The Classic Liberal Blog

The following is from the movie Lonesome Dove. Watch it, we'll discuss.

I say what I say not to condemn, but because I care.

Americans have been scared into a straight-jacket. Sissified. Persnickety. Squeamish. Wimps.

Why do I say this? Because anyone who talks about things like secession, nullification, interposition, revolution ... is labelled a "dangerous" threat, cast aside as a lunatic, ridiculed, and sometimes even arrested for no valid reason.

It's bizarre. Today, our Declaration of Independence would be considered the violent rantings of a fringe militia who must be controlled. Thinking and speaking about anything not officially approved by the Beltway, is strictly off-limits. Don't you dare associate with those people.

Let's talk interposition ... Very Scary, I know. The following by Will Grigg discusses the movie clip you watched above.

Who's Afraid of "Interposition"?

Newt's act is a form of peaceful interposition in defense of his friend's property rights. His reward is to be assaulted by the infuriated scout, who repeatedly lashes the young man with a quirt. From across the plaza, Woodrow Call - who had been shopping at a dry goods store -- spies the assault on Newt, his only son (a fact not known to the young man).

After quickly saddling up and dashing on horseback the length of the town, Newt's infuriated father knocks Dixon from his horse. Woodrow dismounts, kicks Dixon in the teeth -- and then he gets rude.

In addition to being the most beautiful scene in American literature, this episode illustrates several applications of the principle of interposition -- the lawful, necessary intervention by one person in defense of the rights of another.

Newt interposed to protect his friend's horse; Woodrow intervened with righteous violence to protect Newt from the Army scout's criminal assault.

It could also be said that Augustus interposed on behalf of the scout by preventing his friend Woodrow from exceeding his moral authority: Yes, Dixon deserved a stout beating, but killing him outright would have been disproportionate.

In terms of both morality and the law, Boggett's refusal to sell or surrender his horse ended the matter. The violence that ensued was an entirely credible dramatization of what happens when agents of the state's killing apparatus refuse to take "no" as the final answer to a demand for the legal property of a law-abiding man.

By using the term "law" we are not referring to the positivist enactments through which governments plunder the productive on behalf of the parasitical, and inflict criminal violence on anyone who objects; rather, we are referring to what Frederic Bastiat described as "the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense."

While providing for that common defense is supposedly the purpose of government, it is government that most consistently threatens individual rights and property. Interposition could be considered a form of "citizen's arrest" -- that is, an action taken to arrest criminal aggression by government. The most basic form of interposition is defensive physical action, whether through peaceful non-cooperation or lawful exercise of defensive violence.

In political terms, interposition is an organized effort to accomplish the same end by way of deputized representatives. In the U.S. constitutional system, interposition can take the form of nullification of unconstitutional federal acts by a state government, or of the application of an unjust "law" by a jury (as in "jury nullification").

Critics of the concept treat it as either an invention of fringe-dwelling conspiracists or the disreputable refuge of race-fixated segregationists. Typical of such people is self-styled "expert" on extremism David Neiwert (the author of a deeply silly and incurably dishonest book on "hate politics"), who -- exhibiting his proprietary blend of ignorance and mendacity -- refers to interposition and nullification as concepts supposedly created by the "militia movement" in the 1990s.

The truth, which is readily available to anyone with a library card (or access to Google) and a mind not shackled by statist prejudices, is that those concepts were first propounded centuries ago in England, and that they are part of the warp and weave of the U.S. constitutional system. The Magna Carta is the product of interposition. The pseudonymously published 17th Century Puritan tract Vindiciae contra Tyrannos (elements of which clearly anticipate the Declaration of Independence), describes interposition by legislative bodies as a critical means of restraining a lawless king's corrupt ambitions.

The most systematic and compelling exposition of interposition and nullification was provided by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison -- neither of whom was among the living during the much-hyped "militia" scare of the mid-1990s -- in their 1798 Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which were enacted by the legislatures of those states in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts.

It frustrates and saddens me that today's conservative would consider Bogget, Newt, and Woodrow's actions an act of treason, simply because they didn't bow to the All-Knowing power of the State's military.

Oh, I can hear the cries now, "You hate the military!" Really? Has life really been boiled down to a bunch of bumper sticker slogans?

People that tell you what you can read, not read, who you should associate with, and who not to (ahem, Karl Rove and Glenn Beck), what to think and not think, are practising a form of speech and thought control.

You see, the Establishment is losing control, and they're running scared. Don't let them fool you into believing their lies.

Please take the time to read the whole post (click on title above), and add William Grigg's Pro Libertate to your daily reading list! He's smart. He's challenging. And he's right!