Saturday, September 23, 2023

Only you can provide your own safety

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for August 20, 2023)




If you depend on government-- or anyone else-- to save you from danger, you're risking your life unnecessarily.

The tragic wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui are awful beyond words. I hate when horrible things happen to people who are just going about their lives.

Unfortunately, the fires were probably far more deadly than they would have otherwise been because too many people have been conditioned to be dependent on someone else to tell them when they are in danger and what to do about it.

When dependency overrides your self-preservation instinct it's not helpful.

I never want to see people encouraged to become dependent on someone else. "Let the professionals handle it" is a good way to create a helpless population. It may be good for government, but it isn't good for the community.

It's so easy to be seduced into letting someone else take responsibility for your safety. Especially since taking responsibility for yourself can attract unwanted attention and ridicule. Or even get you into legal trouble. The fear of being laughed at for evacuating or taking other defensive actions before others see any danger looming is enough to make many people wait too long to escape.

You have the senses of sight, smell, and hearing to help warn you of danger. Other people can also help you become aware of a threat they saw coming but you didn't notice yet. Use every advantage you can get.

But warning systems can fail. Other people can be wrong or have other priorities. You must stay aware for your own sake. Part of awareness is realizing no one else is as responsible for your safety as you are.

This applies whether the danger is crime, natural disasters, disease, or tyrannical government. Don't wait until everyone else recognizes the danger, or until someone "official" tells you it's time to act.

I want to help keep others safe when possible. If I see someone in danger I'll step in if I can. The problem is, I can't be everywhere. You are the only person who's always there when danger threatens you. No matter how pure someone else's intentions might be, they are not suited for the job of protecting you. It is up to you, and always has been.

Watch out for yourself, take action when you need to, and do your best to help others along the way.
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The spider web


Government has a benefit, at least if you are a government supremacist. One policy will create multiple problems that statists can use to justify more government and more policies which create more problems leading to more policies etc. ad infinitum, making an eternal positive feedback loop.

Because it's a web of connections, every part links to multiple other parts.

Just to give you an idea of how this works—  

Prohibition creates crime and huge profits for cartels, which empowers (and employs) legislation enforcers, and creates incentives to get drugs to customers living under prohibition which lets government supremacists claim justification for more "border" control in the name of fighting crime which is created by prohibition. Who benefits from prohibition? Not you or me.

Need more?

Handouts create dependency which creates a bigger demand for handouts. Handouts create incentives for people from other lands to want to come here, which makes people want unconstitutional "secure borders" to prevent people from coming here, which is exactly what "coyotes" need for their business model, and since prohibition has artificially inflated the price of drugs, they do a little lucrative drug smuggling too.

Still not convinced?

Anti-gun rules cause crime which causes dishonest or stupid people to scream for more anti-gun rules, which will cause more crime, etc. We already know the solution to crime: defense of life, liberty, and property. Government doesn't want crime solved because this wouldn't benefit them.

And even all those "different" topics are connected in various ways. More and more examples could be shown, all leading to the same place.

Government causes problems that government supremacists insist can only be solved by more government, which will only create more problems, and the cycle spins out of control with society and liberty sacrificed on the altar to The State.

Don't be part of the problem; be part of the real solution.

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