Prescience

From Tim Case, writing at LewRockwell.com:

... It was November 22, 1963 just before 10:30 AM Pacific Standard time; I was sitting in my English literature class, when those words were forever burned into my mind. I had no more finished reading Dickens’ opening paragraph when the school loud-speaker system came on with the disquieting news that "President John F. Kennedy has been shot in Dallas, Texas."

Within seconds many of the young ladies in the class began to quietly sob while an otherwise stunned hush fell over the class. Our literature teacher then gave permission for the girls to leave the class but told the males to stay put he had something he wanted to tell us.

As the last girl left the room, the door to the classroom was closed and locked. Turning to those of us remaining; that wise old sage in a controlled but stern voice said: "Gentleman, your world is going to change. I know most of you hunt. I doubt there is anyone here that doesn’t own a firearm. The day is coming when the Federal government is going to try and disarm you. I won’t see it, but you will. Mark my words and be on your guard, the Second Amendment is the only thing standing between you and the suffering you can’t comprehend. Class is dismissed."

What experiences had brought that literature teacher to make those proclamations, I’ll never know.

Of course, we didn’t see any immediate change in our lives. Groups of us still made the weekly rounds to the Sears’, Wards’, and Penny’s stores to look at and drool over the racks of firearms. We still bought our ammunition from these stores or the local gun shops even though none of us had reached our fourteenth birthday. No one gave us a second look when a troop of us walked through town carrying our weapons on the way down to the river to plink at tin cans or to go bird hunting.

If we were approached by a police officer, there was no fear. He was one of us and would tell us to be careful or warn us of something he had seen that we needed to know to stay out of harm's way. When bird hunting he would ask us to let him know where the birds were or to tell us where he had had some success during his hunts.

Life really hadn’t changed but we often talked about what that literature teacher had said and we wondered what was going to happen.

It was as Dickens’ had said, "the best of times…" while the worst times were not having the fifty-five cents it took to buy a box of 22 long rifle shells to plink with or the ninety-nine cents for a box of shotgun shells during bird season.

My, how times have changed! What we didn’t understand, in those early years, is that the government is an entity which stays benign only so long as those who make up its character are so disposed. The very soul, mind, heart and action of any government are a direct expression of the morality, or lack of it, by those who make up the government and those who elect them. ...

Read the rest here. I particularly liked this passage:

... A friend’s correspondence concerning what has occurred over the last 50 plus years seems more than appropriate. "I suspect that some of us recognize that with the term ‘sheeple,’ we herd up. We've got a shepherd, big government. That government even has dogs. ‘Don't worry, they're not there to attack you (even though they ... look like wolves), they're only to protect you from the wolves.’ And we buy that. Of course the shepherd is only willing to expend his time and resources because he can fleece us and maybe even sell us as mutton!"

A good point to remember: the wolf and the shepherd both seek to use the sheep for their own purposes. The lesson: Don't be a sheep.