Don’t Be A Victim
Posted in From the Heart by R Lee Wrights on August 31st, 2006 by Christy Ann Welty
My second motto for living is “Don’t be a victim.”
I adopted it in the early nineties when a mob of anti-gunners was pushing to disarm peaceful, law-abiding U.S. citizens. I’d heard about the experiences of people who had been disarmed in other countries. After their guns were turned in, they became instant cash machines for hoodlums. Burgling, robbing, and mugging went from being very risky stints (as in risking one’s life for each attempt) to highly profitable enterprises (as in raking in cash with no resistance).
So I figured if anti-gunners had their way, predators would automatically assign me the rank of “victim.” That assessment could only be confirmed by my physical appearance — female, 5′3″, 120. While the fight over gun rights raged for months, I had plenty of time to contemplate my potential future as prey.
Though laws of this land can brand me as prey, they can’t make me choose to give up or give way.
When I first decided to create a web site, it took me about 30 seconds to decide that I wanted to focus on freedom. Just about 30 seconds after that, I realized I had a problem: the topic was just too big. After further consideration, I decided that I would confine my efforts to the Constitution and the first ten of its Amendments, the Bill of Rights.
We all practice civil disobedience. We have to. It’s the only way to live in a world where every snaggle-toothed snot-nosed gecko-skinned legislator in the nation just has to pass a few thousand more laws to show us how superior they are. 
“One year ago, Hurricane Katrina brought devastation, death and despair to one of America’s great cities and the people who live there,” recalled Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, “and it also brought a new and dangerous form of demagoguery from the authorities that must never again be permitted on American soil.”
One of the most important cases to wind its way through the military justice system since the Nuremburg trials at the end of World War II began in mid-August at Fort Lewis Washington. It involves the case of Honolulu-native First Lieutenant (1LT) Ehren Watada. In June 2006, he refused to deploy (known in the military as “missing movement”) to Iraq on the basis that doing so would be a war crime. He insists the war itself is illegal. He is the first officer to miss movement in this conflict. It is important to note that 1LT Watada agreed to deploy to Afghanistan.
Gun Owners of America has alerted you on a couple of occasions to a massive gun control bill that is currently working its way through Congress.
Since before the massive change to the party platform in Portland, the old debate has raged that the platform must be modified to cease being a liability to candidates. Indeed the recent attack on a candidate in Indiana (Would you legalize Meth? Would you legalize Cocaine?) has come since the newer, reduced platform has been published. Those who have driven the reduction of the platform have claimed this as further evidence and motivation that the platform must be reduced even further, its positions modified until the attacks cease.
Regular readers will have noted that with some frequency I suggest how our candidates should advance liberty. I’ve been active in support, too. In 2004 I was national volunteer coordinator first for Aaron Russo and then for Michael Badnarik. In 2004 and 2002 I was treasurer for Carol McMahon’s State Senate campaign. In 2000 I helped Don Gorman’s presidential campaign. In 1998 I ran for Congress. Unlike many other Libertarians, I got to debate my opponents. The press, when they said anything, reported me as winning debates.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Child support enforcement programs are supported by all sides of the political spectrum, from women’s advocates on the left to traditionalists on the right. While this popularity is sometimes understandable, it has also allowed glaring and inexcusable abuses to fester and grow. Of these, none is more egregious than when men are forced to pay 18 years of child support for children who are not theirs, and who in many cases they’ve never even met.
