No "Fort Sumters"
My Wolverine Grandpa used to say, 'When in peril or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." He usually said it ironically when someone nearby was doing exactly that. He also would offer, "It might help if he flapped his arms." This is what is happening in many corners of our nation today, and it is exactly and precisely what we must not do.
Here, I think, is what we must do:
1. "Take not counsel of your fears." In the coming period many rumors will sweep the blogosphere. Imminent danger will perceived from a million different directions. But here is how we should conduct ourselves.
"Wilson, I'm a damned sight smarter man than Grant; I know more about organization, supply and administration and about everything else than he does, but I'll tell you where he beats me and where he beats the world. He don't care a damn for what the enemy does out of his sight but it scares me like hell." -- William Tecumseh Sherman as recalled by James Harrison Wilson, in Under the Old Flag.
Now Sherman wasn't saying that Grant should fail to seek through intelligence-gathering or scouting what the dispositions and the intentions of the enemy were. He was saying that you don't let your fears affect how you fight the enemy in front of you. Sherman also recalled that Grant worried less about what the enemy was going to do him and more about what HE was going to do the the enemy. As Three Percenters, we must only react to what we see and know and not some rumored threat. Above all, we must not lose our cool. We must always remain under control, and ready.
2. Work on the credibility of your deterrence. Deterrence only works if it's credible. We must ready ourselves for whatever comes. That means training, physical fitness, building up logistical bases, more training, marksmanship competence, organization, more logistics, more training.
We have our enemy's promises that they will negate any possibility of our using the standard methods of politics against them. They have won the "majority vote" decision.
Fine.
But if we are to avoid conflict, we must convince them of how little this actually buys them in the way of power. We do that by building up the armed citizenry, one three-man buddy team, one six-man fire team and one squad at a time. Don't advertise. Friends and neighbors will do nicely.
And remember, you're doing this in case the deterrence doesn't work. This is as real as it gets, folks.
Act like it.
3. No "Fort Sumters." This means exactly and precisely what it says. We must not fire first.
Neither were the leaders of the Confederacy eager to start a war. Jefferson Davis and his cabinet, sitting in their offices in Montgomery (Alabama), much preferred to negotiate until they got their way. They always had, after all. In fact, Southerners in general considered Northerners to be incapable of standing up to them. They had seceded thinking the North would "just let them go." Should it come to civil war they were confident that the great European powers, desperately needing cotton for their mills, would intervene on the side of the Confederacy. The one possibility the South never considered was the one that actually happened: that the North would actually fight an all out civil war rather than let the Union be shattered and that England and France would not come to the aid of the South. Lincoln's adroit handling of the matter left Montgomery with few choices. If they attacked Fort Sumter, they'd lose both their moral high ground and their Northern allies. -- Joe Wheeler, Abraham Lincoln, Howard Books, 2008
We don't fire first, nor second, nor perhaps even third. This does not mean we can't defend ourselves. We must.
What it does mean is that the rest of don't react until everyone understands that it is collective self-defense. We must not cede the moral high ground.
If the Confederacy had not fired on Sumter, what would Lincoln have done? Whatever it was would have cost him the moral high ground and political legitimacy. And for the brave new world of imperial presidency that he was embarked upon, that might have led to an entirely different result. Division in the North, perhaps even impeachment. It is our enemies who are the revolutionists and the aggressors.
Take a stand on familiar ground and their appetites will do the rest. They will come to us. Just be ready. Then when it is apparent, ACT, at once and collectively, on familiar ground of our own choosing and in enlightened self-defense on a large scale seeking only the criminally culpable.
Which brings me to another component of the moral high ground:
4. And no OKC Bombings. The terrorist bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building on 19 April 1995 was more than the operation of "lone wolf" McVeigh, but I am not here to argue that largely undiscovered history.
Even if we accept the FBI explanation for it (and I do not), McVeigh targeted a building filled with non-combatants including a day care full of babies that could be plainly seen from the street or in a cursory reconnaissance of the building. It was simple terrorism and was used by the Clintonistas to discredit all their enemies, up to and including Rush Limbaugh.
So here's a warning for all you people who are seduced by the dialectic of 'The Turner Diaries'.
If you claim to fight monsters, it is important not to become one yourself. And I say to my fellow sheepdogs, that if you find someone who claims to be one of us turning feral, rip his throat out. This is the latest installment of the eternal struggle between sheepdogs and wolves.
Sheepdogs do not prey on sheep. They kill wolves.
Keep the difference firmly in mind.
5. Be patient. The raids do not begin tomorrow. It will take some time for the new regime to begin to suck up its courage, lay the "legal" predicate for its unconstitutional actions, tighten its grip and begin to squeeze.
We still have time to prepare, recruit, organize, train.
If, that is, we have resolve.
As a good old friend of mine just reminded me, this is not new. Like the Israelites, the American people have asked for a King and one has been given to them.
But I recall that the Founders went into battle, crying "No King but Jesus!" My agnostic and libertarian friends would doubtless choke on the last two words of that battle cry.
Let us at least agree on "No King!"
Let us also be prepared, trained, and patient -- but holding on ready. Let us never cede the moral high ground nor become the monsters we fight. But if our enemies insist upon it, let us fight for and let us win the restoration of the Founders' Republic.
In a word, let us be resolved.
