If your anger leads you to advocate a "governmental solution", then your anger is only leading to more trouble. There is ALWAYS a better way, even if you haven't yet thought of it.
There are things that make me angry. However, if my knee-jerk reaction is "There oughta be a law..." or a desire for enhanced punishment from the State, I know I am off-track somewhere and I need to re-examine my thinking processes. And, when I run into such things from another liberty advocate, I know they are dealing with some inconsistencies (or pain) in their life that need to be addressed. And, I need to remind myself to not let it make me angry.
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I though you were going in a different direction with this by the title, but yes, "there ought to be a law" is your first indication of early childhood scar tissue.
ReplyDeleteWhere I thought you were going was that for an anarchist to get angry at statists for being statists enslaves him to the illusions of others.
I don't say this with smugness, or the implication that I came by this truth easily; I too once got all pissed off when someone told me why the state is necessary, it wasn't until recently that it hit me: that person suffered MORE abuse at the hands of authority as a child than I did. I constantly try to remind myself that it's not THEIR fault they're a statist, but their parents and teachers who used false morality to control them as a child. So it is unjust and unproductive to beat them up over their beliefs, rather the only was to propagate freedom is to reason with them about their parenting so their children can have a chance.
Good observations.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so sure that reasoning works very well with statists. I used to hope it would. I just haven't seen much evidence of it. Although it has happened on rare occasions.
I have come to the conclusion that the best "strategy" is to just kinda ignore them as much as possible, and don't coddle their delusions, while living as free as possible in spite of their wishes. Maybe some will notice your example- when they are ready to see.
Wait...I think there oughta be a law against any more laws, and repealing all the laws they passed so far.
ReplyDeleteIs that one OK?
Seriously, good post, Kent.
I'd even allow them to pass more laws (as long as those new laws didn't violate anyone's rights) if they repealed 100 currently enforced laws for each new law they passed. But, I'm not sure how you could think up a new law that didn't violate anyone's rights. Any laws of that sort were already passed at the beginning of the end of civilization.
ReplyDelete