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206 sats \ 0 replies \ @Atreus 22 Feb \ on: Writing Contest #2 BooksAndArticles
My support for the 2nd Amendment has stemmed directly from my experiences in El Salvador, where I hold dual-citizenship. That country holds a big name today in the Bitcoin industry—for reasons we all know—but, and not so very long ago, the world knew her only as an impoverished, horrendous violent backwater with the same tragic history plaguing most Latin American countries.
As a younger man and product of the (fiat) American public education system, I was more in favor of “common sense gun control.” Yet over time I noticed that El Salvador’s crippling gun laws sometimes benefited the local aristocrats, other times the vicious gangs, but never the plebs on the street whose bodies filled out the nightly news headlines.
Through talks with the normie American, I’ve noticed a few common sentiments:
- We don’t have to worry about “murder governments” in the West.
- The police can defend us.
- Modern weapons are too powerful for private ownership.
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Not to belabor the point, but a free people is by nature ARMED. A free people is a sovereign people; self-defense is an inescapable mark of sovereignty. Handing your arms over to “the government” means sentencing yourself to perpetual dependency on fallible human beings for protecting your life.
“Government” is a non-entity. It’s an idea too often, and dangerously, turned into something concrete by our erroneous thinking. There is no “government,” only people who govern, and handing them power over your very self-defense is both irrational and, worse, irresponsible. No matter the character of the governor today, we must be always mindful of the replacement governor who will replace him—every generation is one bad actor away from subversion.
“Can an armed populace defend itself from a renegade government?” The question is secondary to the principle of sovereignty, for what man has authority to disarm another man? Just as nations have a right to an army and no right to disarm each other, men have a right to arms and no right to disarm each other.
Once seen clearly that government is just an entity staffed by men who govern, we see why the 2nd Amendment must not only stand, but logically apply elsewhere, to countries like El Salvador and others.