The ATF vs. The First Amendment

in FreeSpeechlast year (edited)

The title is not in error. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF/BATF/BATFE/AFT if you're Joe Biden) is attacking freedom of the press. If you are outside the US, this may confuse you even more than it confuses me here. The image below now theoretically constitutes a "machine gun." Congratulations. You're potentially a felon now if you save this .jpg.

lightning link.jpg
Copied from an archived image with a dead link because things are weird right now.

Allow me to explain. First, a brief history:

In 1775, British colonists in Massachusetts began an armed resistance against the British Empire when the royal military set out to confiscate arms and ammunition stored by the citizen militia. This revolt spread quickly. The Continental Congress finally got around to formally declaring independence in 1776. Fighting went on until 1783, when British and American representatives signed the Treaty of Paris. Meanwhile, the former colonies established the Articles of Confederation as a sort of unifying government over the former colonies that had declared themselves independent nations. In 1789, factions dissatisfied with the restrictive nature of those Articles drafted a new Constitution instead of revising them.

This new Constitution was controversial. The Federalists insisted, "No, guys, it's all cool, see? We're just trying to make this work, and it totally protects your hard-won liberty." The Anti-Federalists replied, "Not cool, dude. This looks like a power grab by a bunch of y'all and it's sketch as hell." The Federalists responded with, "Tough titties, we're doing this anyway. Deal with it." However, in order to garner enough support, they agreed to add the Bill of Rights specifically saying what this new government could not do. This was ratified in 1791, and they all lived happily ever after, right?

Here we are in 2023. The federal government has usurped more power and claimed new authority with every passing administration. The Bill of Rights has been gutted to the point people scoff at the very concept of citing the 9th and 10th amendments which say the enumeration of specific rights does not deny other rights retained by the people, and government has no powers not explicitly granted. The rest have all been eroded as well.

One of the major issues surrounding politics today is the second amendment and firearm ownership. A lot of ink has been spilled over what the second amendment means. Since I'm literate and literal, here's how I read it.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

  • "Regulated" did not mean "under government control," it meant "well equipped and trained." This meaning was still cited as of my old 1884 Webster's dictionary. Remember that 1775 kerfuffle with Paul Revere, Concord, and Lexington from that famous poem? No one wanted the new federal government or the states to hold a monopoly in armament any more than they wanted the King of England to have that kind of power.

  • "Militia" means all able-bodied adult males willing and able to fight. Citation: literally everything written about the militia by the colonial figures of the day. Even now, all adult males between the ages of 17 and 45 are legally considered members of the unorganized militia.

  • "security of a free state" may mean, "independent nation," or "independent condition." Either way, this clause does not mean the right belongs to members of an organized militia.

  • "Keep and bear" means "own and carry." Not too difficult, right? It does not mean they amended the Constitution to benevolently grant a right to enlist in the military. That's already in the main Constitution. This reading as protection for formal state guard units is dumb.

  • "The people" can only mean individuals. Only individuals can reason, choose, and act. Only individuals have rights. Only individuals can suffer trespass.

  • "Arms" means any and all weapons. Muskets were the standard infantry weapon and common civilian arms. Rifles used by many militiamen were superior in range and accuracy, albeit at the cost of firing rate. People still carried swords as a part of formal attire. Despite what Joe Biden keeps repeating, people even literally owned cannons.

  • "Shall not be infringed" means "no touchy!"

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Nonetheless, the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 (FFA) and numerous additional laws since then have regulated, taxed, and restricted civilian ownership of certain kids of firearms and firearm accessories. The then-exorbitant $200 tax stamp and registration effectively made machine guns illegal. One silver lining to the looming cloud of inflationary monetary policy is that baked-into-statute $200 has become more and more affordable for the average Joe even though newly-manufactured machine guns have been illegal for commercial sale since 1986, severely restricting supply and driving up prices.

In short, the right to keep and bear arms has definitely been infringed. Imagine if these high-capacity fully-automatic printing presses we have at our fingertips were equally restricted. "No one needs more than an 8-bit processor or 64 K of RAM. What are you, a terrorist hacker?"

But now we get to the meat of the matter. Defense Distributed, DefCad, and other groups have been using the First Amendment to challenge numerous state and federal gun laws, because they are not exchanging naughty FFA parts or selling guns without a license. They have been exchanging files for people to make their own guns. See also the panic over "ghost guns" and 80% frames/receivers which must be machined at home to complete.

This problem has been brewing for years, and no one outside the gun community was probably even aware of the matter, but now it has resulted in federal felony convictions. Kristopher Justinboyer Ervin and Matthew Raymond Hoover (CRS Firearms) have been convicted of selling... what?

Making your own gun has never been illegal under federal law, same as the cannons Biden doesn't understand. Making your own select-fire or full-auto-only machine gun is very definitely illegal under various federal firearms laws dating back to that 1938 act mentioned earlier, but this recent case doesn't seem to apply to that, either.

These people were convicted of selling printed information and saying words.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

That's the First Amendment to the Constitution. Congress may not:

  • Establish a state religion
  • Prohibit people from exercising their religion
  • Abridge freedom of speech
  • Abridge freedom of the press
  • Abridge the right to peaceably assemble, and petition the government for a redress of grievances

These are emphatic restrictions on the federal government, like all the rest of the first ten amendments. They are not grants of privilege, but acknowledgement that the people as individuals have preexisting rights which governments tend to trespass against, and no representative of the people has any authority to violate such natural rights. Or at least that's the official story behind the legitimacy of a representative republic.

These ATF charges against Ervin and Hoover, and the laws cited to support those charges, appear to me as blatant violations of the First Amendment. The Auto Key Card apparently was not engraved. It is just printed data to make a poor man's drop-in auto sear if, and only if, you properly use the template to cut metal and fabricate the part in question. Even when printed directly on metal, it is not a simple thing to make properly. These are not like those metal model kits ready to punch out of the frame and build after a quick cleanup with a file. Nonetheless, the court decision decrees that sharing printed information is the same as making and selling a machine gun. Do you see why this is such a big deal?

It has never been illegal to share blueprints, manuals, CAD files, templates, or jigs to make a gun, or even a machine gun. The physical object was previously necessary to show cause and justify prosecution. Now, however, that crappy image at the start of this article is potentially a machine gun even though it only exists as digital pixels. I can't even guarantee it works, because

A. that is only one of the two parts in the assembly, and,

B. I'm not crazy enough to try making one of these.

The Lightning link, for better or worse, arguably makes an AR-type rifle into an actual machine gun according to the letter of the law, but is it really "readily convertible?" Fun as that would be on the range, I don't want to shove sketchy parts into a rifle and lose the very useful semi-automatic function it had before the change, no matter how temporary and reversible. Plus, it won't even work with all receivers, bolt carriers, and trigger groups.

It's not a proper select-fire rifle with the lightning link installed. It removes the very useful option of single well-aimed shots for the sake of either being safe or full dakka. One of the legal and functional advantages to "bump stocks" was the option to switch back to standard rifle mode very easily. Same for the binary triggers and forced reset triggers made to circumvent the specific language of those same stupid laws. All of these were arbitrarily declared "machine guns" by this unelected enforcement agency "...[B]y a single function of the trigger" is very specific verbiage, but government goons will rob, cage, and even kill you anyway if you "resist."

Here's a gun-tuber's overview of the situation with a clearer explanation of the mechanism and more information regarding these legal machinations. F-bomb warning, by the way.

This is also yet another reason we need venues like HIVE where subversive information is difficult for these control freaks to squelch. You have the natural right to speak and write freely, to defend yourself against aggression with proportionate force, to make tools and weapons, to trade, to cooperate with others, and to otherwise live like a free human within the bounds of the non-aggression principle. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don't violate others by doing things you would see as a violation if done to you. This does not mean no one else can or will violate you, but it's a fundamental principle for society to flourish. What should you do to those who do infringe? I leave that for you to discuss in the comments.

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The big problem is there is no punishment for govern-cement overreach, while their is incredible cost of time and money to fight it. Further, you are a criminal to fight it.

And worse, we have govern-cement going around the law by having a corporation do the actual dirty work.

The Infernal Revolting Syndicate is a corporation out of an island in the Gulf of Mexico. Doing something completely illegal... with the govern-cements blessing. But you can't take them to court. No court would hear it. And there isn't even an American court except the import/export court.

In my opinion the ATF should be abolished. I will not forgive them for WACO.
And that is another thing, there is nothing a citizen can do. What ATF did was wrong. They should have been severely punished for what they did. But, there is no way to punish a bureau.

We should have a vote to abolish any branch of govern-cement.
Or better yet, every Bureau comes up for a vote every ten years, and if they don't get enough votes, they are immediately closed.

You saw my offer to compromise a couple weeks ago, right?

Yep.

So, after i learned that politics is not what they taught me in school
i searched and read, and looked for answers.
I went through marx and Mises.
I studied many anarchist ideas.

And i truly found that "if voting mattered, you would not be able to vote"

So, i started realizing what we are not allowed to vote for.
And the first thing we need is to be able to stop govern-cement with a vote.
The founding fathers believed we would need to stop govern-cement with firearms.

We truly need a better, more elegant way.

We truly need a better, more elegant way.

One of the chief reasons to support crypto, especially as an unregulated anonymous non-KYC ecosystem, Monero, maybe.

I believe we will see a lightning layer of bitcoin go anonymous.
You can do so by a combination of mixing and creating a new address each transaction.
But, i am sure that people can make it seamless.

Yes, have monero and ARRR... and bitcoin and silver, and some HBD... and food

Just file the drawing away at Maralago. Felonies are overlooked there.

That, or save it on Hunter Biden's laptop. No crimes to be seen there either.

Oh I see, this is a hunting article.

This was almost a dissertation. Thanks for sharing.

!discovery 37

I could add more hyperlinks if that makes my snark more scholarly.

The moment that I saw both Brandon Herrera and @styxhexenhammer talking about this, I knew it was only a matter of time before you gave your two Satoshis as well.

I don't have much to add. We've seen this equine excrement before when 3D-printed gun parts first started showing up. All I can say is that I'm genuinely surprised that the ATF hasn't come after me yet... is it because I don't own a dog?

Freedom is purely a marketing term for politicians, just like "Make America Great Again." In practice, it's always about state supremacy.

Not sure what that has to do with my original comment, though I did think of one other thing just now: free speech is officially dead in the US, and has been for some time. You and I may not be feeling the full effects yet, but Ervin, Hoover, Julian Assange, Jeff German, James Gordon Meek, and Matt Taibbi sure are (one of those men is dead, BTW). Maybe add Tucker Carlson to that list, since AOC wants to prosecute persecute him for... not sure what, exactly. I can't believe people simp for her... but hey, most of her simps are just as horrible as she is (no, seriously, Bill Astore simps for her, and he also uses sock puppets to attack his detractors), and I guess monsters need love too.

Sigh I need another drink... out of vodka, pinot grigio is too weak... maybe I'll finally finish off that bottle of moutai (boy is that stuff toxic) that has been sitting in my cabinet for who-knows-how-long.

Looks like I somehow deleted the second part. The fact remains that as noted by Larken Rose in "The Tiny Dot," they are still vastly outnumbered, and they can't get us all, at least not all at once.

they are still vastly outnumbered

True, but that's not enough.

they can't get us all

Again, true, but they don't need to in order to demoralise the population. Bear in mind that the "useful idiots" are not only the blue-pilled, but also the black-pilled.

"I was a loyal Soviet citizen until the age of twenty. What that meant was: to say what you are supposed to say, to read what you are permitted to read, to vote the way you are told to vote, and at the same time, to know it is all a lie." - Natan Sharanskii

In other words, to simply know that the law is nonsense is not enough. Reject lawful society, embrace the black market, buy a milling machine, and get creative with your notes...

"Red-pilling" the mainstream, whether left or right, will never happen. We need to build an underground for the remnant who love liberty and loathe authoritarianism. I think HIVE can be a key part of that process.

"Red-pilling" the mainstream... will never happen.

No shit, to be truly red-pilled is to reject the mainstream. That's what my little cooperative farming community does. I supply eggs and metalworking services. One neighbour provides the tomatoes and cucumbers, another provides the heavy machinery (which I'm currently repairing). All of us hunt. I'm probably the only one with any time for HIVE, though, and you'll notice that I haven't posted anything in two months.

Every argument against personal arms is dismissed with such facility I am convinced vociferants are sock puppets, incapable of reason, and reduced to control by psychological manipulations by malevolent parties.

As critical as I undertake to be I am unable to refute any assertion you make above. The contrast between reasonable understanding and intellectual subjugation is marked. I am left to note that evolution continues to constrain reproductive success to individuals competent to surmount the challenges of given environments. It is necessary for free people to secure their society, and we must grant to them intent on subjugation that dependence that renders them utterly incapable of survival, as it is their sovereign right to choose their fate.

However, that recognition of their liberty to enslave themselves cannot be conflated with the toleration of any assault on our own liberty, and that ilk asserting their desire to be hapless insists on inflicting that condition on everyone, lacking the tolerance justice affords them. They can choose for them, but not for us. The affliction free people suffer today is supported by that willing herd, but is intolerable to free men, and therein lies the rub. That segment of society is wielded like a club to oppress others, and that engenders conflict, being the drawing of first blood.

We cannot ignore our extremity, yet cannot simply lash out, but must honorably and justly effect our necessary security. I submit that personal arms are not the optimal modern technologically available means whereby that is accomplished. You well note that muskets aren't the state of the military arts today, and the same is true of chemically propelled slugs of metal.

Our war is best waged on the appropriate battlefield, which is the crux of your post. It is our essential communications and intellectual capacity that fundamentally underlies our rights and humanity. The pen is mightier than the sword. Today our pens write in leagues, and this is the power our enemies most oppose and that we most depend on for our freedom.

By whatever means necessary, we must prevent losing our freedom of speech, and the judgment of the corrupt and fallible courts that a business card is a machine gun must be rescinded and overturned. Our freedom cannot long survive such insanity and obvious elimination of our rights, and essential humanity.

Thanks!

There is a fundamental difference between asserting a natural right based on individual human action, homesteading, voluntary exchange, free association and autonomy on one hand; and claiming a right to feel a certain way in order to justify violating others, or claiming a right to the dregs from political plunder. The media and government schools have colluded (unintentionally, probably, for the most part) with the political class (very deliberately otheir part) cloud the minds of generations of Americans, encouraging them to be irrational subjects instead of deliberate, rational, independent people.

I agree that there are inalienable rights, and then there's power to do what you want, which people with armed gangs of thugs at their disposal have instead of rights. I also agree that the abysmal educational system is a crime against humanity. I'll let the jurists sort whether it's aggravated or not by malice, as long as they do undertake to sort it.

Sometimes I think those people doing these things don't understand that due process is preferable to guillotines.

Hive is a space like any other, which, like any other, is not free of control.

To portray it otherwise would be to fail to recognise the reality in which there are in fact no spheres that are beyond any control.

Accordingly, there are limits to free speech and free action everywhere. Neither, therefore, is there a natural right, but what there is is a spontaneous situation in which the individual allows himself to obey himself. "Right" and "nature" are mutually exclusive.

Where "law" is explicitly formulated, it challenges contradiction and therefore reflects the contradictory nature of all law. There is such a thing as an implicit, unspoken order, but where it wants to be expressed and explicitly lived out, it becomes a permanent topic, an endless debating about states of affairs that one desires to fix ("fixate"), and must therefore be described as fruitless. It is therefore not a natural right, but a natural ability, of which I can decide whether I want to make use of it or not.

Those who want to arm themselves do not need to invoke a right, since this right can always be contested. Those who seek to defend themselves with a weapon can do so and will experience one or another consequence as a result. Dying, for example, would be one. But someone who wants to wield a weapon, but is not prepared to die in the act, might ask himself why not? In the same way, one can ask oneself whether one is willing to kill another.

As long as I do not have an addressee who has actively violated my freedom - that is, there is no act of violation of my physical integrity and my social affiliation - I cannot find anyone to "do something against". I can only do so in the very concrete case where I am accused of a violation of some legal provision and charged with having been insubordinate. On the other hand, I myself would have to become the accuser of another individual in order to be able to declare a violation of my rights in a lawsuit. And win the result I hope for.
But if I want to spare myself such a thing - since there is always a risk that I will not be successful with an official lawsuit - I consider alternatives. These alternatives are potentially always available as long as I am not directly threatened with life and limb.

"Unfortunately", this case must first occur before I resort to the extreme of self-defence, which means that it is always the worst case that actually occurs that requires my action - then spontaneously.

(non aggressive) Disobedience is therefore, in my eyes, the strongest means against any taking of control by controlling forces. But since disobedience requires a knowledge of what I actually intend to disobey, we do not have a man-to-man fight today, but a fight for "information" (even if there are still military fights on a battlefield).

I think preserving one's dignity and integrity may mean losing everything, even one's life (and not seeing it as being a victim but a victor). Not that many are willing to do that (I myself have my limits).
A more elegant way would probably be to train inner composure to all conceivable and unthinkable life circumstances.

I try to live by the motto that there are problems without solutions.

I'm not even sure where to begin dissecting this. It looks like word salad. base don your name, I'll assume English is not your native language, and something may be lost in translation.

"Natural rights" are the sphere of our actions which do not infringe upon others as defined by life, liberty, and property acquired by homesteading of voluntary exchange. It is not opposed to nature, but rather is discovered by applying our natural faculty of reason. It is a concept of "negative rights," that is, reciprocal and universal definitions of trespass. Neither of us has authority to rob, murder, or otherwise initiate violence or coercion upon the other. Each of us has the natural authority to use proportionate self-defense against aggression.

It is precisely the point where violation occurs that a right must be invoked. The idea that rights are inviolable makes no sense.

Here is where the concept of "law" come into play. Legislation is either in accord with such concepts to protect life, liberty, and property; or it establishes a political class who claim the authority to violate those same rights as though they have some greater mystical right based on "divine right of kings," "popular mandates from the voter," or some other such myth.

Does that make sense?

Where you feel encroaching injustice, you have the option of disobedience, do you not? But that does not necessarily mean that your disobedience will be tolerated or accepted. There is no guarantee of that and that is why I tried to say that invoking natural rights can be completely ineffective. But it can also be effective, I can only know if I try it concretely. That is, I have an address to which I bring my concrete case. This can be a person, but also a court.

Neither the terms "life", nor "freedom", nor "property" are so clearly and universally defined that there would always be agreement on their definitions.
"Life" is something inexplicable, no one knows how and when it came into being and why. "Freedom" is such a difficult concept that countless people have tried definitions and concepts on it and always come up with different explanations, and "property" is a bottomless pit. None of these three terms can be totally grasped or is indisputable. Because these terms are contested, there is a lot of contention around them. Consider that the core of my comment.

It is like "time". I know what it is, but if you ask me, I don't know anymore. Means, I know that I live, I experience the passing of time (I age) and I can describe to you personal situations of freedom as well as lack of freedom.

If you don't want to argue, for example, the worst you will do is try to force something on other people, kill them or otherwise do violence to them. Or ignore, that is also a widespread means.

("There is no 'conflict'!" - Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker (Episode VI - Return of the Jedi Knights, Chapter 39) - the one who claims that there is no conflict will not see the opportunities that arise from discord and doubt with each other.

So that person will not feel any obligation towards this "natural right", as you put it. And indeed, this is a reality that we experience whenever there is war or crises arise or something is perceived as being in crisis. Acceptance towards such a natural right is not guaranteed. It is always something that you have to renegotiate and clarify with people over and over again. If this were not the case, all the rules that have already been established would always and everywhere be respected or would never change. We know that this is not the case.

Now, you can insist that you have a "natural right", but it can still happen (and has happened at all times and everywhere) that it is disregarded.
How else can you confront this circumstance, if it interests and concerns you, other than by
... reach an agreement in a concrete case
... go to court if no agreement has been reached...
or, because you think there is no sense or no likelihood of success in reaching agreement
... disobey (and gamble on whether your disobedience will have (uncertain) consequences)?

You seem to be arguing against something I never asserted. Nothing in the philosophy of natural rights guarantees rights will be accepted or respected by others, and the entire concept exists because they can be, and often are, violated.

rudence in exercising rights is always necessary, and disagreements are inevitable because humans are not perfectly rational even when they strive for rationality and morality. There is never a guarantee rights will be respected.

The very history of philosophy is filled with disagreements, doubt, and dead end debates, but the pursuit of knowledge and virtue is worthwhile even if it means being accused of crime by the political class whose career is organized crime.

I argued mostly because of what you said in your posting

This is also yet another reason we need venues like HIVE where subversive information is difficult for these control freaks to squelch.

I doubt that it is difficult for those you have in mind to suppress subversive information in their eyes. Rather, I would say that a platform like Hive is either too unimportant or too small to expend energy on at the time. Those who aim to keep this or similar environments small or make it impossible to operate need only change the laws, as we have recently read here, and in one fell swoop they have undermined the attractiveness of posting here or the possibility of trading crypto. Natural rights don't help you there, because you don't get into the position to apply them in the first place. Because you lack the counterpart to whom you can address your disagreement. You would have to be able to prevent laws from being passed that impede the scope of free trade and interaction, for example.
If you can't do that, the question is what else can you do? While I share your annoyance that it seems that the dissemination of material that can lead to criminal acts is already considered a criminal act itself, it just makes it clear that political representatives seem to do whatever they want.

If the dealmakers networked with Hive do not want to make themselves liable to prosecution and seek to act within the framework of the law, not even your own disobedience will help you, because it would have to be the disobedience of those who pull the strings on Hive on which you depend.

As the two convicts from the case you described said, "laws only work if we follow them", the mass of lawbreakers must increase and people in large numbers must take the risk of disobeying and then being caught doing so in order to bring about a possible turnaround in the legal sense. For example, through clever lawyers. Since this is a high risk, it can be assumed that not many will follow this path.

So you can blog yourself and complain about this or that encroachment on your freedom, but I would then ask, what does that change? It may upset you that I say this because it implies that I might think that whether you publish this content of your posting or not makes no difference - it actually may even spread pessimism (so, valuable information would be for me, for instance, the opposite, where you can name a source where people legally won their cases). What you are achieving is agreement about these deplorable conditions and maybe that is what you are after.

but the pursuit of knowledge and virtue is worthwhile even if it means being accused of crime by the political class whose career is organized crime.

How do you know if it's worth it, since I assume that you yourself have not been officially accused? In what way is it worth it for you personally?

I would say that a platform like Hive is either too unimportant or too small to expend energy on at the time.

Maybe, but then again, the resilience of an international decentralized blockchain where new frontends can be rolled out in no time at all, not to mention VPNs and TOR, exists specifically to challenge centralized censorship. And the point of crypto is the ability to circumvent regulators, not find ways to comply with government edicts and trade for government fiat. We don't win through permission.

laws only work if we follow them"

Does anyone follow the law? No one even knows how many US laws, regulations, and policies exist in the first place, much less how to navigate life without breaking any of them. There's a book which estimates people could easily commit an average of three felonies a day. Never mind the fundamental principle of "no victim, no crime."

political representatives seem to do whatever they want.

Which disproves the notions of representation and delegated authority which are the foundation of modern myths regarding democratic republics.

So you can blog yourself and complain about this or that encroachment on your freedom, but I would then ask, what does that change?

I can't prove it changes anything, but here I am talking with a stranger about the ideas of individual liberty, someone I would have never encountered otherwise. That's not nothing.

How do you know if it's worth it, since I assume that you yourself have not been officially accused? In what way is it worth it for you personally?

My own dealings with the State are another matter entirely, and irrelevant to the topic at hand. Value is always subjective, but the pursuit of virtue is the way we grow as individuals, and the individual is the foundation of society, so seeking personal growth is the best, and perhaps only, way I can effect real change in the world.

Do you believe government authority is legitimate, legality has any bearing on morality, or virtue is attained through obedience?

Do you believe government authority is legitimate, legality has any bearing on morality, or virtue is attained through obedience?

It seems to me that my own opinion of government is irrelevant in that it is a fact that all the nations of the world are governed by them and their regulations and actions. Morality is the distraction for the masses who get bogged down in moral debates. Morality has arguably never played a role in the political arena, it has been and is geopolitical interests that are being played on the world stage.
The moralistic statements of politicians have probably always been made for propaganda purposes and are currently being made for propaganda purposes as well. If the economy is doing badly at home, the politicians at the top fear that their economic and foreign policies could lead to unrest at home if the masses cannot be brought into line.

Here in our country, we can see this quite clearly at the moment, that the exaggeration of one's own importance in the world has led to the forces regrouping and the tightening that our government is imposing on its own people, which does not go unnoticed by those who do not want to abide by these rules.
The change in the law you describe on the possession of weapons or the distribution of instructions for weapon modifications should, like presumably many other regulations from the USA, make it clear to your people what they will face if they openly revolt.

Ultimately, it must be said that the individual can do absolutely nothing to prevent actual political decisions from being made.

For me, however, this does not mean that I have to despair or worry all the time. But I do realise that the way we have been living here in my country has never been a guaranteed standard and that former prosperity can turn into its opposite. When push comes to shove, people in a country eventually become lawbreakers because they have no other choice.
My family grew up in a foreign land and my father taught my brothers how to steal. As we were poor, they stole sacks of wheat and the like. People will learn to steal and to cover up their actions when it comes to survival. They will adapt to circumstances, a very valuable characteristic of man.

For me, virtue is not a value based on obedience. It is rather the achievement of serenity and not panicking in situations that are difficult to deal with, but remaining calm. It is easy to practise serenity in easy times, but it is naturally put to the test in those very times when the going gets rough.

seeking personal growth is the best, and perhaps only, way I can effect real change in the world.

I agree with that.


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