Ready to welcome you to free society

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 13, 2017)

Are you ready for liberty? How ready?

Few people are sufficiently ready for liberty to be willing to let go of government. At least not totally. Even while complaining about the corruption, expense, and incompetence that infects government at every level, they look for excuses to keep it around. They believe it can be fixed. I shake my head in wonder. What could they be thinking?

Do they fear a free society? A society without someone else to run their life and make their decisions. Without someone imposing their ideas of right and wrong on others; making everyone less able to recognize the difference for themselves with each new law. A society where no one is able to pretend they are made safer by trying to delegate their responsibilities to others. This is to say without the specter of government hanging over life. Is fear what keeps them from finding better solutions to life's troubles?

Good news! If you feel the need to keep government around for any reason, I am not out to stop you.

I don't mind if you keep your tax-funded government schools, police, military and whatever else you feel you need-- as long as I can completely opt out without being forced to leave. I would be exempt from all taxation ("taxation" is just a fancy word for theft). I won't be paying for those things I don't want, so I agree to not use them.

I have no problem with paying users fees for things and services I do use, such as roads. At least until I don't need them anymore. You don't get to use government to stand in my way and prevent me from trying non-government alternatives, though. So if I invent a flying car with built-in collision avoidance you don't get to force me to get FAA approval or a pilot's license.

None of this would exempt me from the consequences of violating you. If I harm your person or property, I wouldn't expect you to be able to handle it yourself, so I accept I could face your government's hired guns coming after me. Since I don't plan to violate you, this won't be a deal breaker.

Keep your post office, prisons, courts, and whatever else you believe you can't live without. Just leave me out of it. Then we'll see whether I come crawling back or whether you quietly join the free society with me. I'll be waiting to welcome you.

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Putting grit in the clockworks

Scott Adams almost gets it (again) (and again), but just misses the mark right where you'd expect. Right where "pragmatism" excuses violating people.

"...laws are not designed to stop the most motivated criminals. We’ve never seen a law in any realm that stopped all crime. At best, laws discourage the people on the margin. Gun control is no different. The objective is to add some friction and reduce the risk that someone angry enough to pick up an AR doesn’t also have a bump stock in the house." 

What is he missing?

The "friction" doesn't only work against bad guys. The fact is, if you add "friction", it prevents some percentage of good people from owning the gun they need to defend themselves, just as it might prevent some percentage of bad guys from having some specific tool.

It's convenient to ignore that part of the equation when you feel the desire to justify the unjustifiable.

This is why all anti-gun "laws" are evil. They are always going to be a net negative, because there are only two kinds of "laws"- the unnecessary and the harmful. Anti-gun "laws" are harmful, because for every hypothetical life saved, there is a hypothetical life lost. Plus added expense, time lost in trying to comply or maneuver around the "law", and risk of being caught doing nothing wrong, only "illegal".

I continue to think it is better to fail to act and maybe allow someone to be harmed, than to act to cause someone to be harmed. One is just a consequence of the Universe, the other is a consequence of you causing harm.

Anti-gun bigotry (which is the basis for every anti-gun "law", whether admitted or not) is nothing but "feelings" over rights and reality. Cowardice. My feelings don't trump your rights. And I'm OK with that. I wish other people would stop pretending otherwise.

Back to the blog linked, Adams makes other flawed claims: "Both sides pretend they are arguing on principle, but neither side is."
Really? respecting the absolute right of humans to own and to carry weapons isn't arguing from principle? You might not like the principle involved, but it is there. But there is no principle involved in violating human rights, so the anti-liberty bigots are always on the wrong side.

He also says "Both sides are arguing from their personal risk profiles, and those are simply different. Our risk profiles will never be the same across the entire population, so we will never agree on gun control."
Here's the problem with that... if you believe that owning a gun is "risky" for you, then I am in favor of you making the personal choice to not own one. However, your "risk profile" places no obligation on anyone else. Ever. My gun is not a risk to you as long as you don't try to archate in my presence. No matter how it makes you feel. Cowards, and those who want to be able to archate in relative safety, will never agree with me on anti-gun "laws"-- and I'm OK with that, too. They are only testifying against themselves. And it isn't my responsibility to coddle them, or allow myself to be violated on their behalf.

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