Your liberty depends on their liberty

Your liberty depends on their liberty

(My Clovis News Journal column for January 25, 2013)

Liberty is not a buffet where you pick the parts you like, while trying to deny other people the same freedom.

If you claim to value the Second Amendment, the best way to prove it is to fight violations of the other nine amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. This means defending from government actions people you don't like who are saying things you disagree with, or who are doing things you think are immoral (yet harming no other person without their consent). You will never seek to use laws to prevent a contrary opinion from being expressed. You will oppose unreasonable search and seizure- whether it is called "a checkpoint" or a "drug raid".

It means coming to see that the amendments to the Constitution are not giving you permission to do what you already have a right to do, but making it a serious crime for government to attempt to violate those listed, and unlisted, rights in any way, no matter how "reasonable" those violations may seem to some people.

Even this is barely scratching the surface. Support for liberty goes much deeper than even that.

When the Constitution is wrong and violates individual liberty, courage and consistency demand that you not defend that violation. Fundamental human rights, from which liberty springs, pre-date the Constitution and even the earliest attempts at government, and can not be legitimately criminalized by any government.

Liberty is a web where every thread is connected to, and dependent upon, every other thread. Snipping one thread that you don't like weakens the thread that you depend on for your very life. Every time.

That means that to really love liberty means you will end up defending people and actions that you despise, simply because you recognize that- as long as a person is not attacking or stealing- what they choose to do is none of your business. Your liberty depends on their liberty.

This is very hard for "the right" and "the left" to do. It's easier for libertarians, but not as easy for some as it should be.

It means that you don't ask the question "but why would anyone need...?" when the truth is that it isn't about "need" or "want", but about the fact that no one has a right to decide that for anyone else.

If you are a timid person who is hoping for comfort or guarantees, liberty probably isn't the path for you. Move along; nothing to see here. There will always be someone pandering to your fears.

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Feeling entitled?

Entitlements.  Just because you really like one, and the thought of losing it makes you angry, you can't complain that your "entitlement" shouldn't be called an "entitlement".

I heard someone complaining that Social(ist in)Security shouldn't be lumped in with the "entitlements".

Because she felt entitled to get it since she had been forced to "pay into it" [sic] for all those years.

I tried to nicely explain that the money that was taken from her wasn't being returned to her.  She was robbed to pay the ones who got the money "back then" (and to pay for the expensive bureaucracy...), and now new people are being robbed to pay the money to her.

If a mugger robs you in the alley today, but promises to rob someone else tomorrow so he can give you some money, there is still robbery going on.

I hate that people have been robbed and lied to.  It doesn't justify continuing the theft.

I suspect- although I don't care enough to research it- that the money being stolen in the name of "Social Security" is a drop in the bucket compared to what is being paid out,  "Taxation" all goes to the same place, as far as I'm concerned, and I don't think it is very honest to distinguish between the different bureaucracies who receive the stolen money or where they send it.  The fact that it is being stolen is enough to make it wrong.

Since "taxation" doesn't even make a dent in the money the kleptocrats in "government" spend, "taxation" could be ended tomorrow without affecting the financing of The State.  It is only kept up for its social engineering purposes (so you can be forced to incriminate yourself) and to keep people from prospering "too much".

Look at all the "money" the Federal Reserve counterfeits every day.  Yes, you and I understand that this counterfeiting operation causes inflation, which is just another way for the kleptocrats of "government" to steal money.  There is a way to avoid the pain, too.

However, as a compromise with the people who sincerely believe they are "entitled" to "their" Social Security [sic] payouts, I would say, let everyone who wants to stay in "the system" stay in (until The End), and let everyone who wants to, opt out.  No more money taken from their paycheck in the name of that coercive Ponzi Scheme.  And, that also means those who opt out can never collect a cent from the scheme, either.  It's a good deal.

Let the Fed print up all the FRNs it would take to pay the recipients of SS.  They'll be forced to anyway, if they intend to keep propping up the broken scheme.  The numbers don't add up, because even the "honest" Ponzi Schemes (the non-governmental ones) collapse as soon as there are too many people looking for a payoff for the number of new suckers to support.  It's only a matter of time.  It is absolutely inevitable.

Then, you and I who opt out will explore the free market of money and not rely on the rapidly collapsing FRNs.  Just like we probably are doing already if we have been paying attention.


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