Can a post be both dead on the money and piercingly astute—yet totally, cluelessly oblivious and ambivalent simultaneously?

Over the past several years, as the woke cultural revolution intensified, conservative conversations focused on the Second Amendment as the final defense against the tyranny that may result as progressives march toward authoritarian-style government. In response, right-leaning and independent-minded citizens have shown up at protests to exercise those Second Amendment rights by posturing with firearms and assorted tactical equipment. Regardless of the prudence involved in such actions, we are now treading on new ground.

Following the November 3 election and subsequent January 6 protest at the Capitol, the current regime set out to eliminate political opposition by casting them as “white supremacists” and “domestic extremists.” They intend to use the legal authorities, tactics, and techniques that were previously employed against Al Qaeda and ISIS against those ordinary Americans who refuse to accept the ruling elite’s political ideology.

Simply put, the most deadly counterterrorism machine from the world’s most powerful country is coming for you. You, ordinary American, are the target.

Good on ya, son. I’m with you a hunnerd and ten percent so far.

Now is not the time for impotent tough talk and posturing with weapons at protests.

Uhhh, wait, whut?!?

The Second Amendment, and all of our rights, are critical to a free society, and we should seek to understand how best to exercise and defend them from authoritarian factions of the ruling elite.

By…preemptively vowing we’ll never exercise them? Are you seriously proposing that patriots should effectively disarm themselves by placing use of the 2A for the purpose it was explicitly and specifically intended off-limits and out of bounds? If you really, truly consider the 2A to be as “critical” as all that, there would be no lengths to which a patriot wouldn’t go to defend it—much less restore it. Which is where we all are now, frankly.

This is the time to get smart on how to counter this assault on liberty and avoid falling into the traps the ruling elite are setting for traditional America.

Fair enough, especially your point on the need to be extremely wary of the traps and other provocative skullduggery already deployed by The Enemy. Just the same, I question how effective any attempt to “counter this assault on liberty” is likely to prove if our very first step is to limit those attempts to strictly rhetorical, political, or nonviolent ones—particularly when The Enemy has repeatedly made plain that he recognizes no such restraints on his own actions.

But it ain’t too hard to make a pretty solid guess. When literal, intentional, and unrestrained “assault” is met with a reflexive demonstration that the response will be nothing of the sort, that display of weakness and lack of self-respect is the practical equivalent of assuring The Enemy that he has already won. However lofty or high-minded you think your intentions to be, by openly renouncing all notion of responding to authoritarian violence unhesitatingly and overwhelmingly—using any and every tool in the box—you have all but sworn fealty to your new masters and guaranteed your own subjugation.

No offense and all, but I’m afraid that just doesn’t work for me. This next part I’m okay with. Mostly.

The U.S. military uses a concept called “defense-in-depth” as its primary defensive strategy. Defense-in-depth is a layered, multi-domain approach that uses numerous defensive elements designed to delay and diffuse the advance of an attacker. Rather than relying on a single, strong defensive line, the defender wears down the enemy, causing casualties while deliberately yielding space. Once the enemy has lost momentum and is under stress, the defender mounts a decisive counterattack to destroy the enemy or drive them back to their original lines.

This strategy also works in the political world and is relevant to our current situation. An effective political defense-in-depth strategy should include all mechanisms of political action to wear down the attack on our republic, its culture, and the Constitution. The term political action isn’t just limited to casting a vote or sending money to a political party. Effective political actions include protests, general strikes, walk-outs, sick-outs, civil disobedience, lawfare, and nullification.

The Polish Solidarity movement used many of these same political actions to bring down a socialist government at the height of the Cold War without firing a shot, despite having to outmaneuver rigged elections and a Soviet-style corrupt bureaucracy.

Now might be a good time to remind everyone of my maxim that revolution and/or civil war are not events, but processes. Although the current conflict is rapidly escalating, we’re still in early innings here. Absent some totally unlooked-for, out-of-left-field igniting of the conflagration, the time is not yet ripe for violent resistance, or so it seems to me. But every passing day—and each successive outrage against America That Was—brings us closer.

Granted, the Solidarity example could well be the best one to follow at this stage of the game; as I’ve said, no nonviolent card should be left unplayed, for all sorts of perfectly good reasons. Regardless of whether the Solidarity gambit is or isn’t tried, though, I can’t quite see preemptively forswearing the 2A Solution doing any good. I really do hate to come off as if I’m ragging on a former Marine here. It’s a good article with plenty therein to make it worth a read (aside from the one thing I zeroed in on for this rant) and I do recommend it.

In the end, though, I can only see this thing the one way. And what it looks like to me is this:

The first three of the Four Boxes Of Liberty have failed us utterly; there is simply no longer any room left for productive discussion about that. To publicly vow that the Fourth Box will be forever left unopened, no matter what, is to foolishly hand The Enemy a tremendous advantage—one he will not hesitate to make fullest use of. The historical record provides more than adequate proof: an absolute, total commitment to victory at any cost will trump flinching, hesitation, and half-measures Every. Single. Time.