Cracking the Code of Crazy

What with one thing and another, I run across a lot of "purists." The ones whose battle cry is "Total Victory or No Victory At All!" The same ones that hold ideological purity as more important than actual victory - the sort that would throw Alan Gottlieb under the bus for seeking victory in bits rather than loss in heaping helpings.

While, in my eyes, Dudley Brown of NAGR sort of epitomizes the "dysfunction for profit" version of this syndrome with his "purer than thou" cries as he extends his hand for dollars, the kids doing open carry of long arms down in Texas seem on pretty much on the same page. A page called "completely detached from objective reality" - the page comes with many, many pictures.

The problem in Dudley & Co's case, if I analyze it rightly, is a business plan built on tearing down the folks actually doing the work and making progress on the 2nd Amendment portion of the civil rights schtick (or at least doing damage control in those cesspools of fear, bigotry and hatred towards guns and lawful gun owners like California, NJ, IL and other versions of Mordor) and pleading for cash because the ones they tear down are "insufficiently pure and betraying the cause" because the broker compromises that result in either net gains or minimized losses.

This isn't helpful. It is less helpful when coming from a group with but a single and severely limited court victory of which I am aware and which otherwise seems only to be triumphant in stirring up division in the pro-gun community for profit.

The nimrods busily frightening the undecided into the hostile camp and turning neutral locations into gun free zones by brandishing long arms in spaces where such are sufficiently unusual as to inspire concern (i.e., "where are the exits and do I have a clear line of fire on this numbskull") among our allies in the pro 2nd Amendment community exhibit the same variety of "holier than thou" or "Sister Bertha Better Than You" mentality wherein any person bearing criticism of their tactics is inherently a traitor to the cause.  

Similarly, the folks in the libertarian and Tea Party camps that loudly cry "Treason! Compromise! ALL OR NAUGHT! STORM THE GATES!" at the hint of any sort of incrementalist approach (particularly ones that involve compromise in service of a long term victory) are less than entirely helpful to the cause of extricating the party of corruption and the Klan from its rancid gelatinous grasp on the levers of power.

Frontal assaults are all fine and dandy when you have overwhelming superiority of force on your side (though even then they tend to be expensive in at least time and treasure). When all you've got is alleged moral superiority and (if you're lucky) facts and logic on your side - dying on the allegorical swords of your political opposition not only has rather less charm, it is rather less than effective.

For those of us actually interested in victory (rather than fanaticism or religious fervor) - whether in the narrower field of firearms rights or in the broader goal of seeking smaller government with greater individual empowerment, freedom and responsibility - compromise exists as a valid step to move the ultimate end goal forward. It's unlikely we're going to undo a century and change of "progressive" damage in but a single fell swoop - but if we keep chipping away at the obscene edifice (not unlike the manner in which it was erected a teaspoon of excrement at a time) and refrain from throwing up our hands...victory is quite possibly ours.

"Total Victory or No Victory" isn't a recipe for victory - it's just an unusually complicated way to self-destruct.