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HABLA USTED ESPANOL?
THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T TRUST YOU
IN ENGLISH OR SPANISH
In May of 2005 I left for a three week trip to Colombia. This was my third visit. My wife is from Colombia and wanted to see her family but I had an ulterior motive. I need three more hours in geography to complete my classwork toward a masters in history. Dr. Legreid, Chair of the Geography Department at CMSU, gave me the opportunity to conduct field work while in Colombia to earn those three hours. My research was to explore how geography shaped the cultural, social, economic, and political development of Colombia. My expedition was a whirlwind of travel to incredible mountain tops, cool valleys, snow, steaming hot lush jungle, and crossing a bridge way above a wild rushing river where I discovered vertigo.There were hikes, mummies, ancient tombs, digging for rocks and fossils, food, music, and drink. It was a fabulous time among wonderful people. For those unfamiliar with Latin American culture, if they like you they adopt you. If you marry into the family, your are the same as a natural born son or daughter. The purpose of this article is to argue that whether one is discussing the murderous violence of Communist guerrillas in South America or the terrorism of Islamic radicals, a commonality binds them together. That commonality is the reaction of government. Violence is waged against the law abiding and the vulnerable by the law breaking and the savage. Government typically responds in two ways. Most governments move to suppress and neutralize the terrorist to protect the people. But they also move with equal vigor to deny the law abiding citizens the right and ability to defend themselves. This is especially true in Europe and South America and to some degree in the United States. Governments are aware that they cannot protect the people from determined terrorists, especially those for whom suicide is no obstacle. Terrorists know this as well as governments. But governments today are locked in the prison of political correctness and so refuse to do what needs to be done. First, let us look at my contention that there is a commonality between the reaction of governments to terrorism regardless of what language we speak.
Colombia, South America has a long history of violence. They have suffered through eight major civil wars between 1830 and the present. During the last major conflict, La Violencia (1948-1964) between 80,000 and 400,000 people perished. The disparity in numbers results from the fact that each side and faction counted death by accident, disease, and old age as murder in order to attribute more atrocities to their rivals. In addition, as a result of drug wars and the terrorism of Communist revolutionary guerrilla groups, backed at one time by the Soviet Union, Fidel Castro, and Red China, (F.A.R.C., the E.L.N., and la Foquistas from the Che Guevera school), Colombia's homicide rate is out of control. The homicide rate from 1960 through 1980 was 39 per 100,000 people. It rose to more than 90 per 100,000 during the 1990s and Medellin's murder rate is 245 per 100,000 the highest in Latin America [Frank Safford & Marco Palacios, Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society, (New York, N.Y., Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 345, 360-361]. The murder rate in Santa Fe' de Bogota', the national capital, is 77.5 per 100,000 (about 30,000 a year) eight times higher than anywhere in the United States. Colombia is also the kidnap capital of the world (some say Mexico really deserves this distinction) and Americans are especial targets. Captured Americans are often shot on sight. The U.S. government will typically do nothing to help if an American is kidnapped. Only 15% of the murders are connected to the drug trade or guerrilla terrorism [Rob Krott, "Bad Streets of Bloody Bogota," Soldier of Fortune, 3 (March 2001), pp. 74-88]. That means 85% of murders are committed by the same type of murderers we have in America. During my life I have lived in Baltimore, Philadelphia (Germantown, not the burbs) from 1965-1971, and in San Jose California in the 1980s. I felt safer in Bogota' than I ever did in Philadelphia. In fact, after my experiences in the "City of Brotherly Love" I wouldn't return unless I was packing a lunch and a gun. But I'd better not go there. Apparently my employer, a school district, and some colleagues driven by liberal political correctness (the intellectual bodyguards of Bolshevism), have been googling my name to monitor what I write in the Bullet.
As an aside the most common question I am asked, especially by teenagers, when I mention I am traveling to Colombia is "Are you going there to buy drugs?" I have taken to responding by asking "Is that where you go to buy yours?" The reality is very few of Colombia's millions of poor farmers are involved in any aspect of the drug trade and you seldom if ever see narcotics in Colombia. Those involved in narcotics are supplying the insatiable demand created by North Americans especially those in the middle and upper-classes.
In Colombia private ownership of arms is all but impossible. They have no right to keep and bear arms. Hundreds of thousands of people, especially poor peasants, are often caught in the crossfire between narco-traffickers, the police, communist guerrillas, anti-communist paramilitaries, and the military. The mass of the people have only the option of being shot or saved.
In America the U.S. government has much in common with that of Colombia. Gun writer John Connor, although not writing in the context of terrorism, nevertheless highlights why crime and terrorism is so prevalent. He defines "Sheeple" as "Sheep-like people, many of whom deny the existence of wolves, and vote to pull the teeth of the sheepdogs who protect the flock" [John Connor, "GunCrank Diaries: Why Do You Carry A Gun?" American Handgunner, 176 (July/August 2005) p-24]. Connor's maxim came to mind on Thursday, July 7 as I pulled into the parking lot at K.C.I. to pick up my daughters. I told them to hurry, get their stuff, and get to the car. They asked why. I told them there had been a terrorist bombing in London. The government would overreact in a p.c. way, make our life tough, and do nothing do fight real terrorists. Any government that shakes down a 95 year old black woman and sicks bomb dogs on four year old girls at the airport isn't serious about fighting terrorism. Connor explains that he carries a gun because of a little girl he calls Liz who was forced to watch as her mom was beaten and brutally raped. Both are traumatized for life. Connor points out many Americans who don't have the courage to care about their fellow Americans, and carry a gun, are neglecting their responsibility to the defenseless in America (Connor, p-24). In Colombia I was a target and yet had no opportunity to defend myself. I was pulled out of a car at gunpoint (H&K's) and searched for weapons at a military checkpoint. Other men were not. But I was the American. In America government denies or throws up obstacles to people executing their right to keep and bear arms. Many in government don't want the people able to defend themselves against criminals that government cannot stop and terrorists they are unwilling to stop. As long as I hear American politicians falling all over themselves to declare that Islam is a religion of peace and only a few extremists have hijacked their religion, I know they are not serious about fighting terrorists. And, as long as they are not serious, we are all in jeopardy. Apocryphal or not, the words of George C. Scott playing General George Patton in the movie Patton are apropos: "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country" and "When you put your hand into a bunch of goo that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do" (Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox, 1969). If those in government cannot find the spine that has been flayed out of them by political correctness, they should at least stop interfering with our right and ability to defend ourselves and our loved ones. God bless America and God bless Dean Johnson.