The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

“Stay ‘unreasonable.’  If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.” 
Dan Webre

The Martialist does not
constitute legal advice.  It is for ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY.

Copyright © 2003-2004 Phil Elmore, all rights
reserved.

Why Are You Here?

By Phil Elmore

The next time you’re standing or sitting amidst fellow
students of your martial art or system, look around. 

The next time you’re visiting an Internet discussion forum
like Pax Baculum, stop
and observe your fellow participants.

The next time you attend a seminar, read a book, or watch a
video about some aspect of self-defense, take a good, long look at the
instructor.

Ask yourself, in each of those cases:  What are you
doing here?

A remake of
Invasion of the
Body Snatchers featuring Donald Sutherland culminates in the possessed
Sutherland pointing and squealing at an interloping human.  The body
snatchers know their own – and they don’t tolerate the presence of unbelievers
in their midst.  When they identify an intruder, they descend on the
infidel, determined to convert the lost soul among them.

If you believe in self-defense – if you believe in the moral
validity of using force for self-preservation – congratulations.  You’re
one of us.  You’re part of a community of invading aliens, creatures who
terrify “civilized” human beings who look askance at the use of violence for
self-protection.  Slowly but surely, we are converting these Earthlings,
as each new member of the

All of Us realizes that society is rife with predators.  Each human
being who joins our ranks understands that society’s predators do not
respond to reason, do not make bargains, do not keep promises,
and do not respect others’ rights.

If you haven’t yet joined us but this sounds logical to you,
relax.  You’ll be one of us soon.

There are, however, interlopers among us.

Recognizing and respecting your fellow citizens’ rights,
their sovereignty, their ownership of themselves, is a simple choice. 
To determine if you do respect others, simply ask yourself another
question:  Do you see your fellow citizens’ freedom of action as a
benefit or a threat?

When I consider a society in which I and my neighbor may be
armed for self-defense, I rest more soundly at night.  Were I to begrudge
my neighbor the tools of self-defense – personal weapons of any kind – I
would, in effect, be telling him just how much I valued his
life.  What manner of arrogant elitism would prompt me to look my fellow
citizen in the face and tell him what his life is worth?

If you have ever had the thought, “I am capable of going
armed responsibly, but too many of my fellow citizens are not,” the All of Us
should be pointing and hissing at you right now.  The majority of your
fellow citizens are not criminals.  They are not morons. 
They are sovereign individuals whose rights to their own lives are inalienable
– and whose freedom to possess the tools of self-defense is likewise a
right rather than a privilege.

If you believe that most of your fellow citizens cannot
be trusted to be armed for self-defense, if you presume to tell them they
do not need to be, if you believe in the right to use force for
self-defense but think the use of weaponry goes “too far” – what are you
doing here?

Such beliefs are antithetical to success in self-defense. 
Such beliefs are incompatible with respect for individual rights. 
Such beliefs are offensive to anyone who knows society’s predators do
not have the right to take life at your expense.

If you believe that it’s okay to defend yourself as long
as you don’t do it too well, you’re not one of us.  If you believe
law enforcement should arrest citizens who’ve committed no crime but who are
found to possess even the most rudimentary of weapons, you’re not one of us. 
If you think martial arts training or books on weaponry or web pages
containing self-defense information should be regulated and controlled, you’re
not one of us.

You’re one of them.

Don’t be one of them.  Don’t become part of the zombie
horde, lurching in lockstep to collectivist pleas for the infringement of
individual rights.  Don’t climb aboard the chicken-wired dune buggies of
the Humungus,
circling the camp of society’s prime movers demanding to take what is not
yours.  Don’t waste the time and energy of the martialists
surrounding you by walking among them while working against them.  If
that’s what you’re doing, why?  What are you doing here?

You’re one of us, or you’re one of them.

Join us.