Cutting Through the Propaganda
by Michael Z. Williamson
daggers@iquest.net
November 22, 2002
STATEMENT: There is no such thing as a "right wing" RKBA activist.
Let's start at the beginning. The terms "Right Wing" and "Left Wing" come from pre-Revolutionary France. In Parliament, the nobility, shipping merchants and other people of privilege would sit on the "right wing," whilst their opponents who supported the peasant and working classes sat on the "left wing." It isn't hard to see that an armed populace of peasants wasn't high on the list of priorities for the wealthy and powerful Right Wing. In fact, even without a Right to Keep and Bear Arms, most of them wound up under the guillotine. They wouldn't have knowingly done anything to hasten that event.
Let's look at the present day. Current shills against legitimate firearms ownership include Sarah Brady, paying herself a hefty salary and demanding $50K per speaking engagement; millionaire actor Michael Douglas; billionaire business owner Andrew McKelvey; millionaire film director Spike Lee (who has publicly stated a desire to see Charlton Heston "shot with a .44 Bulldog"); the Baldwin clan of actors; billionaire Rockefellers in political fields; millionaire Kennedys; billionaire Ted Turner; the oppressive, soulless, First and Second Amendment crushing ABC, owned by Disney Corporation...
Not one of these can pretend to be "Left Wing" and "support the common person." They are, in fact, goose-stepping Fascists, who are, in the immortal words of the late Douglas Adams, "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes." They know it. And that's why they fear our guns.
Against them we have the NRA, spending every penny it has and begging for more, and with Charlton Heston serving for a pittance because he believes it's the right thing to do. Then we have GOA, KeepAndBearArms.com, the Liberty Belles, Geeks With Guns, the Pink Pistols, the Coven of Firearm Owners, the Sarah Brady parody sites, the Armed Females of America, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership...
All these are run from people's basements, using whatever money they can scrape together after groceries. Paid professional writers like L. Neil Smith and myself, who can demand 20 cents a word plus royalties and residual rights for our work, are writing liberty-oriented articles for free. This is a $300 article I'm donating here, folks, assuming I could get anyone to buy it, and assuming KeepAndBearArms.com could afford to pay me. I have no problem donating my time. But I have to ask:
Where's our billionaire backer?
Yet we're "Right Wing." Or so we're told.
Legitimate speakers for the Left, in fact, overwhelmingly support an armed citizenry. Even noted pacifists like Mohandas Ghandi and the Dalai Lama have stated so. Leon Trotsky, socialist writer George Orwell and others made it clear they expected the workers to be armed. The very Left-leaning nation of Switzerland, with high taxes, national health care and transportation, with people compassionate to a fault, demands a militia against intrusion, and has very permissive laws against private firearms, to the point of having private ownership of crew-served weapons and artillery.
Over the years I've attended literary conventions, I've become aware of a huge number of Leftist, Socialist and even flat-out Communist writers, and every single one that I know is a frothing proponent of "arming the Workers," in their parlance. Ask any one of them, and they'll tell you that the Leninist seizure of arms was one of the blackest failures of the USSR. An avowed Trotskyite can hardly be called "Right Wing" with any seriousness.
As to those of us the press likes to call "Right Wing Gun Fanatics," how many of us, in fact, support a stronger government, greater control of the individual and an elite upper class, as the definition calls for?
Right Wing? Conservative, maybe, but Right Wing? In what fantasyland are these writers living? If we were truly "Right Wing," we'd be marching to disarm blacks, gays, Catholics, Unionists, Hispanics, Immigrants and anyone with a "questionable" background. Sort of like Hitler did. And the City of New York. And California. And Australia (which also prohibits certain religious activity and publication of "obscene" literature, thus proving itself to be not an enlightened western democracy).
What has been clouded over the years is that "Right" and "Left" are not entirely political definitions, they are as much social criteria. Likewise, "Conservative" and "Liberal" have been hijacked as epithets, tossed around with little meaning.
One of the defining moments of this for me was arguing with two Canadian college women. The first, claiming to be "Left," brazenly defended as fair the situation that wealthy business tycoons and politicians have armed bodyguards against the "legitimate threats" they face, while denying the threat of crime to poor people and minorities exists. In fact, I was a "Racist" for suggesting that blacks needed weapons. Clearly, my intent was for them to slaughter each other, which they would of course do, even though white gun owners don't, because it's the nature of the Black Experience in America. It is acceptable to her that small businesses face the risk of robbery, or of nightly, predictable bank deposits being hijacked, while the huge Sears conglomerate can handily afford armored car, courier and security services. No, nothing the slightest bit wrong with small businesses having that additional burden. Yet she was "Left Wing, Socialist, Enlightened and Compassionate," and I was "a Right Wing Gun Nut. Yet you sound so 'normal' for one of 'them.'" In short, she was an elitist, racist, Right Wing pig of the first order.
The second merely insisted that "laws are good because they tell us what to do," that gun owners increased the risk of rebellion (which was the only correct statement I heard from her) and "99.9% of the people in the world won't do the right thing unless you force them to" (emphasis hers). Clearly, she felt morally right in applying that force, provided her victims were disarmed.
I have news for you lady: over your dead and perforated Right Wing body.
As a Libertarian, I could be considered "conservative" as far as economic philosophy is concerned. I want a smaller government, and I want it out of my gun closet, book rack and bedroom. While there are Conservatives who differ from my beliefs on gender issues, religious issues and gay issues, that could hardly be considered an objective criteria for differentiating us. It's a strictly subjective moral issue. Certainly these issues are interpretive, but let us not be falsely categorized nor divided from each other. The issue before us is RKBA, and I'll take any allies I can get in the fight. We can argue over the rest later. If we lose that key right, we're peasants, serfs, The Workers, scum to be ordered about when, eventually, someone comes along who sees us in that light. And we are certainly not "Right Wing."
All the aspersions cast at RKBA activists by our opponents are (snicker) poor attempts to vilify us and create disorder. Think about it again: "These Right Wing Fanatics want you to be able to DO SOMETHING (have a gun) that you really shouldn't do For Your Own Good."
So, how to use this information as ammunition in the fight? Be preemptive. As soon as you encounter an anti RKBA speaker, immediately make it clear that they support an elitist philosophy of police stateism and personal privilege. That they are Right Wing for creating a double standard by which well-connected rich whites are protected by guns, and the poor and minorities are not. You will leave them with their jaws wide open, unable to speak, and thoroughly on the defensive.
All together now: "I'm a Left Wing Gun Nut, and I'm Proud!"
© 2002, Michael Z. Williamson, all rights reserved. See Mr. Williamson's archives at http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Williamson, and his own site at www.michaelzwilliamson.com. The author's first three novels are now pending publication, with others to follow shortly.
