(Story about some dire consequence of the War on Politically Incorrect Drugs.)
Drug abuse is stupid; prohibition is evil. Anyone supporting this has lost their compass.
“Your solution to such societal blight and expense upon the taxpayer for crime and welfare costs is what?”
Stop taxing people, and there’s no more expense upon the taxvictims.
End welfare for the same reason. (Charity works; welfare destroys.)
And what do you consider “societal blight”? I think if the stupid and evil War on Some Drugs is ended, a lot of the worst addicts will die off. The rest will either figure out how to be productive while abusing substances, or they’ll have to stop.
There’s really no downside unless you’re addicted to government and its “solutions”.
“You're an idiot and your village wants you back.”
That’s exactly the kind of response I expected. Thank you for confirming my hypothesis.
“You're living proof of your low IQ. Clearly you're told that often.”
And…
“Nothing to respond to. Your options are not logical or based in reality.”
-----------------
You be the judge.
Unless someone brings up government (or other career archators), especially in a fond way, they'll never know. I just don't think, or care, about it that much.
Other than writing to try to break people out of the spell, I mean.
It's only when someone starts trying to impose it on me- or on bystanders- that I express my opinion on the matter. And that is often only after I've tried to change the subject.
It's like a form of self-defense. Or an immune response.
That happens more than I'd like. But don't say dumb things, and it won't come up. There are so many other things I'd rather talk and think about. Literally thousands of better topics! I can't figure out why so many people try to make everything political. It's a sick way to live.
That doesn't sit well with me.
So, I sometimes get in trouble for openly rejecting the social lies. I've even made other libertarians mad this way.
It's worth it.
If you can't be the one saying "The emperor has no clothes", then what good are you?
It doesn't mean you have to call out every lie. That would be exhausting. But when you are expected to repeat a social lie, or to nod along when the lie is told, don't. Sure, you could say it's not true, and that would be the most powerful thing to do, but it's not always necessary. Sometimes your silence is enough to shock a social liar into fumbling with his train of thought. I've seen it happen.
This Age of Lies is an opportunity for the hero who values the truth, wherever it leads.
The picture I posted above was making the rounds without the second line, saying "Landlord is not a job". Well, that's not true!
I may not always like all landlords, but I've seen how hard a job it can be. I've always done my best not to be a problem renter. I've had great landlords, and I've had terrible ones, but the problem isn't that they are landlords. Sometimes the trouble was that the property was difficult to maintain. It happens.
So anyway, I had Grok add the second line to the picture above, and then I posted it in comments under some of the posts. I got a lot of agreement.
But I had a few people jump on me for it- but not from the side you'd think. In every case, they just skipped the word "not" and thought I was making the argument that landlords are lazy. That's the opposite of what I was saying. I corrected them, pointing out that I'm on the same side, with a comment about reading comprehension, because I'm not perfect.
So, if you read something and think you disagree, read it again more carefully, just to be sure before you make an angry comment. It could save you embarrassment.
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.
Statists seem to assume I haven't already heard all their justifications for government, and to believe that if they can just bring up the right one, I'll suddenly see the error of my ways and love Big Brother like they do.
No.
Maybe if they could come up with something new, but not when they just dredge up the same ones I first considered and rejected decades ago. And many times since.
Repeating the same excuses isn't going to make me change my mind. Especially when those excuses can't stand up to scrutiny.
Maybe it's really an acknowledgement that they've got nothing, so they go ahead with their weak arguments, knowing they're firing blanks. Just to appear to others in their tribe like they at least tried.
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I like some individuals in both groups, depending on how they present their views and how they propose to act on them.
Disagreement isn’t an automatic nail in the coffin.
Weirdly, I dislike some who basically agree with me on everything important, but their personality grates on me for some reason. That's a problem with me more than them.
I'll readily support what they do and say because they are correct. I certainly don't wish them ill. I just probably won't be going to a picnic with them.
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.
They should pay the full price; not the tax cattle.
Or, if you believe in punishment/revenge as a facet of justice, they should be subject to whatever someone else, not working on behalf of any government, would face if they'd done the same sort of thing.
A government "job" doesn't absolve a violator of their responsibility or guilt. It never has. It's weird that anyone would believe otherwise.
I know that's not shocking news to anyone.
Plus, when I see what passes for "normal", I'm not sure fitting in is a good thing. What others view as "normal" is nightmare fuel to me. Murder, war, revenge, slavery, obedience, surveillance, theft, and all the other things we're expected to accept as a normal price of living in a "civilized society". Yuck!
It's like that saying: "Your 'boos' mean nothing; I've seen what makes you cheer."
I have a hard time not recoiling at how horrible many people can be. ESPECIALLY when they get political. Especially when they let their feelings take the wheel. Especially when they get trapped in a false dichotomy. Especially when they form hard opinions based on a complete lack of understanding.
I don't fit in, and it sometimes makes me sad and lonely. But a little sadness is a small price to pay for not letting myself be a horrible person just so I'll be accepted by horrible people.
The ONLY ethical death penalty is carried out at the time and place of the attack by the intended victim or a bystander. I'd be thrilled if this were the outcome every single time.
Killing the killer later is revenge- it's even in the name: "capital punishment". Punishment is revenge, the opposite of justice. It's a capitulation to feelings, not rationality.
Restitution isn't possible in such a case, which feels unsatisfying to people who want revenge, but it's true.
It doesn't stop future murderers from murdering. They never think they'll get caught, or they act in the heat of the moment where conscious thought doesn't figure in. There is no preventative effect.
If you "execute" for the state, you are part of a conspiracy to commit premeditated murder. You are ethically identical to the person you murder. The threat has already been neutralized: they are in a cage. Murdering them won't bring their victim back. Legalistic word games like claiming "you can't murder a murderer" don't change the reality. (Try that line if you get caught doing it on your own and see how well it works.) Working for the state doesn't erase the individual responsibility.
I understand the lust for revenge- for punishment- because I've felt it myself. But I can't support it being institutionalized and made into a quasi-religious cleansing ritual of human sacrifice. Not on my behalf!
I don't trust government with the power to murder people. Unlike a lot of statists. Unlike some "libertarians".
I'm so serious about this that I don't even support this fate for politicians/police.
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.
