by Emmett R Smith
[The following is reproduced with permission from the following website: http://www.barefootsworld.net/switzrld.html -- BW]
WHY AN ARMED CITIZENRY?
From “AN ARMED SOCIETY” by Stephen P. Holbrook
Question: Where Is Freedom Guaranteed By A Heavily-Armed Civilian Population?
Answer: In A Land Where Assault Rifles Are Freely In The Homes And Hands Of Her Citizens.
In 1444, at a small river in northern Switzerland known as Saint Jacob on the Birs, some 1,400 Swiss Confederates wielding bows and arrows, polearms, and swords attacked 44,000 French invaders, some of whom were armed with a new technology — firearms. After four hours, 900 Swiss were killed, but the remnant defiantly refused to surrender. They were promptly massacred and thrown into mass graves. The audacity of the small Swiss force to assault a massive, seasoned army served to deter further invaders. European tyrants of the day must have thought, “Don’t mess with the Swiss — they’re crazy!”
Switzerland, Europes’ most peaceful country, has no standing army. Instead, the country is defended by a militia composed of virtually all male citizens. The government issues rifles to these citizens, and the rifles are kept at their homes.
Such also was the intent of the founders of the United States and the intent of the Constitution for the United States; that the executive could not raise armies, that responsibility resting solely with Congress and then only for periods not exceeding two years; that standing armies should be minimized in times of peace; and that defense of the nation should rest with the armed citizen militia. Such is the intent of the Second Article of amendment to the Constitution for the United States.
(It only need be added here that were we at all faithful to the foregoing today, the illegitimate historical theorizing of the so-called “Neo-Conservatives” for example would NOT have an oversized military to play around with, in fantasylands such as Iraq and Afghanistan — ERS)
Exemplifying the slogan, “What if they gave a war and no one came?” Switzerland avoided both World War I and World War II. Though Switzerland was surrounded by the Axis powers, even Hitler was afraid to invade this country of riflemen.
Winston Churchill wrote in 1944: “Of all the neutrals, Switzerland has the greatest right to distinction….She has been a democratic State, standing for freedom in self-defence among her mountains, and in thought, in spite of race, largely on our side.”
The Swiss call their rifles “assault rifles” to add to the mystique and convince foreign rulers that these people mean business. These rifles have never been used for criminal purposes, although they would certainly be used against any invader. Instead, they are used for essentially one purpose: to shoot as many bullseyes on paper targets as quickly as possible at sporting competitions…
The Swiss have the reputation of being the world’s foremost bankers. The fact that many are regular shooters and presumably better able to protect their stashes can’t hurt their reputation for protecting your gold.
In Switzerland, firearms in the hands of the citizenry are considered wholesome and a civic duty. Newspapers and cosmetics are advertised in shooting programs I picked up at the rifle range. Can one imagine the New York Times placing an advertisement in a program for a U.S. pistol shooting event?
The backbone of Swiss defense and independence is the individual citizen with his assault rifle, which he keeps at home and with which he stays proficient by entering matches such as today’s Historisches St. Jakobsshiessen.
The St. Jacob’s historical shoot exemplifies aspects of Swiss culture which explain why none of the belligerent countries invaded Switzerland in World War I or II. This country has a centuries-old tradition of bloody and stout resistance to the most powerful European armies. Its people have continued into the twentieth century to be an armed citizenry whose members regularly exercise in weapon handling and practice.
My friends listened in disbelief as I explained that the then pending “Crime Bill” in America would make it a five-year felony to possess a firearm magazine holding over ten cartridges if the magazine had been made after 1994. They laughed contemptuously at the anti-gun claim that “assault rifles” have but a sole purpose: to kill as many people as quickly as possible. To these Italian Swiss, a fucile d’assalto (assault rifle) has only one purpose in peacetime: to shoot as many bullseyes as quickly as possible.
These Swiss saw this disarming of the American people, denying them the right to possess assault rifles, as contrary to the rights of the citizen. Indeed, the rifles to be banned by the Crime Bill were not real “assault weapons,” they were semi-automatic sporters. The Swiss pointed out that for centuries, no European power has dared aggress against Switzerland, a nation in arms. An armed citizenry in Alpine terrain has never been very inviting. If Switzerland were to be invaded, the invaders would face assault rifles in the hands of skilled shooters — the Swiss citizenry.
After shooting, we sat in the festival tent drinking Ticino Merlot wine mixed with a clear Sprite-like soda, a regional favorite for a hot day. Locals excitedly told me the history of the Mesocco region, and explained the broader Swiss ideal of freedom.
Swiss Freedom & Liberty
The idea, but not the reality, of liberta (liberty) existed in medieval Milan and spread abroad, including to the Mesocco valley. The people were poor and uneducated, but yearned for freedom. Mesocco freed itself from Milan in 1478, but economics and political power continued to make it difficult for peasants to own weapons. The three independent communities of Mesocco in that century are represented today by the blue, white, and gray on the ribbons on which the shooters’ medals are pinned.
Machiavelli’s 16th Century political writings called Switzerland “most armed and most free.” Within parts of what is now the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, however, there was an everpresent struggle between the ruling classes and the peasants. The commoners were allowed to have “hunting weapons” under the Articles of 1524, issued from Llanz by powerful lords in northern Italy. However, it would be naive to suppose that peasants did not own arms before that date, or that their arms would not be used for the imperatives of personal security and liberty, if not for rebellion against the elite.
The Swiss Confederation began in 1291 when three cantons united. (Austria’s ruling family, the Hapsburgs, had tried to send a judge to rule the three Swiss cantons, but the Swiss promptly killed the would-be foreign ruler, united and have remained unmolested ever since). The Confederation grew over the centuries to include more cantons — it had 13 when the United States was founded with 13 states.
Switzerland did not, however, remain unaffected by the European social revolution in 1848. Elsewhere, the forces of progress were crushed. In Switzerland, the populace won. The Confederation, among other things, abolished any cantonal prohibitions on possession of arms by requiring every man to be armed.
The country had no firearms regulations until after World War II, when a few cantons passed some gun control regulations. The voters rejected giving the Confederation power to legislate on firearms until 1993, when the claim was made that “something had to be done about foreigners buying firearms” in Switzerland. Yet no law would be passed until 1997.
To the surprise of the citizens, in early 1996 stringent gun control regulations over law-abiding citizens were proposed in the Swiss Parliament. These did not pass, largely due to the resistance of the Swiss shooting societies; had they passed, the shooting societies immediately would have mounted a referendum campaign to repeal them. I published an article in Neue Zuercher Zeitung, Switzerland’s largest newspaper, entitled “Avoiding the Mistakes of the United States” in opposition of the proposed law.
As it turned out, in 1997 the Confederation passed a relatively innocuous federal firearms law that requires a permit to carry a handgun in some instances but exempts carrying to shooting ranges. However, the law also allows all Swiss citizens, male and female, to purchase surplus Sturmgewehr 57 assault rifles (converted to semi-automatic only) for about $50 each.
The Swiss have, through referenda, consistently rejected membership in the United Nations and the European Community. The majority of the Swiss felt U.N. membership was inconsistent with independence, and that the EC would impose German-style gun controls.
Lawyers, judges, bankers, cheesemakers, and watchmakers — all seem to have firearms. Armed and disciplined, the Swiss people have what Machiavelli called civic virtue. In a world seemingly manipulated by the goddess fortuna (the banking cartels), the tradition of having a heavily-armed civilian populace has been this small nation’s guarantee of freedom and self-determination.
Stephen P. Halbrook, Ph.D., J.D., is the Fairfax, Virginia attorney who successfully argued the Brady case, Printz v. U.S. in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Author of That Every Man Be Armed, Halbrook’s latest book is Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality In World War II (1998, Sarpedon Publishers, Dept. AG, 49 Front St., Rockville Centre, NY 11570).
Reproduction of all or any parts of the above text may be used for general information.
This HTML presentation is copyright by Barefoot, January 1998
[Emmett R Smith all additional commentary-rights reserved 9 May 2008]
The only way we’ll get back to something like this is for example in NoDak, if we can manage someday to pull out of the Federal government and set up on our own under the original Constitution. But we would obviously also need the 14th Amendment, and things to be sure of equal protection. The other point is that it can’t be a shootout at the OK Corral or something, even though Aunty Pippi knows HER stuff around guns. A lot of people are real stupid even around here and it has to be taught in school, and organized so people get regular training and know where to report and what to do when it hits the fan. When and not “if.” So I suppose that both the Constitution and gunplay
have to be taught, and first aid and emergency floodcontrol (in the valley) and firefighting. Intensively. Probably it would be best if they are taught together too! It’s all the same thing anyway.
Ferret, you describe an ideal American kind of highschool curriculum!
The only thing is it would probably mean little to people living in conditions of postcontemporary clientized state-poverty in the inner cities, as “affirmative-action target minorities” and “helping-professional client-retinues” and so forth — and, now, on that same sordid level of life that characterizes for instance also Mpls’s “inner suburbs,” Richfield, Hopkins, No Hope and such….
It’s a puker as far as I can see, to think much at all can be done any more WITH this federal mess.
But you don’t imagine I hope, Ferret, that the ordinary people would be left alone, to countenance North Dakota secession do you? No, in their vague televisionized way they WOULD be resentful, of course — and the Clintons and the Cheneys will all stir up the fires of Hell against it. For one thing, urgently, to keep any other states from getting big ideas for themselves. This stuff is totally poisonous to that scale of prestige-needs and assumed expectations. They are folk who can only answer when they hear the word /liberty/, “what about my limousine?” And, also, this is important to remember, they are convinced in many cases that they really do “know best” for us and so on. This is a poisonous blend indeed, of altruism and careerism.
So how strong is the idea out there, really? Is it just you and some Hidatsa young guys or what? And an atmosphere of over-enthusiatic blogging, I mean?
These are libertarian games and I can’t see the point, not in any reality I can foresee. I am a human resources specialist working in the public sector and I feel somehow as though I am the “enemy” here. Why should I have to feel this way? Just because other people in other areas of government are doing bad things (see, I agree with that part!) doesn’t seem a good enough reason to throw out the whole enterprise. And, sure, I have a good career and a good pension and health care — and I absolutely refuse to apologize for that! The real question therefore is why the private sector doesn’t provide for _its_ workers as well as does the government?
It is the role of government to model (and mandate as the economy grows!) better treatment of citizens — and employees! — at least this is the way I understand the American system of the past seventy-five years.
After all, _government_ is the basis for the way the whole world is organized, and it seems far more sensible to try and convict and punish a Clinton or a Bush or a Rumsfeld or Cheney, or anyone like that, if they even dare think of lying to the Congress. That seems to be the realistic path to me, and we are going to have to stand up to this task and just do the work of making the institutions we have work the way the founders intended. (Showing that it works is the best argument for democracy, anyway.)
As to North Dakota or other low-populatiion states, they have been carried by the federal government for many years and would owe a LOT before they could reasonably expect to go anywhere with this secession business. It is interesting, though — you see, I too wonder if the Civil War is the last word? Or, if there ever is a last word?
With the UN on the scene, North Dakota _could_ now argue its case internationally. The committment to pay back years of subsidy would go a long way top defusing problems, too.
But I have a question, here.
This is mainly about a top-heavy Presidency going to war all the time, isn’t it?
So why don’t we work for an amendment, or convention, to reassert state legislatures right to vote _their_ militias’ participation in different adventures? I’m not against guns, they’re all over, my husband and sons hunt and so I agree, I think, their safe use should be taught just as driving is (and condoms, supposedly!), in the publc school system!
(And you’d have to agree to show up, too, during emergencies.)
That with rights come responsibilities is widely if not universally accepted. So what is the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms? It’s in the opening phrase of the Second Amendment. “Owning guns and complaining to your representatives being sufficient to the security of a free state,…” Right? Well that’s what most gun owners seem to think.
For any who wish to take seriously the responsibility that comes with the right to keep and bear arms, I’d like to invite you to explore today’s militia at http://www.awrm.org. We might surprise you, especially if you still believe what the mainstream media and groups like the SPLC say about us.
Peace
Nobody thinks about NoDak independence 24/7 around here or even just (im!)possible US constitutional reform, we’ve all got lives I mean! But I think that anyway half the people here would just sort of go “oh well…” if we did pull out. Basically the federal thing is just way too big now for anybody to understand or particularly be loyal to. You can love a flag and the good things it stands for anyway, even if you don’t go along with the bullshit. But the kind of people who mostly wave it now are just not worthy of anybody’s respect. My friends in the military are loyal to each other first and foremost for example, but on our own level (“Free NoDak!”) we’d all know who the sleazeballs are, and we could get at them and vote them out a lot quicker than with Bush and Co. When somebody talks like you do and is from the came part of the country, you can cut out a dickhead every time. It’s better for them and their karma too because they just can’t get so many chances to steal and lie, on account of getting cut short like this (by the people who see through them) in their “careers” “serving others” (yuck!) Well, the horses are waiting for more toast and coffee, bye, Me!
I am not a “guns laying around all over the place, huge testicles” sort of guy, there /are/ some handguns, including the old Webley .455, and my great-grandfather’s 1883 Remington 12 gauge shotgun. That’s about it. I’m not overly worried about “confiscation,” either (just lie about it if it ever comes up, use your heads!), mainly because “government,” as a professionalist phenomenon, in this as all else is as a rule more incompetent than less.
I do like especially the angle, though, that ideally the townships and wards (and not even the states, /ie/!) would — should — vote on foreign wars. Something like that. We have simply GOT to tie people like Mrs Clinton and Mr Cheney, and the rest of the halfwits with too many “big ideas,” in knots.
It’s actually our duty to them too, like Ferret says, to save them from incurring guilt and moral harm for themselves. In other words (as the government-personality so often likes to say!) “it’s for their own good” if WE no longer allow them to start wars out of the White House anymore.
I’m all for a state-by-state system of LOCAL well-regulated militias, of immediate neighbors who are organized and trained — and, who have to pass /also/ an extensive (!) test on the Constitution to get in on the excitement, in the first place.
This all alas is to dwell in the past.
As a Muslim and the student of possibility, I too share in the universal grief for lost times.
That is entirely a human matter after all.
And it is a fact, all who are devoutly Muslim share in bitter mourning for the caliphate just as the children of constitutions are appalled at the indecency of today’s politicians, who are not the fit heirs of a Washington or a Churchill.
And they _are_ not.
But behold, something far brighter and more beautiful is at hand, oh men of honor.
For truly we _all together in love_ now enter into strange lands and unto conditions unlike any men have ever known or felt before.
_amin_
Hold it, A Dervish, some of us “men of honor” are girls and don’t want to get in the treehouse with too many of you guys anyway, especially if it is about harem games
!
Seriously, I like the visionary stuff — I have to, I’m a mathematician — but right here and now we can’t all curl up in little ouch balls and hide out in fantasy while the people who want to kill everybody literaly get away with it.
I’m real lucky and get to live the way I really want, but I figure I owe SOMEBODY something for that and can’t just live in a private dream world all of the time.
On the other hand I don’t believe in being the one to start trouble either.
How you objectively assess the problems women face in islamic societies is a function of how you account for the sometimes vicious sexualization of young girls and women in the West.
As to hiding out in “fantasy,” there is a tendency in general to imagine that there can only be one way of resolving for example political problems, and that anything which departs from the prevailing norms of unrelenting struggle must be “unrealistic.”
The operant term is _to imagine_.
Therefore, the real question is the _full_ development of imaginal power which must come first, before we can reasonably (!) expect to move for good beyond the present inadequate conceptions and limited experiences they impose to the disadvantage of us all.
Great, when do we get going? I am concerned with this mess here and finding ways and means of actually changing things so there is an end to all the brainless bullshit that goes on. When I say that mathematics is visionary, that is a reference to discovering new technologies for example and that maybe can bridge the gap between the here-and-now, and this “beyond” you guys all write so much about. But I have a question, how do I know it won’t be real boring or something when we get there? Maybe what I really mean this:
What are we going to do with the people who like it just fine the way things are now, and don’t want to let go of any of their victims?
To “bridge the gap between the here-and-now and [the] ‘beyond’” is indeed the means to the goal.
In this connection, to refer to technique is probably more accurate than technology. It is a matter of mental development. But in its course one actually attains to stages of greater proficency at the actual handling of tools and completion of assigned tasks in different worlds, all of of this imaginally.
Synchronicities which begin to accompany these activities are evidentiary and not “miraculous,” except to the inexperienced observer.
In fact it is critical that the operator keep these events concealed unless display is specifically indicated, by the teacher, as the operator himself (or herself!) becomes the _barzakh_, or “isthmus,” a connecting link between the worlds. Undue display is essentially egotistical in the unregenrate sense, it comes under the heading of showing-off and is known, in comtemporary parlance, as “televison evangelism.”
Usually the individual in question recovers, but it all adds up to delay and diverts the attention of the teacher from more prospective parts of the curriculum.
This sounds like a lot of what a religion prof of mine at Augsburg called “transcendental happy horseshit.” On the other hand the development of technology as we normally use the term is no doubt the result of all kinds of fantasies that came first. I’m not against it, fantasy is how we feel our way into the future. But you really are making more of a claim than that.
And you are awfully hard on people for just being people, you know!
Somewhere I read that you guys say that normal satisfactions are OK and that dervishes are not a lot of old meanies with long beards, going around and saying “stop that” to everybody who might be having a good time. I mean the part about not showing off if somebody really can do something unusual, why not?
I know, I know, people would just get drunk and party out or something, tsk, tsk (Holt and me went to a wedding party this weekend, I still get that spinning around feeling when I think about it. GOOD weed too, Mr. Dervish, ahem!)
We have come a long way….
What began as a discussion of possible but rather definite methods to re-establish constitutional government led to a review of different ideas about the militia system, and — by way of proposed NoDak secession! — to the conclusion that constitutionalism is as dead as the oldtime Moslem caliphate, and about as anachronistic
This all spun off into some of the more obvious points in dervish thought, and their correponding altogether more-opaque implications, I gather about the fundamental structure — the /physical/ structure, moreover — of “reality.”
It’s too bad about the Constitution, though, and I only hope that these dervishes _are_ doing all they can, so that at least our grandchildren will see the end of misery. Even if this means we must lose the little shits to some state beyond the human and our fitness to be in on it, it will be worthwhile if they at least are safe.
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