Invitation to Defend Rights Now

Defend Rights Now supports individual rights in all areas of society, from defense of Americans on the national and international level, to the individual right to self-defense, not only against government, but against criminals.

The two areas are, of course, intimately connected. When Americans speak out about their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, they speak both of the people's check on the power of the federal, state, and local governments, and the people's right to defend their lives and their property against local thugs and criminals who attempt to prey upon them.

The Founders wrote the Constitution to protect the people from government, to create a political system where government became the servant of the people, not their ruler.  That effort resulted in a pattern of civilized society in which--for the brief span of some hundred and fifty years--physical force was banned from human relationships. 

The concept of individual rights gave birth to a free society, so it is with the destruction of individual rights modern enemies of freedom must begin, and they have been working hard to accomplish just this goal since the beginning of the New Deal in the 1930s.

Defend Rights Now defends and promotes individual rights within this larger political context of national politics and culture.

To violate an individual's rights means to compel him to act against his own judgment, or to expropriate his values, and basically there is only one way to do it:  by using physical force.  Potentially there are only two violators of individual rights:  the criminals and the government.  The great achievement of the United States was to distinguish between the two--by forbidding to the second the legalized version of the first.

The enemies of freedom work daily in the news media, in the political parties, in colleges and universities--in government--to corrupt this distinction ideologically and politically.  Defend Rights Now investigates this corruption and helps provide the ideological tools required to combat it.

Defend Rights Now, in guarding the individual's right to act on his or her own judgment, seeks to help people not only to protect themselves from government, but to suggest situations and techniques in which women, in particular, can protect themselves against personal assault from criminals.

Psychological studies suggest people tend to believe they are less responsible for events that occur in their lives when those events happen outside their immediate control.  Yet a person letting "things just happen" may through such bias indirectly cause those events as if she took active steps to put herself in danger.

For example, when a women pulls into a parking garage, parks, then gathers up her purse, perhaps a briefcase, her cell phone, her keys, probably the very last thing she is thinking about is the possibility of a man just hidden out of her sight, waiting for the opportunity to knock her down, steal her pocket book, her personal computer, or, even worse, assault her sexually.

When a woman trains herself to become more aware of her immediate surroundings as she goes about her daily activities, she acts to protect herself in the most effective way she can.  

If she carries with her at all times some form of non-lethal self-defense weapon, such as a Pepper Spray or Stun Gun, she greatly enhances her ability to protect herself and any children who may accompany her.

Time and time again, the use of such non-lethal devices has proven to be an effective means of self-defense against personal assault, and in the hands of police, an effective, non-lethal alternative to deadly force in many situations.

That these self-defense weapons do not use deadly force means a person doesn't face the possibility that she could actually kill another human being.

For those who wish to enhance their ability to defend themselves from criminal assault, Defend Rights Now provides links to JustStunGuns, an internet store offering the widest range of effective, but non-lethal, self-defense tools currently available, as well as information about their safe and legal use.

To help people become more aware of common situations in which they would enhance their ability to defend themselves from personal or criminal assault, Defend Rights Now links to news stories where those situations arise and explores how people might use such self-defense weapons most effectively.

Defend Rights Now welcomes reader comments, suggestions, and questions.

Tom Anderson
January 2010