Privilege ?
I’ll tell you what privilege is!
It’s growing up in a country where your ancestors toiled and died to give you the opportunities and the life you have, and you denounce it.
It’s being an immigrant into a country you and your kin had NO part in forming, and taking all it’s benefits, democratic rights and freedoms and then reject it.
That’s ‘privilege’.
I am Groot @Waspotty
Gab post on December 13, 2018
[Via email from Chet M.—Joe]
Most people seem to subscribe to what I call the Special Immunity Thesis: the idea that the set of conditions under which it is permissible, in self-defense or defense of others, to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a government agent is much more stringently constrained than the set of conditions under which it is permissible to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a private civilian.
On the flip side, we have what I call the Moral Parity Thesis: the idea that, very simply, you have the same right of self-defense against government agents as you do against civilians. Officials have no special moral status that immunizes them from defensive actions. When they commit injustices of any sort, it is morally permissible for us, as private individuals, to treat them the same way we would treat private individuals committing those same injustices. Whatever we may do to private individuals, we may do to government officials. We may respond to governmental injustice in exactly the same ways as private injustice.
The Moral Parity Thesis has radical implications. It means you may assassinate leaders to stop them from launching unjust wars. You may fight back against a police officer who arrests you for something that shouldn’t be a crime—e.g., marijuana possession or homosexuality. You may escape from jail if mistakenly convicted or convicted of a bogus crime. Your business may lie about its compliance with an unfair regulation and evade excessive taxes. A jury or judge may nullify an unjust statute by refusing to convict those who break it. The Moral Parity Thesis vindicates helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who threatened to kill fellow American soldiers to stop them from killing civilians during the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. It vindicates Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for sharing at least some state secrets. It vindicates government agents who sabotage unjust efforts from within.
My basic argument is simple: By default, we should accept the Moral Parity Thesis, unless we can find some good reason to believe the Special Immunity Thesis instead. Upon inspection, though, the arguments for the Special Immunity Thesis fall flat. Governments and their agents aren’t magic.
Jason Brennan
December 2018
When Nonviolence Isn’t Enough—Does the right to self-defense apply against agents of the state?
[It’s an interesting article on personal and political philosophy.
Lysander Spooner had some things to say on this topic as well:
It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess.
I took a philosophy class in college but it was far less interesting and relevant than what I have read in the years since. And it was philosophers never mentioned in class, such as Ayn Rand and Spooner, that my Marxist professor left out of the curriculum that made the difference.—Joe]
I appreciate “studies” about firearms, but discount them in regards to policy decisions. The absolute right to be armed was decided in 1791.
Braden Lynch
November 30, 2018
Comment to Quote of the day—Jacob Paulson
[Furthermore, this right includes military weapons. Thinking about it from the point of the founders and the text of the 2nd Amendment this makes sense. But following up on this it was clearly pointed out in the Miller Decision. Even further it implies that unless it was a weapon useful to the militia it is not protected. In other words, it could be claimed that according to SCOTUS the 2nd Amendment only protects military weapons:
In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.
I would also point out that the right preexists 1791. It is a right which has been claimed by all species for all time. Even mushrooms claim this right.—Joe]
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Karl Popper
1945
The Open Society and Its Enemies: New One-Volume Edition, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4
[Via email from Bob T.
Interesting observation. I had a similar discussion with a co-worker many years ago. We didn’t arrive at a solution. And it is quite clear our government and society has gotten us into the end game of this paradox without implementing the apparent solution offered by Popper over 70 years ago.—Joe]
If a citizen is law-abiding in his home state, he or she is going to be law-abiding in a different state where they might find a firearm they want to buy, but the interstate sales ban prevents that. Citizens can purchase all sorts of other goods across state lines, but why not the one tool that is specifically mentioned and protected by the Constitution’s Second Amendment? That simply defies logic and common sense.
Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
November 26, 2018
CCRKBA SEEKS SCOTUS REVIEW OF MANCE INTERSTATE HANDGUN SALES CASE
[While it’s true that many anti-gun people steadfastly oppose logic and common sense (see examples in this post), it is probable that in this case, at some level, there is a logic to this situation. Such a law makes perfect sense and is entirely logical to anyone that who is of the mindset to deny people their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms. Such people are the enemy of our country and the U.S. Constitution.—Joe]
Under present circumstances, the American constitutional future seems to be approaching some kind of crisis—a crisis of the two Constitutions. Let us pray that we and our countrymen will find a way to reason together and to compromise, allowing us to avoid the worst of these dire scenarios—that we will find, that is, the better angels of our nature.
Charles R. Kesler
October 2018
America’s Cold Civil War
[A pleasant call for peace. Unfortunately for our future no further compromise is tolerable for those whose vision of the constitution is the original intent. If we compromise further, and probably even if we fail to turn back the existing compromises, we will sink into a socialist hellhole.—Joe]
A. The Republic City Council declares that all federal and state acts, laws, orders, rules and regulations past, present or future, in violation of the U.S. and/or State Constitutions are not authorized by the said Constitutions and violate the true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers and are hereby declared to be invalid in the City of Republic, shall not be recognized by the City of Republic, are specifically rejected by the City of Republic and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in the City of Republic.
B. No agent, employee, or official of the City of Republic, or any corporation providing services to the City of Republic shall provide material support or participate in any way with the implementation of federal or state acts, orders, rules, laws or regulations in violation of the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1 Section 24 of the Washington State Constitution.
City Council of the City of Republic, Washington State
From Facebook on November 9, 2018
[This is very much like the contemporary Firearms Freedom Act at the state level and the Personal liberty laws just prior to the Civil War:
Because most of the abolitionists and supporters of the Personal Liberty Laws resided in the northern states, the controversy added to the already growing rift between the two halves of the country.[1] The northern states refused to repeal the laws and the southern states were not willing to give up slavery. The end result was the bloodiest war of American history; the Civil War.
See also what the Spokesman Review has to say about the proposed ordinance.
I wonder how this will work out if an 18-year old were to travel there to purchase a “semiautomatic assault rifle” after I-1639 goes into effect. Would the gun shop owner sell to them knowing it was against state law but the local police had orders not to enforce the law?
We live in interesting times.—Joe]
We’re all in favor of Pelosi pushing for votes on gun control. As we’ve often said, guns win, and we like having record votes. There is some valid concern that this president has demonstrated a willingness to “work with” the Democrats on a variety of issues, and his commitment to the Second Amendment has wobbled upon occasion. There are also a number of Republicans in both the House and Senate, who have proven to be unreliable on rights issues, and who are likely to break ranks with their party, providing cover for Democrats from conservative states who want to avoid going on record with an anti-rights vote.
Jeff Knox
November 17, 2018
Lame Ducks: WWDD – What Would Democrats Do?
[If we don’t know who they are we can’t vote them out of office.
Find them. Fix them. Finish them.—Joe]
For those unfamiliar, Choke Point consisted of bureaucrats in several independent federal agencies taking it upon themselves to shut legal businesses – such as payday lenders and firearms dealers – out of the banking system. Given the nature of the U.S. regulatory framework, this operation was easy to pull off.
Officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), for instance, simply had to inform the banks they were overseeing that the government considered certain types of their customers “high risk.” The mere implication of a threat was enough to pressure banks into closing accounts, because no U.S. bank wants anything to do with extra audits or investigations from their regulator, much less additional operating restrictions or civil and criminal charges.
…
It is now clear that these unelected government officials set out to harm law-abiding citizens. Yet many of the government officials named in these documents are still employed by the same government agency. Most of these folks work at the FDIC, and one has even moved up from a regional director position to FDIC Ombudsman.
Norbert Michel
November 5, 2018
Newly Unsealed Documents Show Top FDIC Officials Running Operation Choke Point
[That these people aren’t currently in prison making little rocks out of big rocks shows you “the swamp” still needs to be drained.—Joe]
It’s nice to see the NRA and SAF working together.
From the Second Amendment Foundation web site:
SAF, NRA FILE FEDERAL LAWSUIT CHALLENGING INITIATIVE 1639
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging gun control Initiative 1639 in Washington State, on several grounds.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. In addition to SAF and NRA, plaintiffs include gun dealers and young adults in the affected age group.
The lawsuit challenges the measure on the grounds that it violates the commerce clause by banning sales of rifles to non-residents, and that it unconstitutionally impairs the rights guaranteed by the First, Second and Fourteenth Amendments, and Article I Section 24 of the Washington State constitution by preventing the sale to otherwise qualified adults under age 21 of certain rifles.
“We are also considering additional legal challenges,” SAF Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb confirmed. “We are disappointed that too many Evergreen State voters were fooled into supporting this 30-page gun control scheme, despite overwhelming law enforcement opposition. This initiative is an affront to the constitutional rights enshrined in the Second Amendment and the Washington state constitution, especially for young adults.
“We’re determined to fight this egregious measure because constitutionally-protected rights should never be subject to a popularity vote,” he stated. “The wealthy elitists behind I-1639 want to turn a right into a regulated privilege. This measure was only designed to have a chilling effect on the exercise of a constitutional right by honest citizens while having no impact at all on criminals, and we cannot let it go unchallenged.”
“The NRA is committed to restoring the Second Amendment rights of every law-abiding Washingtonian,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director of NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “I-1639 violates the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens and puts people at risk. This lawsuit is the first step in the fight to ensure that Washingtonians are free to exercise their fundamental right to self-defense.
“The NRA will fight to overturn this unconstitutional initiative. We will not sit idly by while elitist anti-gun activists attempt to deny everyday Americans their fundamental right to self-defense,” concluded Cox.
“While a handful of billionaires spending millions of dollars were able to buy votes, it is our hope they can’t buy the judges,” Gottlieb said.
I find this very interesting. I don’t think anyone has challenged it on the grounds of the initiative violating Washington state law such things as being limited to only one subject, the font was too small to read, the strikeout and other formatting of deleted versus new text was incorrect. It’s possible this was deliberate and we won’t be seeing such a lawsuit for many years and only if this lawsuit fails.
If they can defeat it in Federal court on constitutional grounds it is gone for good so we won’t have to fight it at the ballot or legislature again and it protects other states. But if it is defeated on the basis of ballot procedures and formatting then we won’t be able to fight it on a constitutional until it is passed again. The biggest downside to this is that we will have to live with it until the Federal Courts rule on it. If the district court doesn’t rule in our favor it probably will have to go all the way to SCOTUS because it is unlikely the Ninth Circuit court of appeals is going to rule in our favor on all the aspects of this law.
Anyone serious about building consensus on gun policy needs to be slower to judge and quicker to listen to those who disagree. I understand why gun-safety advocates might not want to listen to those who are skeptical of gun-safety laws. People are being killed in their places of worship and kids gunned down at school; this kind of crisis can make people feel they don’t have time for dialogue.
However, listening to those who are resistant to gun-control laws is more than just a sign of respect. Understanding what motivates people can help us come up with better solutions that are more likely to stick. Instead of focusing on what motivates us, we need to ask what motivates them. We don’t all need to take the same path to get to the same destination. We can get more people to the destination if we can find a path they’re willing to take.
Jen Zamzow
November 14, 2018
Why we can’t agree on gun control
[Great advice! The truth cannot be learned if people do not listen. Listen to others on the condition they listen to you and then see where you both end up. To see if both sides are really listening try a role reversal in your second session. If you can’t argue your opponents side then you probably aren’t listening.
Numerous studies have shown that conservatives understand progressives far better than the other way around. So this actually something of a “trap” for progressives. —Joe]
Washington state law has some interesting things to keep in mind:
State law defines malicious harassment — a felony commonly referred to as a “hate crime” — as intentionally injuring, damaging property or threatening someone “because of his or her perception of the victim’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or mental, physical or sensory handicap.”
In Seattle a misdemeanor malicious harassment law extends those protections to include gender identity, homelessness, marital status, political ideology, age and parental status.
Detective Beth Wareing investigates bias crimes for the Seattle Police Department and coordinates its response.
She said the department tracks three types of bias:
• Malicious harassment;
• Crimes that have a bias element, such as when hatred toward a protected group or class is a secondary motivation;
• Bias incidents, in which “someone shares their nasty opinion about someone’s membership in these groups.”Although bias incidents are not crimes, Wareing said tracking them helps SPD understand how people are being treated in a particular area or neighborhood and ensures that someone who feels threatened is heard.
Emphasis added.
So… if you are in Seattle you can’t insult the communists (in some areas you can just close your eyes and point in a random direction to find them) without being at risk of being reported to the police. But perhaps just as important is that if you go for a walk downtown wearing your NRA jacket and/or hat and people express their hatred those haters can be reported as well. Open carry is legal in the state too, but that probably would be considered hunting over bait and the fish and game department generally frowns on that.
If resistance to gun-control laws is based on guns, or the enjoyment of guns, rather than our inalienable right to life and the sovereignty of the people, if we are consistently perceived as concerned only that we be left undisturbed to enjoy target shooting, hunting or collecting fine firearms, if, in fact, that is all that we do care about the resistance by an angry few will likely prove futile, and we will lose — not secure — the right to keep and bear arms.
Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards, The Line in the Sand, page 161
[This book should be required reading in school. And since it is not every gun owner must be strongly encouraged to read it.
I can open the book to any page and easily find something worthy of a QOTD. Sometimes there three or four QOTD are clearly available on a single page and even the titles of the essays alone can qualify as a QOTD. It is an amazing book.—Joe]
The major gun safety groups like Brady have done very little to promote a technology approach. … This we “believe” is because of a small group of naïve well-heeled idealists on the left don’t want a safer gun to be the solution to gun violence. The idealists on the left, who supported the New Jersey mandate, and right have prevented a pragmatic solution for a long time.
Ralph Fascitelli
October 31, 2018
A Former Remington Exec Takes On A Challenge: Building A Smart Gun That Can’t Be Hacked
[I don’t think I would be likely to purchase a “smart gun”. I don’t think they will be an good solution to most, or even many, firearms needs and should never be mandated. But I do have a sense of loss that the technology has been indirectly prevented because of crazy politics.
Fascitelli has been president of Washington Ceasefire and I don’t think I have ever said anything nice about him in public before. And that goes back at least nine years.
But recently I listened to a podcast where he was interviewed and claimed that murder of a gun control advocate was unlikely to have been committed by a gun rights advocate. Paraphrasing, he said, “They have a code. They respect and obey the law. I don’t think this was done by one of them.” This is a recognition of what we have been saying for decades, “If gun owners were as bad as the political left claims anti-gun activists would have all been shot years ago.”
And now, here, we have Fascitelli saying “smart gun technology” has been prevented, in part, by anti-gun activists. That is an insightful and almost certainly correct observation about a failure of “his people”. I think I could almost sit down with him over lunch and chat without either of us feeling the other was evil incarnate.—Joe]
Justin Lehmiller wrote a book, Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life. I participated in his research survey but haven’t read the book the book yet. He has been writing a few articles about his research and I found this one particularly interesting:
Republicans and Democrats Don’t Just Disagree About Politics. They Have Different Sexual Fantasies.
…
While self-identified Republicans and self-identified Democrats reported fantasizing with the same average frequency—several times per week—I found that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to fantasize about a range of activities that involve sex outside of marriage. Think things like infidelity, orgies and partner swapping, from 1970s-style “key parties” to modern-day forms of swinging. Republicans also reported more fantasies with voyeuristic themes, including visiting strip clubs and practicing something known as “cuckolding,” which involves watching one’s partner have sex with someone else.
By contrast, self-identified Democrats were more likely than Republicans to fantasize about almost the entire spectrum of BDSM activities, from bondage to spanking to dominance-submission play. The largest Democrat-Republican divide on the BDSM spectrum was in masochism, which involves deriving pleasure from the experience of pain.
The BDSM thing is consistent with the Democrat goals of acquiring complete power. And, as we fear, inflicting pain, suffering, and submission. This claim is further exemplified by Karin Jones on Twitter who, after reading Lehmiller’s article said:
A fun read by @JustinLehmiller. He’s right! As a Democrat I often fantasize about BDSM activity – like crushing Donald Trump’s balls in my bare hands until he falls to his knees and begs me to impeach him.
In contrast, my most far out political fantasies involve the government obeying the constraints imposed upon it by the constitution and politicians who violate the law being prosecuted.
Never give up your guns. If you do what follows will be the wildest fantasies of the Democrats and it will be extremely unpleasant.
It’s written in a way that puts a chilling effect on gun ownership, but quite frankly, it’s unenforceable. There’s a giant loophole in this law. If they go to Oregon or Idaho, they can bring [a rifle] back. It’s totally legal. They just can’t buy it in Washington state.
Alan Gottlieb
Founder, Second Amendment Foundation
November 7, 2018
Second Amendment Foundation: Loopholes aplenty with I-1639
[There are other loopholes as well. I was at a gun store recently and suggested a loophole they might use. The clerk behind the counter said, paraphrasing, “That should work. But most of the time I expect we will just do it like….” and he explained a simpler approach. I had considered his suggestion weeks ago but figured it was clearly violating the spirit of the law even though it was complying with the letter of the law and that might be too risky. But, he didn’t seem bothered by it so I’m not going to worry about it. I make so many trips to Idaho I will just buy my guns there and not subject myself to the risk.
I’m a bit torn between keeping loopholes like this quiet and openly mocking the ignorance and stupidity of the people that write these laws. On the one hand we get more time to get more guns into the hands of more people. On the other we embarrass the anti-gun activists and cause them to lose face and status in the eyes of those who donate millions of dollars.—Joe]
Just getting a vote in the House on background checks, which hasn’t happened in more than a decade, would be “monumental.”
We’ll know by Nov. 7 whether it really has changed or not and I think we’ll wake up and find that it has.
Kris Brown
October 25, 2018
Co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Gun control, once a third rail, now a key issue as Democrats seek to control House
[See also this QOTD by Brown as well.
I queued up this post on October 26th for publication on November 8th. So… how well did Ms. Brown predict the future? Did she get it right or, as usually is the case, are the anti-gun people routinely waking up in an alternate reality?—Joe]
No, the difference is that the Republicans controlled the Senate in both cases and thus could both prevent Garland from getting a hearing and force a hearing and vote for Kavanaugh, forcing the Democrats to get as dirty as possible to have any chance at influence.
And the assertion that these are empty accusations is just wishful thinking on the part of Republicans. There’s no conspiracy here, the guy’s pretty clearly an infantile little douchebag — and hanging on to him was a big mistake. Women in both parties are now incandescent with rage and will make what was a likely moderate turnover of Congress into a landslide. After which point they’ll impeach Kavanaugh for perjury (his lies are now well documented…that testimony the other day will be the rope they hang him with) and the Republicans will have both lost Congress and the SOTUS seat they want so badly.
John Schussler
September 29, 2018
Comment to Quote of the day—Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog
[My response in the comments:
It’s interesting to read your viewpoint on the situation. It is quite different from some others. I talked to a big Trump supporter (best president EVER!!) last week who saw the fallout from the Kavanaugh confirmation process to be a huge win for Republicans in the elections next month.
As Scott Adams puts it (paraphrasing), “People are watching the same screen and seeing different movies.” My QOTD post for tomorrow has a lot more related information but I think you probably get the idea.
To determine who is “watching” the movie which most closely matches reality we only have to wait a month until the elections and see which is the better match. I’m going to make your comment my QOTD post for the day after the elections to remind us to review the predictions. This will also allow us to explore the predictions made by the book “When Prophecy Fails“. Either my Trump supporter will have their “prophecy” fail or you will have your prophecy fail. It will be a great test! I’m really looking forward to it.
Today is the day we evaluate the test results.
So…. which person has the better grasp on reality?—Joe]
At 8:30 PM with 63.45% of the precincts reporting I-1639 is passing 60.69% to 39.31%. Unless eastern Washington hasn’t sent in any results yet and they voted something like 90% against it means the next step is to take it to court.
The last time I talked to someone in the office of the Second Amendment Foundation they expected to win in court but I’m not quite as confident as they appeared to be.
The answer is simple.
Ban civilian firearms and make illegal possession a capital crime.
The public execution of a few hundred thousand illegal gun owners and dealers will curtail the problem quite nicely.
Vote Blue November 6 @AlvardoMitchell
Tweeted October 6, 2018.
[See what Miguel has to say about this guy and Say Uncle as well.
Vote like your life depends on the right to keep and bear arms. Because it does.—Joe]