Government makes crisis worse

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for July 15, 2020)

America is in crisis. Nearly everyone agrees on this point; they only disagree over what the crisis is.

Fewer still agree over what caused the crisis they can't agree on, so they can't agree on how to solve it.

Whatever the crisis is, and whether it was caused by a virus, police callousness, racism, inequality, or something else, governments love the excuse to crack down on liberty. This is often among their first responses-- regardless of what the crisis is, what caused the crisis, or how it might be solved. It's as though they don't even care about those trivial details.

A crisis is when your right to life, liberty, and property is most important. When things are going well, are more robust and stable, a small disruption probably won't cause ruin. When things are already on the edge, one little push in the wrong place, at the wrong time, can spell disaster. Deciding to treat liberty as if it's negotiable is a big jackbooted shove to civil society.

To respect the liberty of every human being is the civilized thing to do, even if some people aren't respecting the liberty of others. This is why self-defense remains an important human right.

No crisis justifies additional government power; instead, it's a time for less government meddling. Especially when the path forward is unclear.

The result of restricting liberty is to limit the number of individual solutions which can be tried. When there's disagreement, it's important to let people take different paths. If enough things are tried, someone will get it right. If you force everyone to follow the same path, the chances are nearly one hundred percent that the wrong path will be imposed.

This is why the Constitution doesn't allow itself, or human rights, to be suspended during any emergency and thus doesn't permit martial law. To pretend martial law is constitutional the Supreme Court was forced to concoct political "theories" to justify it. They made up, out of thin air, things the Constitution didn't say and which it was explicitly designed to prevent. It seems the Constitution has never stopped government from committing any action it really wanted to commit. Someone, somewhere, will rubber-stamp almost anything.

If the Constitution did permit the suspension of rights for the duration of an emergency, this would invalidate the document. That it doesn't, yet government goes ahead and does it anyway, invalidates government. Government "help" makes any crisis worse.

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Individual lives matter

Individual lives matter. All individual lives. (I'm not convinced collective "lives" have any reality.)

But some people choose to throw their life away by making self-defense against them necessary-- resulting in the loss of their life. If you force someone to kill you in defense you seem to be saying your life doesn't matter to you.

How can you force someone to defend themselves from you? By archating.

Violating life, liberty, or property is how you demonstrate that your life doesn't really matter to you.

In that case, even though your life might matter to your victim, you have forced them to choose between your life and theirs, and I hope they choose their own life every time in that case. After all, you've already told them what your life is worth to you.

It doesn't matter if you are a rapist committing a sexual attack, a mugger stealing a wallet at gunpoint, or a cop committing an act of legislation enforcement. Archating is as good as admitting your life doesn't matter to you. If it doesn't matter to you, why should it matter to your victim? And even if it does matter to your victim, why should they sacrifice the life they value for the one you apparently don't? I don't think they should.

Individual lives matter. Act like you believe it.

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