As a wise horse once said, "No sir... I don' like it!"

So. Us Libertarians and survivalists and preppers and Second Amendment Types are all just a bunch of crazy, conspiracy-addicts who see g-men in black helos behind every bush and have Kool-aid socials with Alex Jones, right? Well, that's what normal folks would have us believe. Hell, "preppers" even autocorrects to preposterous on the phone I'm typing on now so, we must totally out of our freakin gourds.

Wait... what?

You say obscure arms of the federal government, agencies that should have little if anything to do with armed enforcement agents, are stockpiling weapons and ammo at an alarming rate? And those agencies are buying things like 12-gauge shotguns, .40 SW and .357 Sig hollow-points; things that are usually, if not explicitly designed to be, used against people? Now, I'm a fan of the venerable .40 SW (Sig P229, baby. My weapon of Choice!) but, the way I see it, the only reason to buy several million (450 actually, but who's counting...) rounds of it is that you foresee a very pressing need arising to use it.

Wait, you say...

It's DHS, and they have to prep for natural disaster response.  We all saw the violence in the wake of Katrina. They need to protect themselves from crazies that shoot at SAR helicopters. And NOAA's division of fisheries or whatever. Poachers can be downright unpleasant. And Social Security... retirees and disabled folks can be pretty... well... Education! The DOE, now they need a bunch of 12 gauges for... for...

You see what I did there? Stick wit me...

What the actual fuck is going on here? Why are they doing this?

These are agencies that operate exclusively WITHIN the borders of the U.S. and have no military powers and only indirect (or so I thought) law enforcement authority. It seems to me that Somebody at a real high pay grade thinks it prudent for the Fed to guns-and-ammo themselves all to hell and gone for something. Something that they obviously feel will be a Big Bad and that they will be "called on" or "forced" to put a lid on and, frankly, this scares the ever-lovin piss outta me. Again, these are internal agencies so, either they expect to be invaded from without and are prepping to assist in the formation of a militia OR the Big Bad they're expecting for supper...

...is us.

When the SHTF and our orderly, day to day society begins to go south, it might take armed government agents from DHS to enforce curfews and see to orderly distributions of rations and supplies. Or from the DOE to keep our kids in their schools to learn that "everything will be juuust fine". Or from NOAA to keep people from overfishing and taking too much for themselves and their families. Or from the IRS and SSA to make sure you keep paying your fair share and your neighbor uses your share... i mean, his benefits, correctly. Or from the FDA (haven't heard anything about them yet, but it wont surprise me when I do) to make sure you don't drink that unsafe raw milk from your neighbor's cow since you cant afford the "safe", federally approved stuff (that your local Kroger probly won't have anyway) or that your backyard garden doesn't make you not need the DHS rations...

Sinister, ain't it.

Now, I know conspiracyism is a slippery slope and it's easy to go from concerned citizen to tin foil hat model in 2.3 seconds but, people, I beg you to remember the old adage that just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean They ain't after ya.

But, hey. The Mainstream's probly right and it's probably just one big ol' misunderstanding and they really are just buying the expensive, front-line duty ammo to waste on paper-people and those fun Ozombie bin Laden targets. It is the same government that pays four- or five-figure prices for hammers and toilet seats after all...

Still... something's just itching in the back of the ol' brainpan on this one. Think I'll play a little Ask Dr. Google and see what he comes back with. I recommend you grab the nearest convenient web-enabled device and play along at home.

Hey Jonesy,  how's that Kool-Aid coming? The gang's almost here...

dc

Power to the states.

Patriots!
Our lesson today will be the States and how they got screwed by the Progressive Movement. One of the worst things that ever happened to our Republic, second only to the Civil War/Reconstruction, was the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. This country was designed to be a group of independent, sovereign nations united only for the purpose of common defense and the regulation of trade, both interstate and international. The bicameral legislature was designed to give the states equal representation and to give the people of the states proportional representation. A pure democracy (ie the House of Representatives) is untenable in that it allows for majority rule at the expense of the minority and a pure republic (the Senate) is equally untenable for the opposite reason. Put them together and allow them to check and balance each other and you have something approaching consensus, a thing both vital to liberty and damn nigh unattainable in a society as large as ours. This is why our Founders, in their wisdom, designated the Senate as the representative of the states and therefore largely immune to the much-touted Will of the People, which they knew even then, could be exceedingly dangerous (see also: Hitler or... our current administration). Enter the Progressives. A group of intelligent thinkers who fancy themselves superior to all us "unwashed" and see it as their sacred duty to commandeer and grow the police power of government and use it impose their benevolent restrictions and regulations on those they view as less capable of living without guidance; to save us from ourselves. These learned individuals recognized that the biggest obstacle to realizing their utopia was the States themselves. What to do... they couldn't abolish the states, nor could they abolish the Senate... Eureka! Direct election of Senators! Make those representing the states (allegedly) beholden to the Will of the People and you remove any real authority from the state governments. To clarify, prior to the 17th amendment, if a Senator went against the will of the state, that Senator could be removed. And they knew it. As such, since power remained securely in the hands of the States, it kept the Federal Government, specifically the executive branch, from getting too big for its britches. After, the senators could do damn near anything they pleased or, more truthfully anything their party leadership pleased, as long as they could convince the populace that it was in their "best interest". Combine that with a populace largely unschooled in the machinations of government (a trait ostensibly missing from the state legislatures) and you get what we now have. An out of control, bureaucracy-laden, slobbering, ravenous conglomerate beast bent on nothing more than acquiring and maintaining power at our expense. The only way to pare down this abomination is to act at the local and state level. Elect staunch states-rights advocates to all levels of state and local government and force them, at the point of a ballot box, to do what is necessary to return sovereignty to the states... in other words REPEAL THE 17TH AMENDMENT!!!

Homework: Google "repeal the 17th amendment" and do a little research (don't just take my word for it). Find a group you agree with that can hopefully make enough noise to get this rolling. There are actually quite a few out there. Get this message into the media-talk radio, blogs, whatever. Call you're local and state reps and hound them til kingdom come. We must make them listen.

Til next time,

I fight not because I hate my enemy, but because I love my People.
dc.