United Liberty

Every culture has its romantic ideal.  In Europe, it’s the knight.  In the Middle East, it’s the army of Saladin.  In the United States, it’s still the cowboy.  The heroic lone wolf, standing for what is right amidst a sea of contradictions and solves the problems of the world all on his lonesome.  The outward display of that figure, the six-gun dangling from his hip, his fingertips just millimeters from it, is primarily the work of fiction.  There have been far more Hollywood showdowns at high noon than the real Old West.

Instead, the ideal itself, the rugged individualist, has taken a tremendous beating over the years.  We are being conditioned to shut up and take whatever is dealt to us.  Instead of conditioning people to be Marshal Dillon, our young people are being taught to be the damsel in distress.

Recently, the State of Indiana Supreme Court ruled that a man doesn’t have a right to resist law enforcement entering your home without your consent, or a warrant.  It spurred up a firestorm of controversy, but it’s hardly the first move in this direction.

For years, there have been states that have what is called a “retreat first” law.  These laws require someone to try to leave the site of a potential violent encounter rather than permitting them to defend themselves.  This also includes retreating from your own home should someone break in.  You, the lawful citizen, must act in a manner that empowers the criminal element.  Thank God Georgia isn’t one of those states.

The moves all push towards creating a nation of docile subjects who turn to the state for the answers to their problems.  There are arguments now that guns aren’t necessary because the police will protect us.  Of course, the Supreme Court case Castle Rock v. Gonzales says otherwise.

That case says that the police have no requirement to protect you.  In that case, a woman with a restraining order against her estranged husband wanted the police to protect her three small children.  She did what some folks would have you do when facing a potential threat.  She went through the steps.  She got a restraining order and, when it was violated, she called the police.  Multiple times.  The result?  Her three daughters were found murdered by the father after he was killed after starting a shootout with police.  And yet, this is what some folks – including some in positions of power – would have all of us do.

In this tragedy can be said to do anything positive, it has shown us that becoming a nation of sheep as some would have us be won’t work out in our benefit.  We can move out of the way of the police simply because the want entry.  We can retreat from the bad guys.  However, we still won’t be able to hold the state accountable.  We, the law abiding citizens, need to stand up and say “No more!”  We will need to draw a line in the sand and tell the statists that we will not give another inch in this direction.  Compromise has its place, but not here.  Not any longer.

With hope, perhaps we can raise our children to understand that we do not need the state to intervene for us.  That we should step up and help our neighbors after a disaster instead of waiting for FEMA.  We should step up and help those less fortunate instead of accepting that welfare programs will take care of them.  And, on the same token, we should encourage people to fend for themselves as well.

We need a shift in the culture of this country, one that takes us away from a nation of sheep and returns to that mythic ideal.  I’m under no illusions that the cowboy of history is nothing like the cowboy of our mythology, yet it is the mythological one that has captured the imagination of the world and has represented Americans for better or for worse.  I say we embrace the individualism and toughness embodied in the myth and build upon it for a brighter future.