Quote of the day—Paul Brinkley

The point of citizen resistance isn’t to be able to kick your own government’s ass; it’s to make clear that it would spend more to oppress you than it would by leaving you free. (Granted, some governments take more convincing than others. But that’s an education problem.)

Paul Brinkley
July 18th, 2011 at 6:54 pm
Comment to the post Brin on Heinlein on guns is dead wrong.
[Via email from Rich R.

And what better way to educate a government on the costs of oppression than by shooting back and/or shooting the tax collectors?—Joe]

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3 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Paul Brinkley

  1. Of course the American citizen resistance did kick its government’s ass in the 1780s, so we’d have to discuss the particulars of a given resistance, its end goals and its tactics.

    Interesting that those taking to the streets of late have been members of the government (though I suppose they are citizens in most cases). That begs the question; who is resisting against whom?

    Maybe the very term needs to be clarified or amended. Maybe we should be talking about “defense of liberty” for the sake of clarity. I the case of Madison, WI several months ago, the “citizen resistance” was advocating higher levels of coercion and protesting against the will of the people. Citizen, private citizen, member of the government or military– those distinctions then become somewhat academic– they take a back seat to the meaning of the actual struggle, which is between coercion and liberty.

    It was said of the second amendment that the armed citizenry would constitute a force so much more powerful than any military the government could muster, that it would hold government in awe, thereby keeping in check any thoughts of tyranny. That seems to have failed for much of our history, but it could be made to work again. Right now our government would like nothing more than a fight, as they figure, probably correctly, that it would tip things in their favor.

  2. Just remember some of Heinlein’s other words:

    “Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors…and miss.”

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