Quote of the day—Cork Graham

Firearms are only as good or evil, or as decisive, as the one brandishing them. Yet, every week, federal, state, and city lawmakers and politicians propose a Rubik’s cube of laws diminishing the Second Amendment–laws impinge on the God-given right and responsibility of every human to self-preservation.

It’s our responsibility to remember the purity and simplicity of The Constitution. That it’s a document intended for eons based on simple truths, and though can be added to, cannot, must never, be modified to meet the whims and agendas of political fancy.

To do so is not only counter to the vision of the founders of the United States of America, it also risks our sliding further down the slope of corruption and elitism that infests the governments of Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.

Cork Graham
June 14, 2011
Third Culture Kid Learns Respect for the Second Amendment
Cork Graham is a former CIA paramilitary operations officer and combat photographer, who wrote the international best-selling Vietnam prison/treasure hunt memoir The Bamboo Chest.
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

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5 thoughts on “Quote of the day—Cork Graham

  1. I spent some time this past weekend reading about Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, salus populi suprema lex esto, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. It seems to me that the idea of “liberty” and “freedom” have been corrupted over time and people today seem to feel that both involve having no laws whatsoever, just total complete freedom to do whatever one wants to do.

    Anyway, reading was very enlightening. I would have to disagree with Cork on the “simplicity” of the Constitution.

  2. There are those who feel–as I do, being a so-called anarcho-capitalist–that you cannot have true liberty when you have a government creating and enforcing laws. On the other hand, it’s a mistake to assume that if we managed to get rid of government, people will have total complete freedom to do whatever one wants to do; after all, you still have to interact with others, and if you step on someone’s toes, you can find yourself needing a good lawyer and a fair judge real quick!

    As for the Constitution, I it is as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. The people who try to make it complicated usually do so to justify taking away our liberties.

  3. Alpheus,

    Here is something that John Locke wrote:

    “So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to
    abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom: for in all the
    states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no
    freedom: for liberty is, to be free from restraint and violence from others;
    which cannot be, where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told,
    a liberty for every man to do what he lists: (for who could be free, when
    every other man’s humour might domineer over him?) but a liberty to dispose,
    and order as he lists, his person, actions, possessions, and his whole
    property, within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein
    not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.”

    What do you think of this? (Without government, there would be no need for lawyers since there would be no judges.)

  4. ubu; that’s a reiteration of what Alpheus just said, and but for the style of writing, Ayn Rand could have said it (or more accurately, Alpheus and Rand have reiterated Locke) but I question whether you understood it.

    Here it is as simple as I can manage;
    True liberty is nothing more or less that the recognition and protection of human rights.

    Period. Simple enough for you? But I’ve said it exactly like that here before, many times.

    The statists will then of course set about redefining “rights” and we still end up at a point where push comes to shove, just as if the crime gangs ruled the planet– what was once a government becomes the alpha crime gang.

    Without some form of government, liberty is not possible (as both Alpheus and Locke above clearly state) because some people will attempt to violate the rights of others and we need a system of going after the violators. That’s why liberty and anarchy have very different definitions, although statists commonly conflate the two so as to tarnish or smear the name of liberty.

    But if you’ve been reading Locke, you must surely know all these things.

  5. I’ll second what Lyle said. I don’t like calling myself “anarcho-capitalist” because it implies I’m for getting rid of government. I am not. I am for privatizing government. This means that if someone harms you, it’s up to you (or your relatives, in the case of murder) to sue the person who caused harm. There will be laws, but they will be based on what you, the other person, the judge, and even private legislatures, agree on is just.

    Usually, the greatest complaint against privatized police is “but then the people will just hire the police company that busts peoples’ kneecaps!” Of course, if a police officer busted my kneecaps, I’d sue him–and, being a private cop, he can’t claim “official immunity”–so I’ll get damages. Furthermore, if Company X busted my brother’s or friend’s kneecaps, I wouldn’t want to hire them. They injured me, at least indirectly.

    Of course, it could happen that the private police will do this, because the public approves of it as a valid police technique. If this happens, then the society is doomed to fail. But then, what’s to stop a public police force from doing the same thing, if the public approves of it? The courts? But the courts are appointed by the governor, and approved by the legislature…which are voted in by the people. (Of course, it could be made that the people don’t have as much say in the government as we like, which, if it were true, means that all it takes is the ruling class to approve of such, which is just as bad.)

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