Gedankenexperiment: “Free guns for Democrats! No wait, no checks, no questions asked!”

Would Sun Tzu have something to say about it? I think Gandhi did, but in his situation it emerged differently.

Years and years of Aikido practice… When pushed, do we instinctively resist? Can we feel it? Can we sense it? Can we overcome it? More years of practice… You build mastery. You sense it and you find another way. You yield when pushed… but do you always yield? Is that the best way? Could you enter and disrupt instead? More years…

If we pause, we see: If when we are pushed we always resist, our fates are sealed. But what if, every so often, unpredictably we yield? What does it feel like, to expect resistance but not find it? To fall into that hole where the residence always was?

What if, when told there is nothing more important, we all agreed. What if we agreed to their terms and accepted them as rights? What if their adversaries were suddenly armed to the teeth, openly carrying their weapons with a swagger… or perhaps concealing them – who would know? And what if all of those armed people banned together and called themselves a militia? And what if they felt their leaders were tyrants? That they were taxed but had no political voice or representation?

And what if they looked back to their Founding Fathers for guidance? What if, tomorrow, they were all armed?

What if, after all of these years responding in the same, predictable way, when pushed, they pulled instead? And, what if, when they stumbled to recover, this time you entered to disrupt?

And what if this time you held the weapon they argued you should have?

Gedankenexperiment.