Thursday, June 01, 2023

Stop the pendulum


I like pendulum clocks, but there's one pendulum I can't stand-- one I have disliked since I was young: the social pendulum. 

Things swing too far in one direction then they reach a limit and swing too far in the other direction.

Like clockwork.

Why can't the pendulum come to rest? Because it keeps getting energy from somewhere. Not from a spring or from weights, but from someone pushing it. Sometimes for good reason-- at first.

The "middle ground" isn't necessarily where some would like for you to believe it is. The middle is equal and identical rights for everyone. Fewer or "extra" rights for none. No "rights" for government or any other collective.

The middle resting position is liberty.

No one seems content with this condition.

People who hate/fear guns might at least consider the rules of the mid-20th Century to be the basic starting point for imposing more rules. The number of anti-gun rules in the 1950s was still too many. The pendulum at rest would be no political rules concerning weapons whatsoever. Not anti- and not pro-. Just none. Liberty.

But people who want to rule you see any reduction in the rules they like as "too far". And those gun owners who want to use politics want rules favorable to them. Liberty suffers.

I want no rules other than the natural rules of responsibility.

Some people don't want any person they don't like to have equal and identical rights to their own. So they'll try to stand in the way of letting the pendulum move toward equal and identical rights, But because of social inertia (which is usually destructive), it won't stop in the middle. It swings too far, where the individuals demand "extra" rights. 

Those who weren't happy with respecting the rights of others to begin with will eventually manage to put a stop to the pendulum and it will get shoved back and swing too far in the other direction again. If no one would try to push things too far, maybe the pendulum could take a break. Maybe it could come to rest at Liberty.

Instead, the pendulum keeps swinging between extremes, destroying liberty bit by bit with each pass beyond the middle. And people keep pushing it to give it the energy to keep going. 

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My surgery fund.
Thank you!