"Doom!" Or, "Don't worry; it has never happened"

Anytime I see some report that says "[X] is the worst it has been since [some year I lived through]", I think "So?" I made it through that one and I think my chances are pretty good to make it through this, too. 

On the other hand, I also remember lots of times people said "[X] has never happened; it's not going to happen now" just before it happened.

Will TSHTF? Probably not in the next year-- it hasn't yet (although 2020 was a limited practice run). Am I going to be complacent because I think TEOTWAWKI is unlikely? Nope. I'm going to prep like I know it's coming next week. Just because it hasn't happened yet is no guarantee it won't ever happen. In fact, over the long term, it's probably inevitable. I just don't know when.

If something kills me in the midst of the present or future "interesting times", it will probably be something ordinary and boring (to observers), not anything unusual and interesting. Part of me would prefer to go out fighting to survive a Mad Max world instead of some mundane health issue. I suspect a lot of people may feel the same way. But that's unlikely.

To those who fear TEOTWAWKI, I say you probably don't have anything to worry about. Prep anyway since it will soothe your worries a little. And if I'm wrong, prepping is what you should be doing to get ready. Whatever comes, your response should be the same: prep.

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Here come the Betophiles

Beto O'Fakehispanic irritates me more than most political criminal wannabes. 

Much more. It's how I imagine TDS sufferers must feel when they see or think of Donald Trump.

It's not just his face, but his smug anti-gun bigotry, which is pretty much the only song and dance he seems to know.

I've come up with a name for his supporters that I use on social media: Betophiles.
It fits and is 100% accurate and honest. And it's catchy. His campaign should send me a huge check as thanks for coming up with this.

I say his supporters should stand up and loudly proclaim in public that they are proud Betophiles. I think they should adopt the hashtag #Betophiles to identify themselves. They need to let themselves be seen and heard for who they support.

Wouldn't that be fun for everyone?

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Politicians aren't better than you

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 21, 2022)

It seems it should be obvious to everyone by now: those who seek positions of political power can't even run their own lives; they certainly shouldn't be allowed to run yours. No one is less qualified to do so.

Just look at the news. Locally, nationally, and internationally-- those with political power are drawn to criminal behavior like Junebugs to porch lights.

They are not better than you. They are not smarter or wiser, more moral, or more expert. They aren't entitled to decide how you should live your life. They shouldn't have power over a hamster, much less over other humans.

Sometimes, what they want you to do (or want you to not do) is the same thing you already want. Letting them believe they are governing isn't going to hurt anything too much-- other than perhaps making them bolder. All too often though, they demand you behave in ways which aren't in your interest. Things which will actually hurt you in some way. Complying with their demands may be safer than defying them. but you lose either way.

These arbitrary demands are usually in their interests, though, and they'll dream up excuses to pretend they aren't arbitrary. Their real reason is less noble.

What they demand you give up for them-- for "the good of society"-- invariably gives them more power and usually enriches them in some way as well. They exempt themselves from the rules they impose if these rules would hamper their own ambitions too much. They believe they are a higher class of human.

They commonly frame their policies as good for society, but this is a lie.

If something isn't good for individuals, it isn't good for society. Society is nothing but all the individuals and their actions combined. It's not something politicians can, or should, control.

People who seek political power are the last people who should be allowed to have it. The temptation to misuse this power is too great. You've heard the old saying about power tending to corrupt people and absolute power corrupting them absolutely. If you respect someone, why would you put them in the position to be corrupted and ruined? This is why you never vote for someone you like. Never vote for anyone you don't like, either.

You have the right to run your own life, even if you are fooled into giving up control to politicians. Don't be fooled.

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"Quiet quitting"? I would prefer quiet rebellion

To some extent, you get the "laws" you comply with.

I feel bad for Canadians, especially after Fidel Trudeau's handgun freeze, but they've been too compliant over the years and it has led to this.

Of course, I think Americans are also too compliant.

They were too compliant when driver's licenses were imposed. They were too compliant when the National Firearms Act was imposed. They were too compliant when government sent them to die for the military-industrial complex. They were too compliant when "social security" and income taxation were imposed.

And they are too compliant now with just about everything from the Covid shot and mandates to whatever is happening in gov-schools.

America was founded on rebellion and without rebellion ceases to exist. Is it too late?

I want to see some rebellion. It doesn't even need to be violent rebellion-- if enough people would just ignore the wishes of the political criminals so that their plans fail I'd be thrilled. Even if it included issues I would be on the other side of.

Call it quiet rebellion. Just stop acting as though the political criminals own you-- because they don't. They are the bad guys. 

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When someone says "our democracy"...

Any political person who uses the term "our democracy" has instantly lost any hint of credibility on that topic. It's so dumb it's laughable.

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Choosing the best situation for yourself

I suppose it's good that you can still choose a location that respects the rights that are most important to you. At least, to some extent.

I'm not concerned with abortion access personally (which may or may not actually be a right-- depending on how you see it), but I am adamant that my right to own and to carry weapons be respected. So, small-town Texas is better for me than big-city California. Even here, I'm not going to tempt the Blue Line Gangsters by flaunting my rights in their faces. I don't trust any cops, anywhere, ever.

Other people are free to choose differently if they rank their own rights differently.

I feel bad for those who feel stuck in a place that violates their rights in ways that bother them the most. I was once in their place and I hated it. I felt trapped and couldn't wait to get back to freer territory. Those who had lived there all their lives didn't even notice what was so oppressive to me. I couldn't ignore the authoritarianism. I had to escape from the East.

Are there freedoms that could make other places more attractive to me? Yes. Without a doubt. 

For one thing, I miss the Rocky Mountains a lot. The freedom of wandering the wilderness, and all the joy that brings. But Colorado has changed too much since I lived there and I'm not sure I would feel as free there anymore. I admit, I (and everyone else I knew) basically ignored Denver's authoritarian edicts, so I wasn't as affected as I could have been. But even as badly as I miss the mountains, I'm not sure I would be a good fit there now. Of course, the Rockies cover a lot of territory, so maybe someday I'll head back to some part of them, but in a place not so polluted by transplanted California tyranny.

At least for now, that option is still open. I don't take it for granted that this will always be the case.

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"I'm NOT going to read some rando's blog post!"

And that's why you'll continue to be ignorant.

I get this response over and over when in the middle of a discussion someone says something I've already addressed in a blog post (or several) and I link to it so the explanation can be laid out in detail. Yes, I could type it all out again, or I could copy and paste the whole post, but why?

Well, one reason to do so is that most people seem to refuse to read a blog post that applies to the situation. That seems odd to me. I've never refused to read anything sent to me to explain someone else's position or beliefs. Not once. If it's especially long, I may skim it-- but I have never "yelled" at anyone for sending a link, whether to a blog post or an article, yet that happens to me all the time.

I suppose the difference might be that I always want to know if I'm wrong. If there's a valid point that I'm missing that bolsters the other side (or destroys my side), I want to be aware of it. It may or may not change my mind-- to do so it would have to present something new that I hadn't already considered-- but I still want to know what the arguments for the other side are.

So many others don't seem to think the same way. It seems this is because they would rather make claims, not a case for what they are saying.

Recently, after a guy attacked someone for observing that cops are a threat, I spelled out-- carefully and completely-- to him why there are no "good cops" and why there can't be. He really balked when I posted a link to something relevant I had written before on the topic, telling me he didn't care what someone had written in a blog. All he could manage was to was claim, over and over again, that there are good cops (because one had helped him once) and tell me it wasn't a "hegemony" (not sure how that applied to my observation that police are a criminal gang) and that I was using false equivalencies and straw men. 

But he never even tried to address or refute my points or to make some of his own, even admitting that taxation is theft-- but he'll accept it because it funds police.  (He is also a "Constitutionalist", so that might be part of the hangup.) It was just too obvious to him that cops are the only thing keeping us from all killing each other-- using the chaos in gun-free utopian cities that "defunded police" [sic] as his evidence. When I pointed out that this is the inevitable result in places that violate the right to own and to carry weapons, with or without cops. he threw around his favorite words some more and refused to stop and think.

I have figured out that most people simply don't go through the same mental process that I do when evaluating something. That's not wrong, even if it's different, but it means they'll never be convinced in the same way I have been convinced. If they are to be convinced, it's going to take someone whose brain works more like theirs does. That's not me.

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The rise of the spoiled idiots

Pouring soup on an old painting that people generally like, or pouring milk over food and the floor of your local grocery store, to convince people it's wrong to use petroleum or dairy products is just going to make smart people dislike you. 

Gluing your hand to the wall of the art gallery after trying to ruin a painting with soup, or to the road so that you can more effectively block traffic with your pre-corpse, may even be more stupid-- it looks like you don't realize how easily skin can tear off. And those who you've made into your enemies aren't really going to care if ripping off your skin to move you out of the way causes you a lot of pain. They'll correctly point out that you did this to yourself.

Stunts like these make everyone who isn't a spoiled idiot see you as the spoiled idiot you are.

If you don't like the way something is going, or wish things would change faster, speak up smart. Make your case. Don't do things so stupid that you inspire people to push back harder. Which is the unfortunate response I've seen most often.

Also, it might help if you had a clue about economics. I'm sure that's asking too much of these products of gov-school, though.

It's interesting that this is happening in the UK where the natural human right to defend property has been turned into a "crime".

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Liberty trumps rule of the majority

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 14, 2022)

According to a recent poll, a majority of New Mexico voters approve of stiffer anti-gun legislation.

This is why the US Constitution exists, and why America was established as a republic, not a democracy: to protect individual rights from majority opinion. It places human rights beyond the reach of politics. You don't get to vote on liberty.

Whether or not this works in practice could be the subject for another conversation.

Invariably, the anti-gun faction claims that "in spite of" all the legislation they've imposed, the crime rate remains high. The truth is, the crime rate is pushed higher by those laws. Bad people will continue to break laws, no matter how harsh the consequences. Part of being a bad guy is the belief that you'll get away with it-- and a lack of consideration of consequences. This is why harsher legislation and nastier penalties will always hurt good people more than they will discourage criminals.

Democracy is nothing but mob rule; might through superior numbers makes "right". It is nothing to celebrate or fetishize. Those who place faith in democracy are telling you they don't understand what rights are, nor do they understand the dangers of letting the mob decide which rights to respect and which to ignore.

It doesn't matter what everyone wants if everyone wants to violate someone's rights.

Imagine slavery somehow makes a comeback, or at least becomes something most people are willing to consider again. It's obviously illegal-- prisons excepted-- to enslave people. What if the people demand to vote on the matter? Could an election make slavery OK? What if the vote was 99% in favor of re-instituting slavery?

If you don't have the right to do something to someone, winning a majority vote on the issue doesn't create this right. You have no right to tell anyone they aren't allowed to have some sort of gun or otherwise violate their natural rights or enslave them. No legislation, election, or majority opinion can change this.

You might still have the power to do it anyway, just as governments had the power to prop up slavery throughout most of human history. This doesn't make it right. Try it and the abolitionists will rise again, with their new version of underground railroads. The bad people will call them the "criminals", as they always do when good people defy bad government rules. I can live with that.

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Don't be a creepy cancel ghoul

I really hate the whole "cancel culture" thing. Bad.

I don't even care one bit who it is being canceled. Currently, it's mainly those who aren't Left-statists who are getting canceled, but flip the polarity and it wouldn't make it any better. I would still oppose it because it wouldn't be a bit more legitimate.

I don't care if it's Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Stephen King, or AOC. Don't do it. 

Even if you are on the correct side, you make me think you know you aren't when you "cancel" someone. If you don't like what someone says, make a better argument for what you'd say instead. Canceling them is admitting you have no argument.

It's a weak move. A dishonest, creepy, authoritarian move. I probably hate you more than whoever you canceled just because you canceled someone.

The cancel creeps don't have to care what I think, but I'm going to let them know anyway.

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Cops have only themselves to blame

Sometimes, as I drive or walk around town, I see prisoners being used as slave labor on the grounds of the local cop-shop-- I mean "law enforcement center". It disgusts me to see this.

They are dressed in the old black and white striped prisoner uniforms. I've read the local police reports, so I know it's not likely that any of them violated real laws; most likely counterfeit ones. I mean, it's probably not going to be the truly rare dangerous prisoner used for outdoor slave labor, right?

Which brought a thought to mind the other day as I walked past.

If I saw a prisoner escaping from the local jail, I wouldn't help the cops catch him. I'm certainly not going to report a sighting to them if I think I saw him somewhere else. 

This doesn't apply if I know, for myself, that he committed an actual crime. I'm not prone to believe what lying cops say about what someone did. Nor am I going to be convinced by a report in the paper since those usually just parrot whatever the cops want printed.

Legislation enforcers today have discredited themselves so badly by enforcing counterfeit "laws" that my default assumption would be that the prisoner is being held unethically. I'm not going to help them violate someone. They've done this to themselves and have only themselves to blame.

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When you are the source of the problem

There is a campaign ad I've been subjected to on some streaming service. I can't remember who it's for, but it has a couple of stereotypical Texas sheriffs yapping about the Fentanyl crisis and "our borders". (I looked-- it's an ad against the fake Hispanic anti-gun bigot.)

Assuming there is a Fentanyl problem-- and how would I know either way?-- people like them are the reason for it. They caused it.

Fentanyl happened due to prohibition. 

Those who declared (or supported) the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs are directly at fault. If you make things illegal, people will pay smugglers (market merchants) to supply them. If you double down on catching the merchants, smaller packages become safer, maybe even essential-- which means a stronger product. A stronger product is more dangerous because it is easier to overdose on.

Yet, instead of realizing their mistake and their complicity (and it may be too late to fix it), they go down another wrong path because of the issue they created in the first place. This is why I don't always get along with "conservatives"-- when they are wrong, they are just as wrong as their supposed opposite.

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What police ARE obligated to do

Police have no obligation to protect you or any specific individual. This is something which courts have repeatedly ruled on. It completely destroys the anti-gun argument: "you don't need to carry a gun; the police are there to protect you". They aren't, and they probably can't and won't.

Copsuckers try to make the claim that a duty to protect the public or the community is the same thing as protecting the individuals who make up the public/community. It's not.

However, police do have an obligation to not prevent you from protecting yourself; to not get in your way. Even if no courts (yet) agree. It simply can not be otherwise, especially in light of what courts (and the police) say is the situation.

If you decide you need to carry a gun in order to protect yourself, a cop is obligated to respect your choice. Ethically, if not "legally"-- and if "the law" says otherwise, it is worse than useless. It is actively harmful.

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You don't license rights

I saw that the criminal regime in Florida is "legally" kidnapping people for repairing hurricane-damaged roofs without being "licensed" by the state. That's criminal behavior and should be treated as such-- not the carpentering, the kidnapping.

It has always aggravated me when some out-of-control government thugs decide they have the "right" to force you to license your rights before you're "allowed" to exercise them. 

It goes against the very concept of rights. Only a true villain would do this to anyone.

No one has the right to require a license before you are allowed to speak your mind. Nor before you go to church. Nor before you drive a car, earn money, or carry a weapon. No one has the right to demand you get a license first before you exercise any of your rights because there can be no such "right" to do so. There is no such thing as the "authority" to require a license for a right, either.

People accept some of these licenses without much fuss when they would freak out over other licensing scams that are no worse. It is no more ridiculous to demand a license to go to church than to drive-- both should be completely unacceptable to reasonable people. Yet, people buy into the government lie that "driving is a privilege" when they'd never accept the same lie if it were told about going to church. Why is this? Looks identical to me.

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The worst of a bad lot

Republicans-- the "Right", conservatives [sic], whatever you call them-- advocate for things I strongly disagree with.

I despise prohibition, border control, their fawning over police and the military, and using religious beliefs as an excuse to impose legislation. I'm also over any Constitution fetish that I once had-- although I still like to use it against constitutionalists who obviously have no clue what it actually says.

However... I would have to be delusional to not see that right now the Democrats-- the "Left", "liberals" [sic], "progressives" [sic], "w0ke"-- are more of a threat to liberty than the Republicans are. I expect that could change at any time, depending on the circumstances, but that's just the situation at this moment in time.

And I understand why you might feel differently if your main motivation is unlimited abortion.

I despise the Democrats' "gun control" [sic], "intersectionality", racism labeled "antiracism", "gender" politics, and their democracy/v*ting fetish (usually using women as a sacrificial talisman), I hate that they just can't get over Trump or Covid, and keep trying to use these topics as weapons against skeptics. If you don't instantly agree with them 100% you are an extreme MAGA white supremacist... even if you aren't white and never supported Trump. I actually saw this happening to a black gun owner the other day. It was disgusting how he was attacked.

Don't misunderstand me. None of this would ever get me to v*te for any brand of DemoCRAPublican ever again. I just want everyone to keep their filthy "laws" and their nasty State off my life, no matter who they are or why they think I need their "help". If things get so bad that the choice is v*te or die in slavery, it's past the point where v*ting will make a difference.

But burying your head in the sand to deny reality isn't doing anyone any good.

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I could really use an infusion of some extra funds at this time. Yes, that's usually the case all the time, but right now in particular because of all the extra medical expenses recently. 

I try to hush up about it most of the time, but if I don't ask, no one knows.

Decide what's most important to you

(My Eastern New Mexico News column for September 7, 2022)

Do you only care about some things because you've been manipulated into caring?

There are many things you can't change about the world. Caring too much about those is going to make your life worse. You could lose your mind obsessing over things you can't control, even if they are important.

Should anyone care that the President gave a more dark and divisive speech than usual? Will caring about it accomplish anything?

Are there other things you're being told to care about, but which you probably shouldn't?

If climate change is real, if it is caused by human activity, if it is a net negative, if anything reasonable can be done about it, and if it's not already too late, is there anything you-- individually-- can do to solve it? Should you beg government to crack down on everyone in order to force them to do what you believe they should? What if you're wrong? Might worrying about it destroy your peace of mind without any benefit whatsoever?

Do you still care about Covid? How could caring about it improve your life? Are you making your life better or worse by worrying about whether others have submitted to the shots?

What about unconstitutional control of people's movement across government borders? Should you really care whether the person standing in line in front of you at the store has government permission to be here? Why? If someone isn't currently violating the life, liberty, or property of some individual, their existence isn't hurting you at all. If they are violating someone, why would it matter to you where they were born or which government claims them as property? Caring about it only makes your life less joyful.

Maybe you think I've been fooled into caring about liberty. Do you feel as though I'm trying to manipulate you into caring about something you shouldn't? Should I care about liberty, or is it pointless and meaningless to my quality of life? Should you care?

You need to decide for yourself which things are important enough to focus on. If liberty matters to you-- and imagine how your life would be without it-- then join me in caring about it. If you'd rather have false promises of safety in exchange for giving up your rightful liberty to politicians, then worry about how other people's liberty scares you and beg to be saved from those exercising their freedom responsibly.

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It's a government problem.

There is no energy problem. It's a government problem,

There is no environmental problem. It's a government problem.

There is no crime problem. It's a government problem.

There is no drug abuse problem. It's a government problem.

There is no "immigration" [sic] crisis. It's a government problem.

There are no international problems. It's a government problem.

There is an economic problem-- and it's also a government problem.

What I mean by calling these "government problems" is that a problem may have actually existed, but instead of doing what was necessary to solve it, someone applied political government to the issue and made the problem worse. The current situation is caused by government.

The effect is that the problem was probably made unsolvable unless government stops being used to address it altogether. This solution is so painful for government-supremacists to face that they'll fight you until nuclear doomsday (which, if it happens, they directly caused) to avoid it.

At best, politics is a bandaid. A filthy bandaid that never gets changed but is allowed to cause the problem to fester underneath. But political criminals are "doing something". Yes, something that's making things worse, but "something".

Want to solve problems? There's one way to show you're serious. You've got to eliminate the source, or at least stop supporting and advocating it. Politics and political government will never solve a problem. The sooner you face that and stop pretending otherwise, the sooner real solutions can be allowed to work.

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They are getting desperate and careless

You may not believe me when I say all anti-gun bigots are either ignorant or lying. They are, but you may not believe me.

I think I ran into one of the former.

He had posted a request for Biden to ban "assault weapons" and someone reasonably asked him what an "assault weapon" was. He didn't respond, so I posted the pic above to be helpful. 

That got his attention and he decided to educate me on why I was wrong about what an "assault weapon" is:

There were a couple other responses to him after mine, confirming what I said and pointing out that he knew nothing about firearms. As is almost universally the case with anti-gun bigots. 

Such as that congressvermin who was carefully explaining to his colleagues how a pistol brace turns a semi-auto full auto because it is a bump stock. And these liars/ignorami believe they are wise enough to govern us!

Around this same time, I encountered another of this sort calling a black gun owner a "white supremacist" "MAGA" person for supporting this natural right. Yes, she was being ridiculed by lots of people for her absurd claim, but she wasn't backing down.

Another guy responded to my graphic explaining the Second Amendment and the right to own and to carry weapons with the comment:

Not sure that quite made the point he was going for.

They are trying really hard to fool people. Too many people fall for it. Not you, though.

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My own daycare story

(Note: The news of the mass murder at the daycare in Thailand came just after I typed out this story from my past. After I scheduled this to post, I went on Twitsite and saw the terrible news. Then I came back and changed the title of this post to avoid confusion. It was just one of those odd coincidences.)

Back when my son and older daughter were little, we put them in daycare so we could both work. It was barely worth the cost since my job paid only slightly more than we spent on daycare. But we thought it was the responsible thing to do-- what we should be doing so we could both have a job. (I did things differently this time around, which is why I depend on your subscriptions and donations.)

Then the daycare announced it had been purchased by the daycare that operated in the local college.

We got the official letter a few days later and saw that the price had doubled. We immediately pulled our kids out and decided they would go to work with me and I'd babysit them at the pet store-- there was space where this was doable-- if not wonderfully, at least workably.

It turns out that almost everyone else did the same. Or maybe it was unanimous. Suddenly the purchaser didn't want to buy a daycare without any customers and they backed out of the sale. (Not sure what they thought would happen when they doubled the price-- to me it seemed obvious.) 

The daycare owners called and begged us to reconsider and keep our kids in the daycare, but it just wasn't possible under the circumstances. We would have been losing money fast.

I guess a few parents were convinced to leave their kids in after the sale fell through, because a few weeks later...

A little kid left the daycare and walked several blocks to the elementary school to find his (or her) older sibling. The daycare hadn't noticed the kid was missing until someone at the school called. The daycare ended up just shutting down for good at the end of the day. They lost interest and just didn't seem to care anymore after the sale fell through.

Just imagine if that daycare had operated like government. We wouldn't have had the option of not doing business with them, no matter how harmful it was to us or our children. We would have been forced to pay whatever they demanded, even if we decided to take care of our kids ourselves (if that option was even allowed). If the service was poor or dangerous, it would have just been too bad. Deal with it or have your life destroyed. "That's the price of living in a civilized society", you know.

This is why-- no matter how bad a private business is-- it is still better than a coercive government "service".

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My relationship with rules

I don't respect rules, not automatically. Doesn't matter if you call them "laws", legislation, policies, or whatever. 

I don't go looking for rules to break, but I also don't ask what the rules are before I act. I'm not necessarily going out of my way to violate the rules, but if one seems arbitrary to me, chances are I'm not going to pay much attention to it either way. 

I'm not saying this is the best way to live or anything like that; I am just saying this is how it is. How I am.

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

If you can explain to me the reason behind the rule-- explain why it's not arbitrary or why it is needed-- and if I'm convinced that the reason makes sense, I will change my mind about it. If you can't, that rule has just lost every shred of credibility with me.

Perhaps surprisingly, I expect the same from others-- including my daughter-- regarding rules I make up. If I can't reasonably explain the "why", then my rule is most likely nonsense, too.

Funny how often even asking for an explanation triggers those behind the rules. To them, rules must not be questioned. To me, every rule must be questioned and sufficiently justified.

Rules against harming others are well justified. Most others, not so much.

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