Feb. 4 issue
Gun Empire exposed
By Daniel HertzlerPage:
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Several weeks after the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, Vice President Biden convened a meeting with interested groups in an effort to devise a political response. It was reported that representatives of the National Rifle Association were not happy with the conference. They did not perceive they had been heard, and they would go back to the Congress, where they are heard because they bring money.
In America and Its Guns, James E. Atwood builds his case inductively, beginning with the first gun he ever owned, bought in 1958 from a Sears Roebuck catalog. He also tells of how, as a missionary to Japan, he imported a gun into Japan — with a lot of red tape. He reports that in 1974, the year he left Japan, “Tokyo, which was then the largest city in the world, had one death by firearms, and the nation’s death toll from guns was infinitesimal. In contrast, America had 35,000 deaths by guns, and some cities were virtual shooting galleries.”
But what really got his attention was the 1975 death of Herb Hunter, a member of his congregation, who was killed by a boy with a borrowed gun when Herb tripped on a rug and surprised the robber after Herb had already handed over the money. Atwood learned “there were more gun dealers in the country than McDonald’s restaurants, more gun dealers than gas stations.”
Next Atwood considers the question of where the issue of guns may be discussed. Not in church, he was told, because guns are a political issue, not a spiritual one. Instead, in church, people said, “We should be praying for those who are thinking about doing such horrible things. We should pray that they have a change of heart.”
So he joined the Presbyterian effort to restrict guns through the political process. But they found this did not work, for guns really are a spiritual issue, and in the meantime the NRA was ahead of them. Yet he affirms that “because we are a country governed by laws, eventually Congress will write balanced laws. But, first, there must be a spiritual awakening from God’s people to find the necessary traction in our highest legislative bodies.”
Atwood points out that the NRA is a lobby for the gun industry and that devotion to guns can be an idolatry. Of his 19 chapters, five are used to describe the idolatry of gun worship. Walter Brueggemann, who wrote the introduction, has described the U.S. as an empire. Atwood says there is a Gun Empire.
One chapter is called “The Idol Requires Human Sacrifice.” Atwood observes that “when five persons are hospitalized in the Southwest with e coli found in spinach, the government immediately shuts down the entire spinach industry… . When more than 30,000 Americans die by gunfire, Congress reacts to protect guns, along with their institutions, factories, distribution systems and private sellers, which only guarantees that there will be more human sacrifice in the days to come.”
There is not much here that Mennonites should disagree with. I believe we would agree that the question of guns may be discussed wherever we gather. I think we would also recognize that the person who attempts to protect himself with a gun from an invader will probably be killed because the invader is already prepared.
Atwood has drawn on Walter Wink’s study of “the powers” and highlights Wink’s identification of the myth of “redemptive violence.” One chapter discusses “The Language of a Gun Culture,” where he lists more than two pages of words and phrases “which reference guns, explosions or killing.” The first example is “big shot.” Well, of course. I have used it myself. Others include “You call the shots,” “the smoking gun” and “go off half-cocked.” I never thought about how easily we can absorb this violent lingo.
He mentions the extensive use the NRA makes of the Second Amendment — but only, as he points out, the second half of the Amendment. The first half calls for “a well-regulated militia.” Regulation is what they are against.
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Comments
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Mennonites are not against guns. They just desire that the guns be commanded only by the elite ruling caste that they fawn over with intonations from Romans 13 (while washing their hands of the dirty Glock work necessary to protect their vast EMPIRE of property that an ignored Jesus commanded them to sell. Violence is left to a not-quite-so-holy untermensch caste.)
Thus, they carry water for the spiritual Philistines who hope to disarm the public--and then Lord-it-Over others with disproportionate power--like 1st Samuel 13:19 mentions:
"Now there was no blacksmith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears."
The Second Amendment is foremost an agency of EGALITARIAN POWER SHARING. Control-freaks like "gun-control" Obama and sycophantic "gun-control" Mennonites apparently don't much appreciate Egalitarian Power Sharing, preferring despotic hierarchy.
Secondly, the Second Amendment is an instrument of PEACE, as its purpose was "to prevent the establishment of a standing army"[1] by having a Swiss modeled citizen-soldier militia[2] as a "substitute"[3] to the current military-industrial-complex.
So if you're going to call for "regulation," I'll support you if you mean what the Constitution means (which has been ignored for so long.) Defund the Standing Army, as The Constitution calls for with it's "two years" limit on appropriations, create a Swiss-style national defense, and cut defense appropriations by 86%. (Just a rough figure; the Swiss spend about 1/7th of what we spend, are safer, and have been a practically pacifist nation for a long time.)
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[1] “What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty….” ~Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, August 17, 1789
[2] “The inhabitants of Switzerland emancipated themselves by the establishment of a Militia, which finally delivered them from the tyranny of their lords.” ~Representative Jackson, first U.S. Congress, when it met and turned to defense measures in 1791
[3] "This [citizen-militia] appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army..." ~Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, Number 29
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Congrats Brian on one of the finest examples of Orwellian pseudo-intellectual babble speak published recently. Keep up the good work and we might still bring back Monty Python.
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While my hands are resting from hand-chiseling some maple, I want to expand on Jesus teachings that I briefly touched on above, as seen through the eyes of anthropology.
Mennonites are correct, Jesus did teach a near absolute non-resistance. You have no argument from me there.
However, Jesus' non-resistance is inexorably linked to Jesus' absolute renunciation of all possessions and property.
Why? Property requires Violence.
Modern anthropology concurs with Jesus' intuition.
The rise of civilization, and its system of abstract ownership of property, beyond the very little natural Non-State band and tribal societies need to survive, has given rise to both increased war and increased tyranny.
Mennonite theologian Ched Myers has done some great work on this in his essays "The Fall" and "Anarcho-Primitivism and the Bible." (They're on his website.) Just to whet your appetite to the body of work Ched has studied, and briefly back up my assertion that Property requires Violence, I'm going to quote a few of the scholars he references, and some who say it even better:
• "Agriculture creates government." ~Richard Manning (2005) Against the Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization, p. 73
• "Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home." ~Stanley Diamond, In Search of the Primitive: A Critique of Civilization, p. 1, first sentence
• "...we chose the latter [agriculture] and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny." ~Jared Diamond (May 1987) Agriculture: The Worst Mistake In The History Of The Human Race. Discover Magazine. pp. 64-66.
• "War is a staple of civilization. Its mass, rationalized, chronic presence has increased as civilization has spread and deepened." ~John Zerzan (Fall/Winter 2005-‘06) On the Origins of War. Green Anarchy #21. pp. 12-15. scribd.com/doc/62268835/The-Origins-of-War-John-Zerzan
• "A society crosses the memetic Rubicon when it accepts the abstraction that ownership can extend beyond the exclusive needs of one individual for survival...Hierarchy, at any level, requires this excess, abstract ownership—it represents the symbolic capital that forms the foundation of all stratification." ~Jeff Vail, A Theory of Power (Chap 9: Forward, to Rhizome) jeffvail.net/2005/03/theory-of-power-online.html
So if you're going to really follow Jesus' non-violence, get busy on eBay and "Go and sell all your possessions."
Then you can live like the ravens Jesus told us to consider, in the hands of God, relying daily on His abundance, which is how Paleolithic humans used to live before the Neolithic Revolution.
But today's State Society (agricultural civilization) has subdued all the wild areas in which you could gambol about plain and forest to hunt and gather the proverbial free lunch that God provided. You'll be rather uncomfortable and die an early death just like Jesus or the Indian tribes did--and you realize that--thus you haven't done it.
So you're going to ignore Jesus and keep your property. So am I; I don't want to die early either.
Therefore, there are going to be guns that are necessary to protect your rights to your property.
I'd rather that political power be SHARED in an EGALITARIAN manner, rather than that power be controlled exclusively by the Philistines.
Most Americans agree with me. You'd better start actually listening to them, instead of loathing their moral demands for egalitarian power sharing with your silly caricatures and mockery from Mordor on the Potomac.
Now I'm going to strop my chisel razor sharp again and continue whittling on my son's bed headboard.
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Paul, I do appreciate your comical abuse, as hilarious as that found in Monty Python's Argument Clinic. youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
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The liberal Mennonite position on non-violence is an intellectual fraud.
How do they do it?
The loosest loophole in the world: Romans 13. To liberal Mennonites, you could even drive through it a fascist policy that ensures even more tax dollars will keep flowing to huge, greedy corporations, in a program designed by the Right Wing Heritage Foundation and implemented in one State by Mitt Romney, just as long as their precious Lord and Savior Barak has consecrated it as ObamaCare. (Talk about a veritable transubstantiation!)
Can anybody imagine Jesus sailing to the Seat of Empire and begging the Roman Imperium to implement his glorious social engineering plans, such as disarming the Jews and drumming up more business for the tax-collectors and publicans?
Was Jesus horribly mistaken when he said no to Satan's Temptation of political power?
As Chairman Mao wrote, "political power comes from the end of a gun." Liberal Mennonites are absolutely enamoured by that gun, yet masquerade as some Gospel-pure Brahmin caste, above the very Glock-work violence they for which they clamor.
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I don’t know which is worse, “Lord and Savior Barak” or “Orwellian pseudo-intellectual babble speak.” In any case, Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifically provides for a Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions. Thus the militia is intended to act to put down, by armed force, internal uprisings and foreign invasions. I.e., it is a military force. Mennonites do not as a rule participate in the military, and thus would not be participating in the Militia. In practical terms the Militia has withered, and been replaced with a standing army. The thrust of Mr. Bowman’s argument is difficult to comprehend, but it seems to do with reducing the current standing army (Mennonites would agree to that), and alludes to guns being a way of effecting power sharing. He then seems to narrow down on a theme that guns are necessary to protect property rights. He doesn’t explain whether it is necessary for every homeowner to have a gun, or whether the homeowner can simply call the police to enforce property rights. Property right violations may include trespassing, theft (of personal property), damage, and so on. The segment on Glock-work and fascist policy is incomprehensible.
"Barak?" Isn’t that the name of Space Ghost’s anthropoid sidekick? My mistake…that character’s name is Brak.
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R.E., thanks for the feedback. There are several facets of my argument, and I'll attempt to clarify some points, with the last being first in the spirit of Jesus ;)
A. The segment on Glock-work...
Quite simply, government is force. As George Washington said, "Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force."
Mennonites are hypocritically calling for earthly violence and force when they call for government programs, enforced with a Glock.
I reference "Glock" specifically, because Mennonites are choosing the Glock over the Gospel, as pointed out in this essay:
Andy Alexis-Baker (2007) The Gospel or a Glock? Mennonites and the Police. The Conrad Grebel Review. Vol. 25, No. 2, p. 23-49.
B. ...fascist policy...
ObamaCare was a fascist right-wing Heritage Foundation proposal, implemented by Governor Mitt Romney. It's still just as fascist (fascism is briefly defined as "corporatism") when Obama implements it.
Mennonites officially supported this fascism, which is enforced with a Glock.
C. ...to protect property rights.
If one owns property, it takes a Glock to enforce those abstract property rights that define agricultural civilization. Mennonites avail themselves of violence all the time by calling the police.
The only way to be truly non-violent is to be like Jesus, who inexorably tied his non-violence to "Go and sell all your possessions!"
D. ...guns being a way of effecting power sharing
Guns are the source of political power. Every government has them. It is best to share political power in an Egalitarian Power Sharing manner than to concentrate that power in the hands of a hierarchical few, which is what the Second Amendment accomplishes: Egalitarian Power Sharing.
E. ...the Militia has withered...reducing the current standing army (Mennonites would agree to that)...
If you want to reduce the Standing Army (military industrial complex these days) then call for the Second Amendment to be binding upon the government, even if you don't want to participate. It would cut US Military spending by 86%, if the Swiss citizen-soldier militia is a guide.
F. “Lord and Savior Barak”
Thanks for finding my spelling error on Barack's name. Don't miss the point that many Mennonites are as craven as Jamie Foxx, who called President Barack Obama "our Lord and Savior" at the autumn Soul Train Music Awards in Las Vegas.
G. *...do not as a rule participate in the military..."
Mennonites support Guns in many ways: by owning property, by supporting Government which is Violence, and lately by openly taking sides in what is a cold civil war now, and may well turn hot.
"We need to repeal the Second Amendment. Whether that can happen without some kind of civil war is another question." ~huffingtonpost.com, 12/26/2012
That Mennonites say they don't participate in War has a rather hollow ring when they openly choose sides in one.
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Certainly we can not forget the first family and how the farmer killed the hunter gatherer; but imagine a world in which filled with billions of people they would be out hunting and gathering......to me it seems impossible, without fighting for hunting and gathering rights. We need to better teach in Church, the street how to love our enemies!
I think the idea of guns as the second amendment states is good for then, but this being today to need to adjust our thinking. We know that the Constitution was not flawless.....our Black brothers and Sisters were not even whole people! The 2nd Amendment is not a Ray Of Hope! by any standard of today.
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Except for the murdering of 56 million unborn babies in the womb, and the gun free zones, the second amendment helps keep the crime rate down. Therefore the second amendment is needed mow more than ever. I am appreciative of our founding father's wisdom by incorporating that in the Bill of Rights.
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