Second Letter of Reprisal

Self Defense

Tsar Date 45.461.584

I used to be deeply conflicted about violence. On land I was surrounded by people who claimed that being prepared to defend myself with violence was actually participating in a broader culture of aggression. They called it hypocrisy, but in reality a lifetime of propaganda left them unable to see the difference between violence used to oppress, and violence necessary to stop an oppressor.

These landlubbers clamoured to be disarmed themselves, eager to surrender personal responsibility and let the Crown protect them. Maybe it's because of the violence I'd experienced in my own life, but it seemed to me that any attempt to deprive a woman of a tool that balanced her disadvantage against a male attacker twice her size was immoral.

Landlubbers are afraid to carouse with pirates, but tacitly accept the Crown's violence all around them. They have no objection to military occupations, or police patrols, or public executions, or any other ornaments of the Crown's order. Pirate skirmishes are but a drop in the ocean compared to the Crown's wholesale slaughter, but Landlubbers, I discovered, were not concerned with logic. They were the true hypocrites.

Among pirates, I met powerfully persuasive individuals endowed with an ardent spirit of individualistic liberty. They were possessed by a profound moral sensitivity and missionary zeal, but also by a righteous indignation toward the Crown's repression. Inside every pirate soul burns the will to revolt. Individuals may seek release, or even delight, in revenge, but misdirected aggression can only propagate more violence. The temptation of vengeance can not satisfy the hunger for justice.

Pirates understand that even if they bent their knee, abandoned their passions and lived a servile life they would not be safe from the Crown's aggression. We can't allow the most powerful threat to our safety to dictate how we protect ourselves. That realization had a profound impact on me. I learned that self-defence was not just a state of physical preparedness. It was a boldness and independence of mind.

Learning to handle a firearm increased my confidence and vigilance. Martial arts training made my body into a weapon the Crown could not confiscate. My safety was no longer contingent on the size of an attacker, which was out of my control, but on my application of proper technique. I soon gained the competence to confront abusive behaviors before they escalated into violence, and I was no longer perceived as a potential target of harassment or exploitation.

Never depend upon the mercy of the Crown. It has none. So long as the Crown exists it will accept only obedience or blood. In the grand scheme the best defense is evading direct confrontation with the Crown. Even if some intolerable acts warrant a lethal response, learning to take a life helped me realize that I never wanted to. But make no mistake. In the heat of a crisis any means of survival is valid.

Self defense is the ultimate test of a moral philosophy. It's simple really. You own your body, so you possess the right to defend it. But the Crown persists in the absurdity that letting you defend yourself is part of the problem, and never part of the solution. The Crown continues in this deception because it cannot tolerate any challenge to its physical dominance.

I have allowed these lessons to blossom into principled and prudent acts of revolt, until the day when the Crown itself is brought to justice.