Date: Thu, 02 Oct 1997 12:40:47 -0600
From: Marilyn Hosness (mquixote@ix.netcom.com)
To: cybrgbl@deltanet.com
Subject: Please support the FULL Bill of rights
I bumped into your website while searching for John Donne's meditation, which I've bookmarked - nice job! And wanted to pass on that there are
a great many of us that one may call "ultra-conservative" who are
fighting tooth and nail to keep freedom of speech on the internet. We
are also doing everything we can to preserve our 2nd amendment rights:
to keep and bear arms. Alas, so many who seek freedom of speech balk
when we speak of the need to keep our teeth, as well as our tongues.
So, I ask humbly that when you have a chance, listen to us. What do we
do if laws to register and confiscate firearms are passed? I suggest
that civil disobedience under that scenario would be much riskier than
merely putting pictures on websites. And if you are inclined to think
"it won't happen here", be sure to see the recent film "Waco: The Rules
of Engagement", for it already has. Again, please listen to us!
Blessings,
Marilyn
Dear Marilyn,
First of all, thank you for the nice words about my webpages. As I support the 1st amendment constitutional right to free speech, so would I preserve our 2nd amendment right to keep and bear arms. My webpage was recently investigated for over a month by the Los Angeles Police Department for the most petty of reasons, and more than ever do I find great wisdom in our ironclad constitutional protections against the arrogance of power.
However, neither would I argue that we have - or should have - complete freedom. It is, and should be, illegal to shout "fire!" in a crowded theater. And while I believe every adult citizen in good legal standing should be able to purchase and own a handgun, shotgun (as I do), or hunting rifle, I do not support public ownership of assault rifles, machine guns, flame throwers, or grenade launchers. The needs of individual citizens need be reconciled with those of society. I am not terribly in disagreement with the laws on gun ownership at the present moment. That might change, and in such a case I will politic against those changes in the same way I did against the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which was recently struck down as unconstitutional.
And, as for Waco and the dubious David Koresh, I will never see him as anything but a KOOK who went AT LEAST 50% of the way towards picking a fight with the government. When federal agents show up at your doorstep with a warrant signed by a judge, the proper place to fight it out is in open court through legal means and not with gunplay in open combat. If it were not for the presence of women and children, I would have supported the government calling in air strikes against the heavily-armed and barricaded Branch Davidian compound in the Waco standoff. Nobody emerged from that fracas with much honor - least of all that megalomaniac David Koresh. I do not mourn his passing nor do I see him as a martyr.
The foundation of Western civilization since the 17th century social-contract theorists Hobbes and Locke has been the primacy of politicking and law over the barbarity of violence and revolution. And, even in the worst instances of misbehavior by the government, we are a long way today in America from the tyranny of King George III, Adolf Hitler, or a Josef Stalin, where violent resistance and organized insurrection is warranted and morally defensible.
In resorting to violent confrontation rather than political persuasion, I hold Randy Weaver, David Koresh, Tim McVeigh, and the other miscellaneous militia members to be enemies of free society and thinking people everywhere and NOT defenders of freedom. I wonder if such unfortunate ideas and those that think them up are not the inherent product of owning more gun racks than bookshelves.
I hope this e-mail finds you well.
Very Truly Yours,
Richard Geib
From: TheBarrowsGang@webtv.net (bonnie-clyde)
Date: Fri, 7 May 1999 23:51:25 -0400 (EDT)
To: Richard Geib
Subject: I took the time to read your article and----
I am one of the militia you critize and a friend of the Weavers although I do not share their racial beliefs. I own 32 assualt weopons and over a thousand books--so where does my family fit in to your ultimate solution. Will you kill me for my weopons or my knowledge ? Is it because I keep 10 thousand rounds in the house or because I studied history enough to realize that the end of this society is days away. I do not flaunt my power on any stage yet you percieve me to be the threat. I sir --perceive you and the goverment as a threat to our very existince. I hope you sleep well knowing that since you refuse to be part of the solution than you are the problem !!! Does this letter make the bullseye on my chest any clearer for you ?
Sincerely
Joey E. Rosenberg
One day they will go down together --they will bury them side by side --to a few it will be grief --to the law a relief----but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde
Dear Joey,
I see neither you nor the other gun-crazy oddballs running around in the Rocky Mountains to be much of a "threat." There are too few of you to make any real trouble and your ideas are too enfeebled to pose any real challenge to what I see as central and indispensable to this country. If you wanted to capture people's attention and garner the Public Enemy Number #1 label you seem to crave, you would rob banks or go shoot the local sheriff. Then I would consider you a threat and breath a sigh of relief when the government takes you down. As it is, you are most likely rusticating out in the hills where nobody much thinks about you, your family, or your fate. Who cares?
Your attempt to inflate your willingness to die over the right to bear military style assault weapons into an epic confrontation between good and evil is laughable. Your "Bonnie and Clyde" posture and hopes to leave this world in "a cloud of gun smoke" attitude are adolescent and vain. Unfortunately, it is also very American. Look at the recent shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado! Look at Bonnie and Clyde and dozens of other outlaws and scofflaws in American history! I have always hated that rebellious pose, felt ashamed of this strain in the national character. Grow up!
But I wish neither you nor your family ill. In my "ultimate solution," you would work to help build up this country and live in accordance with the law of the land -- or politic peacefully or go to jail to change that law, if you feel strongly enough about it. But in pondering your puerile e-mail I sense the stench of apocalyptic millennial cults and other screw loose groups that construct self-fulfilling prophecies for themselves and others. As do you, I fear a bad end for you and your family. You are intent on making a statement in your demise; but the only possible lesson I perceive is how incredible it is that you are willing to sacrifice everything (your life, the lives of your family) for something so utterly unworthy of it (32 assault weapons, 10,000 rounds of ammunition; firearm laws) in this confrontation you seem to desire with the government. In this wide, beautiful world with so much to offer you barricade yourself in the hills armed to the teeth and feed from paranoid fantasies and doomsday scenarios conjured up in your overactive imagination. How sad!
I bet 5-1 odds you have made such a morbid meal of violent martyrdom out of your demise and death because you have nothing more positive to contribute to the commonweal by your living and prospering. I dare you to prove me wrong!
Sincerely,
Richard
P.S. Your missive once again proves how nearly without fail I receive the most inane messages of all from WebTV e-mail addresses.
From: TheBarrowsGang@webtv.net (bonnie-clyde)
Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 21:19:40 -0400 (EDT)
To: Questions-feedback@rjgeib.com
Subject: Re: I took the time to read your article and----
Back to that old saying of "When you assume, you make an ass out of
yourself. We do not live in the Rockies although I know the country well. We are
in Virginia, You know"The gunrunners state" I first wrote you because you shocked me
by advocating killing( or airstrikes ) against anything that you don't
understand. With this attitude you show your ignorance( for fear
is mostly ignorance ) The govermment uses the media to demonize people
so the public seems happy to see them gone--a tactic deplored in the
Holocaust, Waco, and Ruby Ridge. You would have to be a fool not see it.
As far as my family--we live in harmony with our neighbors outside a town of 500 people. We are self supporting and we work and pay taxes just like you. We hate our goverment and the
criminals who run it but we carry on despite the thieves. We enjoy growing our own non-taxable
food,tobacco,animals and wine. (white liquer too, for personnal use
only) We have no use for you and don't expect a damn thing from anyone.
But people like you will be the first ones begging on my door when the times get
hard. The difference between you and us is--In our world we make
allowances for people like you and in yours, you would play Hitler and
exterminate us. That is your "ultimate solution" If it doesn't fit or
disagrees with us than "kill it"!! In a way I pity you for being so
ignorant but if you should send your storm troopers to my mountain--than send yor prayers and eulogies with them --for the body count will be much higher than 4 or 5. I am like a rabbit ,harmless, till you stick your hand in my den. At that point you threaten my way of life and my
family.
As far as going to jail to prove a point--- There is no justice left--it was sold to the highest bidder. I let no man sit in judgement of me--only God. I will not submit to the authority of criminals.
I don't believe because I use a web to communicate because it was
cheaper that it makes me less intelligent than you. I have a computer
also but this is faster and cheaper. It just means I have a thousand
dollars more than you do after we bought the same items. I hope you look
into your soul and quit advocating violence against that which you are
unable to understand !
Sincerely Joey E. Rosenberg
One day they will go down together --they
will bury them side by side --to a few it will
be grief --to the law a relief----but it's death for Bonnie and Clyde
Dear Joey,
The hills of Idaho... the hills of Virginia. From what you tell me, there doesn't seem a big difference between the mind sets of persons like yourself in either place.
The only reason I advocated calling in air strikes on Koresh's compound is because he was barricaded in there with heavy military weapons and was shooting at the authorities. If Koresh wants to fight that way, the government can take off the gloves and respond in kind. I would not have, however, supported such a strong reaction by the government before Koresh and his followers killed federal agents bearing lawful warrants who sought to arrest him. Koresh could have had a lawyer and his day in court, but he decided to directly challenge the government. He was not to be put in a concentration camp nor exiled to a gulag after some kangaroo court trial. Get real!
I spend roughly a week or two every year hiking in the California Sierra Nevadas and never have any trouble with the people up in the mountains there; but few of them have the beef with the outside world you and characters like Koresh seem to have. The people up in the California Sierras also, thankfully, lack your persecution complex. That Uncle Sam wants to herd people like yourself into concentration camps is ludicrous and laughably self-important. You reach out into the conspiracy theory area, counting down the days until the post-apocalypse Mad Max Thunderdome-era is upon us. You really should get out more.
You seem to have a passive-aggressive reaction to the U.S government. You hate them, yet still pay your taxes and enable the system to continue. But you refuse to obey other laws and hold the attitude that you are not beholden to follow the rules like everyone else -- simply because you live in the hills. (I don't managed to follow the law 100% of the time either, but you don't hear me blaming the government for that or claiming myself exempt from the rules.) It would be more consistent if you simply stood up to the evil sell-outs in Washington D.C. and refused to give them your money. Either that or make your peace with Uncle Sam. You will not "submit to the authority of criminals" but then you kid yourself that you live in your own sovereign territory where you need answer to nobody but "God." Outside of your imaginary universe and back on planet earth, you are a citizen of a free country enjoying certain ironclad legal protections but bearing certain responsibilities as well; nevertheless, like a big guppy in a small fish bowl you live by choice in a tiny corner where you are unable to see beyond the horizon. I would not have any argument against your decision to live thusly, if you had not such the dogmatic conviction that the rest of the world was out to get you. Hangs about you the fear of influence, fear of dependence, fear of the outsider -- this is the fear (and the affliction) of a savage, not of culture or a person who belongs to the human family, which is all continuity, all echo of connections past and present.
Ironically, the people with whom I have had substantial contact that you remind me of most of all are gangmembers from Los Angeles: alienated and isolated, resentful and suspicious, uninterested and largely clueless about the larger world around them. "This might be a dump where I live, but it is my dump! To hell with everyone else!" they pronounce, enfolded in the womb of self-isolating community. These self-destructive provincial roustabouts likely to come to a bad end, always smoldering with one fire or another and spitting in the teeth of the larger world! Seemingly like you, instead of accepting the responsibilities and rights of citizenship they ascribe to a pre-modern loyalty to the tribe and tribalism. "I love me and mine! But the rest of the world can go to hell!" And more often than not they also e-mail me from Web-TV addresses. Maybe it is a coincidence. Maybe not.
You live as you see fit; but if you raise a gun against the government, then may God help you. You don't need to like the government, but you need to obey the law. If you think you and your neighbors have seceded from the United States, you are wrong. The folks down in Virginia tried that once already and
it didn't go over so well.
I see this as the end of our "discussion."
Sincerely,
Richard
