Jailing Those That Disagree
Darwin writes on one of my posts about gun control:
The liberal position trusts people to be smart enough to realize that’s it’s just not practical for every single individual independantly to protect themselves and their family, become an expert on the safety and nutrition of every food and and product and drug they buy, to be an expert in every field of medicine so they know that their doctors are competent, to monitor every factory in their state for dangerous emmisions and form boycott networks when a factory is poisoning their rivers or their air, to build roads and research charities and understand what scientific research should be funded and help hurricane survivors and etc and etc and etc. The liberal position believes that people are smart enough to relize that centralizing many of these functions is much more efficient and effective than leaving them to individuals, and it trusts those people to vote for a government that will give them those things that they want.
This argument has the unfortunate implication that those who do not concede that its more efficient for the state to manage safety, nutrition, health safety, industry pollution, roads, research, and releif efforts are not smart. I’m sure you don’t mean to imply I’m not smart enough to see the efficiency in centralizing these things and yet that ugliness is right there in the first sentence of that paragraph.
It simply is not the case that its more efficient to centralize all of these different things. Its alarming to see centralization push through to this century given it’s abysmal performance in the last century. On second thought, the desire to sign over so many responsibilities to a benevolent government has always appealed to certain kind of person.
The reason why the libertarian argument has the upper hand on your position is that you want to force your values on those that don’t share your values. The libertarian argument simply holds that citizens should have the freedom needed to protect themselves. This argument leaves it open to each individual to determine the extent they wish to exercise that freedom themselves. Some will be more willing to rely on state intervention while others will adopt a more independent attitude by arming themselves. The point is that the libertarian argument accommodates both choices. The libertarian position tolerates diversity in self defense and I mostly certainly chose those words intentionally.
Your liberal argument on gun control does not afford the same freedom. This liberal argument holds that citizens should not have the freedom to protect themselves with firearms. Your personal belief is that citizen protection by firearm should only by done by the state. On your say so, those that disagree with your personal belief regarding firearm protection when caught, will have their firearms confiscated and sent to prison. The liberal position is intolerant of firearm protection and reduces self defense diversity.
At the end of the day, you aim to jail those that dissent from your position. You aim to jail the libertarian.
December 17th, 2007 at 9:29 am
that’s democracy for you. The minority gets the shaft while the majority basks in political victory. It sucks but it’s the best we’ve got.
December 17th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I wonder if you would be so glib about the nature of democracy if laws were passed mandating slavery for minority group.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Unlikely, but i thought we put that issue to bed about 150 years ago.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I though the issue regarding the right to bear arms was settled when the constitution was written.
Besides you didn’t answer my question.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
“Unlikely” as in it is unlikely i would be so glib…
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 gun owners are either well regulated or members of a militia?
December 19th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Yeah Steve, with all the times you accuse me of taking things out of context you seem perfectly willing to take “the right to keep and bear arms” out of its context.
June 5th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
A ‘well-regulated Militia’ is a militia that is well-trained and capable of firing to the desired point of aim. A militia that is not well trained is called an ‘irregular’ militia. Irregular militias and irregular troops are considered unreliable, but can sometimes be surprisingly effective.
The most common usage that most people will have heard of will be in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books, where Sherlock Holmes commonly employs the ‘Baker’s Street Irregulars’ a motley collection of beggars, street people, and urchins with slingshots to get him the word on the street and harass villains into making a mistake.
But Teddy Roosevelt was also a member of the United States First Irregular Cavalry when he took his famous charge up San Juan Hill.. the First Irregular Cavalry was made up of federal marshalls, local sheriffs, and experienced trackers; people all known to be highly skilled individuals but not known for having trained together in joint discipline.
As is obvious given the wording, to provide personnell for a well-regulated Militia, the right to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. You need people with training to train into soliders. It says nothing about the person being in the militia or being well regulated prior to owning the gun - just that a well-regulated militia is a good thing to have and here’s how we make sure one is available.
June 6th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Wow, bringing back some old stuff. I agree with luagha on that point: for it to even be possible to form a militia, citizens must have access to firearms.
June 10th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
If that’s really the intent of the language, then it’s even more arcane today. The army recruits highschoool students using videogames and promises of college tuition, and teaches them to use tanks and assault rifles. Everyone owning a handgun doesn’t help the army get more and better qualified troops in the least. This sentiment certainly made sense when we were too poor as a nation to have a large standing army and we were in danger of invasion all the time, but it certainly doesn’t make sense now. In order for that sentiment to be relevant today, the article woudl have to read
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear stealth bombers and nuclear submarines, shall not be infringed.”
June 11th, 2008 at 11:41 am
darwin, your trust in government is influencing your opinion. The founding fathers knew very well the dangers of unchecked government power, which is why they set the 3 branch system of checks and balances. Of course, they knew that even this system could break down, so that the citizens of America might have to rise up against their own government. And to do that they would need firearms. That is why when they were writing the Bill of Rights, the second thing they wrote was this one. Not the fifth, not the ninth, the SECOND.
Let us not forget that this country was founded by Britons rejecting British rule. The security spoken of in the 2nd amendment is not necessarily directed at foreign enemies.