Sharp Phil
New member
A few days before writing this editorial, I was reading through the non-martial arts portion of a discussion forum I quite like. Scrolling through the political debate areas of the site, I was struck by just how many people participating there seemed to be heavily politically left-wing. Many of the discussions seemed to revolve around the members’ firm belief that when Republicans weren’t kicking puppies or eating babies, they were formulating elaborate plots wherein well-meaning Democrats were led astray by the clever machinations and manipulations of their much savvier, much better-backed rivals, eventually being made to look corrupt and foolish through no faults of their own.
I’m an independent, not a Republican or a Democrat, and philosophically I’m an Objectivist (which is closest to “Libertarian” than anything else). What I am not, however, is a left-winger; my political beliefs are very much in opposition to the defining tenets of political leftism. Before we can explore the nature of self-defense and left-wing politics, we have to understand those defining tenets. For our purposes, a political leftist is any person who believes strongly in some, if not all, of the following concepts:
- “Gun Control,” more accurately termed “firearms prohibition.” The concept may extend to controls on non-firearm weaponry, such as knives and other tools.
- Forced government transfers of wealth from some individuals to other individuals in order to accomplish egalitarian social schemes (also known as welfare programs, “progressive” taxation, and the like).
- The righteousness of lawsuits against “Big Tobacco” and other “Big” concerns, which hold responsible the sellers of a legal product the voluntary use of that product by consumers.
- The belief that “violence begets violence” and the conviction that unilaterally choosing to be peaceful can end violent conflict among individuals (pacifism).
- The belief that American military power and American global supremacy represents a threat to the world and to global peace (the concept of “American imperialism”)
- The belief that one’s fellow citizens’ freedom of action represents a threat rather than an asset – that humans, left to make their own choices, will choose that which is socially undesirable, and therefore the behaviors and the choices of a society’s citizens must be strictly controlled for the good of all. (For example, leftists believe private citizens cannot be trusted to give to charity if left to their own devices -- they must be forced to "do the right thing" at governmental gunpoint.)
This list is not all-inclusive, but those are the primary concepts that define politlcal leftism. Keep in mind that leftism represents an extreme political philosophy that bears only superficial resemblance to political liberalism. The Founding Fathers of the United States were “classical liberals,” for example. Many people in this country who believe strongly in our nation but also care deeply about their fellow citizens (and thus support various social programs) are traditional Democrats, not leftists. No, leftists are the worst sort of political extremists – who believe their ill-conceived notions to be “mainstream” and who carry with them the firm conviction that political conservatives and moderate Democrat and Republican Americans are the slaves of Corporate interests and the scions of evil.
What do the defining characteristics of political leftism have in common? They divorce the individual from responsibility for his actions. They also declare the individual the enemy of the State, of the Community, and proclaim the individual subservient to that State. Leftism is collectivism, which expresses itself in several harmful, negative ways:
Leftism is unpatriotic. Leftists believe their nation, the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, is evil. They despise its Enlightenment ideals of individual liberty in favor of collectivist schemes of social leveling and wealth redistribution. More importantly, leftists oppose American military might on the grounds that it is somehow unfair or dangerous for the U.S.A. to be militarily more powerful than other nations. To wish your nation to be less powerful is both fundamentally unpatriotic and geo-politically self-destructive.
Leftism is contrary to self-defense. Political leftists, because they advocate egalitarianism, view all people as equal. This necessarily carries with it the belief that no person’s life is any more valuable than another’s. Viewed in the context of divorced responsibility for one’s actions, such egalitarianism dictates that there is no moral difference between an attacker and someone who is attacked – and thus to use violence in self-defense is every bit as wrong as using violence to murder or rape someone. Leftists support the disarmament of their fellow citizens because of their hostility to the notion of legitimate self-defense. Leftists do not value the individual’s life; they value conformity to State and Community ideals instead.
Leftism is built on theft and immorality. Leftism is the politics of envy – the belief that it is unfair that not everyone succeeds to the same degree in life. As a result, political leftists advocate stealing (through confiscatory taxation) the earnings of one person in order to give those earnings to someone else who is “less fortunate.” Taxes are not voluntary. If the producer does not agree with paying them but has been outvoted by his peers, he has no choice but to fork over the money for which he has worked. As a result, leftists take what is not theirs in order to generously grant it to others without the consent of those who produce what is taken and redistributed. This is clearly immoral and theft by any definition.
The foundation of self-defense is the natural law of self-possession -- that you own you (for if you do not, who does?) and that you have a right to defend your property. Political leftists, however, would deny the morality of using force in self-defense (an expression of pacifist ideals – the illusory and foolish notion that if we simply refuse to use force, we can “break the cycle of violence”). They would also deny their fellow citizens the means to use force by outlawing self-defense tools like firearms and knives.
Now, let us come back to the term “martialist.” What is a martialist? There are some self-defense advocates who consider the term "martial artist" to be something derogatory, indicative of the watering-down of martial ability among commercially available martial arts over the last few decades. I like the term "martialist" better because it encompasses the philosophy one might describe for each and every armed, prepared citizen -- each self-defense exponent.
Fundamentally, however, a martialist is devoted to the development of skill in the field of using force – of applying physical violence in order to defend against the same. If your martial art cannot be used for self-defense, it is not a martial art at all. Similarly, if you are a political leftist, you cannot be a martial artist or a martialist. You cannot call yourself "pro-gun" or a defender of the Second Amendment, either, because you support an ideology that actively works against an armed and free citizenry, even if you disagree with this aspect of that ideology.
Clearly, anyone who believes it is justified to take what one “needs” from others without those others’ consent, who believes the life of a rapist has as much value as the life of the person raped, or who would deny the individual’s right to self-defense by prohibiting the tools of self-defense, is not a martial artist at all. If such a person trains in a martial art, he or she is simply playing at the concept of self-defense while living a life in total contradiction to that concept. To hold self-defense in contempt while training in some system devoted to it is the worst form of paradox. It is self-denial and evasion writ large on the wall of firign range, dojo, or kwoon. It is contemptible, it is unsupportable, and it is self-destructive. If one holds to some of these tenets but not others, one is mired in paradox and one's conflicted philosophy is working against itself.
No, a political leftist cannot be "pro gun." He may believe he supports firearms rights, but he also supports an ideology whose adherents are even now working against firearms rights.
A "pro gun" leftist is an impossibility, despite what the leftist himself believes.
I’m an independent, not a Republican or a Democrat, and philosophically I’m an Objectivist (which is closest to “Libertarian” than anything else). What I am not, however, is a left-winger; my political beliefs are very much in opposition to the defining tenets of political leftism. Before we can explore the nature of self-defense and left-wing politics, we have to understand those defining tenets. For our purposes, a political leftist is any person who believes strongly in some, if not all, of the following concepts:
- “Gun Control,” more accurately termed “firearms prohibition.” The concept may extend to controls on non-firearm weaponry, such as knives and other tools.
- Forced government transfers of wealth from some individuals to other individuals in order to accomplish egalitarian social schemes (also known as welfare programs, “progressive” taxation, and the like).
- The righteousness of lawsuits against “Big Tobacco” and other “Big” concerns, which hold responsible the sellers of a legal product the voluntary use of that product by consumers.
- The belief that “violence begets violence” and the conviction that unilaterally choosing to be peaceful can end violent conflict among individuals (pacifism).
- The belief that American military power and American global supremacy represents a threat to the world and to global peace (the concept of “American imperialism”)
- The belief that one’s fellow citizens’ freedom of action represents a threat rather than an asset – that humans, left to make their own choices, will choose that which is socially undesirable, and therefore the behaviors and the choices of a society’s citizens must be strictly controlled for the good of all. (For example, leftists believe private citizens cannot be trusted to give to charity if left to their own devices -- they must be forced to "do the right thing" at governmental gunpoint.)
This list is not all-inclusive, but those are the primary concepts that define politlcal leftism. Keep in mind that leftism represents an extreme political philosophy that bears only superficial resemblance to political liberalism. The Founding Fathers of the United States were “classical liberals,” for example. Many people in this country who believe strongly in our nation but also care deeply about their fellow citizens (and thus support various social programs) are traditional Democrats, not leftists. No, leftists are the worst sort of political extremists – who believe their ill-conceived notions to be “mainstream” and who carry with them the firm conviction that political conservatives and moderate Democrat and Republican Americans are the slaves of Corporate interests and the scions of evil.
What do the defining characteristics of political leftism have in common? They divorce the individual from responsibility for his actions. They also declare the individual the enemy of the State, of the Community, and proclaim the individual subservient to that State. Leftism is collectivism, which expresses itself in several harmful, negative ways:
Leftism is unpatriotic. Leftists believe their nation, the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, is evil. They despise its Enlightenment ideals of individual liberty in favor of collectivist schemes of social leveling and wealth redistribution. More importantly, leftists oppose American military might on the grounds that it is somehow unfair or dangerous for the U.S.A. to be militarily more powerful than other nations. To wish your nation to be less powerful is both fundamentally unpatriotic and geo-politically self-destructive.
Leftism is contrary to self-defense. Political leftists, because they advocate egalitarianism, view all people as equal. This necessarily carries with it the belief that no person’s life is any more valuable than another’s. Viewed in the context of divorced responsibility for one’s actions, such egalitarianism dictates that there is no moral difference between an attacker and someone who is attacked – and thus to use violence in self-defense is every bit as wrong as using violence to murder or rape someone. Leftists support the disarmament of their fellow citizens because of their hostility to the notion of legitimate self-defense. Leftists do not value the individual’s life; they value conformity to State and Community ideals instead.
Leftism is built on theft and immorality. Leftism is the politics of envy – the belief that it is unfair that not everyone succeeds to the same degree in life. As a result, political leftists advocate stealing (through confiscatory taxation) the earnings of one person in order to give those earnings to someone else who is “less fortunate.” Taxes are not voluntary. If the producer does not agree with paying them but has been outvoted by his peers, he has no choice but to fork over the money for which he has worked. As a result, leftists take what is not theirs in order to generously grant it to others without the consent of those who produce what is taken and redistributed. This is clearly immoral and theft by any definition.
The foundation of self-defense is the natural law of self-possession -- that you own you (for if you do not, who does?) and that you have a right to defend your property. Political leftists, however, would deny the morality of using force in self-defense (an expression of pacifist ideals – the illusory and foolish notion that if we simply refuse to use force, we can “break the cycle of violence”). They would also deny their fellow citizens the means to use force by outlawing self-defense tools like firearms and knives.
Now, let us come back to the term “martialist.” What is a martialist? There are some self-defense advocates who consider the term "martial artist" to be something derogatory, indicative of the watering-down of martial ability among commercially available martial arts over the last few decades. I like the term "martialist" better because it encompasses the philosophy one might describe for each and every armed, prepared citizen -- each self-defense exponent.
Fundamentally, however, a martialist is devoted to the development of skill in the field of using force – of applying physical violence in order to defend against the same. If your martial art cannot be used for self-defense, it is not a martial art at all. Similarly, if you are a political leftist, you cannot be a martial artist or a martialist. You cannot call yourself "pro-gun" or a defender of the Second Amendment, either, because you support an ideology that actively works against an armed and free citizenry, even if you disagree with this aspect of that ideology.
Clearly, anyone who believes it is justified to take what one “needs” from others without those others’ consent, who believes the life of a rapist has as much value as the life of the person raped, or who would deny the individual’s right to self-defense by prohibiting the tools of self-defense, is not a martial artist at all. If such a person trains in a martial art, he or she is simply playing at the concept of self-defense while living a life in total contradiction to that concept. To hold self-defense in contempt while training in some system devoted to it is the worst form of paradox. It is self-denial and evasion writ large on the wall of firign range, dojo, or kwoon. It is contemptible, it is unsupportable, and it is self-destructive. If one holds to some of these tenets but not others, one is mired in paradox and one's conflicted philosophy is working against itself.
No, a political leftist cannot be "pro gun." He may believe he supports firearms rights, but he also supports an ideology whose adherents are even now working against firearms rights.
A "pro gun" leftist is an impossibility, despite what the leftist himself believes.
I have not proclaimed myself as one at all. My views are primarily libertarian or if you prefer the pop-culture term, South Park Republican. One of the biggest problems with the political environment in the US is the absurd notion that there are only two sides to it.