Sunday, July 03, 2022

New laws won't solve problems

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for June 1, 2022)




Senseless aggression toward innocent victims enrages me. No matter who is harmed or who commits the act. But to intentionally target children? Rage doesn't begin to describe what I feel.

Are you ready for some hard truth? Some of you are; those who aren't should probably read the comics instead.

You'll never stop crime with new legislation and harsher enforcement. You'll never even reduce crime that way.

In fact, even if you imagine this tactic would prevent some crimes, you'll have to ignore all the crimes it unintentionally causes. Directly. Which it will do. No legislation only affects the bad guys. It affects those who generally try to obey the rules much more... which has a negative effect.

What good is making up some legislation which prevents one crime if it causes five other crimes which wouldn't have happened otherwise? "If it saves one life" is the mantra of activists who wear blinders.

Knee jerk legislation giving government added power, created under the stress of tragedy, is never a good idea. It always works out badly, having devastating unintended consequences down the line. We are seeing the unintended consequences of that kind of legislation happen now, while politicians and activists are theatrically trying to place the blame where it doesn't belong.

People can't be forced to be good or responsible. You can't improve society through authoritarian tyranny. Turning society into a prison is never the right thing to do, even if you imagine safety will be the result.

All that will happen is you'll contribute to making things worse for everyone, not better.

Yet, it's what politicians want to do and it's what the loudest activists demand from them. It's not "common sense" in any sense of the phrase, but anti-liberty politicians hope you won't realize it.

What you can do is to decide to be responsible. Decide to be part of the solution, regardless of what rules are imposed on you.

Don't comply. Don't let anyone make you feel bad about refusing to go along with your own enslavement. Understanding, respecting, and exercising liberty doesn't make you a bad person. What they want to do to you-- what they intend to do to you-- makes them the bad guys. Their political acts will guarantee crimes like this will continue to happen again and again. You know it. Don't let them forget it and show them you aren't fooled by their easy and popular lies.
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Is "binary thinking" even thinking?


So many people are trapped in binary thinking. I'm not going to assume I'm immune.

I got into an ill-advised argument over abortion. But, because I didn't exactly agree with the mob that descended on me, they could only believe I was 100% on board with the opposite side's opinion. I gave evidence that this wasn't true, but they seemed literally unable to physically see it. All they could do was continue responding to the hallucination that they had formed and that the rest of the mob was helping to prop up.

It was educational.

If I think something is a bad idea, or even wrong, it doesn't mean I believe government should make up legislation prohibiting it. 

I don't even think government should make murder illegal-- but I know murder is unethical. Most people can't reconcile those two opinions. If I'm against murder, I must be for laws prohibiting it. If I'm against those laws, obviously I must think anyone should be allowed to kill whoever they want without consequence. Neither is even remotely true,

I even said things unambiguously supporting the mob's side against others who chimed in with the other view. Those comments were ignored completely. They didn't fit in the round hole.

Pointing out this trap-- the binary "thinking"-- just triggers this kind of person even more. No, the problem must be with me, not with them. Some of them resorted to mocking my "centrist" position.

Will I ever learn?

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