6 Apr 18
“If I ruled the world,
Every man would say the world was his friend,
There’d be happiness that no man could end,
No my friend, not if I ruled the world.
Every head would be held up high.
There’d be sunshine in everyone’s sky.
If the day ever dawned when I ruled the world”
From “If I Ruled the World,”written in 1963 by Leslie Bricusse and Cyril Ornadel, for the musical “Pickwick” Most popular rendition was Tony Bennett’s, from 1965
The foregoing, in one form or another, has been on the lips of every dictator and would-be potentate we can remember. And, all sincerely believed the foregoing refrain, at least in the beginning.
In Western pluralistic democratic republics, governments have “powers.” Individual citizens have “rights.” Powers and rights are in perpetual contention, of course, and we have courts to continuously establish and enforce limits of both. The inherent conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary!
Would-be dictators, who sincerely believe themselves to be virtuous, and “visionary” (as they all do), clearly see that they must increase their powers, at the expense of individual rights, in order to bring-about the “Great Age of Reason and Enlightenment” which they arrogantly believe history will record all began with them!
And before long, these self-proclaimed “enlightened despots” prove themselves to be all-too human!
Their ever-increasing impatience with the “unenlightened” invariably translates into incremental usurpation of individual rights.
The end-result is, without fail, gulags and gas-chambers!
Courts are supposed to courageously stand in their way, but seldom do!
And, as vocal opponents are rounded-up by the inscrutable “secret police,” the savior-turned-tyrant will repeatedly assure them that they have been stripped of their rights “for their own good.”
So, when I’m told, by liberals and self-proclaimed “progressives,” that the only real problem with this civilization is that I have too many rights, I’m immediately suspicious of their true motives, since we’ve seen this sinister historical narrative played-out many times in the past!
And, particularly when I’m told that my Second Amendment Rights don’t really exist, and that I have to “prove” that I’m not mentally ill before I can become a gun-owner, and even then that I can have only so many guns and so much ammunition, and that I can’t have guns as good as the government’s guns, nor can I have guns that are on an ever-expanding “List” of guns that the government can have, but I can’t, I start to get this crazy idea that the “enlightened utopia” they claim to be building is actually the darkest of tyrannies!
And, I’m reminded of the dialogue between Neville (played by Charlton Heston) and Matthias (played by
Anthony Zerbe) from the 1971 feature film, “Omega man:”
Matthias: “We have cleansed and purged the world. Now, we must build.”
Neville: “Build coffins. That’s all you’ll need!”
None of our individual liberties as Americans will ever be safe, without vigorous substantiation and audacious exercise of our Second Amendment Rights.
Never doubt it!
“Enlightened tyrants” are never far away. In fact, they’re already here in NY, NJ, CT, and CA! And they, without fail, insist that all of us “ordinary citizens” be disarmed, helpless, defenseless, dependent, and most of all- silent!
“The historical reality of our Second Amendment’s protection of our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is not that it protects our right to shoot deer. It protects our right to shoot tyrants, and it protects our right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments, they will use upon us.”
Napolitano
/John
