In the 6th Century BC, Chinese warrior Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War. It has been the definitive treatise on waging war for 26 centuries now. Only thirteen chapters, it was translated first in 1782 when a French Jesuit priest living in China, Joseph Amiot, acquired a copy of it, and translated it into French. Subsequent translations have honed the text into English.

The book is available for free through The Gutenberg Project at: The Art of War. I strongly recommend this short read, as the truth can be used in many areas of human interaction.

For this article, I shall concentrate on his writings about waging war by deception. Here are some of his thoughts.

Chapter 1:18 All war is based on deception.

Chapter 2:2 Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.

Chapter 2:18 If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Chapter 6:8 That general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.

Chapter 6:9 O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.

Chapter 6:12 If we do not wish to fight, we can prevent the enemy from engaging us even though the lines of our encampment be merely traced out on the ground. All we need do is to throw something odd and unaccountable in his way.

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The general concept that I want you to take away from these verses is that in order to win many battles, you must keep your enemy off balance, deceived and confused about your strategies and tactics. If you can attack him at many weak points, he will have to respond, and therefore, you control both the location and the tempo of the battle. This will be important in the thoughts and questions below.

I’ve been writing lately about secession and the well-regulated militia, and how they should be inextricably tied to one another. From the reactions I’m receiving from readers, this concept seems to be somewhat new to them.

Specifically, I and other writers have referred to the truest meaning of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states: "A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

How many millions of words have been written about the Second Amendment?

Starting with the 1856 Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, to the National Firearms Act of 1934 and up to this day, Americans have seen infringement upon infringement piled upon them. But, do you remember in your lifetime hearing of ANY of those regulations that dealt with the security of a Free State?

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Could it be that the arguments made over the last 150 years about gun control… the laws and regulations passed by states and the Federal government…and any talk about personal safety, crime prevention, hunting and sport shooting…have been a clever diversion away from the clear intention of the words of the Second Amendment?

Think about it from a purely tactical viewpoint. If you and I are in an argument about a certain topic, and I can get you to engage in a related topic that looks important, but completely diverts you from the real issue, I’ve won. I can drag you around by your nose ring for as long as you want to argue about what matters LEAST. Meanwhile, I can do pretty much what I want in regard to the real issue.

It is the same as General Tzu’s admonition to attack the enemy where he is weakest, combined with his recommendations to attack at multiple weak locations simultaneously. The enemy will expend itself defending its weak points while you conquer.

Isn’t this what Washington and most of the states have done? They have enacted gun legislation and regulations that force citizens to challenge them in the very courts that the tyrants control. Meanwhile, the politicians subtly changed our states and our nation.

The Second Amendment is the effort of the Founders to guarantee that the sovereign states would protect a mechanism whereby the states might thwart Federal tyranny through armed resistance, if only as a last resort. Now, there is nothing in the Amendment about any "last resort." Common sense dictates that all efforts to settle any difference would proceed peaceably first. And, when a well-regulated state militia is a day-to-day reality, it acts as a deterrent merely by its existence. Thugs seldom attack armed people.

Go ask Switzerland if a militia works. They haven’t been invaded in nearly 500 years.

Washington and the state legislatures have bleached out the reality of the well-regulated state militia from the American fabric. Meanwhile, Americans have been hoodwinked into fighting about whether or not they can carry a gun with or without a permit, or packing heat in a bar or restaurant. While those turf wars raged, Washington absorbed the sovereignty of the states, and made the states into serfdoms.

So, can you now see that because "A well-regulated Militia…is…necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?"

States need to reclaim their sovereignty by revitalizing their state militias. Through the militia, states will once again gain their true freedom to regulate the Federal Government that once was their servant. And, in the failure of the exertion of state sovereignty to control the actions of Washington, the unhappy states may secede knowing that they are capable of defending their decision from all who would attempt to use force to prevent their exit.

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