Definitions and Perceptions

  I've been lurking around on different forums...

  Let me back up, I belong to very few forums, but I lurk on a great many.   Often times I find the intellectual discourse incredibly fascinating...   The best forums I think are the ones that encourage the most arguments, while avoiding trolling, or the kneejerk political responses, which always sends the particular thread into a flame war...
  Now, as entertaining as that may be, sometimes I find myself reacting up to but not quite the point where I have the intense desire to join a forum just so that I can say my peace...

  But forums are a community, and joining just to make a point is not just only a waste of time, but inherently rude.
  I have joined forums before, then continued lurking for a while, adding a post here and there, and currently, I'm a very active member of ZombieSquad, although I lurk a bit on Survival Podcast's forums, Fangoria's forums, and various niche forums, such as the wonderful teardrop trailers forums of Mikenchell.com, and the absolutely amazing forums of Expedition Portal.   Those of the VCDL and the various OpenCarry.org forums.
  I post on ZS, because I find the sense of community there unique, not only in the very warm and funny folks there, but because of the wealth of information available on everything from a budget oriented bug out bag to the very excellent advice on everything from gardening to woodcraft to firearms recommendations.
  The What Would You Do threads are occasionally brilliant (and yes, I think I've done a few good ones over time...) and the Fiction section has eaten up a great deal of my time when I should be doing other things, to the occasional irritation of my wife.
  One of the advantages of the ZS forums is within it's restrictions.
  No politics, No religion, specifically.
  This removes the flame wars, the name calling, and allows people with different belief structures to join and share information without the artificial barriers that ideology can create.

  Of course we do have our own versions, AK versus AR, (I prefer the AK) Pie versus Cake (brownies) and so on...
  It's weird...   But in the right way...

  But that's nothing about what this post is...

  Yeah, I know, what the hell is it about?

  Well, it's about forums, but not really, that's just where it started in my head.

  You see, if this post was really about the forums, I would have posted there...

  But I was reading about constitutionality on the open carry forums and began thinking of the way that the thread wound around and around.

  Personally, I believe that the rights enumerated in the constitution were written as simple and clear as possible.   It's a listing of what our founding fathers believed to be inherent inalienable human rights, and as such the constitution was created to protect those rights, but wise enough to recognize that it was not creating them.
  You see, an inherent right (given to us by our creator.... sound familiar?) is something that belongs to us all, sort of a universal truth, and the bill of rights was this fledgling governments attempt to guarantee these rights for us.
  I have found that laws inherently restrict our freedoms a little bit at a time.
  Hell, find me a law that does not restrict some aspect of our lives as written.
  The exception being the bill of rights, which in fact were written not for us, but for our government in a very real way.   They were very restrictive about what can and cannot be done by government, and listed those things that we actually have a right to (not an entitlement, not a luxury, and not anything provided).
  These aren't just american rights either, that's pretty clear, they are human rights.

  And they are constantly ignored by laws, by governments, and by well meaning, yet misguided activists who cannot see past their own agenda.

  For example, the health care deal...   Not enumerated, but seemingly on the table.   Do we have that right?
  You see, the others, Speech, Religion, Self Defense, Assembly, Etc, are those that we provide for ourselves, by our actions, by our beliefs, but we can't force others to provide it.
  Speech, we can say what we want...  Like I'm doing now, but I can't force anyone to read it.
  Religion, I can worship as I please, how I please.
  Assembly, you can't prevent me from meeting with others.
  This is the first amendment, and it requires action from me, but doesn't require action from others to make it happen.

  I could go thru the others, but suffice to say, they are individual decisions, and in case you need to, you have the 2nd amendment to secure and protect those rights.

  Which is curious as the 2nd is the one that is constantly under restrictions, almost more so than the first amendment.



  yes, I know, what the hell am I getting at.

  We have a bad habit of looking to government to secure our rights, to protect our rights, and most importantly and most dangerously, to DEFINE our rights.

  For example, when I was younger, I identified myself thru upbringing and nature as a christian.   But I was less than satisfied with the various religious organizations I approached, Catholics tended to have little patience from my (in hindsight) considerably irritating barrage of questions, I tried various baptists, methodists, etc.   I eventually led myself into the study of theology, after I threw my hands up and decided (gasp) to simply sit down and read the Bible front to back...   Took several times, but I began to understand a great deal.
  See I really didn't need to have my faith spoon fed to me, I needed to explore it, test it, expose it to different views, and like metal within a forge, I found my belief structure growing tempered, flexible but firm.   I found my path.
  To this I applied other rights (although I didn't really understand it) but it is in the exercise of those rights that they become yours.

  Churches tried to define my faith....   That was not freedom, that was structure, and spoonfed ideology.

  I understand the worth of community of like minded faithful people, but without the very personal exploration of faith on ones own, is it really yours?   Without testing the tenets, is it really strong?

  If I never say a thing, never try and write a story, write an angry letter to the editor of a newspaper, or zine, if I never carry a protest sign, if I never decided to write in this blog...   Would I really have my first amendment right?   If I didn't use it?

  If I never bought a gun, If I never carried a gun, would I still have the 2nd amendment?

  I read about the Open Carry's wins in Wisconsin, how peoples perceptions about firearms are changing and how the laws and lawmakers are following suite.

  You see...  A right not exercised, like a muscle, will atrophy and die.

  If you don't speak your mind, if you lie to yourself and say that you have nothing to say...  We all do, it may or may not make sense, hell no body might listen at all, or read it (again, like this blog) but the simple exercise of creating the thought, of writing, of reading, of learning how to shoot, of investigating faith on your own,  is YOU defining your rights, instead of simply allowing others to do it for you.

  If you let others decide what you can and can't do, you will wake up one day to discover that you have very little rights at all.

  In my state, as long as your not a felon or mentally unstable, you can buy a firearm, you can also carry it.   Not concealed, true, but openly.
  There is no restriction, save age (18 and older) and certain security places that prohibit these actions.

  But open carry is in fact the truest exercise of your 2nd amendment rights here in my state, (and constitutional carry states have us beat there, but that's Vermont, Arizona, and Alaska.  No permit required for concealed).
  Concealed carry, requires a permit, and if there is no other truer axiom, it's that what the government grants it can take away.

  Opencarry.org has changed the perception of firearms, as has many other groups, from the heavyweights to the small regional gun clubs, and that has removed a lot of the stigma from the carrying of firearms.

  Hell, even if you take an afternoon, and take a simple firearms safety course, you can rent firearms and learn about them, and then maybe never return.
  But again...  If you don't exercise the right, if you don't define your rights, to your self, than any publicly elected idiot, any movie star activist, any one with an agenda gets to define it for you.

  Laws are one thing, but it all begins with popular perception.


  Which brings me to the subject of this post...

  Perceptions....


  People bring up three primary ways of looking at the world around us, when dealing with our freedoms, our rights.

  You have Legal and illegal, you have fair and unfair, and you have right and wrong.

  The three forms of logic and thought rarely coincide with eachother and when they do, it's bare coincidence.

  Legal isn't always right, and rarely is it fair.

  Legal is a matter of law, which should apply equally to all, regardless of any defining factor (Age, race, gender, etc.)
  Fair has a way of trying to make the playing field level.   example, since your born to a low in come family and your buddy is born into wealth, is it fair that he gets a new car on his 15th birthday and you get a beater?   No.   Is it fair that he has nicer clothes?  No.   But when it comes to your rights, do you get treated equal under the law?
  Depends.
  Is it right?  Okay, Right and Wrong tend to be moral issues and are widely defined, depending on the upbringing, etc.
  So, lady justice should be blind, and the law, and more importantly our RIGHTS should be available to us, equally, right?

  Then why are so many restrictions made on our rights?

  When "cheap" handguns are taken off the market as saturday night specials, is that not restricting the ability of less fortunate people access to self defense?
  That's one simple example, and there are endless more.

  In the end, our rights have to be defined by us, by our behavior, and by our actions, in our everyday life.
  If we don't exercise them, if we don't protest, if we don't educate ourselves, if we don't carry, if we don't speak, then the very actions become rare.
  And if something isn't seen, except by those who hold to an elite class.  

  In other words, only a priest or pastor fully understands the good book,

  Only an organization such as a union, or a political group can protest, not simply a bunch of people,

  Only established writers or authors can write books,

  Only the police and the military should have guns.

  Because they are the elite in their respective fields, and if they are the only ones exercising their rights as individuals, than when John Q Public walks into a resturant with a sidearm, he is seen as possibly a criminal.
  It's why people always ask, don't you need a permit...

  Because it's unusual, and public perception means unusual is wrong.


  We've got to define our rights...

  So when I heard about people open carrying firearms being demonized because of doing something outside the norm, I thought...
  Define outside the norm.

  Our perceptions of our rights is key to their ongoing existence.   The question is, who gets to define those perceptions... You?

  Or those that seek to restrict you?


  This is not some rambling tangent....    well, okay it is, but the point is that you take anything for granted,  your rights, your friends, your family...   One day it will disappear, and every day that you ignore that fact, it gets even harder to recover.

  Don't let it go so easy, folks...

  Define your rights, define who you are, and live as free as you are able to...


  Seer....