New York Times columnist Stanley Fish states that Mattie Ross, the main character in “True Grit,” proceeds in the face of outlaws, rattlesnakes and other adversity because “she has faith in the righteousness of her path, a path that is sure despite the absence of external guideposts.”
All the while, Mattie is armed with her deceased father’s pistol.
Some residents of Federal Way (along with America’s elite opinion-makers) believe that life choices (like when and with whom to have sex) are predicated upon an absence of external guideposts. Under such a “value” system, Jared Lee Loughner or Charles Manson’s choices in life may be just as “sure” as the old-fashioned ethic that compelled Mattie to go searching for her father’s killer in Indian country.
Mattie is a virtuous young lady determined to find her father’s killer regardless of the risk. Progressives would recommend that Mattie talk about her grief, develop new relationships and stop repressing her adolescent sexual impulses so that she can accept the loss of her father and adjust to modern society. But the old-timers called Mattie’s moral courage “grit.”
Progressives believe that there are really no absolutes. Progressives believe that law, morals and matters of sexual conduct are subject to constant change through a process of modernization that is understood best by a few highly enlightened thinkers who tend to be critical of any existing state of affairs.
Margaret Sanger was an early progressive and an advocate of unrestrained sexual freedom. She founded Planned Parenthood in order to advance an agenda that was meant to ensure that inferior people did not reproduce, while liberating women from unwanted pregnancies. She also proclaimed unequivocally that African-Americans were inferior.
Eugenics had many notable adherents, including progressives like Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and Germany’s Nazi Party. President Woodrow Wilson was an early progressive who turned back some real progress blacks had been making toward equal status with other Americans after the Civil War. Many states in the U.S. sterilized poor people, the feeble-minded and people of color until the 1970s. Politicians with no external guideposts tend to implement “progressive” policies that make them dangerous to themselves and others.
It should come as no surprise, with all the shocking outcomes that have resulted from “progressive” policies, that progressives don’t want you and I to have guns. An armed and obviously disturbed teenager from Arkansas like Mattie Ross would be the progressives’ poster child for eliminating private gun ownership and bad DNA from the gene pool.
You may believe that changing our legal framework, promoting sexual freedom and centralizing economic decisions are all necessary for American society. DNA control may also be the ultimate social frontier. But if you share my prejudice in favor of protecting life and freedom, then the racism and other baggage historically associated with the progressive agenda is one good reason to train well and keep your guns close.
But don’t send me nasty messages insinuating that we are trying to create a climate of hate in Federal Way. We have launched an Armed Defense Training Association to better train ourselves and our neighbors to defend against violent criminals that would kill elected officials, much like Loughner tried to do in Tucson. We invite any honest, sound-minded person who is interested to come to the Federal Way 320th Library at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 26, and talk to us about what we are planning to do. We will prohibit involvement in our association, however, by individuals that advocate violence of any kind. Anyone, regardless of creed, who thinks he or she can further a cause by breaking the law — no matter how beneficial, patriotic or religious — will not be welcome.
Federal Way resident Mark Knapp: knapp.m@comcast.net. Also visit http://firearmslawyer.net.
