Freedom, liberty are messy, like life
(My Clovis News Journal column for December 6, 2013. A huge amount was edited out this week, said to be "repetitive", which I sometimes find necessary to hammer a point home... but in this case I don't see that what was removed was repetitive at all. Oh well.)
How is it that more things are illegal today than a year ago, and why has this been the trend for a couple hundred years? It's because there is an imbalance in how "laws" are imposed and eliminated. The scales of legislation are tipped in the wrong direction.
Even if only one out of every hundred proposed liberty violating "laws" is passed, liberty still shrinks, gradually, but inexorably. Because those "laws" almost never go away. Even when they seem to get abolished, in truth another "law" was probably passed to counter the first "law", rather than the first "law" being struck from the books.
But the biggest culprit is all the new "laws" that get proposed to pander to the folks crying "There ought to be a law" over every little thing that upsets their delicate sensibilities.
Of course, not every one of those bad "laws"- and they are all bad "laws"- gets passed the first time it is dreamed up. However, every time one of those "laws" fails to come to life it keeps getting proposed repeatedly until it eventually becomes "law". The political climate is always in flux, and even the most ridiculous or draconian "law" will eventually find a time and place to take root. The proposed "laws" never die and a "no" is never allowed to be final. "Laws" are held to be sacred, and liberty is an inconvenience to be sacrificed on a whim.
This leads to the condition I call "law pollution", where "laws" come to cover the world like so many "tumblebags" and burrito wrappers drifting against every fence and wall. Where everything not forbidden is mandatory.
That needs to change.
It is never valid to impose a "law" that violates individual liberty or property- no matter how many people want that "law", but pretending for a moment that it was sometimes OK, a "law" that would violate liberty or property should get, at most, one chance to be passed. After that, it should never be permitted to be proposed again. Not by changing the wording, not by tacking it onto another bill, and not by bureaucratic backdoor rule-making.
One shot at violating liberty, and then it's done. Forever.
And that's if you ignore the clear fact that it is very wrong to propose, pass, enforce, or obey that kind of "law" regardless.
Freedom, like life, is messy. Only the dead are predictable and stable. If the liberty of your neighbor scares you, that is your malfunction, not his. You are the one who needs to adapt. No new "laws".
.
Tuesday, January 07, 2014
Adventures with "borders"
Two discussions on Facebook (one and two) really illustrated to me the fuzzy thinking of the anti-immigration people.
Those who claim to revere the Constitution are willing to stand in line behind the anti-gun wackjobs to flush it right down the toilet in pursuit of their religion of "borderism". Or try to read things into it that aren't really there, or stretch the things that are there completely out of shape, in order to reconcile their conflicting beliefs.
More and more I see it as evidence that such a person just really doesn't like "Hispanics" (because that's who they almost always have an issue with), and say their objection is only toward those who don't "go through the legal process" because they haven't yet figured out how to "send back" the others. They are probably still "working on it". Maybe I'm being unfair?
Me, I'm not concerned with where a person was born, or what color their skin is, or what language they speak, or which State (or it's employees) claims them. Or, rejects them, as the case may be. I only care whether or not a person initiates force or theft, and that they respect private property.
Which brings us back to the "borderists". They always, eventually, fall back on that tired and silly argument that "illegal aliens" are trespassing on US property, which they then claim is identical to someone just walking into your house. And they try to connect imaginary dots between individually keeping invaders out of your house and enforcers "protecting the borders". And they almost always use the statist words of desperation: "don't call the cops to protect your property, then" to those who point out the inconsistency.
In other words, the borderists are fully willing to violate the private property of everyone in order to assert the claim of a State over all land inside its "borders". How nasty of them. And how inconsistent. Their claim invalidates itself before it even gets out of their brain, and they don't see that.
I'm not saying here whether "allowing" open borders is a good thing or not. I don't want aggressive individuals, thieves, and trespassers living near me regardless of where they were born, or whose permission they have received to be here. But, really, until I need to use self defense against them, it is none of my business. I have the absolute right to defend myself and my property from violators of any sort, and anyone who seeks to violate that human right is making themselves my enemy.
I also know it is wrong for any third party to control where people choose to travel or settle down, or to demand a fee for giving permission.
.
Those who claim to revere the Constitution are willing to stand in line behind the anti-gun wackjobs to flush it right down the toilet in pursuit of their religion of "borderism". Or try to read things into it that aren't really there, or stretch the things that are there completely out of shape, in order to reconcile their conflicting beliefs.
More and more I see it as evidence that such a person just really doesn't like "Hispanics" (because that's who they almost always have an issue with), and say their objection is only toward those who don't "go through the legal process" because they haven't yet figured out how to "send back" the others. They are probably still "working on it". Maybe I'm being unfair?
Me, I'm not concerned with where a person was born, or what color their skin is, or what language they speak, or which State (or it's employees) claims them. Or, rejects them, as the case may be. I only care whether or not a person initiates force or theft, and that they respect private property.
Which brings us back to the "borderists". They always, eventually, fall back on that tired and silly argument that "illegal aliens" are trespassing on US property, which they then claim is identical to someone just walking into your house. And they try to connect imaginary dots between individually keeping invaders out of your house and enforcers "protecting the borders". And they almost always use the statist words of desperation: "don't call the cops to protect your property, then" to those who point out the inconsistency.
In other words, the borderists are fully willing to violate the private property of everyone in order to assert the claim of a State over all land inside its "borders". How nasty of them. And how inconsistent. Their claim invalidates itself before it even gets out of their brain, and they don't see that.
I'm not saying here whether "allowing" open borders is a good thing or not. I don't want aggressive individuals, thieves, and trespassers living near me regardless of where they were born, or whose permission they have received to be here. But, really, until I need to use self defense against them, it is none of my business. I have the absolute right to defend myself and my property from violators of any sort, and anyone who seeks to violate that human right is making themselves my enemy.
I also know it is wrong for any third party to control where people choose to travel or settle down, or to demand a fee for giving permission.
.
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