to Being an Anti-Authoritarian—Strategies, Tools, and Models
The precursor to fascist tendencies and authoritarian inclinations was the movement by the religious moralizers and capitalism promoters who preached (their "well-packaged lies") that society needed to be engineered by passing laws requiring children to be indoctrinated with their particular conceptions of the good life and their beliefs in schools modelled after the Prussian military academies. One could not imagine a better methodology for discouraging the reading of books. Fascism is the logical conclusion to forced learning and enforced behavioral control of children. Brilliant educators and dedicated child advocates such as Arne Duncan and Randi Weingarten have failed to recognize what they are contributing to and what is happening on their watch.
From raving lunatic RBE
Mr. Stuart R. Hayes relied way too much on Elbridge Gerry's fear of the military part of the constitution,and from my understanding, he basically refused to sign the document on the grounds there should be no army. I am slightly confused about Gerry's position, but it does seem he thought the Mass. govt. had overreacted against the western farm revolt, commonly called Shay's Rebellion. But overall Shay's Rebellion was a wake-up call and directly resulted in an understanding of the elite in the various states that the power brokers didn't to prevent internal strife both within and between the states. That would tend to indicate that Mr. Hayes was incorrect. In the Federalist Madison does address the concern of balancing state militias against the federal army. Nowhere does Madison address the idea that states shouldn't be able to regulate guns within their boundaries and Madison, personally, did not thing individual citizens needed guns. The concept that the 2nd amendment was somehow absurd. The Mass. Bill of rights of 1780 does say the state needed to be able to defend itself, but to say it means individuals should be able to have private militias or guns was the opposite of its meaning. It explicitly says to prevent runaway military dictatorship the state (the legislature) must have full control of any regulation or use of force via weaponry and any action of any group or individual contrary to legislated authorization. When the incorporation theory began to take hold in jurisprudence, both the states and the courts saw that that amendment's purpose was so clearly obvious it was non-incorporable. When ex-Chief Justice Burger retired, he wrote an entire book countering the current judiciary's interpretation. For the most part the intent was not as much to protect the states from the federal military but to enable the states to be able to engage in state militias to protect itself from its own citizens. And in fact the Whiskey Rebellion began actually before the passing of the 2nd amendment and had to rely on federal military initially. But the 2nd was always meant to protect the states from the citizens. Even at the start of the civil war there wasn't any talk on either side about arming its citizens against the state, although we know there was in both sections armed resistance to be drafting of citizens who had no allegiance to their sector's cause. Notably in western North Carolina, mountainous Virginia , and many of the border states. Neither the north or south wanted to encourage internal armed rebellions and the south often tried to take away and seize all arms that were non-military. So much for the theory because it is another attempt of reinvention that never existed. In 1870 Tennessee there were at least three cases limiting the rights of individuals to bear arms individually (James Andrews, Frank O'toole, and Elbert Custer). Cruikshank, the next year, while a pretty bad case for civil rights, was a supreme court decision saying states could regulate who could have guns and the 2nd amendment only stated that the federal govt. had no authority to prevent any state that chose to regulate control of guns in its own state. Presser was the first case to confront the right head on and said individuals could have a gun right (for hunting or personal defense) but any attempts to form unauthorized citizen militias was unconstitutional, .we could go on. It wasn't until Heller in '08 that any court ever suggested an individual right protected by the 2nd amendment, although as Mr. Hartmann suggests the agitation began nearly forty years before Heller.
Apparently, as Mr. Hartmann illustrates, the implications of Heller are that if guns cannot be controlled then it must be all right to use guns. No need to wring your hands in anguish if your kid is killed by a gunman, because Heller allows people to use guns, and if guns can be used, it is implicitly implying murder is not a crime. So from my own ignorant perspective shooting people with guns is okay because of our right to use guns. So wake up call, how can we say shooting people is a crime at all if there is no laws that can be made against their use. So yeah, that congressman from Tennessee, whatever his name was, nothing any legislator can do about people shooting people if scotus says individuals have a 2nd amendment right not only to possess guns but to use guns. Frankly with our current court gleefully cheering on the dissolution of society, I doubt any laws, even red flag laws would almost certainly be stricken down. Sorry this is an obscene post, forgive me. But how else can one talk about what is going on with guns and not be obscene? How else?'