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95

L. Neil Smith's
THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 95, October 23, 2000
Why I'm Doing It

From: "Mark Wilson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: AZLP vs. NLP
Date: Monday, October 16, 2000 10:59 AM

To the Editor: The last several issues of TLE have featured letters slamming Harry Browne and others slamming Smith, Suprynowicz, and the AZLP.

The entire argument reminds me of two rabbis, one Orthodox and the other Reform, who are too busy arguing interpretations of the Torah to notice the concentration camp guard quietly locking the door on the gas chamber.

Whatever the flaws of the Browne campaign and the NLP, they favor freedom and are spending substantial time, effort, and money to alert the American public to the freedoms that are slipping away.

It's time to work together and get out of the gas chamber. We can argue the fine points of Scripture later.

best �

Mark B. Wilson, Killeen, TX
[email protected]

From: "Jeff Colonnesi" <[email protected]>
To: "Victor Milan" <[email protected]>
Cc: "John Taylor" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: TLE #94
Date: Monday, October 16, 2000 12:07 AM

Re: Would You Give Up Your Guns if Thomas Jefferson Told You To?

"The only thing which can prevent government's outlawing, and attempting to confiscate, all private arms is its totally collapsing first."

"Only disobedience can. By violence if that's required. The alternative is total expropriation, enslavement, and death � and not in half a century, not in a generation, but deadly soon."

Spare me the theatrics. If you actually believe this, then you should already be ambushing government agents on at least a weekly basis. Because if you think you are going to even survive the kind of confrontation you are discussing, let alone win it, by hiding in your house (or even some bunker), then you've slipped some gears.

If you honestly feel that there is NO way, short of violent resistance to prevent the wholesale confiscation of firearms (and with it the destruction of liberty), then your only hope is to start a violent revolution. And if that's the case, every day you wait makes it more likely you will lose. Or do you think that by mearly preaching it, rather than doing it, you will somehow convince the forces of tyranny to pass you by? More likely they will pick you as one of thier earlier, and more graphic, targets.

Granted, 99+% of all the politicians running for office today cannot be trusted as far as you can throw them. And the vast majority of them turn to jelly with fear at the thought of thier constituents (read: employers) carrying weapons without jumping through all kinds of hoops first. But they are people. Thier attitudes can be changed. And if they are unwilling to change, they can be replaced. Its not a quick solution. But then most things worthwhile aren't.

But if you choose violence as your method, then you have to be prepared for the results. Like the likely prohibition on ALL weapons. Being branded as the worst sort of crimminal for even speaking as you do now. Having those on the side of liberty forced to choose between laying down in defeat, and adopting terrorist tactics and accepting that innocents will DIE as a result. And not in small numbers. Having most of those who fight for freedom die. And having many (most?) of those who live through it be the ones who early on decided to live by "better safe than sorry" and kill anyone they even thought might collaberate with the enemy. Including neihbors, freinds and family.

Just what kind of society do you think these people will create? Will it be one based on individual freedom? I doubt it. People who have lived through a time when the only way to survive was to kill the other guy first are seldom concerned with observing niceties regarding your rights. They are more likely to violate them on any pretext to maintain their safety, wealth or position.

Changing the system without violence will take us time. Hell, most of us alive today won't see the end of the fight. But we stand a much better chance of getting the result we want without violence than we do with it.

Jeff Colonnesi
[email protected]

From: "Victor Milan" <[email protected]>
To: "Jeff Colonnesi" <[email protected]>
Cc: "The Libertarian Enterprise"
Subject: Re: TLE #94
Date: Monday, October 16, 2000 11:46 PM

Jeff Colonnesi wrote:

[See Jeff's letter above. � ed.]

Spare me the mush-for-brains outrage.

Your letter shows no sign that you comprehend what I actually wrote, much less the difference between self-defense & aggression (or, for that matter, anything about resistance, violent or otherwise).

Example: you assert that if I follow what you presume (wrongly, as it happens) to be my methods, we face "the likely prohibition on ALL weapons." So you didn't notice I already said I believed that inevitable? Or are you so thunderously naive as to believe guns can be banned without other defensive tools likewise being outlawed?

One thing mystifies me (admittedly not enough to care what the explanation is): your last & most devastating argument boils down to, you'd hate to live in a society so icky that people defended themselves by force of arms � an argument admitted gun-grabbers are generally too timid or ashamed to make openly these days, although it was popular in the past. If you feel that way, what "fight" are you talking about? The fight to keep our guns? Why would you want to do that?

Or do I misapprehend, & the fight you're hoping to win, albeit not within our lifetimes, is to take away our guns?

If it's to keep them, you appear to have made your choice: surrender. If you wish to call it working within the system, that's of course your prerogative.

Just for the record: I did not advocate aggressive violence in my piece, nor do I ever. Nor do I advocate violent revolution, which can only bring us more of the evil which afflicts us, which is government.

But I leave you with a final (& I mean final, since I lack further leisure to be your pen-pal) thought: when the forces of repression make their move to crush the gun culture, whom will they go after first? Those such as myself who have said publicly (as I have in TLE before) that we would not surrender our guns? Or those who have made clear they have no intention of resisting?

�Victor Mil�n

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