WHITEHORSE, Yukonslavia - Clarence Thomas punctuated a lecture he gave last year in Washington, D.C. to the American Institute for Public Policy Research with an inspirational story worth re-telling.

The U.S. Supreme Court Justice's narrative personifies how one ordinary individual can make a difference.

Dimiter Pesev courageously followed his conscience, refusing to stand by idly while the state illegally perpetrated injustice on the Jews of Bulgaria. Had others shown the same spunk and united as a collective force, the Communists most likely could not have overtaken the little country after the Second World War.

But Bulgarians were afraid to speak up, afraid to get involved. Their timidity cost them their freedom.

Dimiter Pesev was a simple and straight-forward man, a civil servant of no great intellect, and raising a family while struggling through this terrible period of European history.

He was the vice-president of the Bulgarian Parliament when the rule of law was being surrendered to the rule of fear during the rise of Nazism.

Bulgaria had no tradition of anti-Semitism and managed to stay out of the war. But the pressures were enormous for the country to enter the fight. Bulgaria started to gravitate toward the Holocaust in small, invisible steps.

Pesev was among the many Bulgarian officials who began to hear rumours about a New Policy. He questioned his ministers. At first, he believed their lies, which the ministers may have believed themselves.

In the last frantic hours, a small group of citizens from Pesev's hometown rushed to the Bulgarian capital of Sofia to tell Pesev the Jews were being rounded up and the trains were waiting to load the human cargo.

According to the law, such action was illegal. He forced his way into the office to have audience with the interior minister. Pesev demanded the truth and didn't believe the minister who repeated the official party line.

Pesev urged the minister to telephone the local authorities and remind them of their legal obligations and to order them to stop this unconscionable deed.

This brave and selfless act saved the lives of the Bulgarian Jews. Pesev then circulated a letter to members of Parliament, condemning them for violating the law and demanding that the government ensure no such thing ever take place.

Pesev's words had moved to action all those who until that moment had not imagined what could happen. He had broken through the wall of self-deception and forced his colleagues to face the truth. Still, they could not accept what they had learned.

Pesev was removed from his official post and was publicly chastised for breaking ranks. But he had won. He had stood up for his convictions. He could look himself in the mirror. He had defended the country's Jewish population and prevented the Bulgarian government from advocating any active operation with the Third Reich.

Others had not been brave enough to come on-side.

The Communists occupied Bulgaria and rewrote history. The Communist Party took credit for saving the Jews from the Nazis and banished Pesev to the Gulag.

His fate can be partially blamed on the inaction of others who kept their heads ducked in hopes the Communists wouldn't notice them. All Bulgarians weren't exiled to the mines like Pesev but all ended up confined as prisoners inside their own country.

When things aren't going right, people have three choices: do nothing in hopes the enemy won't notice; raise a ruckus by carrying out nonviolent civil disobedience to garner attention, as did Pesev; or become an outlaw who refuses to ask permission from government to do anything.

Real criminals don't ask permission to do harmful acts of force or fraud against innocent people, do they? Why should honest, sensible, responsible people who know what's best for them have to grovel to government for permission to do or own what isn't hurting someone else?

Any one of the three options can be dangerous.

However, doing nothing is probably the most dangerous. It leads to loss of freedom. The state will continue to clamp down on society until it meets effective protest.

People who do not protest and fight back for their beliefs are cast as pathetic victims, for government is comprised mostly of cowards. Politicians need votes; bureaucrats need jobs; and the great equalizer is they too have to take their pants down to go to the bathroom.

When a humourless public spokesman like David Austin can only hurl insults and threats in response to teasing and constructive criticism about the firearms centre's absurdities, the Justice department is on the defensive--exactly where it should be and where you want to keep it.

Mostly, these creatures can be forced to stop pushing and will retreat into their cracks when they meet an immovable wall of resistance. If they skitter around too fast to be squashed under your boots before you're squashed under theirs, then turn up the vocal protest to ear-splitting decibels. If nothing else, this action will give the hard-of-hearing government a giant-sized headache.

Any kind of even a badly-organized revolt that fizzles offers more hope and publicity than doing nothing. As my father used to say: "Do something, even if it's wrong."

Silence is no longer golden. And Ontario gunsmith Bruce Montague posted a strong message about silent firearms freeloaders who prefer to cower in the shadows of somebody else.

"I have always tried to run my business to the letter of the law while at the same time trying to fight this insane legislation," lamented Montague.

"It's sometimes discouraging to see so many apathetic hunters through my doors that bitch about these laws but aren't willing to pitch in and fight. Maybe when these doors are closed they will think about the consequences of their inaction."

Montague is relinguishing his firearms-business license and closing Monty's Gunsmithing after hunting season. He quoted a famous passge by American author/naturalist Henry David Thoreau: "When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it's his conscience that he must follow."

In pure fascist-style, the Canadian Firearms Office in Ontario is dictating that private business owners must do snooping and snitching for Big Brother.

He can't be hypocritical and enforce unworkable registration on all his customers while he, the proprietor, doesn't intend to obey the unjust firearms laws himself, he said.

Montague did some soul-searching and came to the same courageous conclusion as did the admirable Bulgarian civil servant. Montague cannot stand by idly and cooperate with injustice when the opportunity is there to join the other protestors who are in full battle cry.

He came to the conclusion that the march on Ottawa on New Year's Day is a worthy crusade, if only for his own peace of mind and the people he cares about.

While Pesev was a political prisoner sentenced to death under inhumane conditions in the Gulag, the worst Montague and troops can expect will be a couple of years in jail. Political prisoners can always wear their criminal records like a badge of honour.

"It feels good to commit to an unselfish act for my country, even if it isn't appreciated by the majority of its citizens," Montague admonished.

"Be not afraid," urged Clarence Thomas in his uplifting lecture in which he shed his U.S. Supreme Court Justice robes to speak as a citizen who believes in civil society.

It isn't always necessary that something he done about everything, he said. But if we think something is dreadfully wrong and needs fixing, then somebody has to do something.

Pick your battles, then put up or shut up. "One might shut up when it doesn't matter" he said. "But when it really counts, we are required to put up."

The most effective weapon of brutes is to intimidate an opponent into silence of self-censorship. He believes it is better to risk criticism for speaking up against politically-correct mainstream opinions than to accept the alternative: remaining silent and doing nothing leads to the loss of liberty and freedom.

"Too many show timidity today precisely when courage is required," Thomas reminded. Having courage of conviction can be the hardest part, for it is bravery that is required to secure freedom.

Complaining about the obvious state of affairs does not elevate one's moral standing. And it is hardly a substitute for the courage that we badly need.

"Arguments should not sneak around in disguise, as if dissent were somehow sinister," he said. "One should not be cowed by criticism."

All freedom-lovers might want to ponder Thomas' wisdom to help them make sound moral decisions before the doomsday deadline of December 31, 2002, when the greedy Liberals actually think all Canadians are obedient little servants who are going to register and/or re-register their firearms in order to comply with this money-grab scheme.

Every individual still has a free choice to evaluate personal risk factor in this matter which seemingly is not an issue in Yukonslavia. A casual survey indicates that this federally-controlled jurisdiction is a "longarm-free zone".

Amazing!

Be not afraid.

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Copyright 2004 diArmani.com