I care very little about statists disagreeing with me. I'm going to live liberty the best I can regardless of their wishes or fears. I only make the effort to get them to see liberty for their own sake. They can take it or leave it. Debating them gives me practice putting my thoughts into words.
It bothers me more when people I generally agree with disagree with me. And sometimes I discover they had a good reason for their disagreement.
In both cases I really do try to look at the disagreement and see where I could be wrong. Sometimes, where the other liberty lovers are concerned, I discover I was wrong. Or there was a misunderstanding somewhere and we were both right.
That just never happens where statists are concerned. There may be some misunderstanding, but they are still wrong at the very foundation. They start with flawed assumptions and it only gets worse from there. They can still make me mad, but they are wrong, and I'm not going to reject the truth just so they'll agree with me.
That's the difference in the quality of the disagreements.
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It would be a rare event where two human beings were found who totally agree on all aspects of everything. In fact, I suppose one could say that is for the most part impossible -- just like it is presumed impossible for two people to have identical fingerprints.
ReplyDeleteWhose fingerprints are more correct -- yours, or mine??? :-)
The essence of liberty, I think -- or perhaps the final result of liberty might be a better phrase -- is absence of conflict. Maybe that, also, should be altered to say absence of combativeness over conflicts that arise.
So how can you and I disagree on a topic and not be in conflict? I know for a fact that you and I do not see all subjects identically. I can name a couple right off hand: "homosexuality" and "evolution". In fact, we are quite a ways apart on two or three major ones, not that they're all that important.
I solve the problem by recognizing that the world revolves around my belly-button. My world.
From there I can see that your world revolves around your belly-button -- whether you admit it or not. That gives me lots of freedom, since I know you didn't get out of bed this morning and immediately start thinking how you can gouge me over our difference in opinion over this or that topic. You see a topic from the standpoint of all your experiences and observations -- totally different from the composite of all my experiences and observations.
Since we're both on a similar quest for liberty, we've developed verbal and psychological skills to avoid combativeness over the differences we have of opinion. As a result, both learn -- here a little, there a little. I've done a lot of "about right faces" (an old US Army term) since I began my quest for liberty -- which I count from the last time I participated in a political "election" (1964).
When I think of the Harry Brownes, the Robert Ringers, the Kents, Marks, Jim Davies -- so many too numerous to count -- who have brought me up, turned me around, and set me on a more friendly flight pattern, it is amazing.
Sam
Until and unless a person uses their differences of opinion as justification for attacking or stealing, I am pretty content to just let it be. There are enough statists doing exactly that to keep me busy, without bothering with fellow liberty-lovers who disagree over some details of the world that don't affect my liberty one way or the other.
DeleteI've read your site over the past year and I've concluded that your core points are very valid, but that you take admirable principals to a length that doesn't take into account human flaws. What you advocate would work in a world of perfect people. I have yet to meet any. Still, in a time when liberty is being sacrificed in the name of "fairness" and "equality," you're saying things that need to be said and I'm glad you're saying it. I also like how prompt you are to respond to inquiries.
ReplyDeleteThanks.
DeleteWhat I like about liberty is that it not only doesn't require flawless humans to work, it completely takes those flaws into account.
Because humans are flawed, none are "qualified" to rule the others. Because flawed humans make up government, governments can never be trusted to do the right thing, but instead always magnify and empower those flaws. It's not accidental, but an inherent quality of all governments and States.
I don't need everyone around me to be perfect- why ask of others what I can't be? I have stated that I will not initiate force, nor will I violate your property. Nor, will I ask anyone to do so on my behalf by siccing government on you. This places no obligation on you, but it does come with a warning: you do those things and I will do what I can to defend myself and my property. Maybe I will prevail- maybe I won't. I'm OK with that.