I was reading the other day Martin van Creveld’s seminal “Technology and War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present”.
A very interesting passage got my attention. Here it is:
It was argued, and has been ever since, that the castle was defeated by the gun and that feudalism came crashing down as one of the results.
Technology and War, Martin Van Creveld
I was about to go on my nightly boxing session with my worthy opponent, the Punching Bag, when I had to stop and started thinking about the import of this.
If this is true, and it is, then the current war on civilian ownership of firearms is part of that political revolution continuum.
The Castle has always represented the political hierarchy. In short it symbolizes the pyramid of social order(s) or the social pyramid of ‘natural’ order: the rich and powerful at the top ruling over all others.
Then, the Gun came. And it removed in a few short centuries the Old World Order. It made feudalism obsolete. It removed the fastnets of the rich. It led to the democratization of society.
All in all, the Gun made revolutionary America and Republican France possible. It also irremediably transformed the British monarchy from an absolutist into a parliamentarian one. A Glorious Revolution indeed, eh!
However, a few short centuries after the French Revolution, the world finds itself in the midst of upheaval.
And this was all made possible by the Gun. The moment Guns came into existence, the monopoly on power enjoyed by the rich was no more. It was as if it had never existed.
This time around, Leftist politicians are on the verge of taking those firearms away in the spirit and under the pretense of securing and ensuring our safety and security. This is to be our New World Order.
I bet this argument was never used before. [sic, sweet irony]
Well, yes and no.
I mean, during the Hundred Years’ War, the French monarchy would rather go down than arm peasants with bows and longbows to fight off the English invaders. Back then, politicians did not use pretenses. They just told people they didn’t have any rights. But that was before the people started having Guns.
And now, the argument is identical. People don’t need no arms. The rich will protect them. Oh sorry, I meant to say The State will protect the People.
Since People are inept, and totally incapable of taking care of themselves, that is.
I mean we do go to work, pay our taxes, and obey the laws given to us by their ‘majesties’, i.e., the politicians, lawyers, billionaires, unelected elites.
We are good when we obey their dictates.
We are bad when we want to be free.
They say Freedom is measured in restrictions imposed on the vulgar abuse of liberties. Namely, that your Freedom stops where another man’s begins.
All that is true.
Say what, I’d even go farther.
Let’s start by giving ourselves some just laws.
For instance, if a rich man wants to run for office, let them. But they’d have to give away all their riches.
Alternately, they want to make money, let them. It’s their God given right.
What should not be permitted under the Law would be allowing rich people to vote or run for political office.
Let us divorce once and for all, $ from power.
Nobody should be allowed to attain both.
The alliance between finance and political power will destroy democracy and our freedom. It reeks of corruption more than anything on this Earth.
And yes, Plato discovered this principle first. But many people, including myself, realized the same on their own. And that’s how you know something to be true. When many people from different backgrounds, and epochs, reach the same conclusion you do.
Götterdämmerung 