For some reason, US Citizens are more than willing to see their history being plowed over. In the case of Blair Mountain, not only will a historic site be destroyed, so will an entire mountain. Obviously, Blair Mountain is a mountain and its located in West Virginia. More importantly, Blair Mountain was the site of the largest Civil rebellion since the Civil War when Miners and the Mine owners clashed in actual armed battle. Between 10,000 and 15,000 coal miners confronted an army of police and strikebreakers backed by coal operators for five days in late August and early September 1921 The Battle ended only after approximately one million rounds were fired and the US Army intervened by presidential order.
The current "battle" is between Coal interests and those who would preserve this area.
The Battle of Blair Mountain site was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 30, 2009. Coal interests contested the historic designation of the Blair Mountain site and the site was delisted. Once again, the Big Coal interests demonstrate that they don't care about the public.
In the comment letter submitted by battlefield archeologist Dr. Harvard Ayers dealt with the records of ownership of battlefield properties and included a legal opinion on title holders by John Kennedy Bailey, real estate attorney of Charleston. After extensive review of the tax, deed, and death records at the Logan County, West Virginia, courthouse, Ayers and Bailey concluded that five of the objectors of record submitted by Mr. Reid-Smith were not legitimate owners. Two were dead, two were Life Estates, and one had sold their property. Of the 10 of 57 properties that he researched in depth, he also discovered 13 additional owners not found by the cursory search of the West Virginia Attorney General’s office. The upshot of this research was that the count shifted to 25 objectors and 37 non-objectors, which would overturn any attempt to de-list the battlesite.
A petition from a long list of some of the nation's most prominent scholars, historians and archaeologists--including the president of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the former president of the American Historical Society, officers of the Appalachian Studies Association--made a direct appeal to WV Gov. Joe Manchin:
"The Blair Mountain Battlefield is a unique historic and cultural treasure that deserves recognition and protection... No doubt much remains to be discovered, and scholars must be able to continue to study this important chapter in American history..We are concerned that the recent attempt to delist Blair Mountain from the National Register may be a first step toward strip-mining the mountain for coal production, which will destroy the historic site. The National Park Service found that the battlefield is both significant and intact, and we believe it must be preserved for future generations."
In 2005, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts declared:
"The UMWA has always believed the Blair Mountain battle site should be preserved, and I began publicly calling for it back in the 1980's. We believe a monument should be erected at the site explaining what happened there, and that the road running through the site should be renamed Blizzard Highway, in honor of Bill Blizzard, the miners' leader at Blair Mountain. We support preserving the land immediately around the battle site, because we believe it's important for future generations to stand on that ground, and understand the importance of what happened there. This is also a personal issue for me and thousands of others from coal mining families who have relatives and ancestors who fought at Blair Mountain. What they did is a source of pride and inspiration to our families, and helps give us the strength to carry on their fight for justice. We will never forget it, nor should America."
Before the ink was dry on the National Registry, lawyers representing three out-of-state coal companies, including Massey Energy, somehow managed to round up new "objectors" to the Registry status, and asked the WV Division of Culture and History to issue a recount of the objectors vs. non-objectors. According to their own company report, "Jackson Kelly's lawyers aren't afraid to get their hands dirty..." For those not in the know, Massey Energy Co.'s sprawling Upper Big Branch mine was the location where an underground explosion blamed on methane gas killed 25 coal miners in the worst U.S. mining disaster in more than two decades.
Anyway, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Class War is alive and kicking in the US, but the American public can be easily distracted with wedge issues. The Working class can be deluded into believing they are "middle class" and made to believe that their interests lie with the rich and powerful. It's a shame that the struggles of the workers for their rights have not only been forgotten, but the worker's rights have been successfully rolled back.
Blair Mountain should be preserved for both its historic significance and its being the last vestige of scenic beauty. The De-listing of the Blair Mountain Battlefield must be reversed!
Please write a letter asking that the Blair Mountain Battlefield site be relisted on the Historic Register using the model from the Friends of Blair Mountain Site and spread the word to your friends that they should ask that this site is relisted.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
And sign the petition here http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveblairmountain
See also:
http://www.pawv.org/news/blair.htm
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2010/08/05/blair-mountain-news-petition-to-reconsider-historic-de-listing-denied-but-the-battle-goes-on/
http://ilovemountains.org/
http://ilovemountains.org/webbadges/bloggers_toolbar1c.php?id=48071
Reporter's Notebook: On Blair Mountain, answers are hard as rock
Didn't John Sayles make a movie called Matewan? I seem to recall it.
ReplyDeleteBig coal has influence in West Virginia government? No way!
ReplyDeleteYes, this was what inspired Matewan.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the influence of big coal as much as the loss of a historic battlefield.
Although, public outcry is having an effect.
FWM, you have an interesting sense of humor.
ReplyDeleteA bunch of socialist slack jaws lost a fight with the US Govt, and that makes it a historic site.....
ReplyDeleteNot so much.....
Nothing like a "freedom lover" to help us remember the freedoms that the workers fought for and have lost.
ReplyDeleteOfcourse, if it weren't for that "bunch of socialist slack jaws", we'd probably be living under facism.
But, I don't think the anon commenter "Let's See" would be too bothered by that.
He likes working long hours without paid vacations in unhealthy conditions and longs for when Libertarianism will give him that freedom back.
Nothing like a "freedom lover" to help us remember the freedoms that the workers fought for and have lost.
ReplyDeleteAnd all this happened without guns, right?
Why should any freedom loving individual have an interest preserving a site that celebrates the murder of people exercising their individual second amendment rights.....
You can't possibly be so obtuse to think that the union was a legal well-regulated militia, maintained by the state?
Collective 2nd amendment rights, means that they should have procured their arms from the government?
Right?
Under your collective rights argument, they should never have been able to take up arms.....
The government could not allow it.
As a socialist/marxist lawyer, you work to destroy the second amendment at every turn, trying to take away rights from the ones most in need of an individual right to bear arms.
You are a pathetic sack of hypocrite.
You said it, I didn't.
ReplyDeleteHey, you should be happy these people were exercising their Second Amendment rights!
Isn't this what you people advocate?
Dude, you're fucked either way you come at it:
--These people were exercising their Second Amendment rights and it should be memorialised
--They are A bunch of socialist slack jaws.
Can't have it both ways, dude.
Also, you can't distinguish betwen First Amendment Right (freedom of assembly) and the one guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you don't know what Article I, Section 8, Clause 15 says about the militia.
--These people were exercising their Second Amendment rights and it should be memorialised
ReplyDelete--They are A bunch of socialist slack jaws.
I don't think that anyone should be dinied their individual right to bear arms even the slackjaws.
So which second amendment version were they exercising the collective state controlled militia, or the right of the people?
Seems you cant have it both ways either.....
I don't give a piss about a "historical" landmark, I do care that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Also, you can't distinguish betwen First Amendment Right (freedom of assembly) and the one guaranteed by the Second Amendment.
So again by your perverted standards they could assemble, just as long as they were not bearing arms since they were not a state militia.
Hypocrite.
....under your socialist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was not a militia, and would have been violating the constitution, and that is treason right?
ReplyDeleteIt used to be said in West Virginia, that the process for a bill to become law was that it had to be resolved in both houses, then sent before Massey's desk to decide whether to veto it or let the Governor sign it.
ReplyDeleteunder your socialist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment was not a militia, and would have been violating the constitution, and that is treason right?
ReplyDeleteAre you saying the was a militia according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 16?
Socialist? Where do you get that the interpretation is socialist?
See Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886):
The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of Congress or law of the State authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the State and Federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The Constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.
Socialist indeed.
Does Socialist mean that I know more than you do?
Are you saying the (sorry my poor typing union) was a militia according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 16?
ReplyDeleteunder your version of the constitution "the union members in revolt against the company" were not a militia and had no right to bear arms.
I am saying that they had the right to bear arms under the second amendment as individuals who were assembling in their fight against the company.
Again the union members at Blair Mountain were violating your incorrect intrepretation of the second amendment, since the union was not militia, and were bearing arms against the state.
"Didn't John Sayles make a movie called Matewan? I seem to recall it."
ReplyDeleteYes, this movie covers the Matewan Massacre which was part of the events that led up to the Blair Mountain battle. Matewan is in Mingo County and Blair is in Logan county. Both of these counties are in the Southwest Region of West Virginia which, together with South Eastern Kentucky and a small strip of Virginia make up what is sometimes referred to as "The Coal Fields" of the Tug River Valley.
The movie was actually filmed in Thurmond, WV. A lot of the original buildings in Matewan had been torn down while nearby Thurmond was still pristine and shared the same architecture and terrain as Matewan.
The conflict at Blair mountain is reminiscent of modern corporations buying government, so that the government serves them against citizens.
ReplyDeleteProperly, the authorities should have been protecting the peaceful assembly of those miners. The police should have been acting to prevent the strikebreakers hired as goons by the coal operators.
Fortunately at that point in our history, the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel billionaires had not yet succeeded in purchasing at least a segment of federal government. They have been attempting to do so in the interim subsequent to 1921, in their attempt to turn the U.S. into their feudal fiefdom, and to restore their domination over the majority of currently free citizens as their serfs and peons.
I find a certain sad insight into the commenters who use phrases to describe striking miners, fellow Americans, men who were attempting to gain living wages and less deadly working conditions, as slack-jawed socialists.
They were neither. Nor are those who speak in support of peaceful, constitutionally guaranteed rights of speech and assembl - WITHOUT Americans having to resort to firing a million rounds at each other.
The 1920s held some alarming parallels to the first decade of this century, and the subsequent collapse of our economy to due to crooked dealing by financiers.
Clearly, some of our commenters are deficient in knowledge of our economic history, along with other facets of the past.
Try reading up on Ferdinand Pecora and the Pecora Commission. I doubt you could manage to read through an entire book or six on the subject, but perhaps you might manage, with your lips moving, to read through the wikipedia entries.
The era of the Blair Mountain miner conflict was part of the same era of corporate terrorism and corruption, including political corruption, that was investigated so very successfully by Ferdinand Pecora.
No surprise, Republicans from the 20's were in the pocket of big business back then as well, and it took democrats to cleam up the mess they made of our economy, and to restore the rights of people, not corporations.
Learn your history, you illiterate right wingnuts. Learn your history.
Or will Laci and I have to teach it to you here, page by page, year by year, chapter and verse?
School supplies are on sale now; you might want to go stock up, in preparation and anticipation of your much-needed, too-long-neglected lessons.
Socialist indeed.
ReplyDeleteDoes Socialist mean that I know more than you do?
Socialist, means you want state monopoly on violence.....
I didn't avoid your question.
ReplyDeletePresser provided your answer, you are too dim to understand it.
Likewise, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 States:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16 also states:
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia
The Union's Act was unconstitutional and it was not a body organised under Article I, Section 8, Clause 16.
I find it interesting that you believe that following Constitutional provisions is
(a) Socialist
(b) anti-freedom
Please show me where the Second Amendment says that the Union Members had a right to engage in their action?
If anything, your masters would have been happier if the Union had been disarmed.
Try the The Ford Hunger March of 1932:
At the entrance to Ford’s complex, Dearborn police were reinforced by the Dearborn Fire Department, Detroit police, and Ford’s own “Service Department.” The firefighters turned their hoses on the unarmed marchers, while police fired a hail of bullets. Coleman (also spelled Kalman) Leny, Joe DiBlasio, and Joe York—the 19-year-old district leader of the YCL—were killed. Fifty more were wounded.
When Unemployed Council leader Alfred Goetz attempted to lead an orderly retreat, machine-gun fire, this time from Ford’s own finest, began anew. The auto magnate’s right-hand man, Harry Bennett, was immediately recognized and injured by stone-throwing workers. Bennett emptied his own gun and then a police officer’s revolver into the workers. He and his goons killed 16-year-old YCL member Joe Bussel and left many more injured. Forty-eight workers, some in their hospital beds, were arrested.
Please provide evidence that the Blair Mountain Strikers were a militia organised under US or West Virginia Laws.
Socialist, means you want state monopoly on violence.....
ReplyDeleteAnd you just want violence without any control.
Move to Somalia.
Another dumbass wrote:
ReplyDelete"not really... said...
Socialist indeed.
Does Socialist mean that I know more than you do?"
Socialist, means you want state monopoly on violence.....
YES!, if by a monopoly you mean RULE OF LAW, and by violence, you mean the lawful use by the authority of representative government of the least amount of possible force to guarantee the rights of all human beings, not the pseudo-right of a few wealthy people to directly abuse others, or hire other people to do the abusing for them.
There are many democracies which these commenters would deem socialist, where citizens have made the choice to institute beneficial programs which advance their society and culture and economies.
And pretty much every single one of those, including the function of unions in negotiating and representing labor, are ranked ahead of the U.S. in every signficant metric.
So we can adopt what works, what makes a more stable and effective society and government and economy... or we can be backward, ignorant, and mislabel participants of our history and try to lie about the very nature of that history.....as is common in the revisionist history of the right. Idiots and liars like David Barton come to mind as an example.
I'm in the process of researching a new post, "Which Right Wing Dogma and Propaganda Is More Dangerous, the NRA, or the NAR?".
Dumbass.
.....would they have done that without guns?
ReplyDeleteProperly, the authorities should have been protecting the peaceful assembly of those miners. The police should have been acting to prevent the strikebreakers hired as goons by the coal operators.
Also the point that you seem to be missing is that the miners were exercising their rights as individuals to bear arms against the tyranny of the state, by assembling with firearms to protect themselves against acts of state violence.....
Again ",I do not care if they are a bunch of slack jaws, they had the right to bear arms under the constitution as individuals, and Laci says they don't so he is a hypocrite if says that the union members were exercising their second amendment rights, under his perverted reasoning of the second amendment, since they were not a militia.
But I don't see how
ReplyDeleteYES!, if by a monopoly you mean RULE OF LAW, and by violence, you mean the lawful use by the authority of representative government of the least amount of possible force to guarantee the rights of all human beings, not the pseudo-right of a few wealthy people to directly abuse others, or hire other people to do the abusing for them.
The union members were being abused by the state at every turn, by taking up arms as individuals and assembling to fight that tyranny, they were exercising their second amendment rights as individuals, the purpose of the second amendment recognising the individual right to bear arms....
"
ReplyDeleteNo surprise, Republicans from the 20's were in the pocket of big business back then as well, and it took democrats to cleam up the mess they made of our economy, and to restore the rights of people, not corporations.
Learn your history, you illiterate right wingnuts. Learn your history."
I'm not going to argue that government did not usually take the side of the coal companies back then, but you had better take another look at the political affiliations of those politicians that were "in the pocket of big business". The politicians that could be owned by coal hailed from both sides of the aisle. While the governor at the time of the battle (Ephraim Morgan) was a Republican, Democrats controlled both houses. Also most all of your local county politicians were Democrat. Morgan's predecessor, Governor Henry D. Hatfield, a Republican, was known for his sympathy to mineworker's rights as was his whole family which included Sid Hatfield, the hero of Matewan.
You can debate Democrat vs. Republican vs. liberal vs. socialist vs. Conservative vs. Progressive all day long and vary by the time and locale you are discussing. However, please keep in mind that in West Virginia the last century, political affiliations were voting clubs more than parties. If you are going to find an idealogical gem from that point of history, you are going to have to turn over a lot of corrupt stones with both D's and R's beside their names.
And the mineowners had nothing to do with it?? Seems I read that they confronted an army of police and strikebreakers backed by the coal operators.
ReplyDeleteCan't forget those evil capitalists in the mix.
they had the right to bear arms under the constitution as individuals
Where does the Constitution say this? Please provide the wording that says the miners had this right!
I have provided constitutional provisions which said they did not.
You have to get around that the Constitution says:
calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections (Article I, Section 8, Clause 15)
Does the Second Amendment invalidate this constitutional provision?
Your position says this section of the Constitution is without meaning. In fact, you are saying that the right to insurrection is guaranteed by the constitution.
It cannot be presumed that any clause in the Constitution is intended to be without effect, and therefore such construction is inadmissible.
There are many reasons why the militia was thought to be “necessary to the security of a free state.” Mainly, it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. See 3 Story §1890.
You are saying that the Militia was supposed to carry out insurrections.
Sorry, but you are getting silly in asserting that the Second Amendment invalidates two clauses in the main text of the Constitution.
You are spouting absurdities.
Unless you can come up with something so substantiate your silliness, you are just wasting everyones time.
Although, I suggest you go and research the topic and come back when you find authority to back up your assertions.
Fat White Man, I like it when you say things of sustance!
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the better comments out there from someone with a good idea of what went on.
Personally, I think this event should be remembered on all sides.
Fat White Man puts this in perspective.
Well done!
Dear Dense Dumbass:
ReplyDelete1. The corporate bigmonies were paying the police to act as their private army. Ditto their security personnel. This was illegal.
2. The army then came in to restore order, and restored the proper rule of law.
3. There IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to insurrection, to taking the law into your own hands, whether or not you happen to think it is protecting yourself against tyranny or not. I would refer you to the episode of U.S. history, Shay's rebellion between farmers, and a private army paid for by merchants, as a parallel to the events of Blair mountain, where the coal miner were in conflict with what amounted to a private army / security force paid for by the coal mine operators.
NOT LEGAL - EITHER SIDE - RESORTING TO VIOLENCE, firearm or otherwise.
You might want to re-read the U.S. Constitution, and of course that seminal document, the Insurrection Act of 1807, and the subsequent legislation that expanded and refined it.
My blog 'pack' partner Laci is the better constitutional scholar, although I'm no slouch; I shall defer to him the opportunity to expound to you on the niceties of the pertinent part of the U.S. Constitution.
Sorry, Denser, you dumbass; you are completely incorrect in your 2nd Amendment justification. You clearly are illiterate in accurate U.S. history. NO ONE is allowed to make war EXCEPT the U.S. government, through the applicable channels and processes. That includes war ON the U.S.A. as in the case of the seceding states in the civil war of the 19th century, and it is equally true of private conflicts, like Shay's rebellion or the events of Blair Mountain.
Rule of Law, dumbass; not private/ corporate security forces/ armies; not silly little wacko private militias. Self-defense is not a valid defense in the case of any form of rebellion or insurrection, or large scale conflict, under a heavy weight of U.S. law and history.
You sir are illiterate equally in law and history.
The first principle of the Common Law notion of the rule of law is that "The supremacy of law, which means that all persons (individuals and government) are subject to law."
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, The Insurrection Act mentioned by Dog Gone codifies Article I, Section 8, Clause 15:
§ 331. Federal aid for State governments
Whenever there is an insurrections in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.
You are going to have to work hard to demonstrate that the Constitution in any way guarantees a right to insurrection.
On the other hand, this is a notable event, like that of the Molly Maguires and are part of US History that should not be forgotten or subject to revisionist history which ever side you take.
My god, we're on the sme side as Fat White Man!
ReplyDeleteTreason is the only crime define in the Constitution as:
ReplyDelete“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”--Article III, Section iii.
This would have been an insurrection: an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government.
Any assertion that you have the right to insurrection is pure Bullshit since the Constitution and Federal law provide for the Militia to be used to suppress insurrections.
I'm not sure if this adds to Fat White Man's Comment, but he mentions Governor Henry D. Hatfield and Sid Hatfield.
ReplyDeleteI believe they were related to the Hatfields and McCoys of the famous feud.
FWM may have the privilege of correcting me, but I heard that this was a continuation of that feud.
The Matewan Massacre is an event that sparked the largest armed uprising in America since the Civil War. It was a time when large coal companies used bribes, intimidation and hired gunmen to control the lives of every person in southern West Virginia. In the town of Matewan, WV a group of men, led by town constable Sid Hatfield, stood up to the coal company enforcers, the Baldwin Felts Guards. This confrontation ended in a shootout that claimed the lives of nine people and made Sid Hatfield a living legend all across America.
.....pathetic in asserting that two clauses in the main text of the Constitution invalidate the Second Amendment.
ReplyDeleteAnd still a hypocrite in puffing up this piece about Blair Mountain, where......
In your eyes it was OK for armed union members to take up arms against their elected government, violating your perception of the 2nd amendment as a collective right.
You want to strip individuals of their rights..... yet puff on about union members who use those same rights.....
I think you need to reread my comments again.
ReplyDeleteI say that they did not have a right to insurrection.
You are the one saying that they do.
NOT LEGAL - EITHER SIDE - RESORTING TO VIOLENCE, firearm or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteYet the government resorts to violence/threat of violence all of the time, if they didn't who would ever pay taxes?
And are you really naive enough to think that today's government can't go bad..... and how exactly do you fight the government then? Hunt them with boar spears?
I fought the law, and the law won
ReplyDeleteI fought the law, and the law won
I fought the law, and the law won
Read your US Constitution and Federal law before making stupid comments.
Likewise, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 States:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
10 USC §331. Federal aid for State governments
Whenever there is an insurrections in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.
Unless you can say something of substance, any further comments will be deleted.
"I believe they were related to the Hatfields and McCoys of the famous feud."
ReplyDeleteIndeed they were. BTW, I married a Hatfield from Matewan. Her grandparent's generation was in the thick of it and I have heard a lot of stories and talked to some relatives that were around then.
Before I met her, my brother and I rode an old steam engine on an excursion through that valley. That was in 1987 just after the movie "Matewan" had been filmed. Then, other than an abundance of the West Virginia State Flower (the satellite dish) not a lot had changed in that region as far as houses, buildings and such--people too for that matter.
Well, Fat White Man, I hope that you understand and appreciate the reason this event should be remembered and not destroyed by the mine owners.
ReplyDeleteThat would be the ultimate humiliation.
FWM, it is great fun to be on the same side with you, and I join with Laci in commending you for the quality of your comments here. When I mentioned the Republicans, btw, I was referring to the intial commission which subsequently became the Pecora Commission / investigation. You are correct that there was bi-partisan corruption in the Blair Mountain Union era.
ReplyDeleteAlthough that is probably going to confuse even further our thoroughly confused commenter Flying Junior, LOL.
Now, on to sorting out our other commmenters, the dumbass loser right wing fringie fantasisers.
The government has the right to use force; YOU don't. There are checks and balances on that use of force, and laws and regulations directing and limiting it.
To quote, and Fisk:
said...
.....pathetic in asserting that two clauses in the main text of the Constitution invalidate the Second Amendment.
The 2nd Amendment is consistent with the main text of the U.S. Constitution. NEITHER have, ever, at any time, provided a right to bear arms against the government, or other groups of the populace. There is no inconsistency on this, not withing sections of the constitution, not between the constitution and subsequent laws like the Insurrection Act of 1807. What you claim has never existed, never been contemplated, never been enacted. There is consensus on this from the confederation of states which preceded the adoption of the constitution forward to present. Examples demonstrating that include Shay's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion, and for that matter, the civil war of the 19th century. (FYI, even right wing nut judicial activist Antonin Scalia asserts there is no right to secede, btw.)
And still a hypocrite in puffing up this piece about Blair Mountain, where......
In your eyes it was OK for armed union members to take up arms against their elected government, violating your perception of the 2nd amendment as a collective right.
You don't read well for comprehension, do you?
No, we have not claimed it was ok for the union members to take up arms. They did not take up arms against their elected government, they took up arms against the illegal private army / security forces of the mine operators - which was also illegal, on both sides.
You want to strip individuals of their rights..... yet puff on about union members who use those same rights.....
The union members had the right of peaceful assemly, and of free speech. You don't have, except in your fevered right wing nut fringe imagination, any 2nd Amendment right to defend yourself against the government with a gun, or against any organized group of people. Private militias, paramilitary groups, corporate security forces that violate the rights of union members, etc. are not legal. People aren't allowed to shoot other people in these instances, and YOU aren't allowed to shoot government people in ANY instance.
If you do, it is not guaranteed by the Constitution, AND it is defined by that document as treason.
No one can take away a right that you don't have in the first place, other than in your fevered imagination. The problem is you believe a false, fantasy right that doesn't exist any more than the tooth fairy, or star wars wookies.
No one can take away a right that you don't have in the first place, other than in your fevered imagination. The problem is you believe a false, fantasy right that doesn't exist any more than the tooth fairy, or star wars wookies.
ReplyDeleteAnd you believe in the fantasy that government has the monopoly on violence, and individual arms will never be needed against the government....
that worked out well in,
Nazi Germany, 20 million dead
Communist China, 73 million dead
Communist Russia, 61 million dead
Cambodia, 2.5 million dead
talk about living in a fantasy world....
"FWM, it is great fun to be on the same side with you, and I join with Laci in commending you for the quality of your comments here."
ReplyDeleteActually, it makes me feel a little dirty. :)
The government has the right to use force; YOU don't.
I disagree. The government has the authority to use force because we the people grant the government that authority. It is not a "right" of the government--governments don't have rights, people do.
Laci is correct when he said that insurrection is never Constitutional. However, that does not mean that insurrection is not right should the government be tyrannical. I am not specifying which particular government or set of laws but rather government in general.
Sometimes doing what is "right" is not always doing what is legal. Conversely, doing something legal does not make it "right".
Since Laci wants a cite for everything, I will use the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Not a point of law I know, but important and meaningful none the less:
"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
Wow, that's some seriously tired and inaccurate stuff there.
ReplyDeleteMost of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming in something called World War II. No gun control there.
we can trim another 20 million from your total. Take a look at China, 1935. Picture, if you will, a long, peaceful line of naive little natives queueing up to dump their guns into an industrial smelter, while off to the side, a bureaucrat with a clipboard checks their names off the list. That's the image this list would like to create. The problem is, in 1935 China was in the midst of the Age of Warlords. Even if you know nothing about Chinese history, just the name "Age of Warlords" should tip you off. It was a pistol packer's paradise, a lawless Wild West where all power flowed from the barrel of a gun.
But it's not just the ready availability of guns in China that contradicts the Big Tally. No, it's just as important what everyone was doing with all those guns -- fighting for supremacy, fighting against the Communists, fighting the Japanese. In other words, gun control or not, everyone who had a side to take had already taken sides. Everyone who wanted a gun already had a gun. The enemies of the state who were killed after 1949 weren't defenseless; they were just plain beaten.
I myself wouldn't declare the largest military machine on the planet "unable to defend itself", but by adding 20 million from the Soviet Union, you do. After all, Stalin's most infamous terror fell heavily on the Soviet Army, culling tens of thousand of officers, and executing three out of five marshals, 15 out of 16 army commanders, 60 out of 67 corps commanders and 136 out of 199 division commanders. In one bloody year, the majority of the officer corps was led away quietly and shot. It may be one of life's great mysteries as to why the Red Army allowed itself to be gutted that way, but obviously, lack of firepower can't be the reason.
It's just as hard to label the Cambodians defenseless when you remember that they had just spent five years and a half million lives trying to stop the Khmer Rouge.
I think you need to get your facts straight before you say someone is living in fantasyland.
OK,nitwit, the best reason to remember the insurrections which happened in the US is to remember their outcomes.
ReplyDeleteBetcha don't know what happened after Shays' Rebellion,the Whisky Rebellion, let alone this affair.
13,000 miners went up against a private armed force of nearly 2,000. Up to 30 deaths were reported by private army side and 50-100 on the union miners side, with many hundreds more injured. Following the battle, 985 miners were indicted for murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason against the State of West Virginia. Though some were acquitted by sympathetic juries, many were also imprisoned for a number of years, though they were paroled in 1925.
In the short term the battle was an overwhelming victory for management. UMW membership plummeted from more than 50,000 miners to approximately 10,000.
SO, your point about armed rebellion?
Sometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns.
Thanks for a fascinating post and a wonderful thread.
ReplyDeleteI'm from NJ, I never heard of this place.
Don't confuse Matawan with Matewan.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, John Sayles did write Return of the Secaucus Seven.
Most of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming in something called World War II. No gun control there.
ReplyDeleteMan you got to love you a Holocaust denier, so the 6 million Jews went down fighting, after their guns were taken away by law, and that's alright by you.
so 53 million vs 73 million in China were Mao's fault?
And guns were not outlawed till 1960' and then we get Tiananmen Square, thousands dead, murdered by the state for peacably assembling, that is with you?
They were not armed, so keep ringing that bell you retarded hypocritical fucking coward.....
And the million Irish starved by the UK during the "famine", that's OK too, as long as the govt has the monopoly on force, you're fine with that?
SO, your point about armed rebellion?
ReplyDeleteSometimes a heavily armed and determined opposition is just swept up and crushed — guns or no guns.
What is to stop declining membership from becoming "get in the boxcar"?
Most of the victims of Hitler went down kicking and screaming in something called World War II. No gun control there.
ReplyDeletemost of the six million jews did not go down kicking and screaming, imagine how different it might have been had 40% been unarmed and unregistered...
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK,
"Hey JEW!!!! OFF TO THE BOXCAR WITH YOU!!!!!", BLAMM!!!! "I
"Sorry I am not interested in traveling at this time."
and that is OK by you, since they had their guns taken away by law and did not have the means to defend themselves.
Statist whore, thy name is Laci.
Dim Anarchist asswipe, you prefer to remain anonymous so that your stupidity is not made public.
ReplyDeleteA more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law. Second, Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves “patriotic Germans” for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of “never again” is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.
If you had a brain, you'd be dangerous.
And the million Irish starved by the UK during the "famine",
ReplyDeleteIf only they had guns, they could have killed the Phytophthora infestans!
A more farfetched question is the hypothetical proposition of armed Jewish resistance. First, they were not commonly armed even prior to the 1928 Law.
ReplyDeleteWhy did the Germans find it necessary to disarm just the Jews?
Laci The Dog said...
And the million Irish starved by the UK during the "famine",
If only they had guns, they could have killed the Phytophthora infestans!
But you are a whore to the statist dogma aren't you....
The Irish were exporting food, how does a country export food lack food to feed it's population?
You know how, because it was genocide thru starvation, in the dogma of Rahm Emanual, the British didn't let a good crisis go to waste.
"FWM, it is great fun to be on the same side with you, and I join with Laci in commending you for the quality of your comments here."
ReplyDeleteActually, it makes me feel a little dirty. :)
As long as it is a fun kind of 'dirty', LOL!
The government has the right to use force; YOU don't.
I disagree. The government has the authority to use force because we the people grant the government that authority. It is not a "right" of the government--governments don't have rights, people do.
What is important here is the rule of law, whether you wish to use the term right, or authority. Government has the legal authority to exercise force that individuals, or groups other than government, do not.
Anything else is lawlessness, and insurrection, depending on the number of people involved in any particular occurrence. We have legal remedies for any errors or overreach by government, including peaceful civil disobedience and protest.
I believe we are substantially in agreement.
Shall not be infringed thinks guns are the answer to anything and everything. When pressed he says, well at least they give you a fighting chance. Typical nonsense.
ReplyDeleteBeing unarmed was the least of the problems facing the Jews before the holocaust.