I am afraid when I encounter a situation I don't feel adequate to handle, and when the consequences seem too big to bear. Medical situations cause me fear more often than any other situations do. This fear doesn't inspire me to violate others, though.
Unlike what I see happening around me, my fear doesn't come from not having the ability or right to control other people.
I can see how it might happen, as in an active shooter situation. But seeing armed people- as long as they aren't wearing a badge or acting aggressively- doesn't cause me fear, or even stress. There has to also be that credible threat. And I can take measures so that I don't feel quite the helplessness others might. Which means I do have the ability or right to "control" bad guys in this way, so there's less fear than if I were helpless.
I'm not scared of people who are doing what they have a right to do.
I wonder why other people seem so afraid- afraid to the point that they want government there to protect them (even though it can't, or doesn't, do so).
They must be engulfed in feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. They must feel like Big Brother is the answer to their fears.
I wish I had the power to calm their fears. But pointing out that they have options, and that fear doesn't have to rule them, only seems to make them angry. As though they enjoy their fear and don't want to lose it.
There are better, healthier ways to enjoy fear than imposing a government. Ride a roller coaster- if that's not enough, make sure you're not secured in the seat. Or watch a scary (or gory) movie. Or jump off of bridges- tied to a bungee if you like. Fly a Tesla Roadster over a canyon. None of those fear-inducers violate others. Using your fear to justify a government does. Don't do that.
When I comment, usually taking the side of liberty and against the police state, there's this petti old karen who scolds me, saying I don't live in Clovis, so I need to mind my own business.
She treats the site as her own little fiefdom, threatening to ban anyone who expresses an opinion she doesn’t like- especially one about cops.
She is an unrepentant copsucker; apparently on a first-name basis with the police chief and whichever officers make the news on any given day. She reposts all the press releases the cops put out, as though it's her mission in life. She praises the cops whenever they do anything, and thanks them individually in her posts. She completely ignored the cop who recently caused a traffic accident and lied about it (but was found out and disciplined for lying)- as though it never happened. She defends Flock spyware relentlessly, because "crime". She gets angry and encourages people to report people to the cops for having any fun she doesn't approve of- and there's an awful lot she doesn't approve of. And, of course, she's afraid of almost everything she doesn't like or understand (which is nearly everything).
She's a busybody of epic proportions, inserting herself into almost anything, whether it's her business or not. It seems like the things that are none of her business excite her the most.
She's a really nasty piece of work.
Usually I ignore her, because she's not worth my time. (I've tried to mute her so I don't see any of her posts, but that hasn't worked.)
Recently, she got her panties in a wad because there's a "pot farm" next to the hospital, using "major water". (She's probably upset she can't report them to the cops!) I'll bet she doesn't have an issue with any Big Government project using even more water. Fortunately, several people knocked her down a notch, but I chimed in anyway.
I asked, "Why is this any less legitimate than anything you do with water? There’s nothing unethical about farming."
I guarantee you that if she responds, she will be snotty about it and have some excuse about "the children", or that it used to be illegal, that she believes it's immoral, or that her cop buddies don't like it. (Even though the cop I knew best used to steal it from people and smoke it with his friends.)
I just can't relate to people like her. She disgusts me in almost every way possible. People like her are the reason America doesn't have liberty.
It didn't work. Government has become the primary violator of those rights.
Abolish it.
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary", but somehow we're to imagine that those same non-angels become better individuals when given the power to "legally" violate others with very little risk to themselves.
That doesn't work. The worst people among us are drawn to positions of government power. Government isn't necessary, but is clearly contraindicated under the same conditions used to justify it.
Abolish it.
"But if you'd just read this treatise, laying out why government is good and essential, you'll see why you have to accept it and work with it to get whatever scraps of liberty it is willing to let you have."
No. Delusional people writing down justifications for their delusions hold no interest for me. Liberty is superior to any system seeking to violate it. Even if it's a government you like and want to excuse.
Abolish it.
I know, abolishing government is hard. Maybe impossible (for now). So, in the meantime, at least stop pretending it has any legitimacy. Treat it as you would treat any freelance criminal gang. Do what you must to avoid being murdered by it. Protect your property from it in whatever way you can. Exercise your liberty in secret if it's too dangerous to exercise openly.
And don't buy the justifications that the statists are trying to sell you. It's fraud. It's a scam. Buyer beware.
Then, even though I'll admit their superiority, I'll still usually prefer the appearance of the old materials and designs. There's just something classic about them.
If there's a brass and glass version of something that's now usually made of various types of plastic, I'll probably prefer the brass and glass version unless the plastic version is a whole lot better. And some of them are.
I'm a big fan of my polymer and steel guns, but for style, they can't hold a candle to my wood, steel, and brass guns. I understand the pros and cons of each. But I like what I like, and not always for rational reasons.
One thing that bothers me is when they try to make plastic look like wood and brass- that's lying, and it looks bad. At least they don't do that with guns as much as they do with other products (although I do have a 1940s shotgun with an original "wood-like" plastic stock). I hated the old TVs that had a plastic case that had a "wood-grain pattern"- if you're going to make it out of plastic, just do it and don't try to make it look like something else. When they stopped doing that and just left the plastic black, it was an improvement.
I don't even mind honest modern reproductions of old things as long as they are made of the real materials and work like the originals did. (I'd prefer an original, but that's not always practical.)
Liberty is the original original. It existed from the beginning- long before crooked, power-hungry humans invented the warped idea that someone should govern others. None of the modern plastic substitutes for genuine liberty are worth anything. They are cheap (yet excessively expensive), ugly, and broken from the beginning. They are not an improvement on liberty.
I don’t mean this the way statists usually do.
What I mean is that I understand that liberty comes at a price. It’s dangerous.
You can stand for the right to own and carry guns and get killed by an evil loser with a gun.
You can oppose mandatory vaccination and die of a disease.
You might oppose prohibition and sobriety checkpoints and lose a family member to an impaired driver.
You can oppose mass surveillance and be the victim of a crime that could be solved with more spyware.
You can oppose censorship and get called rude names.
Statists will laugh, because they don't get it. They can't see past their ignorance.
Bad guys aren't violating you because of liberty. Liberty doesn't include the "right" to violate others, and it doesn't shield you from random bad things happening. Life and death happen. The Universe isn't fair.
The price of liberty is that if you're consistent, you might find yourself facing a situation that slavery might have made less likely.
So? Liberty is always worth the cost.
Just a few minutes of scrolling around on various websites has exposed me to many concerning opinions.
Many people want to:
Make it illegal to make "too much" money, and take the excess (or take it all) for government to use.
Limit how much you can own- of anything.
Punish success and subsidize failure.
Make sure no one but government has any effective weapons.
Track us all 24/7.
Punish us for any rule we violate.
Censor everything we say, write, and read.
Expand government's power in every area.
Make sure our vehicles (if we are allowed to have them at all) don't go "too fast" and don't allow us to do things with them that government would like to prohibit ("kill switches").
Make us all dependent on government handouts.
Control ALL money.
Allow only government to define and administer justice.
Turn the whole country into a big maximum-security prison.
Let government say where you are allowed to live, while it also imports people who want to kill you and forbids self-defense.
Keep raising the age at which people are still considered "children" when that benefits the government agenda, and keep lowering this barrier when that benefits the government agenda.
Marginalize normal human behavior as "outdated" and no longer acceptable.
Force racism and other bigotries into all our social and business interactions, in order to advance some and hold others back.
Pretend that one flavor of tyranny is good while the other flavor is bad.
Redefine "liberty", "freedom", "justice", "ethical", and whatever other concepts might become a problem for them.
Make us slaves to the whims of cops, ready to fall to our knees no matter what demand they make.
Pretend there's a way to v*te ourselves out of all this.
Statism is a disease. You can vaccinate your mind against it, but like a zombie virus, that only means you are less likely to catch it; not that you won't be devoured bit by bit by someone who is infected.
Yeah, things could get more interesting than you'd like. Since I don't expect people to get smarter, I'm preparing for the worst (while hoping I'm wrong). I'll also do what I can to vaccinate people against statism- even if it feels like a fool's task.
Which human nature would that be, specifically?
Are libertarians ignoring the nature of humans to be dishonest? I'm sure the solution to this is to create government "jobs" where dishonesty pays by orders of magnitude better than freelance dishonesty could ever dream of. And where it can be more easily hidden. And where, even if discovered, it rarely comes with restitution for the victims. This is a reality of human nature.
Are we ignoring the natural "sinful nature" of humans? I'm sure the solution to this is to set up an institution where they can harm, or even kill, others without much risk of being stopped in self-defense- since it's "illegal" to stop them in any meaningful way. Humans sin, so is it essential to put some of these sinful people in positions where their sins can harm a vast number of people?
If people were angels, no government would be necessary. Because they aren't angels, they can't be allowed to govern others. No one is qualified for this "job". And that's a reality of human nature.
Is the human nature being ignored the nature of humans to fight- individually or in large groups- and try to take what's not theirs through wars? Statists think the solution is to gather large groups together, pay them with money stolen from the local population, go out and attack others, and then cry about needing to defend ourselves when the other groups fight back. Libertarians know that every individual has the right to own and carry weapons for defense against ALL violators, including governments who want to "tax" or "conscript" you, and that the human tendency to come together for mutual defense isn't created out of thin air by government. The warlords already took over, and they're lying to you; telling you their way is the best way, when they cause the problem they try to scare you with. This is human nature too obvious to ignore.
Do libertarians ignore the fact that humans can be really stupid? I'm sure the solution to that is to allow a group of stupid humans to make rules over things they know nothing about, and then use those rules to punish the people who know more about those things and wisely choose to ignore the dumb rules imposed by stupid people. Believing you know more about another's situation is human nature, and statists ignore it for their own twisted agenda.
Is this human nature that libertarians ignore the tendency of humans to work toward their own benefit? I'm sure the solution to this is to make it harder for people to help themselves by providing products and services that others want and need. Establish a system that punishes success. Libertarians know that when a system makes it possible to benefit yourself most by benefiting others, you've found a good balance. It's a reality of human nature that statists ignore because it doesn't give them power.
Maybe libertarians ignore the human nature to feel inadequate and beg for kings and presidents to take their burden of responsibility off them. It works so much "better" to give them what they want than to expect them to grow up and take responsibility for themselves. Next time a toddler wants a bottle of whiskey, you'd better just give it to her, because otherwise you're ignoring human nature to want to feel the buzz. Who ignores this human nature?
If you give people what they want, because they are lazy, fearful, or ignorant, and you expect nothing more from them, they'll keep fulfilling your low expectations. If you expect more of them, they'll disappoint you. But they'll either learn or be Darwinized out of the gene pool (and, empathy aside, this isn't a bad thing). And YOU won't be contributing to or perpetuating the problem.
Libertarians are the only ones out there paying attention to, and acting on, human nature. Despite what statists may endlessly parrot. As in so many other things, this is statists projecting their own character flaws onto others. Don't buy it.
"If you don't v*te for our side, the other side will win!"
Yeah, so? Both of you are the problem.
Both sides are socialists.
Both sides are authoritarian archators.
Both sides lie to get the v*tes, then do what they were always planning to do regardless.
Can they really be considered "sides" when they are no more different than they are?
Sure, there are differences. But they are both creeps who seek to rule. They both want to violate your individual sovereignty. They both want to impose their desires on you through counterfeit "laws". Both are despicable enemies of liberty.
I see what you DO, not what you SAY. It doesn't work to call your loyal opposition names- even if those names are accurate- while you behave in ways that are just as bad for liberty, but occasionally in slightly different ways.
It's not going to be different this time.
Yes, I hate the thought of "their guy" getting elected, but I hate the idea of "your guy" getting elected, too. I hate them both. I don't need to be governed, I don't need anyone else governed on my behalf, and I don't appreciate you forcing your chosen political criminals onto my back.
You statists could choose to not be the problem, but instead, you choose to whine that I don't support your creeps, and you fabricate the fantasy that this helps the other creeps. Statists are delusional.
Politics makes people stupid, and usually at least a little bit evil (UT7). This is never more obvious than when they are campaigning.
If it's unreasonable to demand that government not violate the very rights it supposedly exists to protect, then I'm unashamedly unreasonable.
If government doesn't do this bare minimum, then I want it abolished. If that's unreasonable, I'm OK with that.
If it's unreasonable to expect that natural human rights be respected, even if inconvenient, then I'm fine with being thought of as unreasonable.
If it's unreasonable to support the right of everyone to defend their life, liberty, and property from all violators, freelance and governmental, then I'm glad I'm unreasonable.
If refusing to go along with the weak and fearful crowd is unreasonable, so be it.
I've seen what passes for "reasonable" and I want no part of it.
If unwavering advocacy of liberty is unreasonable, then I'll be unreasonable forever.
I think we may be descending into a new Dark Age where the vast majority of people- especially young people- just don’t care. As long as they have entertainment, convenience, and the illusion of safety, that’s enough. They don't see any value in liberty. They are too busy dreaming up new ways to feel like victims. New mental illnesses to build their personalities around.
That won't last because it's unsustainable. But it has lasted too long already. Liberty has suffered as a result of this manufactured distraction.
The flame of liberty has been relegated to the corners of the room while all manner of anti-human ideologies and policies take center stage and get all the attention.
I think liberty will eventually rise again, in an upcoming generation sometime in the future. A generation that finally understands that the solution is never political. I wish we didn't have to wait.
If it turns out to be longer than a human lifespan before that new generation arises, I hope we can pass the flame on to a few holdouts so they can do the same when their time comes, just to give that future generation something to expand on. If not, I hope we leave a legacy they can discover and use to build upon. I hope I can contribute something to that future generation.
Half of me gets really mad at all the stupid governing and bullying that goes on. At the spyware the regime is paying to have track us and (soon) read our lips. I hate that so many are so opposed to liberty. I'm frustrated over the monumental cowardice that leads to government.
I want it all to fail, no matter the consequences.
The other half of me wonders how much it really matters. How real is any of this?
Do those who see themselves as "in control" and "running things" really have any control? Are they running anything? It doesn't look like it. What do they believe they are controlling and running? To me, it looks like they are flailing around, and the only people who see them as "leaders" are the weak-minded followers who'd insist on following someone, regardless.
Evil humans have been trying to govern others for a very long time. Eventually, the people being governed always have enough, and then heads roll. People find a way to exercise their liberty in spite of the best efforts of the evil government addicts. This arms race isn't going to stop- the tighter they grasp, the more of us who'll slip through their Imperial fingers.
I feel bad about how many innocents will end up harmed or dead before things settle down. But I'm not the one insisting that this path must be followed.
I'm saying we should all respect each other's equal and identical rights to avoid this. If statist clowns demand otherwise, I'm afraid they'll get what they've asked for.
Get good at ducking, sneaking, hiding, and/or sniping.
With the second half of my brain, I think liberty will prevail in the end, but it might get very interesting on the way to that end. For us, and for the bad guys.
If you don't allow people to say what the solution is, you are actively hiding the solution, and fewer people will understand; the situation will get worse. Every single time. You're the bad guy causing the problem to escalate.
Yes, the solution is sometimes violence- but never aggression.
This is the reality that needs to be spoken. Expressing it needs to be normalized, not punished.
If you punish people for saying so- for telling the truth- you're empowering the bad guys. You're picking the wrong side to defend.
I understand that the thought of being violent upsets many decent people. They want to see themselves as "peaceful" for some odd reason. They think suggesting violence, even when that's not really what was done, needs to be stopped. They confuse violence with aggression.
The thought of their intended victims being violent to stop a crime scares the bad guys and upsets political criminals and those trained to think like they do. There's a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram; it's basically a circle unless you go microscopic.
Find ways to speak the truth, even as the bad guys try to stop you. It's necessary. Normalize self-defense so completely that bad guys- freelance, governmental, and corporate- can't silence us all. Stop letting them hide the solution.
