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| The "pen is mightier than the sword?" |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a British playwright of the nineteenth century is credited with coming up with the now famous phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword." Lytton's main character in his 1839 play
Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy made the allusion that the "pen is mightier than the sword...The loud earth breathless! — Take away the sword — States can be saved without it!"
Despite the fact that he was writing theatrical dialog about statecraft, something Niccolo Machiavelli wrote much more adeptly about in his treatise
The Prince 326 years earlier, the "pen" phrase has been misused almost more than any other phrase in the English language.
Just last week another newspaper weeny used Lytton's "pen" phrase as a
false premise to attempt to make the argument on how we don't need guns and why publishing the names and addresses of concealed handgun permit owners will make us 'safer.' Therefore more drivel for the educated ignoramuses who worship at the alter of statism to delude themselves with and, even better, sources of comedic material on the Internet to amuse
a rational, cogent person! A much more balanced op/ed piece
here.
Always looking for an opportunity to rebut
such humorous irrationalism I promptly penned my own 'mightier than' letter to the editor and sent it to the publication. Who knows if it will be published there? What matters is that it is here:
"Let's not forget any of the Bill of Rights. They are all
important. Read them and practice them sometime. You may be surprised
with the exhilaration that comes from practicing your Natural Rights.
Members of the United States military, having a taken an oath to
“support and defend the Constitution of the United States against
all enemies, foreign and domestic” have served, fought, and died so
that you may remain free from tyranny. Use those freedoms or lose
them.
Anybody—newspaper publisher, playwright, or blogger can publish
any public information they wish. During the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in America, because of their published views
newspaper publishers were often tarred and feathered and run out of
town on a rail while their printing presses were destroyed. Now, as
happened recently in New England, citizens simply publish names and
contact information of offending publishers and reporters on the
Internet and urge people to call them and politely make their views
known.
No North Carolina sheriff can legally refuse to issue a citizen,
if they meet the established criteria, a concealed handgun permit
(CHP). North Carolina is a “shall issue” state. Otherwise, an
injured party can go before a judge, establish the facts, and receive
a judgment ordering a sheriff to issue them the permit. In lieu of
receiving a judgment a citizen can open carry a firearm anywhere that
they can conceal carry. This is established in Common Law and North
Carolina's Constitution.
Despite the fact that words do mean things and can move others to
perform great deeds, if the pen were truly “mightier than the sword”
Mao Zedong would have remained a librarian, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
(Lenin) would have remained a lawyer,
Ioseb
Besarionis je J̌uḡašvili (Stalin) would have remained a
failed priest, Adolph Hiedler (Hitler) would have remained a
water-colorist,
Benito Amilcare
Andrea Mussolini would have remained a newspaper editor, Josip Broz
Tito would have remained a Daimler automotive test driver, Francisco
Franco y Bahamonde would have remained a head of a Spanish military
academy, and Saloth Sar (Pol Pot) would have remained a failed radio
technician. These tyrants murdered tens of millions of their own
people and they didn't use pens.
Events in History are inevitably
settled by force or the threat of force and no pen can change that
fact. All of the aforementioned tyrants knew and practiced that. They
established their autocratic rules by disarming their populaces with
universal background 'checks,' universal registration, universal
confiscation, and finally with Democide. That is not debatable.
Indeed, “power flows from the barrel of a gun." Always." A pen may defame and humiliate you. It won't protect you from a burglar or a tyrant.
Come and Take It!
