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Caveat Lector: I'm about to ramble on about my personal philosophy for a bit.What I'm going to say is either pro self sufficiency, pro-gun, pro-choice, pro-death penalty, and pro-small community, or a combination of all the above. If you don't like it, either be civil or sod off.
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I know that I've been pretty quiet online for the past week or so. Since Sandy Hook, I've been taking my time, dissecting what I was seeing in the media and in society, and figuring out what exactly it is that I wanted to say about it. Somethings were easier to figure out than others; for instance, I don't have any sympathy for the shooter (whom I won't dignify by naming), because that son of a bitch is dead, which is as it should be. Other things are more nuanced.
Back in the Byzantine era, when I was in high school, I was in the NJROTC. I learned a lot from those courses, and the people in them. One of the things that stuck with me the most is about the balance between authority and accountability (or power vs. responsibility). These two forces have to be in balance, regardless of which person, or office, or government is forming the fulcrum. If authority far outweighs accountability, you get tyranny. If accountability is in the extreme, you get slavery. Society always seeks to correct any imbalances, just look through the history of rebellions, the fall of empires, and the rise of individual rights for evidence.
What does this have to do with Sandy Hook? I think that our society has had a trend towards reducing the level in which the individual is culpable for their own actions. A burglar can sue a homeowner if they fall through a skylight and hurt themselves, because the homeowner didn't take appropriate steps to keep them off of the roof. Folk can sue McDonalds if they order a hot coffee and there after scald themselves by opening it in a moving vehicle. Families of dead drunkards can sue electrical companies when the besotted bastard climbed over separate fences and pisses on a transformer, because the electrical company didn't have a roaming security guard to keep him out. The list goes on, and on, and on. In our society, the individual is being held less and less accountable for their actions.
So, how does society balance that out? It would make sense to hold people accountable for their own actions again, but it seems people don't want the responsibility. No, it seems that society would rather remove its own authority to balance the scales. The movement I've seen in this direction is to chuck rights under the bus until people feel safe again. The method that seems to be approved to establish this is to outsource responsibility for these things to a third party (the government).
People don't seem to understand the equalizing forces that our basic
rights grant us. No amount of money in another person's pocket should
stop you from being able to speak your mind as you see fit. With freedom
of speech, your word counts the same as anyone else's. No amount of
peer pressure should be able to force you into not practicing your own
religion, or force you into practicing a religion at all. With freedom
of religion, your religion (or lack thereof) cannot be questioned. No
one should be able to walk into your home and rifle through your things.
With the fourth amendment, the privacy of your home, and your mind, is
sacrosanct. And no one, regardless of how big or tough they are, should
be able to physically push you around. With the Second Amendment, if a
120 lb, 5'1" woman is carrying the same firearm as a 6'1", 275lb man, with equal skill, then their effective lethality is exactly the same. Instead of minimizing individual liberty and authority, we should be maximizing it while holding people to exacting account for their own behavior through societal pressure from their family, friends, and neighbors.
Instead of that, though, this is all I'm hearing on TV and reading online:
It wasn't the gunman's fault, it was the guns. Let's get rid of the 2nd amendment and ban guns! After all, the police and the army will protect us!
No, It wasn't the guns fault, it was all the violence in the media. Let's get rid of Freedom of Speech, and force people to sell back their violent video games. After all, we can trust the government to know what's right for everyone!
No, no, it was all these religious groups, let's make Christianity the only tolerable religion and blackball all the others. After all the United States was founded as a Christian Nation, right?
No, no, no. It's mental illnesses that are the real issue, let's just toss out the 4th amendment and invade medical records so that the government can keep it's ever so trustworthy eye on folk with those pesky chemical imbalances. After all, the Government knows what is acceptable behavior for all of us, right?
My problem with doing this is that we can't get rid of our rights without creating a society where the government has the power to censor the people, has a monopoly on legitimate force, strictly monitors the people and punishes them for deviation from the societal norm, and limits personal freedom of religion to one or two "moral" options. This is the very definition of a tyrannical government. It establishes a caste system of second-class and third class civilians who by law are less equal than others. Raise your hand if you honestly want this sort of outcome. No one? Didn't think so.
I know that there are some people that don't think that this is true. This is primarily due to them not understanding that while the government is formed by the people, it is a separate entity that derives its power from the consent of the governed. The only way that we have "consent" is if we are empowered to take actions against it, through words, through protests, and yes, through force of arms. Take away that power, and we're no longer consenting; we're at the mercy of a government that has more power than the people. Therein lies the truth; the power and accountability of the government has to be exactly equal to the power and accountability of the people, so that the two forces cancel out. If the people succeed in divesting themselves of their rights, the government no longer requires our "consent". It will have the greater power, or authority, and can just make us do what it wants.
The other issue that those people don't understand is the long-view of what they are arguing for.
Anyone that argues against freedom of religion is arguing for a monotheistic government establishment. Period.
Anyone that argues against freedom of speech is arguing for government censorship and greater speaking "privileges" for those with the funds to broadcast. Period.
Anyone that argues against the Fourth Amendment ultimately believes that the government should be able to walk into your home, your safe, your medical records, and your personal life at any time and subject you to observation and inspection. Period.
Anyone that argues against the Second Amendment is arguing for the physical domination of the weaker so that they are subjugated by the strong. Period.
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Let's re-group here and think about what should be done. Let's all avoid talk about what rights we'd like to see hit the cutting room floor, and instead think about what steps each individual person can take to make things better for society over all. First, let's acknowledge that there is such a thing as societal responsibility. Any man or woman is responsible for protecting any children in their sight, end of line. If you wouldn't kill a creep for molesting a kid, please excuse yourself out of my country. We're all responsible for the actions of the government, since we voted them into power, so let's all vote according to our carefully reasoned principles and keep close tabs on our elected officials. Let's all come to a gentleman's and ladies agreement that there is a social floor of poverty that we shouldn't let people fall through, and do what we can to help them back on their feet and get them working and moving with us again. Let us all have pride in what we do, and protect the pride of others.
On the individual level, let's all agree that we have have an obligation to prevent our own children from seeing things that we don't want them to see, government and social groups be damned. That we are each ultimately responsible for our own decisions, regardless of how foolishly they were determined. Let's further agree that we have an obligation to respect other people's religions, despite how we each feel about our own moral authority. Let's keep an eye on each other and offer help if things seem out of sorts, but keep our noses out of it if the answer is No. Let's all be vigilant and aware of our surroundings, so that danger doesn't take us by surprise. And let's all understand that we are each ultimately responsible for our own lives, and that in the moment of crisis no amount of government spending will assure that a cop or soldier will be right beside you to shoot the bad guy threatening you.
And if you disagree with all of this, if you want a government that strips you of your rights and keeps you under close surveillance for your own protection; kindly remove yourself from my list of friends and never speak to me again. I can't trust you to pitch in when the fur flies, and I won't be responsible sticking up for your rights if you won't life a finger to save them yourself.
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