From die.net word search:
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) Despotism \Des"po*tism\, n. [Cf. F. despotisme.]
1. The power, spirit, or principles of a despot; absolute control over others; tyrannical sway; tyranny. ``The despotism of vice.'' --Byron.
2. A government which is directed by a despot; a despotic monarchy; absolutism; autocracy.
Despotism . . . is the only form of government which may with safety to itself neglect the education of its infant poor. --Bp. Horsley.
Despotism is totalitarian control of others, particularly regarded as absolute control of a Nation's citizens by a government or other ruler.
Consider the killing of Pvt. William Long, in Arkansas from KATV 01 JUN 2009:
Little Rock - Authorities have identified the soldier killed in Monday's double-shooting outside a U.S Army recruitment office in west Little Rock.
According to Pulaski County Coroner Garland Camper, 23-year-old William Long of Conway died shortly after being transported to a Little Rock hospital.
Police say the incident occurred around 10:15 a.m. at a U.S. Army Navy Career Center inside the Ashley Square Shopping Center at 9112 North Rodney Parham Road. According to Lt. Terry Hastings with the Little Rock Police Department, two enlisted soldiers standing outside the office were hit when a suspect drove up in a black SUV and began shooting.
At a briefing Monday afternoon, Little Rock police chief Stuart Thomas identified the suspect as Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock. Thomas says Muhammad also goes by the name Carlos Bledsoe.
Hastings identified the second wounded soldier as Quinton Ezeagwula, age unknown. He remains at a local hospital in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.
The NW Arkansas Times gives background on Muhammad's background including his radicalization during a trip to Yemen, and KATV follows that up with further background and the current state of Muhammad. An interesting thing about reading those two links is the heart of Christian forgiveness is very much present for someone who, in no way, has an excuse for his crime. That heart of charity is still a vital one in America, and we dare not forget that even as we see the horrific acts carried out by the man brought in for his crimes after being chased down by police.
ABC News reports that Muhammad traveled to Yemen under a Somali passport, which is well nigh possible due to the lack of government there along with absence of document control. What is telling is the report at CNSNews from AP on 10 JUN 2009:
Little Rock, Ark. (AP) - A Muslim convert charged with fatally shooting an American soldier at a military recruiting center said Tuesday that he doesn't consider the killing a murder because U.S. military action in the Middle East made the killing justified.
"I do feel I'm not guilty," Abdulhakim Muhammad told The Associated Press in a collect call from the Pulaski County jail. "I don't think it was murder, because murder is when a person kills another person without justified reason."
[..]
Muhammad told the AP he admitted to his actions to police and said he was retaliating against the U.S. military.
"Yes, I did tell the police upon my arrest that this was an act of retaliation, and not a reaction on the soldiers personally," Muhammad said. He called it "a act, for the sake of God, for the sake of Allah, the Lord of all the world, and also a retaliation on U.S. military."
In the interview, Muhammad also disputed his lawyer's claim that he had been "radicalized" in a Yemeni prison and said fellow prisoners that some call terrorists were actually "very good Muslim brothers."
He also said he didn't specifically plan the shootings that morning.
"It's been on my mind for awhile. It wasn't nothing planned really. It was just the heat of the moment, you know," said Muhammad, who was arrested on a highway shortly after the attack.
[..]
He said the U.S. military would never treat Christians and their Scriptures in the same manner.
"U.S. soldiers are killing innocent Muslim men and women. We believe that we have to strike back. We believe in eye for an eye. We don't believe in turning the other cheek," he said.
Asked whether he considered the shootings at the recruiting center an act of war, Muhammad said "I didn't know the soldiers personally, but yes, it was an attack of retaliation. And I feel that other attacks, not by me or people I know, but definitely Muslims in this country and others elsewhere, are going to attack for doing those things they did," especially desecrating the Quran.
That is someone who does not recognize the sovereignty we invest in the Nation State to wage war on behalf of society. In trying to devolve conflicts that the US is involved in at the behest of Congress and due to an attack on the US homeland, Muhammad has decided that his ideology, his religion, is paramount over all Nations. When one takes up killing for this reason and will not recognize the sovereignty of the Nations involved, he defines himself as a threat to all Nations. He sees himself acting in accordance with a 'higher law' that will not recognize the laws of Earth set up under the Law of Nature to differentiate ourselves from Nature.
He cannot even distinguish between his personal act of war and normal predation against society. He protests that it wasn't pre-meditated, and yet that he had thought a long time about this and had multiple weapons in his vehicle. To do that, to think about retaliation against soldiers while not being a soldier, for putting those weapons in his vehicle and then taking up to make war on his own does not require him to know the difference. Indeed, if one has reverted fully to the Law of Nature there IS NO DIFFERENCE in forms of war and all are equal. That is his view, as he states it, that he is fully justified in taking up the cause of war against soldiers of a Nation while not being a soldier or under any sovereign power save that which he believes in which is no Nation.
Such attacks when done in the name of religion to commit an act of war is the attempt to destabilize a Nation's society and make some form of moral equivalence between war done under the restrictions of civilization and those done under the Law of Nature, and yet one holds an individual accountable for their actions to society and the other does not. His invocation of Muslim law, Sharia law, to justify his acts are an attempt to establish LEGITIMACY of them so that other followers can terrorize society to enforce their will upon society.
That is the heart of despotism: seeking to establish a tyrannical rule over others, in this case using fear as the weapon of choice beyond the blood spilled to his 'cause'. We have heard this countless times in the past from those seeking to support that killing under no banner, no flag, wearing no uniform, under no command structure and being accountable only to a 'higher power' that can't be reasoned with is just that activity and places such individuals as outlaws to all societies, all Nations. That is the banner of your beliefs over all others, and that not only makes him a criminal but makes him a killer unrestrained by reason and refusing to acknowledge temporal law over him. By doing that he casts himself out from society, not the other way around. And what he wants in the place of the society that exists is one that is subservient to a religion that has deep problems recognizing temporal law as something separate from religious law.
He seeks the despotism of a religion over society to dictate to it and rule it absolutely.
At the Holocaust Memorial Museum the murder of Stephen Tyrone Johns, a black security guard, by a white supremacist is examined at Fox News on 11 JUN 2009. We are slowly coming to learn as much about James Von Brunn as Abdulhakim Muhammad as the events unfold:
Von Brunn, who was shot and critically wounded after he burst into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and opened fire, was sending increasingly violent messages. In one e-mail, he wrote, "It's time to kill all the Jews," according to the Post.
He also told friends he was in financial trouble and was going to give away his computer.
"He said his Social Security had been cut and that he was barely making it," acquaintance John de Nugent, a self-described white separatist, told the Post. "He felt it was the direct result of someone in Washington looking at his Web site."
[..]
Von Brunn, a World War II veteran, had long been known in white supremacist circles for his racist rants and extreme hatred of Jews and blacks. He lives in Annapolis, Md., and has a history of anger, abusive behavior, anti-Semitism and anti-government aggression.
The Web site attributed to Von Brunn says he wrote a book called "Kill the Best Gentiles," about how to "protect your white family."
Online writings said to be Von Brunn's claim the Holocaust was a hoax and lambaste a Jewish conspiracy to "destroy the white gene pool."
The guard he shot and killed actually opened up the door for him to the Memorial, giving help to an older man because that is the kind and courteous thing to do.
At KUSI on 11 JUN 2009 there is further reporting:
Law enforcement officials said James W. von Brunn, a white supremacist, was under investigation in the shooting and that his car was found near the museum and tested for explosives. The weapon was a .22-caliber rifle, they added. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss the investigation just beginning.
When von Brunn was captured he possessed a list he had made of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, according to another law enforcement officer who requested anonymity. The purpose of the list was not immediately clear, the official said.
The dead guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, 39, was a six-year veteran of the facility who lived in Temple Hills, Md. Museum Director Sara Bloomfield said he "died heroically in the line of duty."
[..]
Von Brunn has a racist, anti-Semitic Web site and wrote a book titled "Kill the Best Gentiles," alleging a Jewish conspiracy "to destroy the white gene pool." Writings attributed to von Brunn on the Internet say the Holocaust was a hoax.
In 1983, he was convicted of attempting to kidnap members of the Federal Reserve Board and served more than six years in prison. He was arrested two years earlier outside the room where the board was meeting, carrying a revolver, knife and sawed-off shotgun. At the time, police said von Brunn wanted to take the members hostage because of high interest rates and the nation's economic difficulties.
"At Auschwitz the 'Holocaust' myth became Reality, and Germany, cultural gem of the West, became a pariah among world nations," it says.
[..]
Navy records show von Brunn enlisted in 1942 as an apprentice seaman before accepting an appointment as a naval midshipmen in the volunteer reserves in March 1943. On his application for enlistment, the 21-year-old listed his reason for signing up as "patriotic." His records show he had language qualifications in both English and French after spending three years in college. He was discharged from the Navy in 1956.
A cousin, Virginia Gerker of St. Louis, said in an interview she hadn't seen him in 50 years. She said her family had "disowned" him and believed him to be mentally ill.
About a dozen years ago, he applied to have his art shown at a gallery in Easton, Md., according to two of the owners. Laura Era and Jennifer Wharton said they rejected his work and he stomped out.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said von Brunn's Web site has long been listed as a hate site.
"We've been tracking this guy for decades," said Heidi Beirich, director of research for the law center's Intelligence Project, which tracks hate crimes. "He thinks the Jews control the Federal Reserve, the banking system, that basically all Jews are evil."
The Rev. David Ostendorf, executive director of the Center for a New Community in Chicago, a national civil rights group, said von Brunn has described in his own writings a long relationship with Willis Carto, founder of the Liberty Lobby, the Spotlight Newspaper and a well-known white supremacist and anti-Semite.
Here a white supremacist, racist, anti-semite who also believes in killing off 'the Best Gentiles' inflicts his beliefs upon an innocent man who serves to protect others while visiting the Holocaust Memorial Museum. He, too, has a stark view of the world and has demonstrated that he was more than willing to take the law into his own hands and operate outside the law. His idolization of Nazi Germany however is telling, and gains him the label of 'Neo-Nazi' and not without some justification.
It is the actual acting out of these ideals, on his own, and in a way consistent with his beliefs that is highly disturbing. The idolatry of a Fascist State that turned to exterminating its own citizens of Jewish origin, as well as Gypsies, the mentally and physically handicapped and others that were regarded as not wanted to 'purify' a race demonstrates some level of accepting that concept as a good one. That is to link National Socialism with racial supremacy and then blame all the ills of a Nation and oneself on those who were Jewish or black is something that must be stood against. That is not a belief of someone from the 'right' any more than that of Abdulhakim Muhammad is.
They both stand for a supremacy of government under their own totalitarian desires to enforce its will upon society. That is backing despotic rule: one under religious pretexts and the other under racial ones. That concept of using the 'binding' power of government to do this is not something that grows out of supporting individual liberty, individual freedom, and individual rights: it grows out of supporting government to take over decision making for society. That is in no way, shape or form something those supporting the Rights of Man as an Individual will ever countenance. Nor is it one that any old-school Nationalist will subscribe to, as the Nation is an outgrowth of society and the State is made to curb the excesses of individuals so as to protect the polity and civil society.
As individuals both Pvt. William Long and Stephen Tyrone Johns had the right to defend themselves, but both were killed by cowards: Pvt. Long in what is essentially a 'drive-by' shooting, and Mr. Johns after showing an act of kindness to an elderly man. Within the protective bosom of society neither Muhammad nor von Brunn had any expectation of immediate retribution and no fear that they would brought down for reverting to savagery while attacking those protecting society. That is an essential part of liberty: to protect oneself and one's property against those who turn lawless and seek to use fear, coercion and killing to achieve their ends of depriving you of life or property.
These two killers step beyond the bounds of society.
No one in society, seeking to protect society, in any way condones these actions.
Nor should any excuses for their actions be brought forward, save that of total and utter derangement which does not appear to be the case with either of these men.
This cannot be pinned to those who support individual liberty, freedom and the Rights of Man as an Individual: the Traditionalist Right who uphold the government as a necessary evil so as to curb the excesses of individuals and stop their predation upon society. Those are people who uphold civil law as paramount to leading a secure life and knowing that government, itself, is held in check by society. Neither of these killers espoused that, and just the opposite, as both have beliefs and stated views that see government as the necessary dictatorial power over society to achieve their ends.
Collectivist mentality in politics only has one place, one home, today: those that seek to expand the role of government, diminish the liberty of the individual, and discriminate by group, class, economic status or any other thing. Those are despotic ends, to have government do these things. The home for them exists not on those who support the Rights of Man as an Individual, as they are absolutely and utterly contrary to those views.
The home of espousing the 'good' of separation, of division, of giving some preferences over others at the expense of society in the name of 'good' or 'fairness' is only done by those espousing the power of government over society. They seek to excuse such killers or pin their position to those seeking to uphold civil rights and equality for all men, with preference towards none. By trying to push such killers away, those doing so are unable to take the firm stand necessary against them as seeking more power for government to rule society is a matter of degree, not kind. In the end the despotism sought by that cover is the same, just slightly different in form as some people become more equal than others.
They just argue about who is at the top of the heap.
All of them wish to bring back the yoke of tyranny and despotism.
Be warned the sweet and soothing words of 'fairness' and 'good' from government: it coats the poison of totalitarian views, where you are just a set of tags easily discriminated against by government. Thus making you into a subject, not a citizen.
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