From Mike Vanderboegh, in the comments:
All of these things I have done for years to no avail. Do you think my stance has been crafted without experience, without thought? On the other hand, I have watched as you have used this blog to excuse ATF misconduct in the Olofson case, blaming the victim for his own framing. What then have you done to validate your brave words at the top of this blog? Diddly squat, I’d say.
You know, there are honestly some days where I don’t even know why I bother. Expect posting to be light today.
You bother because it is the right thing to do, and I think you know that…
BTW: I saw your website mentioned in the latest NRA magazine!
No shit? Which one? I don’t know how I missed that.
And don’t worry, there’s little danger of me quitting. Actually, things are pretty busy at work today, and I was up playing with my iPhone all last night… so I got nothing today. In addition to that, I have to work on my EVC site.
Geez, sebastian, give up this blogging, election coordinating, calling advertising departments, working with the industry, and what not. Do some real activism, like harshly worded letters to the editor and press releases!
SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED!!!!!!!!!!
BTW, i got the new Rifleman last night and haven’t read it yet. You in that one?
I get America’s First Freedom. The problem is, so does Bitter. I need to change my magazine over.
You know what I like about Freedom First?
I can get a great recap of what I read on the blogs last month.
Heh. That’s the nature of dead tree publishing, Robb. For the hyper-informed, they are way too late to the game, especially when there’s not any actual reporting. At least every once in a while you get a decent cover article.
The more I read of Mike Vanderboegh’s writings, the more I’m convinced the man is an absolute genius.
The man’s got his agenda and tactics worked out, and I think he’s got some great points. While his tactics may not sit well with the “average” American, I sure hope he continues to scare the crap out of the truly anti-gunners out there.
Keep up the good work, Mike!
…Orygunner…
BTW Sebastian, you write good stuff too. :)
…Orygunner…
Your blog got a mention in the latest American Rifleman. I don’t have it in front of me, but it was an article about the student who was in trouble with school offficals for having a spent case he obtained during a veterans day event. I will get you the page number when I am off work.
Contra OryGunner and (unfortunately) Billy Beck, the more I read of Mike Vanderboegh’s writings the more I’m convinced the man needs (a) to loosen his tinfoil hat and (b) medication.
As far as what Mike Vanderboegh wrote… I agree with his letter to the editor. I just ALSO agree with you, that maybe we can still win more people over with good manners and education right now.
I believe that not only is there a place, but a need for both Mike V and Sebastian.
Sebastian, I believe, is oft times too much of an apologist for NRA. Mike V likes to scare PSH pacifists sometimes a little too much.
I may understand Sebastian’s position (careful, respectful, incrementalist approach it seems) a little after 20 years of living and hiding my guns in NJ. And of course Sebastian made clear last year (Feb 28, 07) why he started this blog. (And congrats on his success.) But as I just answered an accusation from my landlady, it is not bullying to stand up for my rights. I would prefer that Mike’s messages sound more like he is talking for himself and not acting as a representative of others. Unless he has been chosen to be representative of the people he is speaking for.
Sebastian, I don’t recall you asking Ted Nugent to stop making us look like lunatics. Perhaps you missed his “presentation†in St. Louis last year? And his comments (actually challenges) to Daley about confiscation and his stage setup when he toured last year? I see Mike V, and David Codrea, as quite necessary. If for no other reason than the fact that they challenge us and warn us not to follow the Chamberlain path in defense of our rights. We do have a legal process, and we must use it. If for no other reason than to provide the support for the moral basis of challenging the system to change outside of the system. Do remember that the American Revolution did not just happen in response to taxes and laws. It also happened after the leaders of the colonies tried to use the system available, petitions et al, and only after those avenues had failed did they finally resort to formal revolution.
Thanks to Gura, et al, a petition has been heard by the system. And look at the result. The 2nd Amendment won on a split decision. From the decision, “The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions … or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.†That statement does not sound like an absolute prohibition on Katrina type confiscations to me. Nor will it sound that way to Nagin after the next disaster to hit New Orleans.
On the other hand we also have this from the decision, “A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.†Like Ahab, I consider myself a 2A extremist. But I do not consider links to articles shining the light of liberty on “Only Ones†bullshit. Constitutionally protected rights may be enshrined when the people adopted them, but that shrine requires us to visit it, to illuminate it, and to teach the generations why there is a shrine. For the light we shine on the shrine of Liberty will reflect out into our lives. And part of that light will be from the reflections of the lights we shine upon those that would use the color of authority to restrict our exercises of our liberties.
I do not and will not denigrate Sebastian’s contributions in his blog and for the 2A in PA & Philly. But neither will I wish someone will pull in on Mike V’s reins. For we have room for both of these types of weapons in our arsenal, and many more types as well, in this fight. Sometimes a Ruger LCP is the right tool, and sometimes you just need a 10 gauge with a 32″ full choke barrel.
MichaelG
Michael: I would be more willing to live and let live with Mike V. if he wasn’t so much of a bomb thrower. Being insulting to people who are trying to do something isn’t exactly helping the cause. My chief problem, if I were to be honest with myself, is his abrasiveness, which causes me to react badly to his message even when I might agree with a lot of the nuggets.
I often don’t agree with David Codrea’s viewpoint, but I’ve heard David give interviews, and he always comes off well. I’ve never found him to be insulting or unreasonable when people disagree with him. He also encourages gun owners to get off their butts and do something. There’s a lot to be said for that. David has his point of view, and he’s entitled to that. There, I’m willing to live and let live.
And I probably feel the same way about Ted Nugent, to be honest. I’ve heard Ted say crazy shit I wish he hadn’t said. But I’ve also heard him encourage people to get involved, and praise and encourage people who are involved. I have my issues with Ted Nugent too, but I agree that he has a place in the movement as well.
The essential problem I have with Vanderboegh and his ilk is that, at bottom, they’re entirely full of shit. I will believe that he and David Codrea and the rest of them have the courage of their convictions when I see them dead in a ditch, riddled with ATF gunfire, over one of these supposedly totalitarian episodes — known to normal people as “law enforcement” — that they complain so bitterly about in their writings. The reality of the situation, though, is that the only other thing that Codrea, Vanderboegh et al will ever do except complain is bitch at the rest of us about how unprincipled and/or ignorant we are for failing to storm the ramparts about the supposed outrage du jour. Armchair revolutionaries, every last one of them, and they’re going to get people killed.
Mike Vanderboegh seems to write “revolution porn”. It’s like slash fiction: mostly involving men and “winking”.
Huh, the NRA put the article online:
http://www.nrapublications.org/oj/worstgunlaws.asp
From the article:
“Many licensing laws also restrict ammunition. When NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Alert reported on a Massachusetts fourth-grader who was suspended from school for possessing a fired blank cartridge case from a Memorial Day ceremony, we got a flood of e-mail from readers outraged by the injustice—and a pro-gun blogger (www.snowflakesinhell.com) wrote to point out that everyone who handled the cartridge case and who didn’t have a Massachusetts firearm license could have been charged with a two-year state felony.”
Sebastian: “Being insulting to people who are trying to do something isn’t exactly helping the cause.”
Hey, c’mon man: you’re the one who wrote about him in terms of a “lunatic” and “stupid shit”, yesterday, okay? I might be behind on who whacked whom first, but I saw that much.
BC: “Contra OryGunner and (unfortunately) Billy Beck,…”
Listen; I think that a great deal of Mike’s approach is wrong in the broad stroke. At the moment. I cannot fault the man for anything that he does in SHTF preps. I think he’s looking ahead with an acute eye. What I disagree about is the relative urgency of violence (which might be a poor phrase, because I’m not charging him with that: it’s just the tempo of the times) before peaceful means outside the lines of electoral politics are exhausted.
I’ve been at this a long time. I know real tinfoil hatters when I see them. Mike’s not one of them.
It is on page 16 of the current American Rifleman.
BC,
You’re exactly right. I recall that when Sebastian called out Codrea for his Wayne Fincher obsession that Codrea finally admitted he was not willing to take steps like that and put his life on the line the same way.
If they truly believe it’s a black & white “shall not be infringed” argument, then stand up and lead. Don’t whine online. Lead your little online army into DC if it is what you really believe. Of course, they won’t. They’ll die angry and feeling like victims, which is really their goal in life. It’s not about leading a revolution. It’s about feeling sorry for themselves and how oppressed they supposedly are with their comfortable lives, high speed internet, computers, ability to say this shit without being arrested, food on the table, etc.
Hey, c’mon man: you’re the one who wrote about him in terms of a “lunatic†and “stupid shitâ€, yesterday, okay? I might be behind on who whacked whom first, but I saw that much.
Yeah, I admit I was a little put off by the fact that he came on my Olafson post last month hurling insults at me rather than seriously talking about the issue at hand. So I was hardly in the mood to be civil.
I admit I thought the one who posted the beginning of the Patrick Henry speech made a good point. I didn’t agree with the entire comment, but I admit the point about courtesy was a good one.
Most everyone on the thread, including you, were courteous.
BC & Bitter,
perhaps you should read/reread some more Henry, Franklin, and their contemporaries before there was The Declaration. I don’t see that their writings were all that more inflamatory then what you all are b****ching about. :) And frankly I think that its just a little less than principled of you to say that they are “feeling sorry for themselves” and how putting down their message of rights oppression because they live comfortable lives. You have shown in the past that you are capable of far better responses than that poor bit of snarkishness.
I believe that it takes strength to admit our weaknesses and it is not a weakness to hold ourselves up to a higher standard then we are currently able to meet. Chin up bars are not set at chest level for a reason. We need to reach over our heads if we are to pull ourselves up to a higher level.
I leave with:
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
—Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
MichaelG: Among the many differences between Mike Vanderboegh et al and the Framers, one of the more important ones is that the Framers lived in a time when vociferous complaining about the injustices of the day would not infrequently result in one being arrested for sedition or treason, and then shot or hanged. Political dissent, particularly the bomb-throwing flavor, required some physical courage. When the Framers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, they weren’t bullshitting; they understood that they were signing up to be labelled as traitors, financially ruined, and possibly executed. By way of contrast, as much as they’d like to believe they’re on the ATF’s “most wanted” list, the biggest risk the armchair revolutionaries endure today is that of getting Cheeto stains on their return keys. And yet they have the fucking nerve to shit on people like Sebastian, whose sin is, apparently, making the observation that we’re in a political climate where scaring the horses is manifestly counterproductive.
Billy: I know you don’t give a single goddamn about whether you have people’s respect, but one of the reason you have mine is because you argue first principles, refrain from dickwaving, and walk the walk. Of those three criteria, Mike meets one, and only grading on a generous curve.
Start-shooting, start the revolt fantasists? On the left AND the right? Whodda thunk it… Didn’t I blog about this?
A revolution can’t start until hundreds of folks are first tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail. An indignity, but no true physical harm.
I await the youtube footage of feathered Brady members before I’ll even CONSIDER thinking about revolution.
Remember what Tommy Lee Jones’ character said in Under Siege: “A movement is just that. It moves a little bit and then it stops. Hence the term. Now a revolution; it’s a circular motion that goes around.” (or something like that).
Sebastian, we all have to remember that by slagging one group of gun-owners, the other side will use that to their advantage, much like that whole pigeon-shoot thing. They’ll use it to divide an conquer. As much as Mike V is abrasive, he’s not altogether wrong in his way of thinking, because when all else fails, it’s the Mike V.s of this country that are going to pull our asses out of the fire. You can talk a pretty talk, but can you back up that talk when the talks break down and action is called for? I know it’s uncivilized to sink to the other side’s level, but in the proverbial end, that just might be the only level left.
I can just picture Mike V. addressing Rebecca Peters and IANSA, asking them: “You want to take away my guns? I invite YOU, personally, to come and get them. I’ll hand them over to you after I’ve unloaded all of them.”
RedneckInNY, I have zero expectation that the Mike V’s of the world will do anything other than piss themselves if and when the federales finally do come to take their guns and haul their asses off to the hoosegow. If things really are as irretrievably bad as they claim, and if they had even a scintillia of the courage of their convictions, they’d already be in a shooting war with the fedgov.
But they’re not. They’re a pack of dick-waving Internet tough guys whose only contribution, other than worthless complaining about their lost rights, is a bunch of equally-worthless posturing, and pissing on anybody who’s actually trying to do something constructive.
Perhaps, BC, perhaps… I, for one, don’t want to give them any encouragement to start them shooting it out with the Feds. Let them wave their dicks – the 1st Amendment guarantees all forms of freedom of speech. And as long as they are dick-waving, they’re not gun-waving.
What is the fascination with guns? Why do people feel the need to be hording a gun. What is this paranioa fear that people are going to be rioting in the streets and/or needed for defense and that they provide any real protection. Why do people need to give themselves this false sense of security???
It’s not really like that. There are a lot of reasons we do what we do. It’s not about paranoia, really. Plus, I wouldn’t really call a gun a false sense of security. If someone is breaking into your home, it’s a very real sense of security.