Just a heads-up: After tonight my internet is going to be shut off for a couple of days (until I'm able to pay the bill).
Depending on the weather, I may plop the laptop in the bike trailer and ride over to borrow a cup of wifi from my parents' house.
Otherwise I'll try to have some posts set to automatically publish without my help, but if I don't respond to comments or emails for a couple of days (or not in a timely manner), that's why.
(Added: Not looking for anyone to bail me out, just letting people know.)
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
"Reasonable" non-solutions
When did it become "reasonable" to violate others?
This is something I see as very strange, and it is part of why I despise "pragmatism" so intensely. It has gotten to the point that if you can't find a way to get what you want voluntarily, while respecting the identical and equal rights of everyone else, you claim you are being "pragmatic" while advocating the opposite of what your supposed goal is, and get a pass. Your "heart is in the right place". You "care".
I understand it is inconvenient to work strictly within your rights, and respect the rights of others. It is easier to cheat; to use the political method to get what you want.
I will always see that as a cop-out. As lazy and wrong. Even if you claim it is necessary to get where you want to go.
You are upset that a bad guy used a gun to kill a lot of innocent people. OK. Fine. So am I. So find a way to deal with that problem without becoming like the bad guy. Without violating people's rights. Because, quite honestly, if you choose to cheat and make up new restrictive "laws", you are no better than a mass murderer. And you won't solve the problem anyway.
You don't like drunk driving? Neither do I. So find a way to fix the problem without violating everyone's rights. If you can't, you'd be wise to do nothing rather than to become a bad guy by using "laws" to violate the human right to travel unmolested.
You don't like that people cross the government's imaginary, property rights violating "borders" to v*te against your rights or otherwise archate against you? Well, there are dozens (or more) ways to approach the problem ethically. Building a wall, increasing "border security", and "papers, please" checkpoints aren't among them. Just because you feel powerless to strike at the root doesn't excuse your hacking at the branches and violating the rights of others. Dig up the root, because this is the only way to solve a problem without violating anyone. The problem is "free stuff" socialism. The problem is "laws" against defense and the proper tools to carry it out. The problem is v*ting and politics and "taxation". The solution is freedom of association, property rights, and self defense. I know those things are hard to advocate. I know how unpopular they are. But that is no excuse to do the wrong thing.
You're unhappy that medical care has been priced out of your reach. It's a huge problem for me, too. The right way to approach the problem is to recognize what caused it in the first place. Government has been allowed to meddle with, regulate, ration, and prohibit medical care. The solution lies with stopping that, not with stealing from some to finance the health care of others. The solution doesn't involve enslaving doctors and nurses and hospitals to force them to work for you. It's cowardly and lazy to assume it does, rather than doing the hard work of getting government out of health care (and the rest of life).
And yet, in all those instances, the extreme individual-violating ideas are the ones portrayed as "reasonable", while the ones which would actually fix things are dismissively laughed at. Solving problems without molesting, robbing, and murdering has become "Utopian".
A "solution" which violates the rights of even one person is not a solution; it is an additional problem.
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