Josh Horwitz On Insurrectionist Rhetoric
BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 6 months ago
No matter the political leanings of the perpetrator, no matter the political climate, political violence is never acceptable.
And while language alone is not to blame for this vicious shooting (see: weak laws that allow domestic abusers to purchase and possess highly lethal weapons), we must acknowledge that rhetoric — especially rhetoric espousing a violent political philosophy — can inspire such attacks.
If Republicans truly want to address such rhetoric, however, they need to start in their own camp. Because in mainstream American politics, there is no more violent philosophy than the National Rifle Association’s longstanding embrace of insurrectionism.
I have been studying, tracking, and writing about insurrectionism — violent revolt against one’s government — for years.
In my 2009 book, “Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea,” co-author Casey Anderson and I dissect the NRA’s belief that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to commit acts of violence — specifically gun violence — against government officials.
The NRA marketed this anti-democratic, insurrectionist philosophy aggressively during President Barack Obama’s time in officer.
Using myth-based fear-mongering and race-baiting, NRA leadership perpetuated the myth that Obama was planning to confiscate guns.
Gun sales soared.
Then the NRA indoctrinated GOP leaders, asking them to buy into the concept of armed political violence and spread it to their constituents.
Republicans complied …
The gunman in Alexandria resorted to “Second Amendment remedies” to deal with the tyranny he perceived under the Trump administration and the current Congress.
There is a clear parallel between the NRA’s reprehensible philosophy of insurrectionism and gunman’s horrific act of violence — the only difference is the political affiliation.
Sure. We all jump when the NRA says so. This is beginning rather stupidly, but okay, if you want to discuss insurrection, let’s do that.
All relationships on earth now and forever, whether economics, marriage, church or government, should be seen in terms of covenant. When the covenant is broken, the agreement is null and void. Furthermore, breakage of covenants doesn’t simply exonerate the guilty. There are blessings for oath-keepers and curses for the guilty. Breakage of covenant invokes said curses, whether enforced by man, God or both.
We do not obtain or receive our rights from any piece of parchment. Our rights are granted by God, and are to be recognized by men in their covenants with one another. That’s what the constitution is – a covenant. It has both blessings and curses appurtenant to it.
If you’ve heard what you consider to be “insurrectionist” talk of second amendment remedies by anyone today, it’s likely not associated with people like the murderer Hodgkinson. He was a fanboi of Rachel Maddow and a progressive willing to kill people in order to increase state control. Again, let’s rehearse what the second amendment remedy is all about.
Their experience in Presbyterian polity – with its doctrine of the headship of Christ over the church, the two-powers doctrine giving the church and state equal standing (so that the church’s power is not seen as flowing from the state), and the consequent right of the people to civil resistance in accordance with higher divine law – was a major ingredient in the development of the American approach to church-state relations and the underlying questions of law, authority, order and rights.
[ … ]
It was largely from the congregation polity of these New England puritans that there came the American concept and practice of government by covenant – that is to say: constitutional structure, limited by divine law and based on the consent of the people, with a lasting right in the people to resist tyranny.
Does that sound like Hodgkinson? No, it’s directly contrary to his world and life view, and ideas matter. The right to resist tyranny isn’t the same thing as the alleged right to impose tyranny of which Horwitz speaks, and this redounds to more than just his party affiliation.
Above I said that Hodgkinson was willing to kill people to impose tyranny. Was he really, or was this a front for something else?
Teenager Cathy Rainbolt told a judge her foster father hit her in the face when she failed to mow the lawn correctly. She got hit in the face when she argued. She got hit and dragged by the hair when she tried to get away.
Her foster father was James “Tom” Hodgkinson, who is now infamous after shooting U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, two police officers and a staffer on a Virginia ballfield Wednesday. Rainbolt told the judge that Hodgkinson drank every day.
“I didn’t mark a time when (Hodgkinson) started hitting me,” Rainbolt told St. Clair County Circuit Judge James Radcliffe during a hearing Nov. 21, 2006. “It’s been hard to live with (an alcoholic) and how (he) treated me,” Rainbolt said.
[ … ]
Cathy was the first of two Hodgkinson foster children to die young. In 1996, 17-year-old Wanda Ashley Stock, who had been living with the Hodgkinsons in Belleville for just three months, drove to a lonely rural road, doused herself with gasoline and set herself on fire.
It’s fairly well known that Scalise was after human traffickers and abusers. Was this an attempted assassination because of that? We’ll never know, but one thing is certain, morals matter.
I’ll put the collective moral constitution of the American founders up against the creepy pervert and abuser Hodgkinson any day. Despite Horwitz’ attempt at moral equivalence, he has hung himself on his own petard. His selection of a hero of the left for his points about insurrection make him look like the fool and ass clown he really is. He chose a pervert, child abuser and murderer for his moral equivalence.
That’s enough, except we are informed once again what Horwitz would do in the case of governmental genocide. He makes it clear: “No matter the political leanings of the perpetrator, no matter the political climate, political violence is never acceptable.”
Never, says he. Not in the case of the Armenian genocide, not to save the millions of people Stalin starved out of the Ukraine, not to save the Jews and Christians killed by Hitler’s minions, not to save the Christians who have been slaughtered in Mesopotamia.
Never. And thus we learn all we ever really need to know about the moral constitution inside Josh Horwitz. It’s very dark, and we’re best to stick with better men and better ideas.
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On June 23, 2017 at 2:24 am, Old Bill said:
Thanks Herschel, that’s as clear a statement of the philosophical differences at play now as I’ve read.
On June 23, 2017 at 7:27 am, Fred said:
“Using myth-based fear-mongering and race-baiting, NRA leadership perpetuated the myth that Obama was planning to confiscate guns.”
Since I’m not joining the new religion. ‘So what!’ is my answer to this.
On June 23, 2017 at 8:17 am, Pat Hines said:
All of the leadership of the Gun Confiscation Lobby organizations are from the same (((tribe))) of which Horowitz is a member.
I’m sure it’s merely a coincidence.
On June 23, 2017 at 10:42 am, Jack Crabb said:
I had a hard time reading past Horwitz’s first sentence.
Never is a long, long time, assclown. We’d still be under British rule if your advice were followed.
On June 23, 2017 at 11:37 am, Archer said:
@Jack Crabb: Horwitz believes he would be happier under British rule, I think. There’d be fewer legal guns, more government control, etc.
Of course, under British rule he’d be a nobody, and wouldn’t be allowed to spout off the nonsense he does, or at least wouldn’t be able to make such a comfortable living off it. He’d be just like every other subject of the Crown.
“Subject” being the operative word.
On June 23, 2017 at 4:31 pm, DAN III said:
Mr. Smith,
An excellent essay. Extremely well-written.
On June 23, 2017 at 7:08 pm, Joseph Martino said:
For those interested in the topic, I recommend my book, RESISTANCE TO TYRANNY. It’s a primer on how to conduct an armed revolt. Available from Amazon.
On June 23, 2017 at 7:20 pm, Swrichmond said:
Horwitz’s first sentence is the big lie, and everything that flows from it is on feet of sand. All politics is violence. Violence is the absolute foundation of all political action. Absent violence, there is no political action. “Voting” simply puts a middle man between Joe sixpack and the violence.
If you don’t believe me, next time you get pulled over for speeding, tell the cop to piss off.
On June 23, 2017 at 11:32 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Still waters do indeed run deep, and nowhere did that apply more than in the recently-concluded eight-year regime of Barack Obama, a man who left office expressing as his greatest regret that he and his people didn’t get “more done on guns.”
In order to really understand Obama’s motives for seeking gun control and firearms confiscation, we have to go to the early 1970s and the heyday of the Weather Underground, the domestic “direct action” and terror group run by none other than Bill Ayers, later to be one of Barack Hussein Obama’s best friends and political mentors.
Ayers and his associates in the group specialized in making and setting bombs, and had killed on a number of occasions by this method. The group was centered around revolutionary Marxism as its animating philosophy – the Weather Underground sought to overthrow the constitutional republic of the United States and replace it with a Marxist utopia of their own design.
Ayers and his top lieutenants, including the woman who later became his wife – Bernardine Dohrn – spoke often of the measures which would be necessary to create this new utopia – including the possibility of having to liquidate as many as twenty-five million Americans, those “too resistant” to communist reeducation to be salvaged for the revolution. These statements are not conjectured to exist; they are known to be factual – thanks to Larry Grathwohl, an FBI mole inside the group.
Combine Ayers’ statements and the Islamo-Marxism of Barack Obama, and you arrive at a very dark place. The Muslims and the Marxists both want to destroy the United States for their own reasons, but they share this primary goal and therefore find themselves allies.
The blunt fact of the matter is that the Second Amendment was severely-tested during the eight long years of Obama, Ayers and company – and it performed exactly as intended. We can only speculate as to what fate would have befallen us had their efforts at disarmament succeeded, but the fate of Europe in the present day provides at least a suggestion as to what they had in mind – or perhaps something much, much worse.
On June 24, 2017 at 12:01 am, SFC Steven M Barry USA RET said:
“It was largely from the congregation polity of these New England puritans that there came the American concept and practice of government by covenant…”
Which I will agree is perfectly Puritan, and thus perfectly not Christian. But it is perfectly revolutionary, and thus perfectly Puritan.
S//
On June 24, 2017 at 12:05 am, Herschel Smith said:
@ Steven,
It might be an interesting conversation to have with you, if you had actually said anything.
On June 24, 2017 at 4:55 am, Ststephen said:
Here lies Lester Moore four slugs from a .44 no Less no More.
On June 24, 2017 at 7:46 am, mtnforge said:
This is cute:
“…I have been studying, tracking, and writing about insurrectionism — violent revolt against one’s government — for years…”
Hey motherfucker, hope you are reading this. Your lie belies your lyin’ arse. You conveniently forgot the one “insurrection” of “violent revolt” that matters. They call it The American Revolution.
It worked.
It was legitimate.
Moral in a way like moral never has been.
And a greasy dissimulating lying toad like you is the reason why you never give up your guns.
Thank you for refreshing my resolve.
On June 24, 2017 at 7:56 am, mtnforge said:
This arsehole who wrote this propaganda conveniently left out the one truth that puts BS on his agitprop.
He wouldn’t have the beautiful idea of liberty called freedom of speech in the first place to write lies like this.
It was exactly because guns and people who use them in defense of their liberty in the first place, that gave him such liberty.
And why, is it all the cunning deeply sinister proponents of marxism and destruction of the West, never minds marxism’s creation, always of Jewish heritage?
On June 24, 2017 at 10:56 am, ApoloDoc said:
Herschel, this is another outstanding piece of work! You continue to shine light into the dark for those who choose to see. Then there are those like the SFC who want to worship Mary and pray to dead humans, all to support one of the largest pedophile organizations on the planet. By not understanding Scripture and the history of the Church (universal, not Roman), he continues down his ill conceived path.
But what else should one expect from fallen humanity? Violence will continue to escalate until the return of our Lord. It is the way of fallen man.
On June 24, 2017 at 1:04 pm, Paul Bonneau said:
“political violence is never acceptable.”
What a lying twat. Government could not exist without political violence. As Harry Browne noted, violence is the sole item that distinguishes what government does, from what can be accomplished in the free market. Try not paying your taxes, see what happens to you.
On June 24, 2017 at 1:53 pm, Ned said:
One common denominator for idiots like Horwitz – they pretend to hate “violence” and “guns.” They truly don’t. They love guns solely in the hands of government agents, and violence perpetrated solely by governments.
Take a look at the unloaded or uncocked Mauser rifles in the hands of soldiers helping Jewish Germans onto cattle cars, and you can almost hear Horwitz et al cucking about obeying the law and the government agents. Besides, it’s just a short train ride, and work will set us free.
No need for violence – political or otherwise, right??
On June 24, 2017 at 2:10 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@ApoloDoc,
Oh. Is that what that’s all about with the SFC? Well, in seminary my professor(s) compared what we were taught against the local RC seminaries, and we learned more about the Council of Trent than the RC students did, because they wanted us to know what the other side taught as well as WCF (with Scripture proofs). I could debate this, but I suspect that’s not wanted.
But one thing is for sure, despite the infusion of Lockean philosophy in Franklin and Jefferson, the American war of independence wouldn’t have worked without the philosophical underpinnings from the pulpit, which had as it’s basis reformed covenant theology.
Before picking up arms, every man must evaluate his world and life view, the moral foundation of said actions, or else it’s just another Machiavellian endeavor, no different than Antifa and their present insurrection. We’re different. Or we should be. That’s my main point. Otherwise, Horwitz has a point.
On June 24, 2017 at 4:02 pm, Scott said:
Herschel, thanks for speaking to the RC vs WCF positions. You say you could debate this but that probably isn’t what’s wanted, but it probably is wanted more than you think, and it is necessary. The readers need a lot more exposure to catechism. I know the main purpose of this blog is 2nd Amendment issues. But we truly need to get back to our founding faith and pass that on to our kids, or this will be a vain matter of the late boomers and early gen-xers living out the rest of our lives, preaching to the choir, followed by the tyranny we dread for our kids and grand kids.
On June 24, 2017 at 10:57 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Scott,
I suspect that you overestimate the level of interest in hard issues like that. At any rate, like you and my other readers, I have to work hard for a living. By the time I’ve handled the issues of the day at work and home, I can barely squeak out one or two posts.
And no one will pay me or you to do that sort of thing. So we trudge wearily along hoping that our modest efforts reap dividends.