Naïve, stupid, crazy, or malicious

Some people “want to make it harder for bad guys to get guns”. Okay. I understand the sentiment. I can even understand that some people are more “practical” than principled.

People with far different principles than I have long made a “principled” case that economic central planning is better than a free market. Such a system “will make everyone more equal.” But that “principled” approach is easily defeated by pointing out the practical results of those experiments. Tens of millions murdered by their own governments and shortages of even essential products.

We have the principled approach of an inalienable right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. What data do they have which contradicts this? Why can’t they understand it’s a fool’s mission to keep guns away from the bad guys?

This is from a UK paper article titled How did the Paris terrorists get hold of their weapons?:

In 2010, police in Belgium stated: “Counter to what you may have heard, it’s not easy to get hold of a Kalashnikov.” To prove them wrong, a reporter for Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure managed to do so in less than six hours.

The evidence is overwhelming that black markets supply any product which is both technically possible and people have the money for. The price might be higher and the quality may be lower. But where there are buyers there will soon be sellers.

The examples are all around us as well as in history. Think of prohibition. Think of recreational drugs. As I have said before, “The average high school dropout can get all the recreational drugs they want within an hour anytime of the day, any day of the week. So just how effective you think a background check would be in reducing the abuse of recreational drugs?”

The people that insist that background checks, bans, restrictions on ammunition sales, and “gun free zones” cannot be right in the head. They have to be willfully naïve, incredible stupid, have mental issues, or they are malicious.

When you are dealing with people like this there is no value in compromising. There is no value in “agreeing to disagree”. There is no value in “respecting their opinion.” These people need to be defeated. They need to be put in their place. They need to be made an example of. They need to be made politically irrelevant. They need to be prosecuted. They are prejudiced bigots. They need to be swept into the dustbin of history. The should be despised as a 21st Century version of the KKK because this is what they are.

Share

15 thoughts on “Naïve, stupid, crazy, or malicious

  1. Certainly the free market is better in practice than central planning. But in addition, I can see no moral principle under which central planning is better than the free market. The supposed “principles” that say it is are at best utterly delusional. More commonly, they are fraudulent — a cover for “I want to be dictator”.
    So no, I would not give people who argue that position the benefit of the doubt that their principles are simply different — I say instead their principles are nonexistent.

    • Planning an event such as a trade show, a shooting event, or even a birthday party is almost always better than just “letting it happen”. So one can make the naïve argument that having a planned economy should result in a better outcome than a free market economy.

      The problems with a planned economy are those of information distribution, limited domain expertise, potential for corruption, scaling of processes, and probably 100 other things.

      But I will concede that at first glance the concept of planning an economy can sound appealing and principled. Just as “background checks for guns” does.

      • So you’re saying that central planning works on the small scale, but it’s not effectively scalable.

        This is what I’ve been saying for years about communism/socialism. It works on the small scale – a family, a neighborhood, etc. – but starts to break down once you hit a certain threshold population. I’ve always used the round number of 40 people. Beyond that, attempts at central planning are simply too complex, with too many interconnected and interacting variables, to accurately predict or effectively manage; the free market option is more efficient.

        Then again, the concepts of communism/socialism and central planning are joined at the hip.

        • In other words, it works for a “tribe” where the personal knowledge of those you work with can hold them accountable.
          But the larger the group, the greater the knowledge-gap because there are more possible connections.
          Two people = one interpersonal connection.
          Three people = 3 IC
          4 P = 6 IC
          5 P = 10 IC
          etc.

          • Actually, the ‘tribe’ concept is very apropos here. A collection of people with similar values, beliefs, etc., tend to fare better at making socialism work(although it is still doomed to failure, eventually). The more the population has in common, the larger the ‘collective’ can be.

            However, the logical conclusion that must be drawn from this, is that you cannot simultaneously have socialism/communism AND ‘diversity.’ If one champions both(as Leftists do), it’s even more evidence of an epic logic fail.

      • Joe, that argument misses the essential difference between planning private events, and “planning” in the government sense. One involves the voluntary cooperation of individuals, the other is based on the principle of submitting the people to the arbitrary will of a dictator or dictatorial committee. That, and not the utilitarian argument (“it doesn’t work”) is what is wrong with government “planning”.
        So no, communism isn’t ok at any scale, even though in a sufficiently small scale it might not collapse disastrously (or at least not so quickly).

      • Imagine how awesome the gifts would be if everybody was forced to attend a birthday party at the point of a gun.

  2. We’re dancing very close to the truth here, but not quite hitting on it.

    The example of the “centrally planned” public event contains one element that the “centrally planned” nation or economy can never have – liberty. People participate in a planned event by choice. They mutually agree to follow the planner, AND it is not only a willing subjugation but a very temporary, short-lived one. No one gets arrested and jailed for quitting the event and going off to pursue their personal interests. No one if forced to enter into the event at the point of a gun.

    In a so-called “planned” economy, the subjects are given no choice at all, or if there is a choice, it is the choice between going along or being punished, or killed (just as Hillary said that income tax was optional). There’s no way out except to escape the system at the rick of life and limb. The job you do is not chosen by you, and the products of your efforts are taken away by the “gatherers and sharers”.

    In short; in the planned business or the planned trade show, everyone participating is there by choice. They are free to leave at any time, or according to a contract entered into by choice. Under a “planned” economy, there is not liberty – the individual is not allowed to live his own life, but is instead, by default, the property of the state. It is slavery.

    To put it even simpler; it is the difference between liberty on one hand and coercion and slavery on the other. If we can’t focus right in on that GIGANTIC difference immediately, like a laser beam and without equivocation, we are essentially fucked.

    No, Young Grasshopper; it is not the size of the planned group that makes the difference. It is liberty, or the lack of it. Jim Jones’ little commune worked about the same for those involved in it as did the Soviet Union—They both had prisoners rather than citizens, and slaves rather than entrepreneurs.

    • Lyle (and Paul Koning), you are missing the point. You are not understanding that some people see the ability to opt out as a bug, not a feature. “If only the central planners had the power to force the freeloaders/wreckers/whatever to do their fair share and give back to the collective things would work out.” In their minds the world would be a better place if people, in general, didn’t have choices. The central planners make the decision for the mutual benefit of everyone.

      Or at least that is the rational. It’s a “principle” that can be hypothesized and tested. But it isn’t something you can easily dismiss on principled basis because at this point you haven’t given your principle a more fundamental foundation than theirs.

      In order words, they claim as a fundamental principle, “planning is better than chaos”. You claim as fundamental principle, “freedom of choice is better than coercion”. At this point I don’t see how those opposing “principles” can resolved without real world testing.

      My claim is that the testing has been done and the evidence overwhelming shows that freedom of choice, despite the resulting inequities, is better for everyone.

      • That is a good point as far as it goes. It’s a bit like “testing” how well outright slavery, legalized rape and murder work as national policy (and all of those things have actually been national policy at one time or place or another).

        Certain things should never be tested, for the test requires the violation of fundamental human rights and is therefore criminal; Let’s round up 100 people and cut off their arms so we can test our new prosthetics. Hey it’s for science. Let’s allow the states to decide if they want legalized slavery, because states rights, and each state is a test laboratory and all, and that way we can see whether or not slavery actually “works” and after all who are we to deny other people their right to enslave? What makes us better than them, such that we may judge them?

        I do see your point, I really do, and as I say it’s perfectly valid as far as it goes. It may even be useful, to those on the fence as to whether wholesale human rights violation as official policy has a legitimate place in society.

        Those on the fence are adversaries. They can be dealt with as fellow human beings.

        Those committed to the authoritarian system, to wholesale rights violation, are the ones who will not be swayed even by conclusive proof no matter how it’s presented, and there are a lot of them. You show them the proof and they’ll sneer, and turn up the volume. They are enemies and must be defeated. Often times you have to kill them, but it’s not considered polite to come right out and say that.

      • I see what you mean. Yes, it is true that some people (too many people) view liberty as a bug. That’s one reason I don’t live in Europe any longer. I treat such people with the contempt they deserve when they speak but do not practice their mentally defective notions. And if they attempt to put them into practice — well, that’s what the 2nd amendment is for.

  3. The difference between those who go along with the lie of socialism, Progressivism, et al, and those who advocate liberty is one of allegiance. This is very important in terms of understanding and predicting behaviors that are otherwise inexplicable.

    The leftist goes along with the leftist narrative because he is allied with those power. Attack the leader(s) and you’re attacking him. It’s a clan, and almost everyone belongs to a clan of one form or another. Never mind the validity of any of the ideas or assertions of the clan’s leaders. None of that matters. If you focus on those you’re being fooled just as much as the clan’s followers are being fooled. It’s ALL about the allegiance to the clan, and that allegiance is formed through various emotional stresses.

    There are of course various levels of commitment to a clan, and so the level of control over the followers varies accordingly. The leader’s primary focus, day in and day out, is stiffening that allegiance in as many followers as possible, while inculcating new members into the clan. Again; this is all done via the tool, or lever, of emotional stresses of all kinds.

    Our problem, and is a huge one that we barely see most of the time, is that even many self-described libertarians are also “in it” as though it were a clan, i.e. they have come into the group by identifying with it emotionally. Maybe they’re in business and are pissed off for having been brutalized by the system, or maybe it makes them feel intellectually superior to say they’re “libertarians”, etc., while inside, emotionally, they are still authoritarians. For an easy example; this is what causes John McCain to become angry and bitter toward conservatives, tea partiers, or as he calls them derisively, “Hobbits”. These people are all around us, and they pose a danger just as great as any Progressive. The identifier is the allegiance formed through emotional stresses (both positive and negative – push or pull) which, by the way, is the definition of a hypnotic state. They may not know it until after some serious damage has been done, or maybe never, but they are still operating under the authoritarian system.

    Most people, however they identify themselves, operate under the authoritarian system. We were all born into it, raised in it, “educated” in it, entertained in it, etc. Hence our problem.

    • There is a reason why some libertarians refer to the two major parties as “socialist party A and socialist party B”. McCain is a poster boy for the truth of that statement. For all his honorable actions some decades ago, these days he is just another progressive, no matter what his party label may pretend to say.

  4. * They are prejudiced bigots.*

    This reminded me that I’ve had a thought formulating in my mind for a few days. In it’s rough form it goes something like…

    “If you think that only certain/special people should be/not be able to [insert topic of discussion here], then you are a bigot. Period. Full stop. End of discussion”

Comments are closed.