Ode to Comrade Bill

[ Zaragoza High School Alumni ~ Toro Talk ]

Posted by Rico on December 13, 1998 at 16:33:21:

Bill-I'm still waiting for your facts or response to the
facts I've presented for consideration. But let's digress
to your earlier comment. "It is dangerous when civilians
have weapons." Are you serious? I thought you were a
Replublican. That philosophy has a distinct Socialistic
ring to it. I'd be curious to hear your response to the
following article:

The United Nations is getting into the gun-control
business, suggesting private ownership of firearms is a
dangerous and outdated idea and that, for the safety
and well-being of all concerned, only governments
should be entrusted with such authority.

At the same time, we learn the U.S. federal government,
with nearly 70,000 domestic men-at-arms, is militarizing
national law enforcement authorities at an alarming rate.

Why should we worry about these parallel trends?
Because history shows us that only an armed and
vigilant citizenry stands between freedom and slavery.
And because government is the only power on earth
capable of the kind of mass annihilation for which the
20th century is notorious.

"About 170 million men, women and children have
been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved,
frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive,
drowned, hanged, bombed or killed in any other of the
myriad ways governments have inflicted death on
unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners" in this
century, writes University of Hawaii professor R.J.
Rummel in his book "Death By Government."

No other century has come close to the carnage of the
20th, he writes. "It is as though our species has been
devastated by a modern Black Plague," he says. But this
is plague is a "plague of power."

Rummel's estimates of the death toll, remember, are
based on documentary evidence, in most cases,
provided by governments themselves. Thus, the actual
number is probably much higher -- perhaps as high as
360 million, he says.

Without question, socialist regimes, those that
monopolize power in government, have been by far the
deadliest culprits. Since 1949, for instance, one in
every 20 Chinese citizens has been murdered, starved
or killed by their own government. More than 50
million civilians wiped out in "peacetime."

And it is the unarmed civilian population that always
pays the highest price. During this century, four
civilians died for every soldier killed fighting in wars.
The Soviet government was the second biggest butcher regime,
not only in the last 100 years, but throughout history. Many
of the civilian deaths, such as those who died of starvation
in Josef Stalin's Ukrainian terror famine, were murdered by
government-dictated quotas. In sheer numbers, the Chinese and
Soviet holocausts made Hitler's look trifling by comparison.

More recently, from 1975 through 1979, more than 2
million Cambodians, or 31 percent of the population,
was destroyed by government edict inspired by
utopian pipedreams. That belief in power as a tool of
changing societies, combined with government's superior
firepower, is the big difference That's been standard
operating procedure this century, says Rummel. "In this
century there has been a concerted attempt to use power to
change societies in ways never thought of in the past,"
explains Rummel. Whether it was Hitler's Germany or Stalin's
Soviet Union or Mao's China, the first step toward civilian
"pacification" -- and ultimately mass murder -- is the
strict control of private gun ownership. Just a handful
of guns in the Warsaw ghettoes kept the Nazis at bay
for many months.

To get a picture of just how many people have been
exterminated by government, imagine this: If you lined
up all these victims and marched them at 3 miles per
hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with three
feet between them, Rummel figures it would take five
years and nine months for the grisly parade to end.
Unfortunately, it would start right up again with the
latest atrocities in Bosnia, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda
and, inevitably, wherever the next government-sponsored
genocide occurs.

Ask yourself: Would this -- could this -- have happened
if the citizenry of these countries had the right to bear
arms as we in the United States have had for the last 200
years? In every case, there is a common denominator --
raw government power and a disarmed civilian populace.

Are we really ready to consider worldwide control and
regulation of private gun ownership? If so, just imagine
what the body count will be like in the 21st century.

Still think it's dangerous for citizens to be armed? It's
been a cornerstone of our country to have the right
to bear arms.

P.S. Just kidding about the "Comrade" comment Feliz Navidad!

P.S.S. You Zabbies let me know if I need to avoid such
long posts. I can always respond to Bill directly.

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