What Are You Prepared To Do?

Jude Cuddy has been pondering 2009 and the historic election of November 2008. What it means, the people who are in power in Congress, and the statements of he who will take office in the White House next Tuesday. Jude, a regular contributor to The Ready Line, wonders where America goes from here. Hope for Change sounds nice, but what are the implications? Both the leadership of Congress and the new American president have dreadful records on the Second Amendment. He asks us whether we are prepared to spend the next four years working hard to defend liberty.

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16Jan09

What Are You Prepared To Do?

In the coming days, we shall witness the swearing in of a new Commander in Chief, who is sworn in with the oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution of the United States. This is politics on an immense scale, the grand stage where one is insulated from the real world - everything is done for you by others. At the other end you have the sovereign citizen that is trying to also “preserve, protect and defend” on a much more personal level. Both ostensibly want what is best for the country and themselves, respectively.

The American spirit is based on a mind set of independent thought, action and deed exactly because the Constitution limits the size, presence and scope of government – making it merely an “Invisible hand” as Thomas Jefferson envisaged. No one can argue that political and economic freedoms are inseparable. Look what this nation has accomplished in its short history. The world does not flock to our shores by accident.

One of the core tangible objects of the American citizen is the ability to preserve, protect and defend themselves by the employment of personal arms. If our current crop of politicians would only read the text of our founding documents they would understand this. The citizens of this nation would likewise do well to read and understand that these rights are slowly being usurped by an ever increasing government whose principal object is to create a dependent class at the expense of the freedoms we have traditionally held as inviolate.

Do not be lulled by platitudes of leaders who say they shall protect you, as they have no such obligation. A great thinker and student or history, Col. Jeff Cooper had this to say in 2004:

“The left−liberals are ceaseless in their determination to disarm the decent people of the world. Sadly enough, a great many decent people seem to have no objection to being disarmed. America may well be the last best hope of Earth, but there are many Americans who have no understanding of why this is so. It is so because America is the remaining bastion of political liberty. The armed citizen is the essence of political freedom, and an armed citizenry may not be enslaved, as our Founding Fathers well knew. The way to ensure liberty is to ensure that every man be armed − according to the tenets of Mr. Jefferson. Times change, but that principle does not. You can only push people around if they submit to being pushed, and this is impossible if they are personally armed. Thus, the Second Amendment of the US Constitution has nothing to do with hunting. It has rather to do with the security of a free state against all enemies foreign and domestic.

"Hunting, of course, should be encouraged, since it familiarizes the general public with the expert use of personal weapons, but it does not lie at the heart of the problem. A disarmed public is a conspicuous encouragement to crime, as the example of Britain will point out. I submit that we do not have a serious crime problem in the US. Such goblins that choose to prey upon other people will find means to do so regardless of technology. Just as a man who wishes to find cocaine will find it, a man who wishes to find a gun will find it, regardless of what the law says. It is far better for all the people to be able to protect themselves − by force and violence if necessary.”

The next administration already has plans for further erosions of freedoms, and it all starts with the ability of the average citizen to be trusted by those that they elect. Clearly this is not the case once the individual voting records are examined. However, the time for this has passed, and an increasingly complacent citizenry has spoken. Alexis de Tocqueville was right – once a democracy discovers that it can indeed vote itself sustenance at the public trough it is not long before it collapses under its own weight. My concern is for those future generations that may or may not enjoy the freedoms that we have even today.

President Ronald Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend out sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

What are we, the citizens of this Republic, prepared to do to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution of the United States of America? Rights that are not exercised, ignored or casually surrendered do not exist. If we do not practice the eternal vigilance that is called for then we shall indeed find ourselves wondering about our loss to the Nanny State. Examine the freedoms we have today and ask yourself if you have treated the gem you have been handed by earlier generations with equal respect and awe.

Will you allow your own interests to trump the freedoms yet to be exercised by those unborn?
What is one is prepared to do to assure that future Americans can exercise the freedoms once bestowed upon us?

Semper Fidelis,
Jude T. Cuddy