Silence may only very rarely take a life, and then not by it self, but silence can cost a life, many lives in fact, and leave others to live in fear. In the case of silently accepting the loss s of our First, and Second amendment rights this is not even all that hard to imagine. A car jacking, home invasion, or assault by a gang that can not effectively be opposed, or indeed, even the inability to object to a given gang or group because they are politically protected, are but a very few of the easily grasped ways a loss of our protected rights could cost lives, and worst of all, those lost lives would most likely be the lives of the innocent, law abiding, and responsible people, or worse still, the helpless among us those people would protect.
I will never judge who should speak, or if a given person should speak at all, much less when or how. Some of us however must begin to speak, when, and where we can. Not because it suddenly became safe in the short term to do so, but because it has become life threatening in the long term to allow the silence to continue.
It extends beyond the upcoming election as well, even if that election is won in favor of our rights, the rights will continue to be assaulted, relentlessly, because the authors of this assault feel no opposition, hear no sustained and determined voices against it, and more importantly, neither does their mislead and growing rank and file. It is not even known how many are left who would support and defend our way of life and the constitution set up to safeguard it. Censorship and silencing have already begun, and are even now well entrenched, openly practiced and lauded under a litany of thin excuses. It may once have been wise to be reserved, quiet, and cautious, but that time has now passed if we wish to preserve our rights, and we may have but this one, difficult and unpleasant opportunity left to insist our side, our voices, are heard, before so much ground has been lost as to make it , literally, illegal. A strong argument could even be made this very minute that we are nearly already there.
Right now we will get unwanted attention, be reviled at first, and some will even receive unjust sanctions, but we still have our rights, at least most of them, and it’s time we use them, or we will, clearly, loose them.
I do not suggest this lightly, not at all, but I would like none the less to suggest it. - Can we not, Should we not, as part of our preparation for future troubles and attacks, lay the ground work to protect our ability to protect our families and ourselves, by beginning to discuss how we can speak for the truth, debunk the perverted ideas, and stand for the rights of everyone, rather than sacrificing the rights of some to affirm the rights of others. If we refuse to take some heat when we can, I fear, we will loose our last opportunity, and soon after, our right to a self defense, and the effective means to provide for it. A loss that I am now convinced will ultimately extend beyond physical self defense, and come to include all manner of things, even culture and freedom of thought.
If we don’t defend our rights now, we will not be able to defend our families later, so, how can we begin to do that?
