Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Few things subject to outside control

Few things subject to outside control

(My Clovis News Journal column for February 13, 2015)

Life is like an ice cream parlor, except instead of 21 flavors, the choices are nearly infinite.

Or, they would be if others would stop demanding you choose only from the limited options they decided to allow you; ignoring all other possibilities.

You are told you may only choose between vanilla and chocolate. Of course, the reality is that it's closer to a choice between vanilla made by two different companies, rather than between flavors which actually differ in any substantive way. Whichever flavor wins the majority vote becomes exclusive for the next few years- if outvoted you can't have your preference at all. Not even in the privacy of your own home.

That's your option. Any other choice is off the table. You'll wait years before being offered a chance to enjoy your favorite again. Then, you might lose once more and be forced to forgo your preference even longer. Or become an outlaw.

How can anyone think this is normal?

Don't ignore the real variety. Your choice between two flavors- between Republicrat and Demolican- only matters because people have been fooled into believing it's OK to allow the winners to dictate things no one can have the right or authority to control.

There are extremely few things in your life legitimately subject to outside control. Even then, the only ethical type of outside control is self defense. If you attack or steal, your victim is right to use force to stop you. If you smoke something someone else doesn't approve of, no matter who he is, he has no right or authority to send government employees after you. If he chooses to do so anyway, he becomes the bad guy, as do those he sends to act on his behalf.

That's just one among countless examples I could list.

That he has a "majority" behind him makes no difference whatsoever. Doing wrong isn't made right through popularity, or "laws". Nor because "it has always been done this way".

Unbelievable as it may seem, it gets even worse. If your fondest hopes come to pass and Vanilla wins the next election, the coercion imposed by Chocolate will not go away. Instead Vanilla will add his own rules to those imposed by the Chocolate regime before him, which were added to hundreds of years of made-up rules; negating your choices, taking your property, and pushing you around as it suits the whim of those who impose the rules.

You probably defend this behavior because you have been schooled to see this as the way things are supposed to be. You have been trained to see this as normal. Break free.

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Concealed carry and responsibility

Just because I like guns, and know that the more people who own and carry them the better it is for the good guys, doesn't mean I think everyone should necessarily have a gun at every moment.

For example, I don't think cops should carry guns- they are the only people I think should be legally disarmed (since I don't think "laws" should ever be applied to anyone who isn't explicitly a part of government).

I used to know a guy who would get really drunk at the bar and then endlessly tell me about the gun in his boot (while patting the boot), and how if "anything goes down" I didn't have to worry because he was ready. Not that I believe he could have hit the target in his condition.

He also used to brag about his "permit" to carry. He often showed me his "license" and acted as if it were a really big deal.

I have no idea whether he actually had a gun in his boot- he never flashed that. I guess he did that right.

I never saw him do anything dangerous with a gun. Even if I had, it's not the State's business. But, had he pulled the gun out during any "exciting event" I would have been as worried about him as anyone else.

The first rule of concealed carry is don't advertise. Don't people know what "concealed" means? Maybe he only talked to me about it, but I doubt it. Someone else might have used his talk against him.

Second, if you are drunk, you are quite possibly a bigger danger if you pull out your gun than whatever you think you would be protecting others from.

It all comes down to responsibility. You are responsible for what you do- good or bad. So weigh your actions carefully. Yes, I want you to be armed at all times. But if you are compromised, it might be best if you aren't. Either way, the State has no authority.

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