The quote of the day by Lyle this morning caused me to do some more thinking.
I’m certain most of my readers already get this at some level but for me putting it in different words made it more clear.
Libertarians will sometimes point out that government and all laws are declaration of intent to use force. From the law that says pay a sales tax on your purchase of a pair of shoes to the law that says do not murder. In the final analysis they all mean that if you don’t do as the laws says people with guns will hunt you down and either force you to do as the laws says or punish you for your failure to do so. And if you resist they will use the guns against you.
This is true. And it is a necessary part of government and probably is a societal requirement in population groups larger than a few hundred. But what I just realized is the same observation could be used in “the other direction”. Government must be controlled so that it does not become a outlaw. This means men with guns must be willing and able to hunt down the agents of government and force them to comply with the law and/or punish them.
The Constitution is the law authorizing and governing our government and the Second Amendment is the ultimate enforcement authorization for the people to keep government within the bounds of that law.
Those that would demand we give up our specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms are demanding there be no effective enforcement of the limits to government. This is no different than there being laws and courts but without a police force to enforce the laws and court decisions. And that is another example of crazy talk by those that want to infringe upon our right to keep and bear arms.
The Second Amendment is one of those great “checks and balances” our government is built upon: The government has the power under the Constitution to suppress insurrections, and the people have a right to be armed so that they may rise up against an oppressive government.
Ironically, a government that protects the individual right to keep and bear arms seriously almost certainly doesn’t have worry about an armed insurrection.
I like this train of thought, for one thing because it points out distinct difference when we look at the prospect of justice going in “the other direction”.
For regular law enforcement we have specific penalties for specific crimes, the punishment presumably fitting the crime, and a specific system designed to do nothing but enforce the laws and dispense justice, and it was designed to be as consistent and predictable as possible. You do x, we find out about it, and we hunt you down and we do y to you. All we have in “the other direction”, besides the ballot box, is the impeachment process, and few other, similar provisions which seem to rely on the government as a whole to enforce against itself.
It would be like having laws against theft and murder as we do, but no cops and no justice system at all other than impromptu or vigilante justice, which can just as well result in massive INjustice and even clan wars.
Now we’ve seen many of even the former, supposedly predictable and systematic protections breaking down, and the “separation of powers”, to the extent that it ever really worked at all, is rapidly disappearing.
What I’m getting to then, but didn’t intend when I started this comment, is that there is no such thing as a system of government and justice that can hold up to a corrupt populace. And once again we find warnings of this exact nature now echoing down through the generations to us from the original American founders.
So I’m going to say that there is no political solution that doesn’t start with the people themselves waking up, and enough of them becoming objective enough to see this. Otherwise we’re in for a blood bath, as is the usual result, typically with no clear “good guys” or “bad guys” but just a bunch of hoods robbin’ and killin’ out of frustration, greed and a sense of victimhood with some measure of justification for that state of mind, and self-preservation, thrown in on all sides.
Chaos. It happens, and I will further submit that chaos is often the end goal, no matter the processes or the rationalizations that get us there. Some people lust for it while others just help it along more or less blindly, but we all play a role.
Now I have a question I haven’t heard put—What is it about us humans that evil is so very interested in us?
Also; how much “free will” is there when we see the same patterns repeated over and over again throughout all of human history?
Those are of course rhetorical questions. There’s no implied or suggested answer in them.
Any government that is weak enough to be taken over by “you” is weak enough to be taken over by a tyrant. That’s why government has to be strong.
I do not want my government to be overthrown by unelected leaders.
Really? Just one want-to-be tyrant? Citation needed.
Assuming the citizens at large are armed and recognize those attempting to overthrow the government as tyrants then the rebels obviously need some percentage of the population on their side that is comparable to those content with the current government.
If the citizens at large are NOT armed then the number of rebels required will be much smaller.
Hence, I conclude, a well informed and well armed citizenry will preserve a government that is compatible with the government they desire. A disarmed and ill-informed citizenry is susceptible to getting a government hostile to their desires.
Ha! That “you” is the all-encompassing hypothetical “you” which could mean “you” or “all of you” or “a zillion of you and them” or “them”… you (meaning you) know? 🙂
Are you high?
Ubu — you realize you’re speaking in direct contradiction to the historical fashion in which our government was founded in teh first place? And teh explicit statements by both our founding father, AND the political authors (mostly Britsh, but also Italian and French) they grounded their theory of government in who had written on the subject for HUNDREDS of years before the Revolution?
So ubu prefers a government under a Hitler or Stalin to the US?
After all, the US government only exists because unelected leaders overthrew the legal British Colonial government. And Hitler and Stalin were both elected by their respective governments.
Only when the state has absolute power can we ever be free!
Freedom is slavery! Power to The Man! Sometimes I wonder if ubu is a Moby, posing as someone of ‘the other side’, to 1) make the other side look silly, or 2) make us better form our thoughts and arguments.
Vader was a libertarian!
We can’t allow ordinary people take over the government! Round up
all the ordinary people!
Big Brother was a moderate!
I like to think that the excuse that our military, police, and governmental alphabet soup agency enforcers resort to, that “I was only following orders” will have just as much weight as it did for the Nazis in any future scenario.
I sincerely hope that such a day never arrives. If it does, those who commit violence on behalf of a tyrannical government should have a grim fate.
This is only tangentially related to the topic at hand, but something I’ve been pondering for a while:
Assuming one rejects anarchy as a viable solution and some limited form of government is necessary to enforce the law; what is a valid form of taxation that respects peoples privacy and prevents the government from establishing a police state to collect the revenue?
The only thing I can come up with is a lottery, because it’s voluntary and anonymous.
I really like the idea of when you pay your flat taxes then you get a receipt that allows you access to governmental services such as police and fire response, voting, schools, and very limited social programs for the upcoming year.
I want everyone pulling the cart and nobody riding for free. When everyone is equally invested via flat taxes then we will see people caring about the efficiency of government. I’d like to throw in that the budget for the government is only what they take in with no more borrowing. Flat taxes on everyone defangs lobbying groups.
So, no pay, no play. If you want to be a loner, you can make that choice, and live with the consequences.