The Politics of Parkland

The horrors that took place in Parkland, Florida last month have locked onto the public’s imagination and dominated the conversation. The cumulative effect of mass killings on soft targets has clearly taken a toll on our nation. Where does the conversation start? Columbine? Virginia Tech?

Amnesia about the past.

The circumstances are so extreme, a significant and very vocal plurality are provoking a discussion on security vs. freedom. It’s so old, it’s new. And it’s dangerous. Because as Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

The endgame for the Left is clear:  agents and servants of The State, and only the State will be allowed to carry firearms.

The United States was founded on some pretty basic but overarching principles. Among them:

1. Rights flow from God to man, by-passing the State.

If we accept that The State is the grantor of rights, then we also accept that we are no longer citizens, but subjects. It’s a distinction with a significant difference.

2. Limits on Government are vital.

The Founders knew that The State exists to perpetuate itself. Its co-requisite goal is the acquisition and maintenance of power. Those that serve The State as opposed to their nation will work to achieve this end. Without significant limits, those who serve The State have no incentive to check their worst impulses.

Minuteman Statue, Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania National Guard.

3. An armed citizenry is vital to liberty.

At the time of The Founding, history was replete with governments disarming their people, paving the way for oppression. Since then, it’s only gotten worse.  We ignore the obvious at our peril: your government is kept in check by 300 million privately owned firearms.

It’s always about “public safety.”

When a military junta took over Greece in April 1967, they issued an edict confiscating all guns and ammunition “for inspection.”  Uh-huh.

The Government of the Philippines confiscated weapons in September 1973. The aim, in the word of Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, was to create a “gun-free society.”  The decades of turmoil that followed should have served as a lesson to all.

In 1990, as the Soviet Union was collapsing under it’s own weight, the Baltic state of Lithuania declared its independence. The response by the Soviet Government? President Mikhail Gorbachev, the darling of liberals everywhere, ordered the seizure of firearms. Reading about this got me to scratching my head. How many privately owed firearms could there have been? Lithuania was already a Soviet Bloc country. Never the less, this seems to be the reaction of Statists everywhere whether from the Left or the Right. When the pesky people attempt to exercise their God-given rights, the call goes out – “Quick, grab their guns!”

It’s better than addressing the actual problem, of course.

Since the horrors of Parkland, we’re learned that the local police did a terrible job before during and after. The local school board was all-in on the Social Justice disaster of not reporting crimes committed by students, thus manipulating the statistics in seeking Federal funding. The FBI totally blew off multiple calls about the killer. This is not question or a conspiracy theory – they’ve admitted it quit publicly.

Now all the institutions responsible for this are attempting to put the blame on the National Rifle Association, like so many squid frantically releasing ink into the water in order to cloud their systemic failures.

Only in the movies…

Given the “no-arrest” policy signed between the school district and local law enforcement (oh, you didn’t know about that?), it should not surprise to anyone if Deputy Scot Peterson was told to stand down. This was not a movie or a cop show. There are no mavericks on the Force.

The Myth.

We all love to live vicariously through the hero. We want to cheer on the guy refusing to play by the rules, yet adhering to his own code of honor as he takes down the bad guys. Or how about the roundhouse kicking empowered woman taking down fellas twice her size?   Yeah, none of this going to happen. And not just because it’s implausible.  Because mavericks get killed, or worse, lose your pension.

In Scot Peterson’s case, he resigned and took his pension in return for Sheriff Scott Israel throwing him under the bus. You’re going to judge that man? I would have taken the same deal, and so would you.

No Crisis Going To Waste…

The instantaneous response from the Left is breathtaking. From the staged outrage and rallies, to the handpicked spokespeople, this has all the markings of a well-coordinated political campaign.

What should be obvious to all is that Left has this infrastructure in place. The coordination and staging of resources leads one to believe that an attack like this was anticipated – not the particular attack in Parkland, but some attack.

It’s easy to say this stinks of George Soros and his ilk, but I suspect there is something more to all of this.

The Players.

The term “crisis actor” resonates with the Left and has the mainstream media in a panic. It’s effective because it’s true and therefore gets under their skin. I’ve seen hostage videos that are more convincing than the child-soldiers the Left is trotting out.

Grieving Students take a moment for the all-important selfie before going out to speak with the press.

Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg are not “Crisis Actors” in the sense that they were bused in. They are residents of the Florida and students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

They are however, obnoxious at the core, stemming from a self-righteous totalitarian worldview. Clearly handpicked, members of the Drama/TV club and apparently already dialed in to Leftist Activism. Embedded in an anti-liberty ideology that allows for no dissent, they have ecstatically given themselves over to The State. Seventeen years old and they’re already evil to the spleen.

Backstage at the Ellen Show. Picture, meet 1,000 words.

Holes In The Narrative.

Who let Nikolas Cruz into the School?

All through my children’s elementary, middle, and high school years, it appeared as though they spent their day inside a fortress. On every occasion I visited, I encountered two-inch steel doors, ballistic glass, and magnetic locks. As a uniformed serviceman of 28 years, my assessment was that lite anti-armor weapons would be required to breach the fortifications.

In case that wasn’t enough, I always had to talk my way past a security camera and a just-short-of-hostile disembodied voice. And I had to show I.D. So my question is, how did Nikolas Cruz make his way past this? Who buzzed him in? And why, when I put the question in the Google search engine all I get in response are non-sequiturs? I ask again, who let Nikolas Cruz, a well-known threat, into Stoneman Douglas High School that day?

No Video.

Cameras are everywhere. Everyone carries one. It’s why we’ve done away with crypto-zoology like Loch Ness and Big Foot. Seen any extra-terrestrial objects in the sky lately? (Except for those really clever video-shopped clips on Daily Motion, of course).

In this narcissistic age where the Story is all about Us, there is an inexplicable dearth of photos and videos of Cruz carrying out his atrocities.

The Witness.

Parkland School Teacher Stacy Lippel saw a gunman dressed in full SWAT gear firing down the hallway as she courageously shepherded children into her classroom. You can watch her in-studio interview with ABC News here.

According to Lippel, the actual police showed up 45 minutes to an hour after the gunman left the hallway. 45 minutes… to an hour. Did Lippel actually see Cruz in full SWAT gear, or is this a case of simply seeing what one expects to see after hearing gunfire? We may never know because (yes, I’m going keep hammering this) apparently, of the over 2,800 portable video recorders carried to school that day, miraculously none of them managed to capture what was surely a defining point in the lives of all present.

Regardless, Lippel’s courage under fire – literally – certainly saved more lives, both in terms of intent and results, than the actions – or should we say – the inactions of Federal and local authorities. While men with guns were cringing behind their cruisers waiting for 30-1 odds to show up, she was braving a hail of bullets to save the children under her charge. Given the number of Parkland parents who did not outlive their children that day because of her, Lippel should never have to pay for a meal for rest of her life.

The Second Amendment.

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.

This, more than any other words in the founding documents have managed to ensure our liberty. Many have asserted that the amendment is talking about the Militia and only the Militia (today’s National Guard). This could not be farther from the truth.

The Second Amendment is there to preserve the pre-existing right of individuals to keep and bear arms. It does not bestow that right. It assumes the right is in place and restrains the government from jacking with it. And the militia? At the founding this meant every able-bodied male past his 16^th year.This should still hold true today, but in a world of man-buns and Gender Studies, the paradigm may have changed for good.

Opponents of freedom also use the 18^th century syntax in order to pretend they don’t understand it’s meaning. A simple update fixes this:

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

That should clear things up even for the most obtuse.

Closing thoughts…

At this point, every reasonable person agrees that Scot Peterson should have embraced his toxic masculinity. The story of Parkland might have been altered for the better.  I don’t know what the qualifications of a School Resource Officer are.   One of my brothers-in-law is a decorated police sergeant and works security at a private school on his days off for a little extra scratch, so clearly some are true bad-asses. In Scot Peterson’s case, complacency apparently set in, and just as likely, he was picked for the job because no one wanted him doing real police work.

The locals are in full CYA mode. At least the FBI admitted to blowing this. Last year they investigated a school shooting threat made on YouTube but could not identify the person behind it – despite Nikolas Cruz using his real name.

If there is any hope for Liberty, it is because the agents of the Left used up every arrow in their quiver the first week and now he public at large is fatigued by their incoherence.

Sheriff Scott Israel outlines his brilliant leadership style: “I gave him a gun, I gave him a badge. I gave him the training. If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility.”

The pictures of the Parkland celebrity students smiling together in the wake of a tragedy are downright creepy.

Can we please stop using the word “survivor?”  Let’s save the term for those who actually had to dodge bullets, shall we?

Everyone says “don’t politicize” the issue.  But then everyone does anyway.

For a Statist there is no lie and no truth. There is only the agenda.

Selah.

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