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05/16/12
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March
12, 2004 Act now! The future depends on you… Do this! Do that! Write to your congresspersons and senators immediately! Sign this petition! Vote today! Donate before it's too late! Save the whales and the forests and the children! Save the institution of marriage! Protect business from the big bad consumer! Save the consumer from big bad business! AAARGH! Obviously people consider lots of specific causes important, and often important enough for the use of coercive tactics. Defensive behavior is the usual response to aggression; that's precisely the reason why the right to self-defense is vital to a free society. Those who seek to deprive free people of the freedom to bear arms would deliver them into the condition of slavery, knowingly or not. Many "liberals" like myself have come around to see that, by questioning and testing our own beliefs, despite the teachings we may have absorbed from parents, educators, and the media to the contrary. It means getting dirty; wrestling with fundamental ideas that underlie and support one's worldview and replacing any philosophical underpinnings that seem unsound. That process is sometimes referred to as "heavy lifting," and it's one way that concerned individuals may "make a difference" in the world without also contributing toward making a bigger or bloodier mess of it. Maybe it's irrational to decry slavery and simultaneously advocate for "gun control," but you may know some people who don't see that as inconsistent. One reliable antidote for flawed or unreasonable thinking is consideration of others, and reflecting on other points of view. People willing to take advantage of access to alternative sources of information and entertain reasonable arguments tend to gradually come around on their own to a more rational perspective. People are seldom bullied into new ways of thinking - some people may succumb to intimidation and shut up, but who benefits from that except a bully? The effort to avoid setting off "triggers" for various readers requires a deft touch and a cautious approach to language. When the writer's intent is to communicate ideas clearly, it sometimes feels necessary to view language as a minefield where a carelessly chosen word can trigger explosive emotions in readers, and precipitate unpleasant reactions. It seems impossible to avoid those altogether, and perhaps not every reader appreciates an extra conscientious effort on the writer's part to communicate, but assuredly some do. People often seem disinclined to stop and scrutinize themselves, or their assumptions and motivations. The "do something" mentality isn't limited to government use; it's scary to see how quickly people spring into action when stirred by passion or exhorted by others to support some cause or fight for principle. It's always easier to see the problem at work in other people than to detect it at work in oneself; yet it's ultimately one's responsibility to look within oneself and at one's own thinking for flaws first, before doing unto others. Environmentalists may spring into action to save spotted tree frogs and perchance destroy the economic life of a vibrant rural human community with absurd, malefic regulations on land use. Anti-smoking activists may use the brute hand of the law to make the world safe for their preferred brand of "democratic" tyranny. Atheists may hope to impose their intolerance of religion on entire districts or states, instead of relying independently on their hands and feet to form religion-free organizations or on the free market approach to accommodating diverse and conflicting preferences. Some activists may covet privileged conceptions of "rights" which they apply to themselves, and when successful at political lobbying may deprive other people of rights, effectively shrinking others into a category of lesser beings with fewer rights and protections under the law. Terrible consequences rumble through society like a collapsing trail of dominos when people behave as though one wrong justifies another, or the acquisition of one human's "rights" should require the confiscation or constriction of another's. Selectively criminalizing behaviors is a slippery slope; the law should defend individuals from aggression, not defend those who aggress against the individual as the law so often does today. The law criminalizes a worker who tries to hang on to his wages; only a mob or a government can sell you services you don't want - otherwise, that's considered theft. The law criminalizes substances you might want (or need) to put into your own body. Do you really think it's "substances" that the government wants to control? Substances don't go to jail - people do. The "war on drugs" continues to visit collateral damage on people in pain and hardship and visibly does far more harm than drugs themselves ever did to society as far as I can see. Someday, you or a loved one may endure suffering if the war on drugs hasn't touched your life already - it's not a healing touch but an outright assault on medical freedom and individual sovereignty. It's a power grab over your rights to your own body, mind, and spirit; supporting the war on drugs may have harmful consequences to your health and your liberties with harmful secondhand effects on countless other people. I've long thought that the Hippocratic Oath's stipulation, "First do no harm," was a fine motto befitting those who sincerely undertake to be healers and physicians. It appears the political version might be, "First do every harm imaginable, and congratulate yourself tirelessly on your record of service to society afterward." After all, if the "service" is mandatory, refusing it maybe treated as a criminal act and it seems that government never tires of creating new types of infractions to generate revenue through penalties and fines. Before
you propose a new bill, ban, or mandatory scheme, or engage in political
activism with a particular end in view, you might give some thought to
the means you're using and ask yourself if those means are consistent
with preserving individual rights or enabling a freer society. You might
ask yourself, "What if the solution is worse than problem?"
and "What if it turns out that I was mistaken - will I still think
this a good idea ten years from now?" That might be one great way
to leave the world a better place than you found it.
Catfarmer has her own website too! Lots of interesting things to see. |
Will the Ideal Freedom-Doer Please Stand Up? A Penny Reinvested, A Dollar Burned Declaration of Interdepen-dence Conversational Knives and Daggers Politics Causes Brain Damage, Scientists Claim Home Cooking Outlawed for Child Safety (with Bob Wallace) It Takes a Grinch to Ban Christmas Complete Archives for Catfarmer |
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