Virginia gun owner militia open carry
Courtesy Jeff Hulbert

The Heller decision fueled the growth of a kind of homegrown authoritarianism that understands “militia” to include self-appointed “patriots” with the sovereign power to take life not in defense of self or law, but in support of a particular social or racial order. Despite the majority decision in Heller explicitly stating that the individual right recognized is “unconnected with service in a militia,” militia-of-one vigilantism has long been promoted by the NRA and other populist authoritarian and paramilitary groups. Gun owners have been refashioned as citizen-soldiers tasked with defending a particular notion of freedom—a freedom to use violence to establish order, despite the bounds of the law. As Fox News’ Tucker Carlson put it in his defense of Rittenhouse: “How shocked are we that seventeen-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

Most justifications for this interpretation of the Second Amendment rely on an out-of-context quote from George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention. In the written record of the convention, Mason says: “I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.” Mason was concerned that the draft of the Constitution would allow a future government to exempt the wealthy and powerful from service in state militias. The “whole people” he referenced meant to include those from all classes or ranks. One need only read a longer excerpt of Mason’s statement to see this: “I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But . . . if that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor; but they may be confined to the lower and middle classes of the people.” This sentiment is also found in Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), which Mason authored and which served, years later, as the model for the U.S. Bill of Rights.

However, the NRA manipulatively uses only the first two sentences of Mason’s comment to claim he meant that every individual is de facto a militia member—independent, self-appointed, and unregulated. Moreover, the NRA leaves out the “now” in the second sentence, obscuring Mason’s comparison of the present condition with a future one. The altered version of this quote is cited frequently. In his book Guns, Crime, and Freedom (1994), LaPierre writes, “Mason made explicit his deep-set belief that the individual armed citizen was the key to protection against government excesses and in defense of freedom.” The definition of militia on the website of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action is the truncated and altered Mason quote. In a 2001 letter to NRA leadership, former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft pledged support for the individualist reading of the Second Amendment by citing the chopped-up Mason quote. In 2018, in a televised town hall after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch was asked how she defines a well-regulated militia. “George Mason was one of the founding fathers,” Loesch replied, without noting that Mason refused in the end to sign the Constitution. “And he said ‘the militia is the whole of the people.’ It’s every man. It’s every woman. That is who the militia is.” Paramilitary groups such as the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters have also relied on this intentional misreading.

The mainstreaming of this particular understanding of what the Second Amendment means by “militia” results from a decades-long campaign to legitimate far-right vigilantism among law enforcement and civilians. It is rooted in a reinterpretation of the Second Amendment that allows for a rhetorical focus on individual freedom and a tendency toward militarization. Those on the far-right claim that private individuals constitute the militia in the Constitution, and since the Second Amendment recognizes the right to bear arms for militia members, defending their use of arms is a defense of a constitutional right. Any effort to regulate that right is, in turn, interpreted as an attack on the Constitution itself.

Indeed, LaPierre has called the Second Amendment “freedom’s most valuable, most cherished, most irreplaceable idea.” Charlton Heston, who served first as NRA vice president and later president, provided the most succinct formulation of this view in a speech to the National Press Club in 1997. The Second Amendment, he said, “is, in order of importance, the first amendment. It is America’s first freedom, the one right that protects all the others. . . . The right to keep and bear arms is the one right that allows ‘rights’ to exist at all.”

Underlying this claim is the notion that vigilante violence is simultaneously foundational and exceptional. It need not conform with the law, because such violence is necessary for law to exist at all. This is an intoxicating invitation to authoritarianism. It is a formula for self-appointed saviors unconstrained by law or norm. They determine who the enemy is and deputize themselves, in the name of the Constitution (and “the people”), to use violence against that enemy.

— Chad Kautzer in America as a Tactical Gun Culture

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

131 COMMENTS

  1. At first I thought this was satire and it was a little funny. Then I realized it was a serious and deeply held belief and I can only wonder what drugs or mental condition can cause such a divergent reality as I really do not want to admit it is probably just reinforced conditioning.

    • “At first I thought this was satire and it was a little funny.”

      Yeah, the idea that individual liberty unconstrained by government “is an intoxicating invitation to authoritarianism” sounds like a parody along the lines of Orwellian Newspeak.

      • Freedom is Slavery exactly. I know the pandemic has broken a few people (more precisely our former and current governors’ responses to) but did I skip the section where Orwell and Huxley’s works were to do lists instead of warnings?

    • He seems to think Kyle Rittenhouse acted as a vigilante for some reason. Probably thinks his ‘victims’ we’re black as well. Nothing worse than an ignorant person who thinks he knows everything.

      In that context though, no the 2nd Amendment does not enshrine vigilante justice. That would run contrary to several other amendments in the Bill of Rights such as the right of the accused to a jury trial, etc. However that has nothing to do with citizen militias or self defense. Come to think of it, he probably knows Rittenhouse acted in self defense and is purposely conflating self defense with vigilantism, which makes him a liar. And if there’s one thing worse than an ignorant person thinking he knows everything it’s a liar.

      • I like to point out in these discussions the hundreds, probably thousands, of U.S. (and Italian) western movies where the town hires a gunfighter to run the criminal despot and his gang out of town and in the end join him from the rooftops firing down on the bad guys. Or the Sheriff or Marshall who calls on the able-bodied men in town to bring their own firearms, horses and rations and join his posse to chase down the bank robbers or highwaymen.

        Those groups are the epitome of “militia” and are the very definition of what was intended in the Second Amendment.

        And they most definitely do not fit the concept of vigilantism.

        • The concept of “vigilantism” (as a pejorative) is an anachronism.

          The Founders didn’t like the King’s army, didn’t want their own, and had no real concept of “cops”.

          Their vision of justice was precisely that shown in the Westerns you described. Citizens taking the law into their own hands? Where the F else should it be?!

        • in American culture we celebrate the vigilante. Hundreds of books and movies have been made about the great vigilantes and the wonderful work that they did.

          Their stories are both real and imagined. Batman and Robin are vigilantes. Wonder Woman is a vigilante. The Green Hornet is a vigilante. They capture the criminals and tie them up. And sometimes they will leave a note stating “compliments of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man”.

          Zorro is also an example of a vigilante. Also the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

          The military veterans of the Athens Tennessee revolt. And the military veterans of the deacons for defense and justice. Are examples of real vigilantes.

          In all of these examples these Vigilantes did not conduct anything remotely resembling vigilante justice. They simply conducted a citizen’s arrest. And when the proper authorities became available they turned them over. There is nothing wrong with the law abiding arresting criminals. When the police are unwilling or are unable to do their job.

      • Our U S A born communists and ignoramouses ( mis-spelled) have always been against self defense. Self defense defeats their program to remove the police and to institute mass crime and riots.

      • “Nothing worse than an ignorant person who thinks he knows everything.”
        They are called college graduates. The dumbest ones have advanced degrees from Ivy League universities. You can see them every where in government.

      • a militia in any form is not possible without an armed citizenry…one precludes the other..and is the esence of what they meant…

    • All chad krautzer has to offer is the slanderous libelous poop stuck between his ears. The way chad krautzer and his pompous ilk attempt to denigrate those exercising the God Given Right of self defense is no different than the view democRat slave masters had for their human chattel or nazis had for Jews, etc.

      It is clear where chad krautzer’s gets his rot. Such rot is inherent in the democRat Party throughout history and continues to show its face in one form or another. Whether it’s a Pop-Tart shaped like a gun or a NRA Convention the sight of certain things like Freedom set democRats like chad krautzer off.

      It is not the millions of Gun Owners calling for bans and and restrictions of rights it is those like chad krautzer who savor the thought of a disarmed America. And those like chad krautzer will say and do anything to advance their sick, sick insanity.

      Make no mistake it about it. There is something chad krautzer wants he cannot get and the firearm you own maybe what stands in his way. Who knows he could be a cautious pedophile daydreaming about his armed neighbor’s kids or a hesitant drooling rapist eyeballing a neighbor woman rumored to have a gun, etc. Whatever it is chad krautzer must vent his bigoted based rage or he’ll go completely mad.

      I strongly suggest chad krautzer stfu and sit his bigoted pervert behind down and chew on the following facts…

      1) The Second Amendment is one thing.

      2) The criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. is another thing.

      3) History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is a racist and nazi based Thing.

      • For some reason, i seem to agree on your comments on this site. When i hear comments about the law being racist , i default to ” it’s printed in law books in black and white”. Right is right and wrong is wrong, simple as that until the commies get involved.

      • self-defense is a concept the left would very much like to strip away…thus the incorrect “labeling”…a vigilante is someone who takes the law into their own hands…not someone who is defending himself…

    • It isn’t just silly opinions or analysis. Within the first paragraph the author intentionally leaves out important context about Jacob Blake being shot. Everything the author does is intentional to push the MSM/Left Wing narrative. Despite being caught lying about every major story with political implications in the past five years, the MSM is still very powerful. They’re assisted by Big Tech amplifying the narrative while silencing opposing views, as well as the Academia/Hollywood/Pop Culture Industrial Complex. When people hear the exact same thing everywhere they turn, they tend to believe it.

      • opposing and correcting them at every turn can be difficult on liberal websites..but worth the effort…even if it gets you bounced off for awhile

  2. That any law-abiding citizen may own a gun, is a polite and obvious reminder to the ruling class that they hold the ultimate veto power.

    And that scares the sh!t out of those ‘rulers’, as it should, since an army of over 350 million can throw those bums out… 😉

    • Wouldn’t need even 1% of that to absolutely remove their control. Would need a substantial majority of it to do so without a lot of undesired chaos and death and that is where the propaganda battle rages.

      • 1.5 to 2 million unarmed folk at the Capitol on a given day in January could have overthrown the entire Federal (and city) government if they had a mind to. Insurrection, my ass!!

        Apology for the language, but the judicious use of rudeness can have the same exclamation as a brightly lit billboard on a dark night.

        • The media thinks if they keep saying that word, they can will it to be an actual insurrection, or at least help to form opinions of voters…

          Also, the MSM/DNC insurrection collusion story is the new version of their Russia collusion story. They’re going to ride it for as long as possible.

    • You know nothing of Revolution or personal hygiene. Sit this one out, fatty, so we real patriots can discuss this matter without interjection from rabble such as yourself…

  3. One obvious take-away from Kautzer’s article: despite the vilifications often leveled in this (TTAG) blog, the NRA remains an organization feared by “progressive” statists.

    • their demonization of the NRA is actually funny…completely ignoring all the efforts of other gun rights organizations to eat their lunch…and displaying just how clueless they are…

  4. We have always reserved the right to overthrow tyranny in this country however it can or must be done.

    Ever heard of the American Revolution? We didn’t give out a bunch of roses and the British didn’t say, well if you put it that way, we will leave.

    No we gave them plenty of bullets, lives, and blood. And we took many bullets, lives and blood.

    The enemy is the far left. That includes antifa, blm, marxists, communists, globalists and many democrats and Republicans.

    Maybe we can save liberty in a bloodless fashion. It would be preferable. The bad guys can move to North Korea or be executed for treason, which means a legitimate trial was conducted – so don’t talk about vigilantism you whiney liberals.

    But I think history proves this is difficult to achieve. The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants, was famously observed by one of America’s founders.

    • the true enemy is those that are funding them…a divided state in the throes of anarchy is a weaker state…

      • Quote: “frank speak December 20, 2021 At 21:09
        the true enemy is those that are funding them…a divided state in the throes of anarchy is a weaker state…”

        This is something more people (everyone) need to understand.

        I hear talk of “civil war II” being easy because conservatives have most of the guns. The war will not be won by defeating the useful fools who will be on the street, it will only be won by eliminating the leaders, educators, media, politicians, judges, and those funding it all. If you wipe out the useful fools and those people are still around the problem will reoccur in a few years worse than ever.

        When I have pointed this out before some idiot said that would be genocide. No, it is a situation like WWII, we were then fighting an evil ideology that was determined to destroy us. Today we face an ideology every bet as evil as Germany was then…. and they are in our midst.

        Be Prepared !!!

    • The founders were a bit more eloquent then that.
      X??
      Nope they pretty much spelled it out the way it is.
      ” Shall Not Be Infringed ”
      Doesn’t that pesky constitution suck.
      Free speech, gunms, no knock search warrants, keep your mouth shut, judged by your peers.
      The only way forward is to modify the United States Constitution.

  7. I like how the author makes a point to highlight the militia is all people from all classes then proceeds to call it a racist construct in his statist, anti-gun rant.

    That’s some solid liberaling right there.

    • slave revolts were a true terror in the south…but once it ended the Jim Crow restrictions were truly racist..but taking a regional issue and applying it nationwide is a distortion to serve their ends…just another part of the false narrative…

    • The deal is ” your not a free man”.
      Their terrified Our government will say we are. That’s what frightens the left.
      To have a government of the people, for the people.
      Terrifying concept.
      Theres a bigger reason Trump had to go,
      over t Dem /Pub politics.
      He was developing a cult following. With 3/4’s of the population of The United of America desiring of what could be,,, well,,,that just cant happen.
      No, instead it’s better to have a senile child molester as The fckin President of The United States of America , then have a cult following from a nation behind a man. That’s how big Wars get started.

      • Trump’s persona can be a bit much..think people just got tired of the rancor even if much of it was unjustified…and wanted a bit of a breather thus choosing someone who portrayed himself as one thing..but turned out to be something unanticipated.. creating an element of disillusion among many who voted for him…saying one thing to get elected while intending something else is a common tactic of the left….

  9. The author suffers from a typical intellectual problem among academics and journalists, the failure to grasp the difference between the things they can imagine and things that actually happen. If he can imagine a large number of one man militias he believes it is really happening.

    • What good would acknowledging reality and presenting the facts do for this guy? They can never get their desired outcome without pushing the narrative, facts be damned.

    • Whether the author has ” high intellect” or not, i have observed some people with high i q ‘s have a next to nil amount of common sense. Maybe uncommon sense is the phrase to use now. Lack of common sense = no ability of discernement. ( spelling doesn’t count)

      • LOL .
        I watched a college educated guy needing work stick his hand in a chop saw.
        Us poor dumb unenejucated knew better.
        ?????
        I think he sued the company for a gazillion dollars, so maybe I ain’t as smart as I think I is.
        Still got my trigger finger.

  11. I thought this was a satire piece when started reading it. But after finishing it I see its a bunch f words from a guy who didn’t get the joke or reality.

  12. “…..vigilante violence is simultaneously foundational and exceptional…”

    My guess is that the author, if ever faced with a violent thug, will wish he had prepped to be a “vigilante”. I hope, for his sake, he does not come into such danger.

    • te absolute best way to convert an antigun liberal into a gun owner is for that antigun liberal to be confronted on a dark night by three big guys wiht guns. And somehow survive. Might hve cost him his Rolex, but he walked away.. a new progun individual. How long it takes for him to go and buy one largely depends on what state he calls home.

  13. “Those on the far-right claim that private individuals constitute the militia in the Constitution, and since the Second Amendment recognizes the right to bear arms for militia members, defending their use of arms is a defense of a constitutional right”

    The Second recognizes the right to bear arms for militia members(all), but it does NOT defend their use. Misuse of a firearm is a serious matter. If used in defensive situations, without other illegal acts, it is perfectly legal.

    I, also, have to question so called “far-right vigilantism”, because except in extreme situations, the “far-right” allows for anyone to think anything, if it is their version of a better America. The far-left bully boys try as hard as they can to silence others by denying 1st amendment rights.
    What other rights will they try to suppress?

  14. The author is clearly someone who has never been to a place where a real authoritarian government exists. He is a first world person without the problems of people in the third world face. His problems with freedom are the problems many others wish they had.

  15. Lol
    People will believe this craziness. Never mind that it comes from the left, not the right.

    I doubt that BLM or Antifa has many NRA members within their ranks.

    • Yes, I too am pretty sure that replying to him here on TTAG is not an effective way to counter his message. Also, though there is a small chance that messages to they/them’s personal email may actually reach they/them’s eye’s, I thought they will get any farther than that. I am not criticizing you, as I suspect that your point is consistent with mine here. Preaching to the choir…..

      • they’re infiltrating conservative sites…which is why we should all return the favor and annoy the hell out of them….

  17. Yes, its all a grand conspiracy and you caught us. Now that u know we should invite you to the monthly meetings that we have been having since the Revolutionary War. For our next meeting I understand Bob’s wife is supplying her famous chocolate cake for the 180 million members that usually attend.

  18. Read the full article. To clowns like this, virtues like hard work, responsibility, thrift, private property, law and order, the family (i.e. knowing who your father is), and other traits and institutions necessary for a functioning civilization are “white supremacy.” They literally want to dismantle everything that makes society work. This guy is a communist, and the goal of communism is not the welfare of the so-called “down trodden.” A hundred years ago the enemy was “the bourgeoise” and the victims were “the workers of the word.” The communists have updated the struggle: “white supremacists” rule over “people of color.” The end game is communists exerting naked and arbitrary power on a lawless population. This usually ends with long trenches filled with the bodies of both the useful idiots and those who don’t agree with communism. This historical examples are numerous and legion.

    The Second Amendment, literally, is what stands between us and bodies in trenches.

    • Jimmy Beam

      “The Second Amendment, literally, is what stands between us and bodies in trenches.”

      Exactly so!!!
      That is why we will fight for it!!

  19. Consider the fact that vigilantism doesn’t come into play until the government is unwilling, or unable to enforce even basic rules of civil society. The author brings up Rittenhouse as some sort of far right vigilante. His posted, publicly available social media shows he was a BLM supporter. Not exactly far right. The media portrays the Proud boys as a white Supremist, far right hate group. Founded in part by a Black man, and having a number of Black men in the ranks.
    Any who wants to do just a brief check of the facts can find the majority of those being accused of being Vigilante’s or racist, supremist groups are anything but.
    If, if fact there was any real racist vigilante organizations of any size, we would have seen a huge number of dead BLM/ANTIFA types in many major cities. If the police were intent on killing Blacks for any reason, we would have been hip deep in police shootings every month.
    But, there hasn’t been either of those things happening. Nor are the unorganzed/ non governmentally sponsored militias out taking the law into their own hands.
    What we do have are fairly issolated inccedents of overly publicized and overly hyped cases of usually cases of self defense or police officers getting tried and proscecuted for what should have been justifiable use of force. Was a time, not long ago, that if you attacked another person with threat of harm or death, you likely would be shot. LEO, private citizen, or public official. Race politics, family origins, sex, or anything else was not a consideration.

    • makes me remember what happened in Yucaipa,, out in the So Cal desert, far from LA and that mess. When the BeeYellEm nonsense was raging accross the land, some of those bright boys decided to ehad out into that valley and do their thing. Word got aout amongst the townsofolk. A signficant group of them showed up, armed and ready. They told the BeeYellEmm clwons “not in our town”. And stood there. The BeeYellEm clwons got back on the “horses” they rode in on and left. End of trouble for Yucaipa. I cheered when I read that.

      Now if the townsfolk of Kenosha had done likewise no one would even know who Kyle is. Nor that dirtbag Binger. Or even if Yucaipa had happened in Portland.

    • Tulsa is an example of vigilanteism that they often like to point to…like to think we are past that…it was a long time ago…

  20. SEMPER VIGILANTES

    Always vigilant. As in, always be watchful of idiots with degrees and the ability to publish their interpretations and hate.

  21. The puzzling thing about comments from people of Jewish descent (those who are left-wing only) is their rejection of the ability to self-defend after knowing undeniably of the Holocaust. Why would a rational creature whose people was almost wiped out by government, put their blind trust in government to protect them? This more than anything convinces me that they are a brick short of a load intellectually.

      • never a true pogrom here…although common elsewhere..they’ve often found passivity to be the best response when ensconced in a larger population..[and then came Hitler]…they eventually did fight back to the astonishment of the locals..but by then it was too little too late…..

    • They also seem to have forgotten about Father Abraham and what HE did when the nasty nieghbours hauled off his goofy nephew Lot and family. Abe didn’t wait long. He gethered up a bunch of men, armed of course, and rode out after the raiding party. It did NOT go well with them once Abe and COmnay caught up with them. They got not only Lot but his family and all the “stuff” they had stolen.
      Or how about when the king f Babylon decided to let the Israelists go back to Jerusalem and beginrebuilidngheir city? This commie rabblerouser Sanballat came round with his goonsquads and harrassed the builders to the point they had to stop the project. If I remember aright it was Nehemiah who gathered up the heads of households and they had a chat. He commanded them to group by familie,s each family to take one section of the wall and build it TOGETHER. Next he commanded them to work, and work hard.. with a trowel in one hand and a sWORD in the other. Ol Sandy’s guys made an informed decision to go wlewhere to seek their entertinment. And the wall was quickly and strongy beuilt. No more harrassment.
      Grouping togther by families changed the perspective of the task, and they were armed. Sounds like an early versioin of militia to me. It worked.

      • Tionico,

        Yes! My Grandmother was Jewish. She gave me my first Bible and explained there were many lessons in the books the Christians called the Old Testament. “Old” did not mean obsolete, it meant tried-and-true ancient wisdom. That gift changed my life.

      • the ancient Hebrews were actually pretty warlike and aggressive…probably necessary when Egypt used them as a buffer state…

    • Because some of see being a victim gives them moral authority. Lots of dead equals more moral authority.

      However the dead are dead and don’t give much authority.

  22. “Chad Kautzer is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Social Justice Minor at the University of Colorado Denver. He is co-editor, with Eduardo Mendieta, of Pragmatism, Nation, and Race: Community in the Age of Empire (Indiana University Press, 2009).

    His current work is: Radical Philosophy An Introduction.
    In this concise introduction, Chad Kautzer demonstrates the shared emancipatory goals and methods of several radical philosophies, from Marxism and feminism to critical race and queer theory. Radical Philosophy examines the relations of theory and practice, knowledge and power, as well as the function of law in creating extralegal forms of domination. Through a critical engagement with the history of philosophy, Kautzer reconstructs important counter-traditions of historical, dialectical, and reflexive forms of critique relevant to contemporary social struggles. The result is an innovative, systematic guide to radical theory and critical resistance.

    Table of Contents
    Introduction 1. Critical Methodology 2. Marxism and Class Critique 3. Feminism and Queer Theory 4. Antiracism and the Whiteness Problem”

    The guy is a Commie associate professor of philosophy at a backwater school. Do you care what he thinks? I don’t…

    • Do you ever wonder how “educated” people can be so dumb? They learn from people just like this guy. Now these theories have trickled down to grade school. That’s why we should care what he thinks. Unfortunately, he isn’t an outlier in academia or the media.

    • Chad Kautzer is “my kind of hero”. Its called “being a product of higher education”. Something way over the heads of people like you. He is not racist, xenophobic, bigoted, stingy, viscous, sadistic, misogynistic, ignorant and militaristic, all of which the far right so lovingly cherish.

      • Remember folks, dacian the nazi is mentally ill. He just listed everything he is and claims it is our defects.

        What a maroon.

      • Watch it with all that gaslighting. We wouldn’t want our favorite counterfactual crier to set himself on fire. He might be replaced by a troll whose halfway effective!

      • Remember, if Kautzer has his way, the useful idiots like Dacian would be the first against the wall, along BLM folks, feminists, “climate change” crazies, t*nies, and other fashionable identity groups.

        Communists use such groups as stepping stones to power, then liquidate them.

      • dacian the stupid,

        I can fully understand why a brainless, ill-educated moron such as yourself would so highly revere another brainless, ill-educated moron . . . ‘birds of a feather’ and all. Bet you voted for Xiao Bai-Den, too.

        I love you patting yourself on the back about that alleged ‘eudcation’ you CLAIM to have (and are never willing to be specific about – curious, that), when your every utterance proves your abject ignorance, irrationality, historical illiteracy, economic illiteracy, and scientific illiteracy. You are the living proof of the truth about Reagan’s comment about liberals . . . you ‘know’ so much that isn’t so.

    • In other words, Krautzer tortures philosophy and history and twists the minds of young people for a living.

      This is why being a product of higher education is not a good thing (cf. “Dacian”).

        • I thought that lil’ d the cartoon faced bloviator eloped with his longtime “girl” friend Moxie Cowsnofski, a.k.a. Miner49er, moved out of mom’s basement for a flat in beautiful Pyongyang, the honeymoon capital of the world, and retired from regurgitating leftist wormshit put in his mouth by mother bird Soros…..Guess I was wrong, oops , my bad

  23. We live under the constant threat of Right-wing violence!
    Of course the actual violence seems to always come from the left.

    • White supremacist terrorism is the deadliest threat to the United States, President Joe Biden told lawmakers. – April 2021

      Meanwhile:

      Nov. 21, Darrell Brooks (a black man, career criminal and outspoken racist) allegedly plowed into dozens of people at the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing six people, including an 8-year-old boy, and injuring up to 60 others,

  24. Kautzer’s piece was so long than only about one in a million will read it. I suspect that that one person was the one that parsed out the segment for the post here on TTAG:-)

  25. Well, fork me running. I clicked the link to bostonreview. Holy forking fork me, Batman. It’s a wall of text, better described as a short story. A fantasy short story, you might say. Lies stacked on top of lies in the first few paragraphs. I really don’t have time to read all that crap. This is the worst of the worst of Marxist propaganda, used to demonize all America loving patriots who believe that the constitution is the law of the land.

    If you have a lot of patience, and a strong stomach, you might read the entire article, then tear it to shreds. Sorry, I’m not doing that here and now. I’ll run out of expletives before I’m half way through it.

  28. “How shocked are we that seventeen-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

    Nowhere near as shocked as we SHOULD be that all the MEN in town bowed down to the corrupt city government and stayee home while the BLM boys trashed the town for three nights. WHERE were the adults in that town? WHERE were the government officials elected and highly paid to “execute the laws” in that town? Kyle was one of the few MEN who made it their business to stand for truth and liberty.

    I find it VERY interesting that after that night, when what many consider to be a “boy” stood up agasint BLM/ANtifa, tried toprevent their destruction, then when attacked did what he had to do to save his own life. With two dead and one badly battered/out of commission dirtbag rabblerounsers in his wake, that night seems to have been the end of usch rioting all accross the nation.. exept for Portland, which seems to be its own thing, as they ocntinued on uninterrupted for at least anotheryear. Stil at it in that crazy place.

    Kyle out the grown men of Kwnosha to shame. Where were the thousands of other “men” in that town, sitting on their thick ends at home watching Kyle on their TeeVee sets with a cold beer in hand?

  29. Chad Kautzer was “right on the beam”. He realizes the FBI was correct when they stated the greatest danger to American Liberty and its Government are the Jackbooted Far Right Nazi’s wanting an all white one party state and a Protestant Christian Caliphate.

    Witness the Trump Jan. 6th Beer Hall Putsch which was an exact duplicate of Hitler’s 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. While the “right out in front” deranged and fearless Hitler led his Jackbooted Nazi scum Herr Drumpf hid in his bunker and watched the putsch on TV. Both men failed. Hitler vowed to return and did and now Herr Drumpf has vowed to return as well. History repeats itself assuming Herr Drumpf does not succumb to cheese burgeritis until the next election. At least Hitler was smart enough to be a vegetarian.

    As verified from one of Trump’s many wives he kept a copy of Mein Kampf at his bedside.

    Witness the Charlottesville torch light parade complete with shouting Far Right Trumpite Nazi’s making racist threats against the Jews, reminiscent of the Hitler torch light parades in Nazi Germany. The majority of the Confederate Monuments were actually put up in the 60’s to intimidate Blacks who were demanding the right to vote. Fast forward to the present where the Republi-Nazi’s are once again taking the voting rights away from minorities because they know they are a failed party who only appeal to the far right minority lunatics and fanatics.

    Witness Kyle Rittenhouse and his Mother making the pilgrimage to Kenosha to support the racist jackbooted cops who murder minorities with impunity because they hated minorities and wanted to “keep them in their place” and they wanted a white dominated government and a one party state.

    Show me the difference between a pickup truck full of far right Bearded Muslim Fanatics waving AK-47’s and wanting an Islamic Caliphate and a pickup truck full of Far Right White Racist Bearded Hillbillies waving AR-15’s and wanting a Christian Caliphate and a one party white dominated State.

    Not so long ago Far Right Nazi’s showed up at voting places heavily armed threatening people only wanting to exercise their Constitutional right to vote and support a two party system, something loathed by the Far Right Jackbooted extremists.

    Witness the Far Right Nut Cases killing people and shooting up Planned Parent hood with AK-47’s when 95% of Planned Parent hood is actually Birth Control. Yet these Morons scream about not wanting to pay more taxes when unwanted children and their mothers end up on welfare for life. The Far Right are always their own worst enemies.

    Witness the almost weekly mass shootings with assault rifles, mostly at schools, and also the mass murder in a Texas shopping center against Latino’s while the Far Right scream “Loses can never be to high”. Again failure to do anything only results in more and more calls for the complete ban of assault rifles proving yet again the Far Right are always their own worst enemies.

    • You’re trying too hard, little d. Lighting too much gas and setting yourself on fire. Where can we sign the skin grafts?

    • dacian the stupid,

      Are the “far right Nazis” under your bed wearing Antifa uniforms? ‘Cause,
      Antifa, BurnLootMurder, and the “Democrat” party are the only fascists I see. Why don’t you stop huffing paint thinner and read a book, for a change??? Oh, because, if you actually did read, and comprehend, a real book, it would harsh your mellow, wouldn’t it? Go emulate Onan, and leave the adults alone. We don’t need or want your “contributions” to the discussion. We can find “crazy&stupid” all over the Left online ecosystem, and you ain’t even a particularly good example.

      “dacian the stupid, show us on the doll where the fascist KKK reich-winger hurt you” may seem like a nice fantasy in your otherwise-empty head, but it has exactly zero box office appeal. Find a new gig that is at least arguably rational. Or, go to Slate or Vox and hang out with your fellow demented idiots. You will not be missed.

      • On the bright side, every minute Lamp the Dull spends patrolling this website is a minute he can’t beat his soon to be ex wife. 🖕🤡.

    • “more and more calls for the complete ban of assault rifles????….sorry man…more and more that appears to be the minority view…the numbers don’t lie….

  30. I’m surprised no one caught this one. The implication was that George Mason didn’t want to sign b/c of 2A, however, “Mason refused to sign the Constitution and lobbied against its ratification in his home state, believing the document as drafted gave too much power to a central government and was incomplete absent a bill of rights to guarantee individual liberty.”

  31. Well, did some research and found out that most of his college students love him.
    That pretty much sums up what he is all about. Filling the minds of our naive young people with an anti American philosophy and BS.

  33. Chad Kautzer doesn’t know what ‘authoritarianism’ means. But that’s ok, its a scary word so he’s going to use it to label anything he doesn’t like!

    • Oh, trust me, Luigi, he KNOWS what it means – he practices it on the daily. He just doesn’t want US to know what it means.

  35. Regardless of who constitutes the “militia”, “the people” named in “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed” means the same thing as “the people” mentioned in the other amendments. Specifically, the individual. And it APPLIES to the government as a do not trespass sign. If the individual does not have the right to keep and bear arms, then that same individual does not have the right to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, privacy, etc…..THAT is their end game, and they know full well they need to deligitimize the second before they can ever hope to deligitimize the rest…….

  36. “…homegrown authoritarianism that understands “militia” to include self-appointed “patriots” with the sovereign power to take life”
    How can individuals recognizing their own agency and acting on their own initiative outside of direct government compulsion be authoritarian?

  37. The author is an “educated idiot,” holding a PHD in stupidity, and has lived his whole life in academia. That he authored “Radical Philosophy: an Introduction,” is all you need to know. I would remind this mental midget that “Vigilantism” occurs when Government FAILS to do it’s job, by lack of commitment, or corruption. It is then that citizens take the “law” back, and take corrective measures. This often leads to the decoration of light posts with the offenders, as in the 1800’s in California, or Tar and Feathering in a number of places in our history. The founders of this nation rightfully felt that the citizenry should always retain the means of producing the result that this delivers, a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The preposterous “doctors” of “education,” today, would do well to remember that there is no shortage of rope, tar, feathers, or will, in the present world!

  38. 1. CRT is a quasi-Marxist formulation that is designed to split the working class, and therefore claiming yourself both a Marxist and a follower of CRT indicates a level of intellectual confusion that is, at least, spectacularly impressive. 2. Nice to see how he found the entire quote from George Mason, the man who essentially formed what would become the Bill of Rights, and especially the Second Amendment. It is obvious that he has never read another word of Mason’s, because he would at least know that Mason refused to sign the original Constitution because of its’ specific lack of the enumeration of individual rights (the Bill of Rights was attached afterwards to get the somewhat hesitant states to sign on- but I’m pretty sure most of you on this blog knew that). Ah, our class of pseudo intellectuals.

    • they weren’t imposing their will on anyone…just protecting their own…an important distinction that applies to Rittenhouse, as well…

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