Tag: Philosophy

KevinLeave a comment

Rights, Revisited

In the comments to A Swing and a Miss! below, I’ve had quite an exchange with Thibodeaux of Say Uncle, and now a comment from Spoons of The Spoons Experience on the topic of “absolute rights.” They believe that absolute rights are a concrete reality. I do not. Here’s the exchange to date (because Haloscan eventually loses them):

I have to say I’m against you on this one. – Thibodeaux

Then please, make your argument. Simply stating “I disagree” doesn’t really get us anywhere. – Kevin Baker

I don’t really see the point. You’re not going to change your mind, and I’m not going to change mine. But if counting heads is the most important thing, I’m going to be counted in the other column. – Thibodeaux

I’d at least like an explanation of what it is you specifically disagree with me about. Even if we are unable to convince each other, I will be able to understand where you’re coming from. For instance, I assume you do believe in “absolute rights”? – Kevin

Yes, I do, without the quotes. – Thibodeaux

What happens when you run across someone who doesn’t? Or at least someone who doesn’t believe in the same absolute rights you do? Someone who, say, believes he’s within his rights to slit your throat with a boxcutter because you don’t pray towards Mecca five times a day? – Kevin

This is why I said it was pointless to discuss; we could play “what if” all day long. As it happens, each and every one of us comes in contact with people who don’t believe in the same set of rights. I recognize that we don’t live in an ideal world, and we have to defend our rights as best we can.

However, I still maintain that even though rights can be violated, that does not mean that those rights don’t exist, regardless of how many people approve that violation. If I understand you correctly, you maintain that, practically speaking, it does. Well, I disagree, but I don’t see that either of us is going to change our minds. – Thibodeaux

What you’re saying, in effect, is “I BELIEVE in the following rights…, and damn the rest of you to hell if you do not.”

I have no problem with that. That is, actually, the basis of any society – a statement of beliefs shared by the majority of the populace. But if there were, in actuality, “absolute rights,” shouldn’t all (sane) people, everywhere believe in them? That’s my only point. It is patently not the case, and never has been.

I don’t think we’re all that far apart, here.

When you go back and look at the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, those documents spell out the fundamental basis of the beliefs our society: “This we believe…”

Mr. Kennedy’s disillusionment comes from the fact that, if we actually behaved as though we believed in those stated fundamentals, our government wouldn’t be coercive and wouldn’t be what it is today. Therefore he rejects American society as being hypocritical when it says it protects the rights of individuals. – Kevin

What you’re saying, in effect, is “I BELIEVE in the following rights…, and damn the rest of you to hell if you do not.”

Pretty much.

But if there were, in actuality, “absolute rights,” shouldn’t all (sane) people, everywhere believe in them? That’s my only point. It is patently not the case, and never has been.

Were those people who believed in a geo-centric universe insane? Or just ignorant? Of course, philosophy isn’t physics, but I think it’s a logical fallacy to say that since not all sane people believe in something, then it doesn’t exist.

I don’t think we’re all that far apart, here.

Probably not, since I agree with and enjoy practically everything else you’ve written on this blog. – Thibodeaux

You’re right, philosophy absolutely isn’t physics.

So your position is that there are some fundamental rights that eventually all societies will hold in common because they are REAL, and we will all come to recognize them.

That’s a good hope to have. I cannot (and would not) fault you for it. As far as I’m concerned it matters not whether those beliefs are “real,” because as long as people believe in them, they are. I believe that history shows an increasing recognition of (some) rights of the individual against the power of government. I simply understand that you cannot assume that all people will believe what you believe, and that you must be able to convince them through reasoned argument that you are right and they are wrong. (“Because it is!” doesn’t count.) Or you must be willing (and able) to kill them if they want to force their beliefs on you to the exclusion of your own. – Kevin

So your position is that there are some fundamental rights that eventually all societies will hold in common because they are REAL, and we will all come to recognize them.

Not quite. I believe the fundamental rights are real, but I doubt if everybody will ever agree with that.

As far as I’m concerned it matters not whether those beliefs are “real,” because as long as people believe in them, they are.

I don’t agree that belief creates reality. I simply understand that you cannot assume that all people will believe what you believe As do I. – Thibodeaux

I think the real crux of the difference, Thibodeaux, is the definition of “real,” then. – Kevin

I guess it depends on what you mean by “is.”

Seriously, though, the difference is the appropriate reaction when your rights are violated. If, as you say, your rights are nothing more nor less than what the majority say, then it seems to me you ought to shut up and take it when the majority decides you don’t have a given right. What justification do you have to do otherwise? – Thibodeaux

No, the choices when the majority decides that you don’t have a given right are:

1) continue publicly and risk punishment, 2) continue secretly, and risk punishment, 3) submit, 4) strike out and guarantee punishment.

I missed one here: 5) Go elsewhere in search of a society that believes as you do.

If YOU BELIEVE in the right, it is real TO YOU. Only YOU can decide what the appropriate response is, FOR YOU. That’s why I said above that “you must be able to convince them through reasoned argument that you are right and they are wrong. (“Because it is!” doesn’t count.) Or you must be willing (and able) to kill them if they want to force their beliefs on you to the exclusion of your own.” If you’re going to resist (unless you don’t care about that right as it affects others) the ability to make your resistance hurt is essential to preserving the right for others. Otherwise nobody’s going to notice your resistance.

Of course, this gets you labeled “a fanatic.”

As regards the concept of “real” – how can an idea, a philosophical construct, be “real?” You can’t put your hand on it. It has no mass or physical dimensions. – Kevin

How can an idea, a philosophical construct, be “real?”

I don’t know; ask Plato.

If YOU BELIEVE in the right, it is real TO YOU.

Well, again, I disagree. Belief is not reality, and reality is not personal. – Thibodeaux

I see you two are having fun, but I gotta say that I most strongly disagree with Kevin on this one. I believe in absolute rights. That doesn’t mean that everyone will agree on what they are. It just means that some people are wrong.

It’s interesting, Kevin, that you quote the Declaration of Independence in support of your position. If ever there were a document that rejected your view on rights, that’s the one: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

All men everywhere have those rights — whether they are acknowledged by their societies, or not. – Spoons

Why, Spoons? Because the Founders said so? You need to read “What is a Right?”, because it addresses (actually, Heinlein addresses) that directly.

I think those rights are real in direct proportion to how strongly they are believed and defended. The Founders believed them enough to risk “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” to uphold them, and so enshrined them for their posterity, but I don’t think they are as “real” today given the entropy of our society.

You think you believe in “absolute rights,” but what you actually believe is that those rights ought to be believed by all people. And I agree. But that doesn’t (IMHO) make them “real”. Only action makes them real. – Kevin

I realize that this is a subtle philosophical point, but it’s something that everyone needs to understand – especially in the world today where two cultures are in desperate conflict.

The progenitor of my political philosophy is probably Robert Anson Heinlein. I quoted Heinlein in that earlier piece specifically on the topic of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” from his book Starship Troopers:

“Life? What ‘right’ to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What ‘right’ to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of ‘right’? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man’s right is ‘unalienable’? And is it ‘right’? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is the least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

“The third ‘right’ – the ‘pursuit of happiness’? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can ‘pursue happiness’ as long as my brain lives — but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can insure that I will catch it.”

Societies are made up of groups with similar beliefs. So long as those beliefs are compatible with the success of the society, they are “moral” for that group. A couple of posts below is one on abortion. Yet Romans – certainly looked to as a “civilized” society – practiced actual infanticide by exposure. They practiced slavery. Their soldiers looked upon rape as one of the spoils of war.

We are not born with an innate understanding of the “Rights of Man.” Morals and ethics are learned and are part of the culture in which you are raised.

Rights are as well. All of these make up the logical framework under which a society functions. When the Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” they flew in the face of centuries if not millennia of history in which it wasn’t self-evident at all. There were serfs and there was an aristocracy. At most there might be a “middle class,” but they certainly weren’t equal, and the powerful guarded their privileges warily.

When societies clash, their belief systems clash too. Size, power, and strength of arms matter a lot, but so does the robustness of the different belief systems. How resilient, how functional the systems are determines how changed each side will be by the clash – and they will both be changed.

Steven Den Beste has described the root cause of the current war in the Middle East as a failure of the Muslim world to deal with reality.

What is the root cause of the war? Collective failure of the nations and people in a large area which is predominately Arab and/or Islamic. Economically the only contribution they make is by selling natural resources which are available to them solely through luck. They make no significant contribution to international science or engineering. They make little or no cultural contribution to the world. Few seek out their poetry, their writing, their movies or music. The most famous Muslim writer of fiction in the world is under a fatwa death sentence now and lives in exile in Europe. Their only diplomatic relevance is due to their oil. They are not respected by the world, or by themselves.

He goes on to explain in detail. Their culture – their belief system – is failing in comparison to the West. They are certain their way is correct – but the empirical evidence is against them. They see Western culture – including its belief in equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – as the enemy, because their culture rejects all of those ideals. It is rigid. Ours is flexible.

Heinlein’s “little red book” of philosophical sayings is The Notebooks of Lazarus Long (which, by the way, is about to be republished by Baen Books). In it he says something that has stuck with me for decades:

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate — and quickly.

That is, essentially, the root of the “hearts and minds” concept. We either convert them, or we have to kill them, but we should do so quickly, and without hate – because it’s the hate that will change us..

Here in the West we are undergoing a bifurcation of philosophies: the Right, steeped in history and tradition, in equality and the rights of the individual; and the Left, the “progressive” “liberal” groups that – and this seems undeniable to me – hate traditional America but want to take advantage of all that it provides. But that’s an entire other essay, and I’m not going to go there right now.

My point is that our belief system – the rights of individuals, the equality of birth, “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness,” the Bill of Rights, the whole nine yards – is a system of belief built upon millenia of history. It’s a belief system that works, and works better than anything that’s come before. But it’s also fragile, and it can be wiped away if we don’t fight to maintain it. A belief in “absolute rights” (IMHO) removes any onus on the people to fight to support it. “Absolute rights” implies that they exist outside of us, independent of us, and do not need our support.

I don’t believe that. I believe that if we follow that path then those rights will slowly disappear from lack of support – from entropy.

Justice Scalia reportedly said something along the same lines once, only he was speaking of constitutional guarantees of our enumerated rights:

To some degree, a constitutional guarantee is like a commercial loan, you can only get it if, at the time, you don’t really need it. The most important, enduring, and stable portions of the Constitution represent such a deep social consensus that one suspects if they were entirely eliminated, very little would change. And the converse is also true. A guarantee may appear in the words of the Constitution, but when the society ceases to possess an abiding belief in it, it has no living effect. Consider the fate of the principle expressed in the Tenth Amendment that the federal government is a government of limited powers. I do not suggest that constitutionalization has no effect in helping the society to preserve allegiance to its fundamental principles. That is the whole purpose of a constitution. But the allegiance comes first and the preservation afterwards.

I’m not so sure about the “deep social consensus” part ensuring an enduring, stable Constitution, myself. It all takes work. I’m sure that those rights are real only so long as we believe, and we act on that belief.

Americans, Gun Controllers, and the “Aggressive Edge”

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I rented the Collector’s Edition 2-disc set of James Cameron’s Aliens this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed the extended director’s cut of the film. It made a good movie that much better, in my opinion, and it should have been the one originally released. Anyway, the second disc has a lot of special features about the making of the movie; the pre-production, the casting, filming, special effects, etc. And there were interviews interspersed with the cast and crew and support people. Some of those interviews were really fascinating to me.

The first section on pre-production talked about the fact that the film was shot in England, mostly at Pinewood Studios, but this little bit piqued my interest:

Mary Selway, UK casting for Aliens:

“It was INCREDIBLY hard to do, because, um, James kept saying, ‘State of the art firepower. They’ve got to be incredibly, sort of on the cutting edge of American military…’

“So, what often happens here when American actors come to live in England, they become a bit Anglicized, and they don’t… they lose that really, sort of aggressive edge if you like, that this sort casting required.”

She said it, I didn’t.

Immediately after Ms. Selway’s piece:

Gale Anne Hurd – producer.

“I think we probably went through 3,000 people before we could even consider bringing anyone over from the United States.”

Hmmm… They went through 3,000 “Anglicized” people and couldn’t get enough aggressive ones?

Well, two Americans they did find in England were Jenette Goldstein, who played Vasquez, and Mark Rolston, who played the other heavy gunner, Drake. However, they apparently brought Lance Henrikson, who played the “artificial person” Bishop over straight from New York:

“The first time I walked on the set..

“I told you this story…

“The AD (Assistant Director) put his hand on my chest, and, and, nobody ever touched me like that – you know, like stopping me, and I, um, being from New York I said to him, uh ‘You ever touch me again, I’m gonna kick your ass.’

“The next thing he did was say, ‘Alright. Bring in the Artiste!”

“And I said, ‘Man, you really are a wise guy’ because I thought he was, like, putting us down, and I, I didn’t realize the British call people “artistes.”

“Even though we speak the same language, it’s a different language. And…

“They’re different than us.”

That’s pretty apparent. And it’s also apparent that we both prefer it that way.

The next part that really got my attention was the section on the weapons used in the movie. There’s a lot of neat technical stuff and pictures to keep us gun-nuts happy, but the interviews with the actors were, shall we say, illuminating. Some of the interviews were shot during principal filming, and some were shot for the 2003 DVD special edition re-release. I’ll identify them where I think it’s important:

Sigourney Weaver, during initial filming:

“It’s actually hard for me morally to justify being in a film with so many guns.

“I just find it… very upsetting. And that’s the biggest problem for me, is that I, reading the script, I had no idea how…martial the atmosphere would be, and how much emphasis that would have.

“I give money to anti-gun legislation, and..

“I mean, I never, I never even go to see movies about guns. Especially killing people. I can’t, you know, I mean I just think… Oooh, I think it would be very difficult for an actor. You’d really have to sort of, do a number on yourself, you know.”

Apparently not some actors:

Bill Paxton (Hudson):

“I love shooting guns. That’s like the best part of my job.”

Michael Biehn (Hicks):

“I got a really good sense of handling weapons when I did The Terminator because I had that shotgun throughout, and I was always firing off weapons and working with, with uh, you know, the guns.”

Bill Paxton:

“Oh, I’ve shot a few weapons in a couple different situations, and I grew up in Texas. I shot a lot of shotguns and stuff like that.”

Jenette Goldstein (Vasquez):

“I’ve never shot a gun before. I’m actually frightened of guns. You know. It doesn’t take any imagination for me to pretend that it’s a real weapon.”

Al Matthews (Sgt. Apone):

“Well, y’know I suffer from the Vietnam syndrome. If you point a gun at me I’m gonna shove it down your throat. I’m sorry to say that. (Laughing) Sorry gang! But that’s the truth. If you point…

“So, uh, we have things where everyone’s instinct is to automatically put their fingers on the trigger. Well they stopped doing that on the set with me, because I don’t have it. I really don’t have it. It’s an instinct. That’s the way I was trained, thank you very much America. Uh, that’s how I was trained because you put your finger when you’re talking or you’re waving your weapon around, I’m gonna jam it down your throat. I gotta do that.”

“At some points, we’re using blanks. Uh, blanks can hurt people. And so if everyone’s aware of, of what it is that they’re actually walking around with, I want each and every one of these people, which they have already done, they’re starting to fall in love with their guns. I know it sounds very silly, but, from a military point of view, it’s correct.”

Remember that quote. There’ll be a test at the end…

I was very pleased to see Al Matthews’ interview piece. Excellent!

However:

Sigourney Weaver, filmed during the original shooting of Aliens:

“I don’t think Ripley is a gun person. At all. And I want to make sure that in those scenes, although I look like I’m handling it, I don’t turn into a Marine. I’m not a soldier. I never wanna be a soldier.

“The thing that scares me about the guns is that after you’ve been using then a couple of days, you go ‘Oh, well, you know, this is…’ you know, it, you sort of get into it. And I think that’s what happens to people with real guns, and I think, I think Jim Cameron’s very anti-gun too, in his own way, but yet I think he’s fascinated by them in a way that I’m not.

“I don’t like that feeling you get after you’ve shot off a few rounds of “I’m Immortal” you know. It’s just.. garbage.”

So, familiarity breeds contempt. Or, in the case of some of the actors, love. For an “anti-gun” guy, Jim Cameron’s made some hellacious gun advertisements blowup movies.

But wait! There’s more!

Sigourney Weaver, filmed for the 2003 special edition release:

“There were moments on Aliens where I had to shoot stunt dummies who were dressed as aliens. I would have to shoot stuntmen who were moving as aliens. And, um, I always thought it was amazing. We rehearse it, of course, in detail. But then they kinda left it to me. I mean I know they were blanks, but still the.. I mean, what if I’d flamed a real person, you know? They trusted me completely. And I have to say that once you start shooting, you get to lik… you know, the, the target practice alone was, you know, very, like (growls) you know. (With a smile.)

Putting on my amateur psychoanalyst’s jacket…

So, Sigourney Weaver, gun hater, was trusted to use a flamethrower and a (blank-firing) gun on the set. Other people trusted her completely. Apparently she doesn’t trust herself and finds the concept somewhat disturbing and encouraging at the same time. She admits – almost – to liking to shoot the set weapons. She found it, let’s say, primitively exciting, but at the same time the fact that she liked it frightened her.

One thing I think that is common among the really strident anti-gun people is the fear of responsibility, and they see guns (quite rightly) as a large responsibility. They don’t think themselves worthy of it. They fear a loss of control. Or they fear an inability to handle it. Not that evil brain-warping waves will cause them to rush out and commit mass murder, but that they just aren’t responsible enough to have a gun. Since they have found themselves unworthy, they don’t trust others to handle that responsibility either, because hey! They’re just average people like everyone else, right?

After all, they have so many examples to point to of people who misuse guns both criminally and negligently, they must be right.

Right?

This letter to Kim du Toit (fourth one down the page) is illustrative of that mindset. An excerpt:

I thought, all my life, that I couldn’t own a gun safely, that no one could, really. Guns were dangerous and icky. Even after I realized that the Second Amendment was not quite the shriveled, antiquated appendix I’d been taught, for a couple of years or so I still wobbled around with the training-wheel comfort of believing that while not all gun owners were necessarily gap-toothed red-necked fascist militia whackos, I myself ought not to own firearms. I was too clumsy and careless, and guns were still dangerous and icky.

Read the whole thing, and Kim’s response. I’ll still be here when you get back.

Some who get over their inner misgivings actually learn to shoot. Many of them lose that fear, learn that they are responsible, and begin to see the flaws in gun control philosophy. Some “get into it.” They learn to like guns – something Sigourney Weaver fears. Few of us develop an “I’m Immortal” sense of power. Guns don’t make you immortal. Only fools think that. But some stay fearful, and never learn to be responsible for themselves. They depend on others exclusively to do the difficult, dangerous stuff.

I think the difference between Americans in general and the “anglicized” English is that most of us believe we’re at some level personally responsible, and that along with that responsibility comes at least a little agressiveness.

I’d much rather have Lance Henrikson as a neighbor than Sigourney Weaver. And I think having Bill Paxton or Michael Biehn on the other side would be a blast.

I hope that America doesn’t ever lose that aggressive edge. It’s important in more than just casting.

(Edited to correct the spelling of “aggressive” – which I know has two “g’s” – dammit.)

Governments, Criminals, and Dangerous Victims

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(This is Part III of a series. Please read Part I, “It’s most important that all potential victims be as dangerous as they can”, and Part II, Violence and the Social Contract before proceeding.)

Alexander Tytler is credited, perhaps apocryphally, for this quotation:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith

From spiritual faith to great courage

From courage to liberty

From liberty to abundance

From abundance to selfishness

From selfishness to complacency

From complacency to apathy

From apathy to dependency

From dependency back again into bondage

I don’t know who actually said it, or when, but it echoes well another (probably apocryphal) quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville:

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

Benjamin Franklin, it is said, when asked what form of government the Constitutional Convention had settled on in Philadelphia in 1787 responded,

A republic, if you can keep it.

The eighteenth century saw the rise of the first truly representative government in the modern world. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the United States was one of the very few democratically-based governments in existence. Almost all others were hereditary monarchies or just plain dictatorships. Great Britain was a titular monarchy, but with legal restraints, and subject to the votes of the populace and the peerage. By the first quarter of the 20th century, the dominant model of government was some form of democracy – defined as a government that listens to and accomodates the populace which it serves through some form of popular vote. Colonialism was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

What made that possible? Democracies had risen in history before, but had fallen back into tyranny. Greece and Rome are but the two most famous examples. Democracy had never gained a solid foothold before, but suddenly (historically speaking) it sprung up worldwide. Industrialization had something to do with it. The world model of agriculture as the dominant economic engine had been replaced with industrial manufacturing and its supporting industry, mining. The natural resources needed now expanded beyond mere land. Now much more of what was beneath that land was valuable. And, as always, men fought to acquire that which was valuable.

The industrial revolution came to the aid of that, too. With the invention of useable, effective, inexpensive firearms, the professional soldier caste no longer held an advantage over the meanest serf – so long as that serf had a gun. All the training in swordsmanship and archery and the best plate mail were useless against a man with a matchlock and the meager skills required to use it. As technology progressed; the rifled musket, the Minié ball, the percussion cap, the metallic cartridge, the repeating arm, each step made it easier for the individual to be as lethal as his martial forebears. More lethal, in fact. A peasant with a scythe is an irritant to a landowner who commands a knight with a charger and a lance. When many peasants are angry and outnumber the knights, you have to pay attention to them, but one peasant with a musket is a problem of a different order entirely.

When the victims are dangerous, it changes the balance of the equation of power. The more dangerous they are, the more the balance changes.

After the American Revolution, and just a few years after the ratification of our Constitution, American jurist St. George Tucker wrote a review of American law called Blackstone’s Commentaries. It was first published in 1803, and on the topic of our Constitutionally recognized right to arms, Tucker had this to say:

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.”

It seems that even then the English ruling class understood the problems that a dangerous victim represented. Well, it was understandable, given the results of the little dust-up that started in 1776.

It is, I believe, the firearm that is responsible for the level of individual freedom enjoyed in this modern world. It is, without a doubt, the tool used to inflict huge volumes of death and misery, but huge volumes of death and misery are historically unremarkable from long before there were firearms. As someone once noted, before there were firearms the world was run by large men with swords, and it was neither fair nor democratic. The difference is, firearms made the peasants dangerous. It’s much less expensive to conscript peasants, instruct them in organized drill, teach them to load, aim, and fire a gun and send them off to battle than it is to pay for a professional mercenary army – especially when your conscripts, properly led, can beat that professional mercenary army.

But there’s a drawback to that, if you happen to be the Head Muther%*$^er in Charge – once you train those peasants, you can’t untrain them. And guns are not a particularly difficult technology. That’s what makes them so attractive in the first place. That makes tax collecting a bit more sporting as it were. So the next time you want to raise their taxes, or take their property (or their daughters), you have to consider how they feel about that.

Unless you can disarm them.

The same condition holds true if your intention is merely to steal retail, as an individual, rather than wholesale, as a government. If your victim isn’t dangerous, you needn’t take his objections into consideration.

Representative government is the result of dangerous victims. The ability to object – and make that objection hurt, is the source of the power of the individual within the State. Guns gave that power to the previously powerless, no other technology, and that power was used to build governments that listened. Governments that don’t listen still exist, and use guns to maintain their own power. Mao’s famous quote is absolutely on the money:

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

And it explains precisely why totalitarian governments are very careful about who they allow to possess arms, and who they don’t.

The pacifist philosophy holds that non-violence is the moral choice, that violence is wrong. But violence exists, everywhere. It is violence that leads us to organize politically, for only through organization can we effectively resist the predation of others. It is through violence that society exists, for as Rev. Sensing noted, “government stays in power by violence or its threat and the threat is meaningless unless it can be and is employed”. If the government cannot threaten arrest, trial, and incarceration (or worse) for violation of the laws of society – and carry that threat out – then there is no society, there is anarchy – the anarchy we join into societies to counter. We, the citizens, agree to the laws of our society and follow them because we believe them just. We condone the use of violence to enforce those laws because, in the main, the government serves to protect our rights and our property against those who would usurp them.

In any group of people, however, there are always those who will not follow the rules of the society – the criminals. Certainly, if those criminals are armed they are more destructive that they would be unarmed, but there is no way to disarm the criminals without disarming the whole populace. Even then the level of success in disarming the criminal is only one of degree. It may be possible to deny a criminal a firearm, but that simply puts the society back at the “large men with swords” level. The pacifist philosophy that attempts to disarm the populace “for its own good” does no such thing. It merely renders that society more at risk, not less. And more, it places that society back at the mercy of a government that may or may not protect the rights and property of its citizens.

Because the victims won’t be dangerous any longer.

St. George Tucker was right: The right to self defense is the first law of nature, and the right to arms is the palladium of liberty, against both criminal and tyrant. And Tytler may be correct that the pattern of history is for a free people to give up their freedom and descend once again into bondage, but so long as the people retain their arms, they may retain their liberty, or at least make their objection hurt. It is the deterrent effect of an armed populace that causes tyrants to pause and reconsider the balance of power equation. Ninth Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski wrote in his dissent to the recent Silveria v. Lockyer decision,

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Guns in the hands of citizens means carnage and mayhem. Guns in the exclusive control of criminals and government risks far worse.

It is a better choice by far to have dangerous victims rather than powerless ones.

More on this here.

Original comment thread (thanks to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin) are available here.

I Would Be Willing to Go to Jail for Assault

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If I ever meet Ted Rall:

A couple of days ago I linked to this Ted Rall column where he actually said some things I agree with. At that time I stated:

I don’t know how much of what Rall states in this piece reflect his actual beliefs and how much of it is a lie, but given Rall’s history…

But it’s damned disconcerting when someone as foul as Rall states opinions I agree with. I feel like I ought to take a shower and scrub with steel wool.

Stainless steel wool and sulfuric acid.

I’m all for the First Amendment.

If I ever meet Rall, I’m going to demostrate my freedom of expression with a knuckle sandwich.

I live in Tucson, Ted. You’ve got my email address. Drop me a line if you’re ever in town. We’ll do lunch.

(Hat tip Instapundit and Michele.)

UPDATE 5/4: Also via Prof. Reynolds, this absolutely astounding dissection of Ted Rall’s mental state by Jeff Goldstein of Protein Wisdom.

If I had written that (thank Jebus I know I’m not capable) I would have showered with acid and steel wool.

Stream of Consciousness

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It’s interesting (at least to me) the things that go “click!” in my head while I’m reading stuff. Things I come across throughout the day, or the week, or the month will ferment in the recesses of my psyche until they’re distilled into a thought. Or they just rot back there until flushed away…

Anyway, due in part to our recent sparring sessions, I spent some time this afternoon back over at Tim Lambert’s Deltoid where last week I took a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test that told me I was an INTJ (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging) personality type. I didn’t at that time follow the links to see what that was supposed to mean, but I did note that Tim’s type was INTP (Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving,) not far at all from mine. This evening I went back and followed the links and read this assessment of the INTJ personality type:

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of “definiteness”, of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise — and INTJs can have several — they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don’t know.

INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion “Does it work?” to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. (Guilty!) This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.

INTJs are known as the “Systems Builders” of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be “slacking,” including superiors, will lose their respect — and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.

In the broadest terms, what INTJs “do” tends to be what they “know”. Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, (Guilty!) but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.

Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ’s Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.

This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). (Also guilty!) To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. (Absolutely, positively guilty!) This sometimes results in a peculiar naiveté, paralleling that of many Fs — only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.

Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to “work at” a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.

I found this fascinating, because the actual personality test is laughably simple, but this description fits my personality to a tee. My wife emphatically agrees. She told me to frame the printout for future reference.

Then I read the personality profile for Tim, INTP:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to most anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

A major concern for INTPs is the haunting sense of impending failure. They spend considerable time second-guessing themselves. The open-endedness (from Perceiving) conjoined with the need for competence (NT) is expressed in a sense that one’s conclusion may well be met by an equally plausible alternative solution, and that, after all, one may very well have overlooked some critical bit of data. An INTP arguing a point may very well be trying to convince himself as much as his opposition. In this way INTPs are markedly different from INTJs, who are much more confident in their competence and willing to act on their convictions.

Mathematics is a system where many INTPs love to play, similarly languages, computer systems–potentially any complex system. INTPs thrive on systems. Understanding, exploring, mastering, and manipulating systems can overtake the INTP’s conscious thought. This fascination for logical wholes and their inner workings is often expressed in a detachment from the environment, a concentration where time is forgotten and extraneous stimuli are held at bay. Accomplishing a task or goal with this knowledge is secondary.

INTPs and Logic — One of the tipoffs that a person is an INTP is her obsession with logical correctness. Errors are not often due to poor logic — apparent faux pas in reasoning are usually a result of overlooking details or of incorrect context.

(Portions in red are my emphasis.)

Tim is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Then, later this evening I was reading Megan McArdle (Jane Galt) concerning the Rice testimony before the witch hunt, err, 9/11 Commission, wherein Megan said:

The energy expended trying to blame this failure on someone–George Tenet, Louis Freeh, Condoleezza Rice, or whoever–goes beyond mere regular partisan bashing. It seems to me to express an underlying conviction that of course someone could have stopped this – it’s only a question of who. For the commission, especially, it’s an unacceptable answer; they simply cannot turn to a frightened American public and tell them that it’s really too bad, but we live in a scary world.

Not that this is any kind of earth-shattering revelation, but it struck me – once again – how it is that people justify civilian disarmament to themselves.

It’s somebody else’s responsibility to stop evil.

If one is detached from, and even oblivious to the world around them; if one is immersed in the theoretical without acknowledging what actually works versus what is ideal; then one can build a philosophy that justifies acknowledging a right to self-defense, but at the same time justifies complete civilian disarmament. That philosophy must deny that “we live in a scary world,” and it must rely on someone else to be responsible. In this case, some unknown person or persons in the employ of the government. The idea that it’s a scary world and that people in this world do evil things with intent is something that has to be avoided, because it runs contrary to the philosophy. The philosophy says that if everyone (save the government) is disarmed, then people will stop doing bad things. If you are attacked, the responsible party is not the attacker, it’s that ephemeral other who is responsible for your safety and failed to secure it.

It’s a wonderful theory, but it doesn’t match reality.

It doesn’t WORK in this scary world we live in.

On the other hand, from a pragmatist’s viewpoint (mine), recognizing the actual risk means acknowledging that my probability of being on the receiving end of a violent encounter is pretty damned low – but non-zero. I know what I know, and I’m acutely aware of what I don’t know. It also means acknowledging that the odds of a government official being present to protect me and mine is at the critical moment approaches even closer to zero, so I’d prefer the option of being armed – just in case. I therefore strongly object when others, who don’t seem to acknowledge that “we live in a scary world,” want to tell me I can’t because doing so is in violation of their philosophical world-construct.

I acknowledge their world-view. I just understand that it’s wrong.

I guess that appears as “simple arrogance to the less decisive,” eh?

“Only Democrats and Dictators are Afraid of Elections”

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So said James Hudnall a while back. To that you can now add Danish Liberals, apparently. According to this uncharacteristically short Steven Den Beste piece:

In her new book, Danish Liberal EU spokesperson Charlotte Antonsen questions the use of referenda as a useful way to build up European democracy.

The book – “Towards the European Constitution” warns that the EU could fall apart if the Danish practise of consulting the people in referenda over important EU treaties is copied by other member states.

“Referenda have a very conservative effect on development. If the other countries copy us, the EU will fall apart”, she writes.

Mrs Antonsen, a member of the Danish Parliament for the ruling Liberal party, argues that representative democracy is just as democratic as referenda.

“Referenda are in fact pure gambling. There is no guarantee of a positive outcome, unfortunately”.

Yeah, that’s about it. If they can’t guarantee the outcome then the proles shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

I’ve said a couple of times that the majority of the populace is too stupid to vote. I don’t think too many people disagree with that. BUT that’s the way the system has developed – and quite honestly, it works in spite of itself, because when given the chance the people say “NO!” more often than they say “Yes.” And this is what Ms. Antonsen objects to:

“Referenda have a very conservative effect on development.”

And this is a bad thing…. why?

Because it isn’t progressive, that liberal watchword that means “whatever we want to try this week.” In Liberal v. Conservative: Both are Necessary, my opponent “John Doe” wrote:

“Liberals have a fundamental faith in the ability of humans to better themselves and act appropriately when the situation calls for it.”

But as Ms. Antonsen illustrates, no, they don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t fear referenda and elections where they can’t guarantee the outcome.

It sounds like Ms. Antonsen and “John Doe” are two peas in a pod.

It is Not the Business of Government

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It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.
Henry George*

Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud.
It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil.
It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives.
It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness.
It comes to bring us evil– only evil– and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs.”
Roger Q. Mills**, 1887

Sorry Roger, sorry Henry. Nobody listened.

This post was inspired by a piece written by Clayton Cramer on his blog a few days ago. I’ve read a lot that Clayton’s written (I highly recommend his book For Defense of Themselves and the State if you’re interested in the judicial history of the right to arms) and I find his work on the right to arms exemplary, but he and I differ on some other topics. In this piece he discussed Rush Limbaugh’s addiction and talks about his support of the criminalization of drugs. The quote that got my attention was this one:

I still don’t think that prohibition of drugs is the most effective way to deal with the problem. It does have one positive effect, however: it encourages parents whose lives are built entirely around intoxication to move to places where those values predominate, like Sonoma County, leaving other parts of America relatively civilized.

That’s not the problem, though, in my opinion. Roger Mills foresaw the real problems, and he was right.

The Harrison Narcotic Act was passed in December of 1914:

To provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes.

It was passed in response to an international treaty on the opium trade, and in response to the fact that the United States had just taken possession of the Phillipines where there was an established trade in opiates. On its face, the Act is not a prohibition, but part of the wording having to do with who can legally provide opiates was interpreted to mean that physicians could not legally prescribe drugs to addicts to support their habits. A drug addiction wasn’t a disease, so giving an addict a prescription for his fix was a perversion of a doctor’s practice. Shortly after passage, Roger Mills’s predictions began to become realities. Doctors were arrested and jailed for giving out prescriptions. Addicts, unable to get their drugs through legal channels, found illegal ones. A market to feed their needs (and build a market of new users) was established. The cost of drugs went up – and crime increased to supply money to fill the need. Users were arrested for possession of illegal narcotics. People who, while addicted, were able to provide an income for their families through honest work, instead went to jail and left their families destitute. Addicts relocated to major cities where access to (now illicit) drugs was easier, and crime came with them.

New drugs hit the market, and were in short order added to the Act. Heroin was banned in 1924. Boy, that was effective, wasn’t it? According to this site, in 1926 the Illinois Medical Journal carried an op-ed that said:

The Harrison Narcotic law should never have been placed upon the Statute books of the United States. It is to be granted that the well-meaning blunderers who put it there had in mind only the idea of making it impossible for addicts to secure their supply of “dope” and to prevent unprincipled people from making fortunes, and fattening upon the infirmities of their fellow men.

As is the case with most prohibitive laws, however, this one fell far short of the mark. So far, in fact, that instead of stopping the traffic, those who deal in dope now make double their money from the poor unfortunates upon whom they prey. . . .

The doctor who needs narcotics used in reason to cure and allay human misery finds himself in a pit of trouble. The lawbreaker is in clover. . . . It is costing the United States more to support bootleggers of both narcotics and alcoholics than there is good coming from the farcical laws now on the statute books.

As to the Harrison Narcotic law, it is as with prohibition [of alcohol] legislation. People are beginning to ask, “Who did that, anyway?”

Not enough people, and not the people who had just cracked a Pandora’s box of enormous powers – powers “…to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. …to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments.” Not those people.

In between passage of the Narcotic Act and subsequent “tightening of the loopholes,” America in another fit of Puritanism ratified the Eighteenth Amendment – Prohibition – and then went home and had a stiff martini in celebration. What followed paralleled the results of the other attempt “to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives,” – abject failure. Increased crime. Increased misery. Increased prison populations. Increased poverty. Death. Mayhem.

And ever-increasing, ever more intrusive government power at the expense of the rights of the individual.

I am not an advocate of “If it feels good, do it.” I’ll tell you right up front that I have never been intoxicated in my life. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, the only drugs I take are over-the-counter medications when I’m ill, or prescriptions as prescribed. I’ve never wanted to take a mind-altering substance. But I know a lot of people who have and some who still do. I understand that, for some people, drugs lead to addiction and death. They fuck up families. They destroy lives. They’re best left alone, in my opinion.

But it shouldn’t be the job of government to protect us from ourselves.

Because it can’t. All it can do is oppress us. And in its effort to protect us, it doesn’t just oppress the people who abuse drugs, it oppresses us all. The “cure” is worse than the disease – except there is no cure – just a new (and in many ways worse) problem on top of the one it’s supposed to cure.

The Illinois Medical Journal saw it in 1926. The American public saw it well enough to repeal Prohibition in 1933. But drug users (other than of alcohol and nicotine) represent an unpopular and unsympathetic minority in this country, and our elected officials were unable or unwilling to tell the electorate “We don’t have that power.” The Founders understood the dangers of creeping expansion of government power and tried their best to ensure that our system inhibited that expansion, but in this they failed. Regardless of the best idiot-proof designs, human nature constantly provides unprotectable idiots. In volume. Congress didn’t have that power. Aside from the fact that protecting us from ouselves is impossible, Congress wasn’t given the power to try. But they went ahead and tried anyway.

Here are some of the results of the War on (some) Drugs© as we know them:

  • The prison population in America as of December 2002 was 2,033,331.

  • 20% – 400,000 – of those incarcerated are there primarily on drug charges. (They may be there for other reasons as well, but drugs are the primary conviction.

  • 35% of college students surveyed in 2001 admit that they had used marijuana daily within the previous year.

  • 4.7% admitted daily cocaine use within the previous year

  • 47.8% of high-school seniors admitted to having used marijuana or hash.

  • Of high-school seniors reporting drug availability, 25% said they could easily get PCP. Twenty-eight percent said they could get crystal meth. Twenty-nine percent could get heroin. Thirty-eight percent could get crack. Eighty-seven percent could get marijuana. Easily.

  • 42% percent of the population of this nation admits to having used an illicit substance at least once. Thirteen percent within the last year. Seven percent, some fifteen million, within the previous month.

  • 70% of illicit drug users, age 18-49, were employed full-time.

  • 6.3 million of full-time workers were illicit drug users.

  • 1.6 million of these full-time workers were both illicit drug and heavy alcohol users in the past.

  • The DEA’s budget is in excess of $300 million annually, and that’s just one government agency. And that budget never goes down. How can it? It’s a government agency.

    • So what does that tell us? For one thing, all the drug laws on the books haven’t affected availability. For another, it’s possible to be a drug user and still hold down a job, be a productive citizen, and pay taxes. For a third, all that money we’re shelling out to interdict drugs is wasted. Fourth, we’re incarcerating only a tiny fraction of drug users. The laws aren’t preventing drug use.

    Here’s some more:

  • There’s a Treasury office dedicated now to Asset Forfeiture. There’s another belonging to the Department of Justice. Remember the words of Roger Mills from 1887: “It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens.” Civil asset forfeiture is an affront to the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure and Fifth Amendment protection against deprival of property without due process. Under current law your property can be seized and the government can keep it even if you’re never convicted of anything.

  • You are now subject to random, suspicionless drug testing at most workplaces. Officers may search your vehicle and the posessions of your passengers without a warrant. What happened to the Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless search?

    • Fundamental rights of individuals that were supposed to be protected against infringement by the Bill of Rights have been chipped at under the guise of “Drug Control.” A little bit here, a little bit there. Just in this special circumstance. Until they decide they need to widen that window. Just a bit, you understand. To make us all safer.

    Alcohol prohibition created many problems not foreseen: Organized crime, gang wars, bathtub gin, just to name a few. But when Prohibition ended, beer truck drivers no longer shot at each other for infringing on their territories. The incidents of people being blinded by drinking poisonous homebrew dropped dramatically. And tax revenues went up. Yes, alcohol remains one of the most devastating drugs out there – responsible for violence, broken homes, ruined lives, and horrendous numbers of dead on the nations highways – but it was better than the alternative – which was all those things and government in everybody’s lives.

    Legalizing drugs wouldn’t be a panacea. It wouldn’t make everything peachy-keen. Much damage is already done that cannot be undone, but you cannot honestly argue that it will make drugs easier to get. It might reduce the number of overdoses and unintentional poisonings due to inconsistent quality and cutting with who knows what. It would put a major dent in the illicit trade, and hopefully the violence associated with it. It should reduce the crime associated with supporting addiction. It might make drug abusers more employable – though that should remain a choice that businesses make for themselves. But it would end an ever-increasing intrusion on our lives and our rights by government. And hey! It might be a new source of revenue, so long as they don’t try to regulate useage (as they are now with tobacco) via onerous “sin taxes” that just lead back to a black market.

    And it should save a considerable amount of tax dollars. But of course it wouldn’t. After just a few years of Prohibition the Federal agents tasked with that job weren’t let go when it was repealed, they were just given a different job – enforcing the new Federal firearms law. You can bet all those DEA agents would be put on something.

    How about anti-terrorism?

    *Henry George was, for want of a better term, a “social philosopher,” and a contemporary of Mark Twain and Thomas Edison. He wrote Progress and Poverty in his spare time and self-published it in 1879. It was picked up by a publishing house in 1880 and became an international best seller. It’s a book on economics. I’ve not read the book, and I have no other knowledge of the author, but the quotation that begins this piece is as concise an expression of the purpose of government as any I’ve ever seen.

    **Roger Mills was a Democrat and (after fighting on the side of the South during the Civil War) served as a representative for Texas in the House from 1873 to 1892, and the Senate from 1892 to 1899. He died in 1911, so he never saw the 1914 Harrison Narcotic Act pass, and he missed the passage of Prohibition, but his warning was prescient, and I’ve often wondered why more people do not understand what he put so eloquently 116 years ago.

    Update: Francis Porretto takes the basic premise and runs with it.

    Update, 10/27: In a related issue, Ravenwood reports that we obviously haven’t learned anything yet.

    —

    UPDATE:  As of August 6, 2013, due to the herculean efforts of reader John Hardin, the original JS-Kit/Echo comment thread for this post (read-only) is available here.

    “The time has come,” the Walrus said,

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    “To talk of many things:
    Of votes –and chads –and democracy–
    Of Republics –and of kings–
    And why the earth is getting hot–
    And when will pigs have wings.”

    (With abject apologies to Lewis Carroll.)

    Last week I had a couple of posts on the reaction of the moonbat wing of the Democratic Party to the California recall election – specifically those people who post to Democraticunderground.com. Those posts are here and here, with the second being by far the most egregious example. And I warned you at the end of “Not with a Bang, but a Whimper?” that I might have more to say on the topic. This post is it.

    Now, I’ve ranted about Democrat hypocrisy like this before. In fact, in that essay written back during Election 2000 (long before I started this blog) I essentially wrote a companion piece to “janekat’s” DU post, which – for my own amusement – I present part of in counterpoint to her comments:

    Janekat:

    What we MUST realize in order to win – Americans are stupid and uninformed

    This is very important because in order to win we must understand the way the average American thinks. I’m afraid WE have nothing in common with them.

    I came to the two following conclusions when I saw the large number of people who voted for Bush back in 2000.

    #1 – I would dare to assume that most of us here are in the upper 1%-20% of the population intelligence-wise. We must come to the realization that the majority of the population is in the lower 80% to 99% percent of the bell-curve. WE are not the norm.

    Me:

    An Uncomfortable Conclusion

    With the continuing legal maneuvers in the Florida election debacle, I have been forced to a conclusion that I may have been unconsciously fending off. The Democratic party thinks we’re stupid. Not “amiable uncle Joe” stupid, but DANGEROUSLY stupid. Lead-by-the-hand-no-sharp-objects-don’t-put-that-in-your-mouth stupid. And they don’t think that just Republicans and independents are stupid, no no! They think ANYBODY not in the Democratic power elite is, by definition, a drooling idiot. A muttering moron. Pinheads barely capable of dressing ourselves.

    Take, for example, the position under which the Gore election machine petitioned for a recount – that only supporters of the Democratic candidate for President lacked the skills necessary to vote properly, and that through a manual recount those erroneously marked ballots could be “properly” counted in Mr. Gore’s favor. They did this in open court and on national television, and with a straight face.

    So, it is with some regret that I can no longer hold that uncomfortable conclusion at bay:

    They’re right. We are.

    It would appear that “janekat” has what it takes to be a member of the DNC elite. And she’s absolutely one of Thomas Sowell’s “Anointed.” I have not yet had a chance to read Mr. Sowell’s book The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, but I have read the text of his speech on the subject, and it rings wholly true. This part of the speech particularly so:

    Just as economic issues are often seen as being about “the rich” and “the poor,” various statistical disparities between social groups are often attributed to the moral failings of “society,” just as innumerable dangers that are allowed to exist show society’s blindness or callousness.

    Whatever the issue, it tends to be seen within this framework — this vision of the anointed– and to take on the aura of a moral crusade. “Intellectuals cannot operate at room temperature,” as Eric Hoffer put it. They cannot simply say that policy A is preferred to policy B for the following reasons and with the following evidence. To do that would be to lay their reasons and evidence alongside the reasons and evidence of those who disagree with them, so that others can weigh the one against the other. To argue in this way, on the same moral plane and under the same impartial rules of logic and evidence applying to both sides would be a violation of the whole vision in which the anointed see themselves. Their role is not to put themselves on the same plane as other people. The very words and phrases they use reveal the loftier plane on which they see themselves. From this loftier plane they are to raise our “consciousness,” make us “aware” and hope that we will “grow.” Those who nevertheless continue to disagree with them must then be shown to be not merely in error but in sin.

    And let them without sin cast the first stones, as it were.

    But here’s the question I have had, as succinctly put by Sowell:

    How do the anointed manage to survive – and, indeed, flourish – after being wrong so often?

    And he answers it:

    Much as animals and plants survive in nature– by being in environments favorable to their strengths and not very severe on their weaknesses. The strengths of the anointed are verbal strengths and mental nimbleness, combined with whatever academic credentials may help sustain their sense of intellectual and moral superiority. There are environments in which that is sufficient and other environments in which that counts for virtually nothing. The anointed can be found concentrated in the former kinds of environments, rather than the latter, just as fish are found in the sea and not on mountaintops, just as it is just the reverse with eagles.

    The academic world, for example, is a sort of natural habitat or wild-life refuge for ideas that cannot stand the test of empirical results– except for those fields in which there are decisive tests, such as science, mathematics, engineering, medicine– and athletics. In all these fields, in their differing ways, there comes a time when you must either put up or shut up. It should not be surprising that all of these fields are notable exceptions to the complete domination of the left on campuses across the country.

    Where they are free to brainwash the young, some of whom become the primary and secondary educators of our children. And make no mistake – the world of the NEA is, too, a cloistered academic one where there is no decisive testing of empirical results. To the education system, how a child feels has become more important that what (s)he learns. Rand’s Comprachicos have spread greatly since the 50’s. They exist in politics as well – for “verbal strengths and mental nimbleness” are the hallmark of the successful politician, are they not? And how often do politicians actually debate “Policy A” vs. “Policy B” on the merits, rather than on the intent? Even in closed-door sessions away from the cameras? As the link above shows, the ranks of editorial cartoonists are rife with The Anointed as well, and they are but the most visible indicator of The Anointed dominating the media.

    Nowhere has this jarring disconnect from reality in favor of lofty “higher ends” been more pronounced than with the gun control fight. That prominence has been due to, as Sowell put it, a lack of conclusive tests for empirical results. The fight over “Affirmative Action,” the fight over “Welfare reform,” the fight over taxes, all of those fights and more have not produced clear, unassailable empirical evidence of success or failure.

    But “gun control” has. And presented with that evidence, the only thing The Anointed can respond with are reports like this one that states that the research in to whether gun control laws are or aren’t effective is inconclusive, and more research is needed. But here’s the incontrovertible, conclusive proof that, at least in part, “gun control” doesn’t make the public safer – concealed-carry. In every state where “shall-issue” concealed-carry legislation has been promoted, the gun control groups predict “blood in the streets,” “Dodge City shootouts,” carnage and mayhem and death, Oh My! And it never happens – anywhere. The “gun control” of keeping guns out of the hands of the law-abiding has been conclusively proven ineffective at making us safer.

    Faced with that incontrivertible empirical evidence, the best argument The Anointed can come up with is that it can’t be conclusively proven that guns in the hands of the citizens make things safer, but what it demonstrates unquestionably is that more guns doesn’t equal more crime – yet they don’t abandon their mantra. Regardless of the empirical evidence they totally ignore the absence of the dire consequences they always predict, and in each new state the emotional argument is repeated, rather than debated on its merits as it should be. Again – “gun control” up to and including outright bans has not made England safer. They’ve simply disarmed the law-abiding, but pointing this out to The Anointed doesn’t phase them.

    However, that is only an aside to the larger problem I discussed earlier. Gun control is my particular hobby-horse because, to me, it encompasses the most explicit and outrageous attack on individual liberty that The Anointed pursue – a deliberate, undisguised, and direct attack on the integrity of the Constitution of the United States. It is that document that stands in the way of their quest to give us what they feel we deserve – good and hard – and it is that document that we, the masses, are tasked to protect and defend.

    Because if we don’t do it, no one will. Certainly not our elected officials without our torches and pitchforks behind ’em.

    My earlier piece “Not with a Bang…” decried what I saw as a defeatist attitude among more than just the two examples I gave. The question I asked there may have been answered: Have we reached a “critical mass” where The Anointed have sway over enough of the population to get them to yeild our rights for The Anointed’s “higher purpose”? After the California recall election, the answer appears to be “not quite yet.” California – that bastion of the liberal Anointed (and make no mistake, there is a small conservative Anointed as well – and to the horror of both,) elected a man considered to be wholly unsuitable to be Governor of the 7th largest economy in the world. A man who was not one of The Anointed. A man who may not be controlled by The Anointed (but seeing as he married into one of the Brahmin families of the Anointed, that remains to be seen.) Worse, a man popular with the hoi polloi – which, in a democracy gives him power that The Anointed seldom receive. Worse still, the recall election demonstrates that the electorate can still be motivated to turn out in volume – and that cannot be good for The Anointed who see them as “not very bright” – ignorant, easily lead rubes who are the willingly-manipulated pawns of the forces of sinful self-interest.

    Still, it’s not all good news. As the joke goes “I want to vote for the best candidate, but he never runs!” – and the system is set up to ensure that he doesn’t. If the recall election proves nothing else, it shows that the entrenched powers will stop at nothing short of actual assassination to retain power, so if you want to run for office it indicates something other than a desire simply to do a good job. I’ve said for quite a while that anyone actually willing to run for office ought to be immediately disqualified. Arnold’s election proves, actually it only reaffirms, that popular recognition is the only way to elected office other than through the political party machinery, and John and Jane Q. Citizen don’t have a chance of running through those machines without coming out mangled beyond recognition.

    (Let me say that I hope Arnold does a good job as Governor, but I will not be surprised if he is thwarted at every turn by his legislature, or if he turns out like Jesse Ventura to be not up to the job on philosophical grounds.)

    Here’s the situation as I see it:

    The The Anointed control the halls of higher education with the possible exception of the schools of engineering and the hard sciences (which are populated more and more by foreign students rather than domestic ones, as our population produces fewer and fewer students willing and capable of competing.) The Anointed have a firm grip on primary and secondary education in this country, and are only threatened by home-schooling (not an option for most families) and school vouchers (which they oppose vehemently.) Controlling these is actually more important than controlling higher education – it’s easier to indoctrinate the young before they learn to think, as Ayn Rand explained so graphically in “The Comprachicos,” or as illustrated in the present by this post. At any rate, both home-schooling and vouchers are, I think, too little, too late.

    The Anointed occupy positions of power in the media, and are less and less concerned about the obvious exercise of that power in attempting to influence the “people of average or lower intelligence.” Even when the manipulation fails as it did in California, there is no hue and cry over it. Yes, the conservatives have talk radio, and conservative print media exists, and Fox News for TV, but overwhelmingly the Anointed run the newsrooms in TV and print. Listening recently to the Hugh Hewitt radio show a caller commented that, during the news breaks on his local station, the news being reported was in diametric opposition to what what Hewitt was reporting. Reuters and the AP represent the news-reporting bodies of most small radio outlets. As more and more children process through the school system and have children of their own, the less likely they are to understand, less be swayed by, the relatively minor influence of conservative media that preaches pretty much only to the faithful.

    The Anointed occupy seats in the legislatures and benches of the judiciary, though not yet in numbers large enough to completely control policy. While there they are active in the pursuit of increasing their numbers, however, and thwarting attempts to increase the number of conservatives – see the Democrat opposition to judicial nominees who “believe in anything.” Possibly the most blatant example after that is the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals – also of California – of whom fellow blogger Phelps recently wrote:

    The discouragment comes from realising that I have no expectation of the application of law from the 9th circuit. None. The 9th is so activist, so interventionist, and so partisain(sic) that it is a mockery of what the Judicial branch is supposed to represent. They are supposed to be the brake on the engine of government. Instead, the 9th has ventured so far into judicial activism that they are not slowing the engine, but instead speeding it along.

    He is not alone in that assessment.

    I have written that liberals and conservatives are both necessary to the proper functioning of a healthy society, and I truly believe that. But there’s a caveat: The liberals have to play by the same rules. They cannot abandon logic and reason for “higher purposes” and “greater callings.” They must recognize that their reality has to be the same one the rest of us live in, and right now that doesn’t appear to be the case. Bill Whittle, for instance, longs for the day when the Democrats return to “the party claimed by Jefferson and Truman, and many millions of other decent, patriotic Americans, people of integrity with whom it is a pleasure – sometimes an honor – to disagree.” They certainly aren’t that today, and to be honest, neither is the Republican party. In the world of politics, things have gotten to the point illustrated in this Sacramento Bee article:

    “What is a little disconcerting for the French is an American president who seems to be principled,” said Jean Duchesne, an English literature professor at Condorcet College in Paris. “The idea that politics should be based on principles is unimaginable because principles lead to ideology, and ideology is dangerous.”

    But we who are politically engaged are all ideologues. The difference is in our ideologies. Maximum freedom for the individual, or maximum conformance to the ideals of the Anointed?

    I’ve also written that I believe we sit at a crossroads in history – where, through the easy availability of disparate opinion and vast amounts of information, we can, as a minority, influence our political futures far beyond our mere numbers. Besides the resignation I illustrated in “Not With a Bang…”, there is a great deal of frustrated anger out there in the Jacksonian community, and the internet lets the frustrated communicate – and organize – in ways never before possible. Again, the gun control issue is foremost in this, as the gun control Anointed have commented at length on our ability to quickly and effectively organize and resist their efforts. Perhaps Missouri’s concealed-carry legislation, over a decade in the making and requiring the overturning of a governor’s veto, best exemplifies this. However, I don’t think this window of opportunity is going to be open long. We must seize it, soon, or resign ourselves to one of two uncomfortable futures: Losing with a whimper, or eventually being forced to take arms and risk losing with a bang.

    Discussion of this would also be appreciated, because I’m pretty much out of ideas.

    Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection, Part II

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    In Part 1 I used the transcript of the Warren v. District of Columbia decision to illustrate that the courts have uniformly held that the State (municipal, county, State or Federal) has no obligation to protect individuals, just the community at large.

    Were you shocked? (Well, if you’re a gun nut like me, probably not. But John and Jane Q. Public probably would be.)

    “Why,” you might ask “would the state not be liable for failure to protect?” The answer might be uncomfortable, John & Jane. First, it’s logistically impossible for the police to be everywhere. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics there were about 650,000 police officers nationwide in municipal, county, and state forces in 1996. Of these, approximately 64% are “responding officers”. Divide that by three shifts, and it means that there are about 140,000 police natiowide available to respond to a call at any time. And things haven’t changed that much in the intervening years. The U.S. population is about 280,000,000. That’s one cop on the beat for every 2,000 of us. Not good odds.

    And because the state can’t afford to be. If the State was liable for not protecting every individual from crime, the lawsuits would bankrupt the State in no time. But this brings up a really ugly reality – one that is well illustrated in the dissenting opinion in Riss v. New York, which I will quote in whole from:

    “Linda Riss, an attractive young woman, was for more than six months terrorized by a rejected suitor well known to the courts of this State, one Burton Pugach. This miscreant, masquerading as a respectable attorney, repeatedly threatened to have Linda killed or maimed if she did not yield to him: “If I can’t have you, no one else will have you, and when I get through with you, no one else will want you”. In fear for her life, she went to those charged by law with the duty of preserving and safeguarding the lives of the citizens and residents of this State. Linda’s repeated and almost pathetic pleas for aid were received with little more than indifference. Whatever help she was given was not commensurate with the identifiable danger. On June 14, 1959 Linda became engaged to another man. At a party held to celebrate the event, she received a phone call warning her that it was her “last chance”. Completely distraught, she called the police, begging for help, but was refused. The next day Pugach carried out his dire threats in the very manner he had foretold by having a hired thug throw lye in Linda’s face. Linda was blinded in one eye, lost a good portion of her vision in the other, and her face was permanently scarred. After the assault the authorities concluded that there was some basis for Linda’s fears, and for the next three and one-half years, she was given around-the-clock protection.” (My emphasis)

    A lot of good that did her.

    “Linda has turned to the courts of this State for redress, asking that the city be held liable in damages for its negligent failure to protect her from harm. With compelling logic, she can point out that, if a stranger, who had absolutely no obligation to aid her, had offered her assistance, and thereafter Burton Pugach was able to injure her as a result of the negligence of the volunteer, the courts would certainly require him to pay damages. (Restatement, 2d, Torts, § 323.) Why then should the city, whose duties are imposed by law and include the prevention of crime (New York City Charter, § 435) and, consequently, extend far beyond that of the Good Samaritan, not be responsible? If a private detective acts carelessly, no one would deny that a jury could find such conduct unacceptable. Why then is the city not required to live up to at least the same minimal standards of professional competence which would be demanded of a private detective?”

    “Yeah! Why not!?”

    Because as I pointed out, the City couldn’t afford to pay for all those lawsuits. They have a hard enough time making the budget as it is.

    “So why,” you might ask yourself, “didn’t Linda do something to defend herself?” And here’s the answer, from that same decision:

    Linda’s reasoning seems so eminently sensible that surely it must come as a shock to her and to every citizen to hear the city argue and to learn that this court decides that the city has no duty to provide police protection to any given individual. What makes the city’s position particularly difficult to understand is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense (former Penal Law, § 1897). Thus, by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of New York which now denies all responsibility to her.“ (My emphasis)

    She was denied the means to defend herself, by a City that had no legal responsibility to defend her.

    And that, boys and girls, is what the practical result of “gun control” is. Denial of the means to defend yourself, while not providing any other layer of real protection.

    St. George Tucker in his 1803 book Blackstone’s Commentaries – a review of American law – said this about the Second Amendment:

    This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty. . . . The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.” (My emphasis)

    St. George Tucker called the right of self-defense “the first law of nature,” and he was not alone. Yet the State (in all its forms, not just the one we live under) has always worked to ensure that the general public has as little ability to defend itself as possible, rendering the populace supplicant to the State for protection that it may or may not bestow at its whim.

    The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting, or target shooting, or even primarily about self-defense against the average criminal. It’s about self-defense against government tyranny. But so long as it exists, the others follow logically.

    YOU are responsible for your protection. No one else can be made to be.

    So what am I advocating? That the government make a public announcement that they aren’t capable of protecting people, and besides, it isn’t their job anyway, and that everybody would be well-advised to start carrying guns in a big hurry? (I was asked that question, verbatim, once.)

    No.

    Let’s take a few minutes and discuss “the proper role of government.”

    In all my reading, at one time I found this link having to do with that very question. It’s an essay on the subject by Ezra Taft Benson, Eisenhower’s Secretary of Agriculture. He has a lot to say on the matter, some with which I concur, some I don’t, but thought-provoking nonetheless:

    “It is generally agreed that the most important single function of government is to secure the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. But, what are those right? And what is their source?

    “There are only two possible sources. Rights are either God-given as part of the Divine Plan, or they are granted by government as part of the political plan. Reason, necessity, tradition and religious convictions all lead me to accept the divine origin of these rights. If we accept the premise that human rights are granted by government, then we must be willing to accept the corollary that they can be denied by government.

    “…Frederick Bastiat, phrased it so succinctly,

    ” ‘Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.’ “

    Well, not being a “believer”, I disagree with God being the source of individual rights, but I certainly reject the premise that rights are “granted” by government. As to accepting the corollary that rights can be denied by government – certainly they can – so long as the People allow it. And I’ve said elsewhere, a “right” is what the overwhelming majority of a society believes it is. Taft continues:

    “In a primitive state, there is no doubt that each man would be justified in using force, if necessary, to defend himself against physical harm, against theft of the fruits of his labor, and against enslavement of another.

    “Indeed, the early pioneers found that a great deal of their time and energy was being spent doing all three – defending themselves, their property and their liberty – in what properly was called the “Lawless West.” In order for man to prosper, he cannot afford to spend his time constantly guarding his family, his fields, and his property against attack and theft, so he joins together with his neighbors and hires a sheriff. At this precise moment, government is born. The individual citizens delegate to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves. The sheriff now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves – nothing more.”

    But the sheriff’s not responsible for doing that job for everybody all the time. The law says so. Even if he were held legally responsible, logistically it is impossible to accomplish everywhere, all the time. He can only do the best he humanly can, because even though he represents the power of government, he’s a human being just like the rest of us with all attendant flaws.

    However, Benson’s phrasing here is illustrative:

    “The individual citizens delegate to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves. The sheriff now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves – nothing more.”

    I would not have used “delegate” in that sentence, nor would I have expressed it as “what they had a right to do for themselves.” “Delegate” implies a surrender of the right, and “had” reinforces that implication.

    Instead, I think we extend to law-enforcement the power necessary to protect us (as best they can), while still retaining that right for ourselves. It isn’t a matter of yeilding a right to a governmental authority, it’s a matter of employing government to enhance our safety above what we are able to do for ourselves alone. All-in-all a “proper role of government”.

    So no, I don’t want the government to come out and proclaim that they cannot protect us, because by and large that’s not the case. What I do want is for the populace to understand the government’s limitations in that capacity. That fact has a large bearing on the right to arms, and a much larger bearing on the responsibilities of citizens. If they are not aware of the facts, then they cannot make reasonable decisions. In programming terms: GIGO. And there’s a lot of “garbage in”.

    Regardless of why people commit crime, active resistance to it is the only way to stop them during the commission. Relying solely on the police for that active resistance makes the job of the criminal easier and safer, as the residents of England have come to discover. Robert A. Heinlein wrote in Starship Troopers (and if you don’t think it’s a book on philosophy, you need to go read it):

    “What is ‘moral sense’? It is an elaboration of the instinct to survive. The instinct to survive is human nature itself, and every aspect of our personalities derives from it.

    “But the instinct to survive…can be cultivated into motivations more subtle and much more complex than the blind, brute urge of the individual to stay alive. …’moral instinct’ was the instilling in you by your elders of the truth that survival can have stronger imperatives than that of your own personal survival. Survival of your family, for example. Of your children, when you have them. Of your nation, if you struggle that high up the scale.”

    There’s an essay (and now a book) by a man named Jeff Snyder entitled A Nation of Cowards. It’s not surprisingly received little attention – even among gun nuts – because what of Snyder declares. Snyder declares that that the crime problem cannot be addressed without confronting the moral responsibility of the intended victim. He states that taking responsibility for one’s life, family and community requires fighting back when threatened with violence.

    A friend of mine once said:

    “The vast majority of people are good, decent “herbivores” who just wander around, harming nobody. Unfortunately, there are a small number of carnivores out there, who would prey upon the herbivores. The fact that some of the herbivores have the ability to defend themselves and others makes ALL herbivores safer, and only makes life appreciably more dangerous to the carnivores. I don’t think there is a huge amount of violence out there….but there is SOME.

    “I don’t carry guns so that I can shoot people, I carry a gun so that if somebody tries to do something violent or bad, I can put a stop to the violence. The idea is actually one of being able to bring to bear overwhelming force in the face of force, so that the first person doesn’t try to use force in the first place.”

    Snyder insists that responsible citizens must be armed and must resist when confronted with crime. I don’t think that’s the case, myself. That’s your “Dodge City” scenario with a six-shooter on every hip.

    I think Snyder, Heinlein, and my friend all have legitimate points, though. The base instinct of all creatures is self-preservation. If confronted with crime, the natural base reaction is “cover your ass.” However, we’re part of society, and ultimately a nation. If, as Heinlein put it, our ‘moral sense’ is educated to the point where we value something higher than ourselves, then “avoiding trouble” when it comes to you is immoral. It is your duty to resist, in defense of the rest of society.

    However, duty requires protecting yourself (self-preservation) and your society (which is, admittedly, a higher order of duty not everyone accepts), but duty does not require that you risk your life to do so. Duty includes serving on juries, and serving as witness in court, too, if that’s what is required.

    My friend’s example of the “good, decent herbivores” represents the majority of the population, and this majority is largely unaware that they are the ones responsible for their own safety. They depend on the police almost exclusively for their safety and protection from crime. In their fear of violence, they fear the other “herbivores” with guns, too. They do so because some gun owners are idiots, but mostly because they’re told that guns are the cause of crime, and they don’t know any better. They don’t accept that general citizens who are willing to resist crime are an asset, not a liability to society.

    So what am I advocating? I am advocating educating the citizens of our society as to their rights and attendant duties. That way they can make educated decisions as to their own protection, and that of their fellow citizens. Then if they decide that, for them, actively opposing crime is not an option, they won’t be so eager to deny the means to those who decide it’s the moral thing to do.

    In other words, I trust my fellow-man to make the right decision if given all the information.

    Is the Government Responsible for Your Protection? Part 1

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    A lot of people seem to think so. “We need more police, better enforcement,” is usually the refrain you hear when crime rates go up, or a string of crimes occurs. The police tell us that we shouldn’t resist when we’re being robbed or raped. It’s called taking the law into your own hands when you do. It’s the job of the police and the justice system – branches of the government – to protect you, according to most people. Certainly according to most police chiefs and elected officials.

    But is it?

    Let me tell you a story:

    In the early morning hours of March 16, 1975, Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro, and Miriam Douglas were asleep in their rooming house at 1112 Lamont Street, N.W. Warren and Taliaferro shared a room on the third floor of the house; Douglas shared a room on the second floor with her four-year-old daughter. The women were awakened by the sound of the back door being broken down by two men later identified as Marvin Kent and James Morse. The men entered Douglas’ second floor room, where Kent forced Douglas to sodomize him and Morse raped her.

    Warren and Taliaferro heard Douglas’ screams from the floor below. Warren telephoned the police, told the officer on duty that the house was being burglarized, and requested immediate assistance. The department employee told her to remain quiet and assured her that police assistance would be dispatched promptly. Warren’s call was received at Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters at 6:23 a. m., and was recorded as a burglary in progress. At 6:26 a. m., a call was dispatched to officers on the street as a “Code 2” assignment, although calls of a crime in progress should be given priority and designated as “Code 1.” Four police cruisers responded to the broadcast; three to the Lamont Street address and one to another address to investigate a possible suspect.

    Meanwhile, Warren and Taliaferro crawled from their window onto an adjoining roof and waited for the police to arrive. While there, they saw one policeman drive through the alley behind their house and proceed to the front of the residence without stopping, leaning out the window, or getting out of the car to check the back entrance of the house. A second officer apparently knocked on the door in front of the residence, but left when he received no answer. The three officers departed the scene at 6:33 a. m., five minutes after they arrived.

    Warren and Taliaferro crawled back inside their room. They again heard Douglas’ continuing screams; again called the police; told the officer that the intruders had entered the home, and requested immediate assistance. Once again, a police officer assured them that help was on the way. This second call was received at 6:42 a. m. and recorded merely as “investigate the trouble” – it was never dispatched to any police officers.

    Believing the police might be in the house, Warren and Taliaferro called down to Douglas, thereby alerting Kent to their presence. Kent and Morse then forced all three women, at knifepoint, to accompany them to Kent’s apartment. For the next fourteen hours the women were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon each other, and made to submit to the sexual demands of Kent and Morse.

    Those paragraphs are taken, with the exception of a single word, “appellants,” verbatim from the opinion in Warren v. District of Columbia. Carolyn Warren, Joan Taliaferro, and Miriam Douglas were the appellants in a lawsuit against the District of Columbia and its police department for failing to protect them. Fail them it did, but the court found against them. And here is its reasoning:

    A publicly maintained police force constitutes a basic governmental service provided to benefit the community at large by promoting public peace, safety and good order. The extent and quality of police protection afforded to the community necessarily depends upon the availability of public resources and upon legislative or administrative determinations concerning allocation of those resources. The public, through its representative officials, recruits, trains, maintains and disciplines its police force and determines the manner in which personnel are deployed. At any given time, publicly furnished police protection may accrue to the personal benefit of individual citizens, but at all times the needs and interests of the community at large predominate. Private resources and needs have little direct effect upon the nature of police services provided to the public. Accordingly, courts have without exception concluded that when a municipality or other governmental entity undertakes to furnish police services, it assumes a duty only to the public at large and not to individual members of the community. (Emphasis is mine)

    Note the quote: “without exception.” This is not the first time someone has sued the government for not protecting them, not by a long shot. It’s one of the most egregious examples, but far from the only one.

    So, it isn’t the government’s responsibility to protect “individual members of the community,” that is, you and me specifically.

    So whose job is it?

    Think on that awhile. I’ll come back with Part 2 where I’ll discuss just why it can’t be the job of government.