"What did James say that pissed you off so much?"
That was what Kevin asked me in email after reading my comment on James Kelly's blog.
My response to Kevin, with some minor enhancements, follows.
There is his steadfast refusal to answer
Just One Question. Oh, he answered--using numbers that were easily demonstrated as wrong. And when that was pointed out he just ignored it.
Then James said, "...the right to own a gun as a relatively meaningless, one-dimensional freedom, and thus interpret the banning of handguns as merely a minor disappointment to the minority of people concerned..."
I wonder how many people with a Glasgow Smile or similar wounds
regard not having the means to defend themselves “a minor disappointment”.
The battles at Lexington and Concord which resulted in our revolutionary war were fought because the arms of the colonists were about to be taken away from them. Surely they did not consider it a “minor disappointment” they were about to lose their guns. And what of the colonies that refused to sign the constitution unless the right to keep and bear arms was a specific enumerated right guaranteed by the constitution? Would it have been a “minor disappointment” had it not been there?
How many of those people involved in 2 million instances per year when someone in the U.S. uses a firearm in a defensive situation would regard it as a “minor disappointment” had they been forced by their government to face their attacker unarmed?
How many of those millions of men, women and children standing naked at the top of the ditches they had just been forced to dig--just prior to having a bullet rip through their neck regarded not having a gun in hand “a minor disappointment”?
The above irritated me. But what really pissed me off was I realized his “personal philosophy”, even completely disregarding the gun issue, is justification for genocide. And he is hypocritical about it. He believes people have a right to life but not the right to have tools to defend their lives.
His “cornerstone of personal freedom” is freedom from fear. If he is afraid of the blacks/Jews/homosexuals/whoever who live next door he apparently believes it is completely justified to bring the full force of government down upon them in a preemptive strike. Prevention of crimes not yet committed by infringement of a basic right is justified if someone is afraid. And it doesn't have to be a fear based on immediate threat of severe injury or death. Just the mere existence of something, someone, sometime used in a criminal manner. It's the very epitome of a victimless crime which must be punished. A crime where the "perpetrator" is not even aware of the existence of the "victim". A crime where even the thought of injury to an innocent life need not be proved or hinted at. A crime where the true intent of the "perpetrator" is to protect innocent life and property is thought to be crazy because they want the tools available to protect innocent life should they ever need it. All because someone is afraid of something they have no experience with. And they call us paranoid.
The Germans didn’t begin implementation of the “Final Solution” until after the U.S. got into the war. They were afraid the Jews, who “controlled the U.S. as well as the banks, the U.S. media, etc.” would punish them for the mistreatment (but there were no mass killings yet) they had received up to that point. So they started killing them to eliminate the problem. They were just implementing James Kelly's "cornerstone of personal freedom"--freedom from fear.
What he doesn't understand is there cannot be a "right" which is given or implemented through the force of government. Rights are which those things which preexist government and can only be protected or infringed by government. He is an advocate for infringement and calls it freedom.
His “cornerstone of personal freedom” is the basis for the deaths of tens of millions of people and he doesn’t see the logical inconsistency or the impossibility of that being a functional basis for a civil society.
The QOTD is aimed at James Kelly.