Sunday, April 15, 2018

Three topics big deal to libertarians

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for March 14, 2018)




There are three topics which come up frequently in libertarian writings: guns, drugs, and national borders. The reason is those three areas are where the people of America seem willing to let government do the most damage to Rightful Liberty, just to punish other people.

All three are hot buttons for almost everyone, with people on each side screaming at those on the other.

It's why those three topics keep coming up, not because I'm a broken record (does anyone still get the reference?).

None of those issues are legitimately subject to government meddling. No one can have the right or the "authority" to control them. None are listed by the U.S. Constitution as something government is allowed to interfere with, with one specifically placed beyond government's reach; not that government obeys the Constitutional prohibition on gun "laws".

Even if the Constitution permitted government to control guns, drugs, or national borders it still wouldn't be right. No document can create a right or "authority" out of thin air. If you have no authority to do something, you can't delegate that which you don't have to someone else on your behalf. It's simply not possible.

Even if you don't care about those issues, you are being violated in their name.

In particular, drug prohibition is used to trample the liberty of everyone regardless of whether they ever considered using recreational drugs. Prohibition is used to justify making it inconvenient to relieve your own allergies. It is used as justification for punishing medical professionals who care when their patients are suffering needlessly. It is the excuse used to track you, kick in doors in the middle of the night, probe you, and to generally treat you as government property-- which is what government employees believe you are.

The fact is, those topics matter. In everything, regardless of feelings I am always going to come down on the side of individual liberty and human rights; against those who seek to violate and control others.

It should be obvious those aren't the only important issues related to liberty. The right to travel without being stopped and questioned by armed government employees is also critical, as is getting government out of medicine, education, and the economy. The proliferation of licensing, for everything from jobs to driving to self-defense tools, is another major problem.

These issues will continue to be important to those of us who value individual liberty. Respecting liberty will always remain the greatest responsibility.

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Not a fan

...of government.
"Government is a group of people organizing to hire someone to say magic words at religious ceremonies and write on paper what the people who hired them want everyone within a claimed territory is supposed to be and do, then hiring an army of people in funny clothes with weapons to make everyone within said territory obey what the paper says or be punished with up to and including being murdered for noncompliance. 
That is the definition of a terrorist organization or violent gang." ~ Anonymous

When someone is right, they are right.

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Dishonest questions lead to unwanted answers



Recently on Quora, someone asked a dishonest question about whether countries with stronger "gun control laws" had "less shootings".

I pointed out that the question isn't an honest one because an attack on the innocent is wrong, regardless of which tool was used.
Someone replied, accusing me of building a straw man for pointing out the flaw in the original question.

He said I needed to just answer the question as asked, rather than changing the question.

I pointed out that this is like asking him if he has stopped beating his wife yet, and refusing to consider any answer other than a "yes" or a "no". If he points out that he doesn't beat his wife, and never has, is that a "straw man"?

But this is how anti-gun bigots operate. It's how they've fooled people into debating how much slavery is acceptable, rather than rejecting it altogether. It's how they've made up ideas such as "reasonable restrictions", "common sense gun laws", and all the other lies they promote. They aren't honest, and they can only "win" if you agree to play by the rules they set (and change when it suits them). I won't.

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