Thursday, October 25, 2012

2nd Amdendment - A Rambling Parable

©Karry Dayton

Once upon a time, a species of being was created or arose from the mud, which of those was true was a question that was far to complex for the creature to fathom. It, instead, spent much of its time in search of food where it would find questions like where it came from a complete waste of precious berry gathering time.

This creature was bald over most of its body, had limited nails, tiny weak fingers, strange angular round jaws, and other assortment of features that made it nearly a terrible predator and an inefficient gatherer.  This creature - we'll call him homo neanderthalensis from our distant point much in the future - had to think of a few unique ways to survive.  He did things like hunt in packs and sleep places that were hard for the four legged predators to get at.  For a being that didn't have much of a language, he was pretty smart.

Let us examine one tribe.

Here we have the Tughs, a small tribe of about eighteen Homo Neanderthalensis, amongst them was the great Tugh himself.  He was a pretty wise Tugh and treated his tribe members as equals.  When he invented the stone weapon, he made sure that all the people of his tribe knew how to use this new tool to crush enemies, kill prey, and fend off the big cats.  He, if he had known the word, would have called this an Arm, that is: armament.  He thought of this word in concept only, but it was good and it was clear that for the survival of everyone around him, including his own self, having this rock weapon was good.

Later, Letus Tugh the Minor broke his stone and part of it was sharp, he saw that he could use this new sharp stone as a kind of axe to cut and slash things.  With a little work he managed to affix it a pole and he had a longer stone axe (of course Ramnnn Dul from a competing tribe had actually already done something similar by attaching a stone to a stick to beat people about the head with, but this was an advancement).  With this new spear a call went out about the Tugh that such a weapon was useless and dangerous to society.  It was to much, said many.  We already have stones, said the rest. But the Wise Tugh himself embraced the spear arm.  He told them, "that it now exists, soon all people everywhere will have it.  Some will use it for good, some for bad. If we wish to survive we must embrace the future".  With that he showed the tribe how to use it and they saw how it was good for crushing the enemy, killing prey, and fending off the great cats.

Later still, the female Clwreal Tugh (yes we know, female names were crude, we aren't judging here) dried out the intestines of a killed deer and found that they retained a strong resilience that allowed them to be stretched.  Her second man, Yur Tugh took these springy insides and attached them to stick and created the sling-shot.  The people were terrified, for a brand new kind of arm was now available.  It was an assault weapon, in that it could be rapid fired, from a distance, where are all arms to that point required that they be used close up or retrieved if thrown.  Now Yur Tugh, if he wished, could have ruled over them all, by simply keeping his distance.  The people saw this possibility and worried.  But the wise Tugh himself saw that it was good, for as long as this new technology was passed down to his people, the equality of his tribe would remain.  Yur Tugh agreed and they crushed many enemy, killed much prey, and pestered the great cats from the branches of trees.

To this day, we descendants of the Tugh continue to advance the idea of being armed.  It is through our ability to obtain the same or similar equipment that keeps us with the ability to maintain our equality.   Equality is freedom, for slavery and servitude begin when we give others the power to be above us and sacrifice the right to maintain our vigilant eye on the advancement of technology when it comes to armament.