Law, at very foundation, irrelevant
(My Clovis News Journal column for November 16, 2012)
How would you behave if there were no laws against murder or theft? How about your friends and relatives? Would any of you go on a rampage? If so, what's really stopping you now?
I think that people who obey such laws would not do those things in the absence of the laws. I also believe that the laws don't do anything to stop those who are determined to commit those vile acts. Good people don't need laws to restrain them and bad people won't be restrained by laws.
On the other hand, the vast majority of laws have nothing to do with right or wrong; good or bad. Not anymore. People routinely ignore them- some saying they don't know the laws exist, or that the laws don't apply to their situation. And it harms no one.
Why would anyone believe that everything needs to be subject to written rules which need to be violently enforced?
Bees need no rules, written and enforced, to make them behave like bees. Dogs need no written rules to make them behave like dogs. The only "dog laws" that are externally-imposed are those that go against the nature of dogs in order to mold them to the whims of humans.
Why do so many people believe that humans need written and enforced rules to behave humanely? Probably because so many unnatural rules, which go against Natural Law and which no one would otherwise obey, have been dreamed up.
The only real rules are those which are universal because of Natural Law, or those which can be opted out of- without abandoning your friends, family, and property. The universal rules are understood from birth: don't attack others and don't steal or damage other people's property. Nothing else is a real law, worth killing over.
No one needs a rule written in a book declaring murder illegal to know it is wrong. It is instinctive, even if it is sometimes violated. The only rules that have to be written down are those that violate human sovereignty. Like those "laws" against politically-incorrect drugs, or "laws" against keeping your own property when The State wants to take it, or "laws" written to punish you for not wearing a seat belt.
Violating these "laws" doesn't make you a worse person; nor does obeying them make you better. What does make you a bad person is aggression and theft, even when those things are permitted by "law" in your circumstances. Law, at its very foundation, is irrelevant.
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Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Anti-liberty bigots on display
I saw a status on Facebook that was admitting that if The State would give up ALL its various weapons first, the poster would vote for "citizen" disarmament.
Not that rights are subject to a vote.... but anyway...
One of the first comments posted was by a Fudd who wanted to keep his shotgun, but wanted to restrict semi-autos and full-autos because access to them is too easy.
What?
Hilariously, he claims to know the difference between automatic firearms and semi-automatic firearms, even as his "argument" proves he doesn't.
Moving right along, he claimed that gun shows are places where you can buy both types of firearms with no "background check" at all. Responding to further incredulous comments he claimed he has been to gun shows and has never seen any feds (or anyone else) monitoring sales in any way, no one conducting "background checks" or complying with the "law" in any way. And, I suppose he has never seen the dealers on the phone with the NICS either. I have. And I've seen plenty of feds- both in uniform and in disguise.
He says he knows a person who has over 200 semi-autos in a collection, and his justification for regulating these seems to be that the collector can't "fire off all of those weapons simultaneously". Guess what, I can't read all my books simultaneously, either. Or listen to all my MP3s at once. Or watch all my DVDs. Or... well, you get the idea. I suppose morons such as he would claim that The State should regulate those things, too.
Then I pointed out that while gun dealers are all forced to comply with the NICS "laws", private sellers (in some states) at gun shows are still free to sell guns, just like they are from their own home. Which he then claimed was proof that I said "not all gun shows are regulated".
When I pointed out that the Second Amendment makes it illegal to make "laws" concerning guns, he said I was wrong. I told him to read the Second Amendment again. To which he replied "There's no talking to you, it's your way or the highway, and there is no room for dialogue with any of you. Good night." and "You're all too intransegent [sic] and are too paranoid that someone [w]ill steal your stupid guns. Grow up, guys."
It's like the other guy who was calmly wetting himself (in another comment thread) over the availability of guns in America who wanted to educate me about what the Second Amendment said. So I posted a link to my own website where I talk about and dissect the Second Amendment and the right that it was supposed to protect from government. He "congratulated" me for having read the article I linked to, but told me to read the original document for myself- he said that even as a non-American he knew the Second Amendment better than I did. He changed the subject and went off on a strange tangent when I mentioned that I wrote the "article" in question.
And that, folks, is the intellect of our opponents- the anti-liberty bigots. Their only strength is in numbers, and in the fact that the murderous criminals of government are on their side.
.
Not that rights are subject to a vote.... but anyway...
One of the first comments posted was by a Fudd who wanted to keep his shotgun, but wanted to restrict semi-autos and full-autos because access to them is too easy.
What?
Hilariously, he claims to know the difference between automatic firearms and semi-automatic firearms, even as his "argument" proves he doesn't.
Moving right along, he claimed that gun shows are places where you can buy both types of firearms with no "background check" at all. Responding to further incredulous comments he claimed he has been to gun shows and has never seen any feds (or anyone else) monitoring sales in any way, no one conducting "background checks" or complying with the "law" in any way. And, I suppose he has never seen the dealers on the phone with the NICS either. I have. And I've seen plenty of feds- both in uniform and in disguise.
He says he knows a person who has over 200 semi-autos in a collection, and his justification for regulating these seems to be that the collector can't "fire off all of those weapons simultaneously". Guess what, I can't read all my books simultaneously, either. Or listen to all my MP3s at once. Or watch all my DVDs. Or... well, you get the idea. I suppose morons such as he would claim that The State should regulate those things, too.
Then I pointed out that while gun dealers are all forced to comply with the NICS "laws", private sellers (in some states) at gun shows are still free to sell guns, just like they are from their own home. Which he then claimed was proof that I said "not all gun shows are regulated".
When I pointed out that the Second Amendment makes it illegal to make "laws" concerning guns, he said I was wrong. I told him to read the Second Amendment again. To which he replied "There's no talking to you, it's your way or the highway, and there is no room for dialogue with any of you. Good night." and "You're all too intransegent [sic] and are too paranoid that someone [w]ill steal your stupid guns. Grow up, guys."
It's like the other guy who was calmly wetting himself (in another comment thread) over the availability of guns in America who wanted to educate me about what the Second Amendment said. So I posted a link to my own website where I talk about and dissect the Second Amendment and the right that it was supposed to protect from government. He "congratulated" me for having read the article I linked to, but told me to read the original document for myself- he said that even as a non-American he knew the Second Amendment better than I did. He changed the subject and went off on a strange tangent when I mentioned that I wrote the "article" in question.
And that, folks, is the intellect of our opponents- the anti-liberty bigots. Their only strength is in numbers, and in the fact that the murderous criminals of government are on their side.
.
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