NOVAE MILITIAE

http://novaemilitiae.squarespace.com/periodic-musings-blog/2006/2/19/molon-labe.html

Some readers may be wondering how a nice Orthodox boy like me can advertise a cap with a message like that. Why, aren't I in essence defending that execrable, anarchistic NRA slogan, “From My Cold, Dead Hands?”  Is Caedmon a libertarian, or worse, one of those “patriot” types? Well, not exactly, though it’s safe to say that you probably won’t find too many Orthodox Christians like me. But you will find some, and the HARDER you look, the more you will find (and more than you realized were there). I’ll expand on that below.

No matter how genuine one’s Orthodox phronema might be, the fact remains that if he is an American, he belongs to a country with a unique constitutional history and political philosophy. It’s not a constitutional history and political philosophy that has much to do with historic Orthodox cultures, but what does that matter? Orthodoxy has shaped the cultures it has evangelized, but it has also been to significant extents shaped by those cultures. Whatever “American Orthodoxy” ends up looking like, it will have to recognize – and assimilate – certain American political and cultural distinctives.

One of those distinctives is that Americans always have been and always will be an armed people, and the right to arms has been constitutionally recognized in both state and federal constitutions. This right has historically been a corollary of the right to self and collective defense, not only against the assaults of criminals but also the predation of a tyrannical government. As the American Political Dictionary puts it, “The right to bear arms is an implicit recognition of the right of revolution, stemming from the idea that a tyrant could not be overthrown if the people were denied the means.” [1] The right has not been granted by those constitutions, but rather is a pre-existing natural or common-law right that is merely recognized by them, enshrined in the foundational law of the nation. This right is enjoyed by individual citizens who make up the American collective. The hoplophobic, ideologically driven prattle of the liberal/left legal academy notwithstanding, the right to arms is not merely a “collective” right exercised by publicly delegated military bodies such as the police or National Guard.

To be sure, there are American Orthodox Christians who, harboring certain authoritarian Old World notions or ideas stemming from the planks of the Democratic Party (with which so many of them are unfortunately affiliated), think this right-to-arms stuff just so much un-Orthodox hooey. But that’s their problem. Others of us, following the Founding Fathers and exercising our birthright as Orthodox Americans, will exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms and will oppose every measure designed to infringe it.

Besides, the legitimacy of popular armed resistance has long been recognized by Christian cultures, East and West. For instance, as David Kopel and Christopher Little observe:

In an effort to end the practice of relying on foreign mercenaries, the Byzantine Emperor Maurice handed down the following directive circa 579 A.D.: "We wish that every young Roman [subject of Byzantium ] of free condition should learn the use of the bow, and be constantly provided with that weapon and with two javelins." (Strategikon, reprinted in I The Art of War in the Middle Ages 178-79 (C. Oman trans., 1924), cited in Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes 98 (1984) .)

In the ninth century, Emperor Leo VI urged, in essence, the creation of a popular militia skilled in guerrilla warfare:

We therefore wish that those who dwell in castle, countryside, or town, in short, every one of our subjects, should have a bow of his own. Or if this be impossible, let every household keep a bow and forty arrows, and let practice be made with them in shooting both in the open and in broken ground and in defiles and woods. For if there come a sudden incursion of enemies into the bowels of the land, men using archery from rocky ground or in defiles or in forest paths can do the invader much harm; for the enemy dislikes having to keep sending out detachments to drive them off, and will dread to scatter far abroad after plunder, so that much territory can thus be kept unharmed, since the enemy will not desire to be engaging in a perpetual archery skirmish. (Tactica,  reprinted in I The Art of War in the Middle Ages 179 (C. Oman trans., 1924), cited in Deno John Geanakoplos, Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen Through Contemporary Eyes 98-99 (1984) .) [2]

Monks on Mt. Athos took up arms against Turkish invaders, Orthodox civilians of Greece and the Balkans took up arms and threw off the Turkish yoke in the early 19^th century, Orthodox civilians of Crete waged a horrendous campaign of armed resistance against the Nazis, Russian civilians pleaded with Patriarch Tikhon to allow them to form militia to fight off the Bolsheviks (alas, to no avail), Kalashnikov-wielding Romanian citizens took down the brutal dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and some Serbian nuns in Kosovo have been known to pack pistols in order to defend themselves from Albanian Muslim thugs. It would appear from such examples that the Orthodox have first of all never considered themselves pacifists, and secondly have believed there are times when it is legitimate to take up arms against tyrants and criminals.

Now, in addition, Christian chivalry is a principal theme of this web site. And manly familiarity with fighting techniques and weaponry, mainly small arms, has always been a principal feature of the chivalric experience. Indeed, it is questionable whether or not firearms are truly chivalric weapons. I grant that, and I think in the name of a more purist chivalry men and their sons should become proficient with a bow or a sword. Nevertheless, the firearm is the small arm of our age, and a modern knight should own and know how to use one, if not several. Thomas Jefferson had an interesting take on firearms: “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the specific exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore by the constant companion of your walks.” As Kopel notes, Jefferson wrote “(i)n his 1818 Report of the Commissioners or the University of Virginia: ‘the manual exercise, military maneuvers, and tactics generally, should be the frequent exercise of the students, in their hours of recreation.’” [3]  Young men becoming one with their weapons and bearing them as their "constant companions": this is early American chivalry.

This day and age of potential terrorism perpetrated on American soil constitutes another reason why people, including Orthodox people, may want to consider gun ownership. More information about basic survival techniques is being promulgated, including from but certainly not limited to, the Department of Homeland Security. The more politically correct of these sources don’t say anything about the role firearms might play in a survival scenario, but most “survivalist” or “self-sufficiency” books and web sites certainly do. Stories about recent natural disasters (e.g., Hurricane Andrew) or civil disturbances (the Los Angeles riots) are rife with accounts of how armed civilians helped to secure order or at least protect themselves and their neighbors during these times of natural chaos and civic unrest.

Am I suggesting here that it is legitimate to go off and join or form some militia? Are we to join the nutburgers who are hunkered down awaiting for the final revelation of the “New World Order?” By no means. American citizens don’t need to form militias, much less join the camoflauged wackos. By common law and even federal statute [4], the American people are “reserve” or “unorganized” militia. Or, as any number of the Founding Fathers would have put it, “Who are the Militia? They consist now of the whole people, except for a few public officers” (George Mason).

I am of the opinion that the closest thing to a “reserve” militia in training is the ubiquitous gun club, especially those clubs that participate in the Civilian Marksmanship Program (http://www.odcmp.com/ ). Gun club members participate in no military maneuvers, but they do learn both gun safety and marksmanship, which is precisely the sort of thing needed if ever “there come a sudden incursion of enemies into the bowels of the land” or its equivalent. Even if nothing like that ever occurs here, and please God may it be so, arms will still be kept and borne recreationally and for self-defense. For, despite the disapproval of pinkos (Orthodox or otherwise) and even if, as constitutional scholar Stephen Halbrook writes, the U.S. Supreme Court were ever to decide (against all the evidence of constitutional history) that the right to arms was not an individual right, “it seems likely that millions of Americans will continue to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” In other words, “Molon Labe.”

[1] Jack C. Plano and Milton Greenburg, THE DRYDEN PRESS, p. 79

[2] “Communitarians, Neorepublicans and Guns: Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition,” 56 Maryland L. Rev . 438-554 (1997) , Footnote 405. http://www.guncite.com/journals/commun.html

[3] “Thomas Jefferson Forever”, http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Mags/ThomasJeffersonForever.htm

[4] 10 USC 311: “Militia: composition and classes -- (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard; (b) The classes of the militia are-- (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."