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Patriotism isn't dead in America. While some consider hanging a flag on their porch or at an intersection, liberty cuts much deeper to the bone. Most don't realize what being a patriot is all about, incarceration or death could result from a person speaking their mind even in this country. May we thank God for those being brave enough to have their letters posted here.

Dear Editors,

My name is Bryan Haskins, and you have published one of my letters before (Can the Second Amendment come out and play?). I have just written the editorial staff at the Washington Post to respond to their presentation of a Violence Policy Center press release in the guise of a staff editorial. I doubt that they will see fit to publish it, so I am also forwarding it to you. Please feel free to make whatever use of it which you deem proper.

     October 13, 2002

     To the editorial staff of the Washington Post:

     My name is Bryan Haskins, and I am a prosecutor in rural southern Virginia. I am writing in response to the editorial you published on October 10, 2002 entitled "One Shot, One Kill". The author of this editorial is unnamed, but it could have been written by Mr. Tom Diaz, whom you refer to as the "senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center." [VPC]

     I realize that your piece was an editorial, and that in such writings objectivity is frequently sacrificed to the whim of politics (a word which is appropriately formed by combining the Greek-derived "poly", meaning "many," with the Americanism "tics," meaning "small, disease-ridden, blood-sucking creatures"). Yet I am astonished at the complete abdication of reason and judgment displayed by your unquestioned acceptance of the comments made by Mr. Diaz. Where are the hard-hitting questions which responsible journalists normally pose to an expert like Mr. Diaz? Your paper is particularly famous for the type of penetrating questions which leave those examined wondering if this was how poor Job felt after God appeared in the midst of a whirlwind and demanded answers from him. In contrast, your editorial treatment of Mr. Diaz's pronouncements leads me to wonder whether you truly believe that the hawk does soar by his wisdom.

     Before you begin to attribute quotes to Mr. Diaz, you set the stage for what follows with the authoritative comment: "The .223 rifle round that investigators have identified is widely used in what are loosely referred to as military and "military-style" weapons that are mass-marketed for dubious "civilian" uses." Now I am a "civilian" who until recently owned one of these weapons. Just what do you consider a "dubious" civilian use? The term as you use it appears as deliberately denigrating as it is vague, and I view your comment as a frighteningly nonchalant dismissal of my private property rights. Is there not some way that I might earn your trust, or will you forever consider me too much a child to own such a dangerous toy? (Lest you fear where my firearm ended up, let me say that I sold it, privately and without a background check, to a good friend who is an investigator in my local Sheriff's department)

     Moving forward to your treatment of Mr. Diaz, I found the following: "According to Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, one of the most lethal types is the sniper rifle, designed and manufactured for the purpose of killing human beings. . ." Stop here for a moment. Do you seriously intend to suggest that a firearms manufacturing plant is actually some mad scientist's workshop? Do you think that the employees who make these firearms stand around drooling over their latest products while saying things like "I wonder how many people this gun will kill?" That may very well be Mr. Diaz's opinion, but it does not excuse you from quoting his poor judgment as if it were an established fact.

     Sadly, your quote of Mr. Diaz did not end there. It continued with "at more than five times the range at which hunters shoot deer" Did Mr. Diaz tell you what that range is? Did you bother to ask? Did he at least tell you that he knows this distance because he is a deer hunter, or because he spends evenings around the campfire with his deer hunting buddies swapping stories of the day's hunt? Do you care whether or not he is telling you the truth? I am a lifelong hunter, and I talk with many friends who hunt. We would all like to know just what is "the range at which hunters shoot deer." Deer hunting does not take place in an enclosed shooting gallery with known distances. Hunters who have actually been "in the woods" know that deer are very unpredictable animals, and that they rarely appear at the exact location you suspect them to be. According to our experience, the "range," if you want to call it that, at which deer are shot varies from ten feet to several hundred yards. Nevertheless, you may perhaps be excused for printing Mr. Diaz's lie by your apparent lack of knowledge regarding firearms.

     Unable to leave well enough alone, however, you continue with: "The sniper's informal motto, Mr. Diaz says, is "One shot, one kill."" Now my many friends and I have possessed "sniper" rifles all our adult lives. They are hunting rifles which are typically equipped with a telescopic sight. Their operation varies from bolt to lever to pump to semi-automatic loading actions. We pride ourselves on our ability to hit long range targets with a fair degree of accuracy. Does this fact mean that my friends and I are "snipers?" If so, then we are behind the times, for we have never used the melodramatic "informal motto" ascribed to us of "one shot, one kill." I do not suggest that I haven’t heard the phrase before. I have indeed heard it in very bad action/adventure movies and I have also read it in fictional literature. Apparently Mr. Diaz has come across the phrase in similar venues, and he aptly chose to include it in his work of fiction which you chose to publish as an editorial.

     Let me briefly turn now to the madman (assuming that it is a man) who is responsible for the ongoing shooting spree in your area. I have some poor experience dealing with "criminals," from domestic assault perpetrators to drunk drivers to rapists and murderers. This experience comes as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor, and it leads me to believe that you simply cannot impose your will upon a person like this current shooter. A man"s conscience has forever proved to be the best deterrent to his involvement in criminal activity. This shooter has already abandoned his. There remain only two factors he will consider which could possibly deter his future actions. They are: (1) the likelihood that he will be caught, and (2) the certainty that he will receive a punishment that is greater than he would willingly accept for his crimes. Do not deceive yourself into believing that by denying him "easy" access to a firearm you would force him to turn from his path. If, in your fantasy world, you could reach out and deny him a particular weapon, then his rage or angst or whatever evil which drives him would cause him to seek another. It is not the availability of the tool he uses but the desire he possess to commit murder that is the problem. Please remember that he is a killer who uses a gun, and not a man who kills merely because he has access to a gun. Oh, he may indeed claim when finally caught that he heard "voices" from the gun cabinet which made him do it. I would remind you, however, that there are several million gun owners like myself who have proved remarkably resistant to that siren call.

     In conclusion, let me say that if a teenage boy drives while intoxicated and kills another driver in a car wreck, I would not blame the Ford Mustang he drove that night. I would blame him. The same is true for the current shooting spree. It is foolish to blame the tool for the evil done by the hand that wields it, despite VPC claims to the contrary. Finally, whether you agree with me or not I would ask that in the future you make at least some effort to determine the veracity of the next VPC press release before you cut and paste its contents into you editorials.

     Sincerely,

     Bryan Haskins

     Keeling, Virginia

     haskman@earthlink.net
 

The Revolution That Isn't Coming
Barry Bright
August 27, 2002
 
At one time it would have wounded me greatly to write this column. Then I wouldn't have understood myself if I had read these words as written by someone else.
 
At that time I had some feelings left for the "American people."
 
Then I read this by John Loeffler, radio host and columnist: "Witness the worldview changes that have occurred since the radical left flower child revolution of 1960s. Americans have experienced such historical revisionism in schools that few can tell you what the Bill of Rights contains and why those rights are so important. America has been in a constant state of self-demonization to the extent that Constitutional rights are viewed as the obsolete product of dead white slave owners."
 
The sixties were not the beginning, that decade was the apex. That's when the American Communist Insurgency consolidated their control of the mainstream news media, the socialist-created government schools, and the universities.
 
If my grandparents, who graduated the sixth and eighth grades back when "the schools really taught children" or whatever, had any knowledge of the Bill of Rights they would not have spent their lives mindlessly going along with this socialist evil. If their parents had taught them about Liberty that means that generation would have understood it. They didn't, or they would have been in the march on Washington D.C. in 1933 and helped sling the rope over the tree branch that FDR swung from. They weren't and he didn't. So here we are now.
 
Americans have become a bunch of mindless cowardly whores who think that if they "vote" and fly a flag in their yard they're patriotic. They're not. They're whores who care only for their next paycheck and their next house or SUV payment.
 
As I write this another mindless country song chants "USA, USA, USA" on my radio. My country, right or wrong. That concept was taught to me by the most "Liberal" professor I had in college. He was right, if in a "Liberal"(communist) twisted sort of way. For the benefit of the mindless, that concept has to do with people who always do just what they're told by their "superiors" because they believe the comforting propaganda they've been taught all their lives.
 
Someone on my email list responded to another organization's request for financial assistance by telling me he would save his money and buy more ammo. Well good for you idiot. I hope you also have the army it will take to carry all your ammo, or the fuel it will take to run the vehicles you probably don't have to fight your war with.
 
I say this to all the couch potato soldiers: "the revolution isn't coming." Not anymore. It probably never was. We're a nation of summer soldiers now. And we're producing a nation of video game soldiers who will zap whoever they're told the "bad" guys are for a paycheck and a retirement plan.
 
The American pigs will do the same thing the pigs in the Ukraine did and the same thing the pigs in Germany did and the same thing the pigs in countless other societies over time have done. They will wait until they are ordered to go dig the ditch, then they will dig the ditch, put their shovels down, turn around to the sound of the machine gun bolts slamming home, wet their pants and die like happy little morons.
 
It's funny how in all the countless documentaries and movies that show the stupidity of the Nazis' victims, I saw one on Kentucky Educational Television two days ago, they point out how those people were warned in countless ways about what was coming. They thought the same thing the American pigs think now: "It'll never happen to me."
 
The main thing that those programs never recount, because they're produced, directed, funded and shown by American Marxists, is that Josef Stalin, the communist dictator, murdered tens of millions in the "Soviet Republic" before the Nazis even got warmed up. The German people knew this was going on, that's why they sided with what they saw as the lesser of two evils, just as American voters do today. I keep harping on this because it's probably the most important contemporary historical point one can make.
 
Buying more ammo isn't going to solve this problem. Getting off your "patriotic" ass and doing your part politically, and to educate enough people as to why you're doing what you're doing so that if you have to dig up your ammo then a tiny percentage of your idiot neighbors might at least pass you a bowl of beans out the back door and not call the modern black-suited Nazis.
 

The Death of Free Speech and Individualism In the New World Order of America
by
Edgar J. Steele

(Text of speech given at annual conference of Council of Conservative Citizens in Atlanta, Georgia on June 22, 2002.)
 
Thank you - it is an honor to be invited to speak to you.
 
I would like to talk about a few cases I have handled for politically incorrect clients, then show how they fit together and really are simply symptoms of something far more sinister - something that will profoundly affect every single person in this room; indeed, throughout America today.
 
First, Say the N-word, go to jail...
 
Lonny Rae’s wife, Kimberly, was assigned by the local paper of a small Idaho town to cover a local high school football game in Nov. 2000. The officiating was terrible, causing the home team to lose, some said.
 
Kimberly wanted pictures of the referees to go with her story. After the game, Lonny went to their car and Kimberly waited outside the field house for the refs. As they came out, she snapped a single picture. The ref in the lead said "no." She shrugged, turned and started to leave. Suddenly, she was grabbed from behind by that referee, a huge black man.
 
Kimberly called to Lonny, who ran up. The ref let go and went back into the building. Lonny saw the welt forming on Kimberly’s neck from the camera strap, which was all that prevented the referee from getting her camera and went ballistic. He walked up to the still-open door and shouted down the empty hallway, "Tell that N***** to get out here, cause I’m a gonna kick his butt." There was no response.
 
Lonny and Kimberly called the police and demanded that the ref be prosecuted, but he never was. Lonny was, however, for a felony hate crime, for which Lonny faced 5 years in prison.
 
At trial this past December, the judge threw in assault at the last minute, after the close of evidence and over my objection that it was not a lesser-included offense. The jury found Lonny innocent of the hate crime, but convicted him of assault. The judge’s sentence: 1 week in jail.
 
On appeal, we are challenging the hate crime statute, as well as the addition of the assault charge at the last minute (and beyond the applicable statute of limitations).
 
The jury convicted because Lonny Rae was politically incorrect: poor, white and on the wrong side of a racial insult.
 
Another case I tried just last month involved a young man and his wife, whose children were taken from them by Oregon’s Child Protective Services while the family was visiting Grants Pass. Allegedly due to criminal mistreatment - they were skinny and one girl had a small cut on her forehead - on an anonymous tip. Brian and Ruth Christine are the young parents.
 
They refused to cooperate for several months, because they felt they had done nothing wrong, so CPS said it would adopt them out. The Christines were home-schooling Christians. At trial, the state made a big point of there having been a copy of the Declaration of Independence taped to the inside wall of the converted bus that served as the family’s home.
 
The Christines took their children back at gunpoint and fled the state. They were tried for kidnapping, robbery and other, lesser, charges. The wife received 7½ years and the husband 12½ years, primarily because of a conviction on the robbery charge (not guilty on all kidnapping charges).
 
We are appealing the main charge now - robbery - which shouldn’t stand up in the face of Oregon case law which says one cannot be convicted of robbery merely for taking something which is used in the execution of another crime. You see, Brian took the state car the kids were in at the time and drove it 2.1 miles, where he left it unharmed, keys in the ignition.
 
Again, these folks were politically incorrect: poor, white, vegetarian, home-schooling Christians.
 
A similar case I was briefly involved with last year involved a widow jailed for allegedly mistreating her kids. They were in a highly publicized one-week standoff with sheriff’s deputies in the county where I live in Idaho .
 
JoAnn McGuckin lost her kids and her home. She was "anti-government," yet they scared her into dropping me just as I was hot on the trail of the property sale (a parcel worth upwards of $500,000, which sold for about $50,000 to the East-Coast sister of a local developer, all because of just $8,000 in back taxes).
 
She was politically incorrect, of course: poor, white, vegetarian, home schooling and distrustful of government.
 
The last case I want to add to this discussion is one I tried two years ago for Richard Butler, founder and head of the Aryan Nations in Hayden, Idaho.
 
Late one night, three "guards," really borderline derelicts that Butler allowed to stay on his property in exchange for yard work, off duty and drinking, went off Butler’s property against his direct orders, after two people they believed had just taken a shot at the buildings in the dark, shooting out the tire of their car and running them into a ditch.
 
Morris Dees and his Southern Poverty Law Center came to town for what the judge insisted was "just another personal injury case." Right! This was a free speech case - they were out to silence Butler , pure and simple.
 
You simply don’t get more politically incorrect than Butler, of course. Because of that, though plaintiffs had no medical bills and no claimed property damage, the jury awarded $6.5 million against Butler.
 
I had never lost a case at trial until I got involved with these politically incorrect cases - they all opened my eyes to the prejudice of judges and juries. The politically incorrect quite simply can’t get justice in America today.
 
The Aryan Nations case, especially, marked me. So much so that every one of the other clients thought twice about having me, though I was working pro bono on every case. JoAnn McGuckin, of course, decided not to, yet lost everything anyway.
 
These cases are why I have become known as the Attorney for the Damned.
 
The Aryan Nations case was my real albatross. I have been professionally executed because of it. Every time I go to court now, I am disadvantaged.
 
The "Ghosts of Mississippi" was a film about the shooting of black civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, and the ensuing prosecution and conviction in 1994 of Byron De La Beckwith. De La Beckwith had been tried twice in the 60’s - both hung juries. It took a change in the times to convict him. A change in political correctness.
 
This Rob Reiner film depicted the heroic prosecutor, Bobby DeLaughters, in the person of ultra-liberal actor, Alec Baldwin. In the time leading up to the trial, the prosecutor’s family members were threatened by white supremacists, so he sent them away. That never happened. It was particularly ironic to me because it did happen to me in the Butler case, however.
 
My little children received death threats from a woman with a decidedly Jewish accent. I received many death threats, among them one from Mark Wiles, lead henchman for Irv Rubin’s Jewish Defense League. You can go to my web site and hear them for yourself, because many were left on our answering machine. I sent my family away for several weeks prior to that trial and slept with a .45 automatic, which I carry with me to this day.
 
All these cases that I have mentioned have in common politically incorrect defendants, usually poor, always white, usually out of the mainstream in one way or another.
 
Any time we go to court with one of these cases, the deck is stacked and the State is dealing from the bottom. Not that it needs to, what with all the aces it has shoved up its sleeve.
 
The defendants are always losers going in, due to media vilification and judicial bias. Note that they all involve political conservatives, usually Christians, often home schoolers, always white.
 
Freedom of speech and religion are both on their way out, along with individualism.
 
The Kennedy Federal Hate Crime bill, killed in the Senate last week, will be back.
 
Bush and Ashcroft have declared their critics to be traitors and warn the rest of us to watch what we say.
 
The media is totally under the control of the politically correct today - the "inner party," if you will.
 
Orwell’s fantasy has become the media’s reality, as whites are depicted as stupid and racist, while blacks are both noble and witty. Homosexuality is a desirable lifestyle, Christians are narrow-minded bigots and Patriots are traitors.
 
The war to preserve our freedom requires, first, the canceling of our liberties, as Bush and Ashcroft are doing.
 
The term "media" used to mean an honest newspaper, serials on the radio (remember Boston Blackie on Tue/Fri nights and Big John and Little Sparky on Sat mornings?) and, especially, books! Everyone read them.
 
Today, reading is reserved for tabloid newspapers, People magazine, romance novels and the TV Guide.
 
Used to be, Dad worked and mom was home with 2.7 kids. Today, they both work, are usually divorced anyway, and their one child sits home alone, watching TV for hours on end every day.
 
Used to be, everyone read and wrote well. Now, even teachers can’t spell.
 
Today, it’s the entitlement mentality of socialism, with the centralized control of everything and everybody.
 
Today, it’s the overriding control freak outlook of fascism.
 
Used to be, we had rights.
 
Today, we possess only privileges, dispensed at the pleasure of our federal government.
 
A coup is taking place - and right under our noses.
 
The Patriot Bill was passed by Congress without even being read by any legislator.
 
In just the last couple of weeks, the Supreme Court has extended rulings which erode due process beyond even the woefully-named Patriot Act.
 
Recent FOIA changes implemented by Bush has put most public documents out of reach.
 
Very recent executive orders put still more public data out of reach, marked as "sensitive, but unclassified."
 
The Feds are pushing the States to adopt the "Model State Emergency Health Powers Act," which will 1) give government unprecedented data collection on citizens (even by wartime standards), 2) allow the control of any and all private property, 3) ban firearms altogether and 4) quarantine cities. All that government has to do is declare the mere existence of a bioterrorism threat.
 
Seven states have now passed the Emergency Health Powers Act; only 3 have rejected it. How long before that is made irrelevant by it being the law by Federal edict?
 
Even before 911, last July, HR 2459 proposed the creation of a cabinet-level "Secretary of Peace," and outlined the means whereby, essentially, the collapse of America’s constitutional government was effected, to be replaced with a militarized socialist government. There are those who say that has been accomplished today via the Department of Homeland Security.
 
Tomorrow’s legal system will be like today’s child custody courts. While we debate the merits of military tribunals, far worse takes place as family after family is ripped apart by courts...sitting without juries...closed to the public...with sealed records...no right to cross-examine or, even, confront accusers...no right to present evidence other than that offered by the Sate...where you are guilty until proven innocent and there is no way to prove your innocence.
 
Tomorrow, thought control will look like today’s hate crime laws.
 
Tomorrow’s police state has already been established in our airports.
 
Tomorrow’s property rights will go the way of today’s rural cleansing - especially with Federal zoning.
 
Tomorrow’s Christians are already here, helping to ensure their own destruction.
 
Religion must go; indeed, it is already subservient to the State.
 
Family must go, with government taking its place as parent to all children.
 
The individual must go; with all aspects of life being government dictated.
 
There will be no real art or literature, as a result of the dumbing down of Americans.
 
No entrepreneurship; big business only.
 
No private wealth or, even, cash; just electronic credits and debits, so it can be controlled at every turn.
 
We’ve always looked out for the UN and Russia and China and, now, the Arabs as the boogeyman. While we were out making a sandwich during the commercial break, however, a coup took place in America .
 
Today, we have a dictatorship with only the illusion of democracy; with not even a pretense of Republic anymore. The judiciary makes law. The executive rules absolutely. Legislators simply steal, from the top of the heap for the new priesthood: money and lawyers. Lawyers are the privileged class and are destroying America .
 
The New World Order is here and it’s now - it is America . The UN isn’t coming. "They" aren’t taking us over - we are taking over the rest of the world. America writ large, but no Bill of Rights.
 
Equality, diversity, welfare and tolerance don’t work and are merely tools to effect the coup now underway.
 
The system is broken - irretrievably broken. It can’t be fixed because it won’t be fixed. We can’t work within the system any more to effect meaningful change because the system won’t allow it.
 
As a lawyer, I’m inside the system. Everyone says the system is broken. You don’t know how bad things really are.
 
I take these cases to make a statement. No way can I change things. What I can do is use a politically-incorrect case to show how bad things have become. Along the way, I get tarred and feathered along with my clients. But, this I can do. Therefore, I must do it. And I will. Until the system decides to dispense with me, as it does with every lawyer that represents politically incorrect causes and clients.
 
I can only take on a tiny fraction of cases that come to me. So many individuals whose only crimes are poverty - or Christianity - or conservatism - float by me all the time, doomed to be sucked under and devoured. They are the flotsam and jetsam from the shipwreck that our society has become.
 
Meanwhile, the great masses of our countrymen who have not yet become tyrannized are living on borrowed time. They continue to rearrange the deck chairs on a ship which hasn’t yet fully sunk. They are the ones to whom I am shouting.
 
Racial issues are a great overriding concern of our times - a concern that so many pretend don’t exist and refuse to discuss.
 
It is not racism to oppose affirmative action.
 
It is not racism to challenge quotas.
 
It is not racism to want to live with one’s own kind.
 
It is not racism to be concerned for the future of white children.
 
It is not racism to promote America’s founders.
 
It is not racism to be a patriot.
 
It is not racism to be a Christian.
 
It is not racism to be a conservative.
 
We have suffered affirmative action due to a false sense of guilt about the treatment of blacks we never knew by whites with whom we have nothing in common except skin color.
 
We didn’t realize we were merely trading places with those that had been discriminated against in the past.
 
We have endured the spectacle of renaming schools, streets, buildings and parks after blacks, replacing the memory of our founding fathers with those whose primary contribution to America society is their skin color.
 
Not one of the founding fathers has a holiday named solely for himself. Martin Luther King, Jr. does, though. We know why.
 
We have witnessed the Confederate flag stricken from public venues. Now we see the beginnings of the Stars and Stripes being labeled a mark of oppression.
 
We saw a statue of modern American heroes, 3 firefighters forever captured in a photograph, raising the American flag over the WTC ruins, mongrelized in the name of diversity, whereby two of the 3 white men were displaced by a black and a latino. We know the truth.
 
Schools teach to the bottom of the classes, then keep lowering the standards so that students appear as smart as ever. We know why.
 
Nobody left behind means nobody out in front. We have sacrificed our children to a false sense of guilt in pursuit of intellectual equality that will never be achieved.
 
We suffer massive levels of crime that did not exist even 30 years ago, overwhelmingly at the hands of "people of color." Though our media and government do everything possible to skew the statistics, we know who is to blame.
 
Blacks commit 7 times the violent crimes of Whites and are only 7% of the total population. Do the math: Blacks are 50 times more likely to commit violent crime than the average white.
 
In the last 30 years, 45,000 have been killed in interracial murders, overwhelmingly black on white. Almost as many as the 58,000 Americans lost in Vietnam and much more than the 34,000 killed in Korea. There is a war raging in the streets of America as we speak here today.
 
School shootings. We know why.
 
Victim mentality. We are tired of the whining.
 
Massive immigration without assimilation. No longer the melting pot, now the potluck free lunch.
 
Billions of dollars for welfare, food stamps, school and medical care for illegals, paid for by us, though many of us can no longer afford to feed our kids properly.
 
Some of us haven’t seen a doctor in years because we haven’t the money.
 
Some of us qualify for welfare, but we are too proud.
 
We can’t afford to send our kids to college, the same college that provides free tuition and living expenses to those whose sole qualification is their skin color.
 
We spend trillions to hold countries that hate us in check, while many of our own live in poverty.
 
We can’t watch TV or read newspapers and magazines without having "hate whitey" (aka diversity) thrown in our face at every turn. Of course, fewer and fewer of us read as a result of the illiteracy engendered by the failing social experiment that America has become.
 
We endure the dismantling of Christianity and its removal from every public edifice.
 
We see our pastors stand idly by, often lending a hand to those who would replace Christianity with other religions.
 
We prohibit the mention of Christ in our schools, yet our children are instructed in Islam and homosexuality.
 
Movies and TV depict an America that doesn’t exist - that never existed, except in the wishful thinking of warped leftists, sexual deviates, cultural communists, globalists and other assorted control freaks.
 
Terrorist attacks and more to come, yet we pretend not to know why. Because we continue to be the world’s bully. Because America does the bidding of others.
 
We have betrayed our grandparents and theirs before them. We have squandered our birthright and our heritage. We sacrifice our children upon the altar of political correctness.
 
This is not the country we grew up in. Not the society that formed us. Not the future we were promised.
 
We have become strangers. Strangers in our own land.
 
Every place must be the same today, as dictated by those who would be our masters.
 
Life comes in one size now, dispensed largely through the TV set.
 
We deserve better.
 
We demand better.
 
We deserve to be left alone, to live without interference.
 
We deserve to be different from others.
 
We deserve to not be taxed to advance the agenda of others, which has nothing to do with our best interests and actually seeks our destruction.
 
It is time to stop being strangers in our own land - an increasingly strange land.
 
Hopeless? Not entirely.
 
I can’t advocate a violent revolution or I would be disbarred. But, that’s exactly what Jefferson, Washington, Paine, Adams, Franklin and Hamilton would do today if they were still among us.
 
There are far too many lemmings and too few real patriots for a revolution, anyway.
 
What I advocate is being prepared and awakening others to what is coming.
 
What is coming? Not worldwide empire, American style, despite the best efforts of the inner party and international banking interests.
 
What’s coming is America’s comeuppance; in fact, that is likely planned as part of the attempt at empire.
 
I think it likely that it will go badly for the NWO crowd and, consequently, for America .
 
But that will create an opportunity we don’t currently possess - an opportunity to start over.
 
America worked once as a constitutional republic. It can work again.
 
We are likely to lose territory as the US balkanizes along racial lines - SW to Mexico - Deep South to Blacks, for example. It will be up to us to pick up the pieces. For now, we must awaken the others.
 
New America - an idea whose time has come. God help us all in the troubled times that lie just ahead.
 
Thank you.
 
-ed
 
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth."
      - Morpheus
 
Copyright © Edgar J. Steele, 2002
 
Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate among private individuals and groups, post on all Internet sites and publish in full in all not-for-profit publications. Contact author for all other rights, which are reserved.
 
Write to me at Steele@ConspiracyPenPal.com
 
ConspiracyPenPal.com
 

Dear Editors,
 
My name is Robert Bryan Haskins, and I am a prosecutor in Virginia. I have recently written in response to a "commentary" published by Bill Press of CNN, who laments the Department of Justice’s new individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment. I would like to also submit it for your review. Please feel free to make whatever use of it which you deem proper.
 
Sincerely,
 
Robert Bryan Haskins

CAN THE SECOND AMENDMENT COME OUT TO PLAY?

      I consider myself a news junkie. I watch TV, I read the newspaper, and I even surf the net for news. I thought I knew it all--until recently. It happened quite suddenly. I was surfing the web when I ran across a headline which boldly read: If you thought we still live in a democracy, forget it. Today, only one man makes the rules: dictator John Ashcroft--anointed and supported by King George. What's this? The downfall of democracy and the rise of a dictator in America? Do you mean that I have missed the single greatest news story of my time? Where have I been? As I nervously read on I realized that it was only an editorial lamenting the Attorney General's interpretation of the Second Amendment. OK, now I can relax.
 
      The problem is, I didn't. The more I read, the more I began to see that liberal bias which permeates the "mainstream" media's portrayal of anything that has to do with the "right to keep and bear arms." This particular editorial was penned by the liberal columnist and CNN Cross Fire host, Mr. Bill Press.^[i] Now I have seen him on TV, and while I do not share his views I have always respected his intellect. For this reason I quickly saw his eye catching headline for what it was; namely, a tongue-in-cheek exaggeration offered to make a point. A left turn off of reality boulevard, if you will, designed to start the reader thinking. The problem with the remainder of the editorial, however, is that his ideology caused him to get lost while on his detour, and he never made it back.
 
      This is a common failure among those whose liberal ideology prohibits them from recognizing the existence of the Second Amendment. I have for years watched those in the media who call themselves liberals charge to the defense of their right to practice their profession in the First Amendment. I have similarly witnessed eloquent defenses of the individual rights guaranteed by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. However, when the Second Amendment is mentioned, these defenders of constitutional liberty will blanch and fall silent. It is as if the Second Amendment were an ugly, deformed step-child hidden within their constitutional house, which should be kept locked in the basement lest it frighten any enlightened visitors. Should anyone actually see it, the embarrassing explanation is: "Well it's not really about a civil liberty. The Amendment does not protect an individual right. It only protects a 'collective' right of the states." A "collective" right? Have I fallen asleep in America to wake up on a state run farm in the old Soviet Union?
 
      And now, from stage right, enters Attorney General John Ashcroft, with his singular ability to bring liberal blood to a boil. Mr. Press is not alone in his criticism of the Attorney General Liberal editorials have recently sprouted in the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Detroit Free Press, the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek. Without exception these editorials have assaulted the Attorney General and his "individual right" interpretation of the Second Amendment. I have chosen Mr. Press' article merely because I feel that his comments are typical of these liberal editorializations.
 
      He begins his assault on the Attorney General in this fashion: "Amazing! Twenty-nine years of going one way on guns, and one man decides it's time to make a U-turn. The fact is, Ashcroft is wrong on both policy and process." Here is where Mr. Press' ideology (and hatred for John Ashcroft, perhaps?) gets him into trouble. Although he does not state as much in his article, it is clear that Mr. Press believes the Second Amendment protects only the right of the states to maintain militias, and not an individual right to keep and bear arms. He continues his article with a shallow analysis of the amendment: "The wording of the Second Amendment is clear: 'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.' You'd have to reinvent the English language to make that sentences apply to individuals." (Error in original) Can he really mean that the phrase "the right of the people" does not apply to individual citizens? I certainly hope not. Anyway, it is Mr. Press who is "wrong on both policy and process."
 
      Using the logic of classical Orwellian "doublethink," Mr. Press allows his ideology to act as a filter which prevents him from considering any argument which supports an individual right to keep and bear arms, however coherent they may be. For example (and contrary to Mr. Press' belief), a textual analysis of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights shows that the right to keep and bear arms was intended to be individual in nature. When James Madison drafted the Bill of Rights, he understood the principle that the state governments existed as a totally separate entity from the body of "the people." Consider for example the language of the Tenth Amendment, which states: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This amendment clearly shows that Madison viewed the "States" as separate from "the People." If, therefore, the Second Amendment was enacted only to protect the right of the States to maintain a militia, then why does it read "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" as opposed to "the right of the States to keep and bear arms," or "the right of the States to possess arms for their militias?" Mr. Press' ideological blindness prevents him from considering, much less answering, this troublesome question.
 
      Furthermore, Madison knew that the Constitution already contained [in Article I, Section 8] a "militia clause" which granted the states certain rights to control their militias. But instead of choosing to place the right within Article I, Section 8, he chose to place it separately within a body of individual liberties. Isn't it logical to conclude that the reason Madison placed the right to keep and bear arms within a host of other individual liberties is that he intended it to preserve an individual right? Again, no answer from Mr. Press.
 
      Finally, no one can seriously claim that Madison is guilty of a typographical error, for the distinct phrase "the right of the people" is used in three different amendments in the Bill of Rights; and Madison clearly intended the phrase to guarantee an individual right each time it is used. For example, the First Amendment states "the right of the people peaceably to assemble. . . ." The Second Amendment states "the right of the people to keep and bear arms. . . ." The Fourth Amendment states "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. . . ." As the distinguished Constitutional scholar, Professor Nicholas J. Johnson, noted:
 

1. Whereas maintaining a standing army is dangerous to liberty, a well regulated militia, composed of all citizens capable of bearing their private arms, is the best method to provide for the security of a FREE state (ie. A state in which the people need not fear the ambitions of their own government); AND
2. That every citizen is ensured an individual right to keep and bear arms; for this right provides the citizen with the ability to defend his life, his liberty, and his property from the "tyranny of irritated ministers" as well as providing him with the means to "discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe."^[xvi]

The following is a letter we received from a concerned citizen. My responses to her points and questions appear in red. Webmaster -J
The Editor's reply is posted below the page break.
 
----- Original Message -----
To: <editor@firearmsrights.com>
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2001 3:24 PM
Subject: Comments
 
To whom this may concern,
 
After reading your website, (it was sent to me, I did not look for it on my own) I felt the need to write this letter. Why don't we just start selling automatic weapons to every Joe Shmo degenerate that walks through a gun dealer? What's wrong with that? Right? Wrong. I beg your pardon, but I don't recall writing or posting anything suggesting that "we" start selling automatic weapons to "degenerates". One must possess a Class II Federal Firearms License to purchase an automatic weapon (I don't agree with this, but it is the Law). Automatic weapons don't kill people, people kill people. Right? Correct. Why should the government put up checks to make sure criminals don't buy weapons when that infringes on your precious gun buying power? Right? Well, sort of. There are methods employed that attempt to keep criminals from obtaining weapons, just as there are methods employed that attempt to keep drunks from getting behind the wheel of an automobile. But to insure that neither ever happened would infringe on numerous Constitutional Rights. However it is a fact that locales with less restrictive gun laws have far lower crime rates. Criminals would much rather face unarmed victims. Don't take my word for it. Look it up. Do your writers even think before they start tapping away at their keyboards? I haven't the foggiest notion what "my writers" think before they begin tapping away at their keyboards. I do know that I agree with most of what they have come up with as a finished product. Since your website seems full of sarcasm I figured I had to lower myself to write that first paragraph in a such a way that you all could understand it. I do so very much like sarcasm. One need not lower themselves to use sarcasm, irony, or hyperbole to make a point.
 
The article on the happenings at Fort Campbell, KY seemed exaggerated at the least. The author continually made assumptions on how the person being interviewed felt about what they were doing. He then tried to make his weak assumptions sound like facts. Stating that we can look forward to toll booths and martial law. He is obviously a drama queen. Perhaps. But I am concerned nonetheless. People have been predicting (Robert Heinlein, for example) this sort of thing since before the Cold War. However, recent happenings have opened discussion in Congress about instituting just such measures. I watch CNN daily and have not seen nor heard ANY soldier proclaim, "Hail to the Republic!" Nor will you ever. Not from CNN, ABC, CBS, or even Fox News. You will only hear what those who are paid to tell you what to think are paid to tell you. Try watching C-SPAN. Pay attention to what our government is doing rather than what the talking heads are selling.
 
When I went further into your website I read a very interesting definition on sheeple. In it, it states that sheeple believe anything that is on the television. Are you saying that the people who read your website are the same if they believe every article you post? Yes. I think that would apply to them also. I am inclined to agree with you. I certainly don't expect people who don't know me to take me at my word. You also may have noticed that some articles contain links to supporting evidence of claims made, as well as educational documents posted on our "Links" page.
 
By saying that more guns will stop violence is the same as hitting a child that hit another child saying,"you don't hit other people,"(smack). Not really. Simply having more guns won't stop or cause violence. By the same token, neither will having fewer guns. I (and I hope, our site) promote the ownership and use of firearms for defensive purposes (among other things unrelated to violence, such as target shooting and various other sporting and recreational activities). This analogy of yours brings to mind the question "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" Actually, we don't. We kill people who kill innocent people to prevent them killing more innocent people. Two wrongs don't make a right. True. I am not against guns, I'm against people like you having guns. Ooh. Cut me to the quick. People like me? You don't even know me. This website seems to promote 'trigger happy' citizens. This website's primary purpose is to promote the Second Amendment protection of American Citizens' right to keep and bear arms, and to a lesser degree, awareness of what our government is doing to restrict and remove our rights "for our protection". I do have a college education and an open mind. I just couldn't believe a website could be filled with such ignorance. Pass. If you don't like the government so much or it's policies, move somewhere else. I've no desire to live somewhere else. I live in a country where the goverment was intended to be "of, by and for the People". Our government gives you that right. Sorry. Our goverment gives us no rights. Our rights pre-exist our government. They are supposedly protected from our government by our Constitution. Lately, that seems to not be the case.
 
By the way, on your homepage you spelled opinion wrong. It's not spelled opnion. Thanks for the "heads up", it's fixed now. I doubt this letter will be on your site since it doesn't conform to what you want everyone to believe. I've no problem with dissenting opnions (hehe). I enjoy having a mind of my own. As do I.
 
Sincerely,
 
A concerned citizen
 
Thank you for your comments.
 
   -J
    Webmaster

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
 

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants;they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."