While I, personally, may find it disheartening that someone would consider a strong belief in individual freedoms, liberties, rights and personal responsibility, nothing more than “rhetoric” that “sounds nice”, but which is “far outside the norm”, it is none-the-less enlightening and insightful.
Amid the complaints of using specific political terms to identify such mindsets, it is important to step back and realize that such politically identifying tags are never the basic criteria of this debate. This discussion and debate is easily pared down to a fundamental difference. The two sides divide politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists claiming to act from the highest motives for the greatest good for the greatest number. All the while characterizing the latter as surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism.
For the record, I believe that the jealous defense of individual rights (for themselves and for others) by individuals and groups of individuals is the
only political action that can truly lead to the greatest good for the greatest number. In fact, the sooner we (as a society) embrace individual rights as our highest ideal, the sooner we will have a utopian society. Everyone will be at least 8-10 times richer. There will be NO unemployment. Costs will
plummet. Production will
explode. Innovation will be beyond our wildest imagination. All with extreme environmental responsibility. Everyone's basic needs will be payable out of pocket change. And crime? Crime will be reduced to almost zero.
The truth is that when the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence. Regardless, the plea is of “necessity” and “good intentions” for every infringement desired on our freedom and for every assumption of greater power being sought. Such is and always has been the argument of tyrants. Through propaganda or force, it becomes the creed of slaves.
Daniel Webster warned us that, “The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
Few people truly desire freedom and liberty... and fewer still are willing to fight for it. Most people are content in thinking they have a just master. It remains that one of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the world's evils will be cured by legislative fiat. The fact is that this urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. These insidious encroachments come from well-meaning people who misunderstand the basic tenet that we all possess a set of priceless, irreducible, and inalienable rights which are not things that some person or government has given us but rather what no person or government can take away from us.
A person isn't free unless they are free to make the wrong decisions and it is not the responsibility of government or the legal system to protect citizens from themselves. As has happened in the past, I very nearly got drawn into the call for sources, cites, statistics,
proof! Justifying
any right by statistics, on the basis of beneficial behavior by the many, is as dangerous as denying that right on the basis of criminal behavior or a lack of personal responsibility by the few. One does not have to and indeed does
not justify fundamental rights.
America is a great country. But it is not magically protected from tyranny simply because it is America. It is great only for as long as the Constitution and the freedoms recognized in that document are honored and defended. I cannot accept so-called “necessity”, “good intentions” or "reasonable compromises" that would limit my rights, because I firmly believe that there is no limit to the compromises that I will be asked to accept in the future. History has shown conclusively that one “reasonable”, “needed” or “for the greater good” infringement of our rights quickly leads to the next one. Each time these anti-freedom advocates push their restrictive proposals forward in the halls of government, we are assured, even promised, that if we will only go along "this time," we won't be asked to give up any more of our rights. Each time, that promise is abrogated almost immediately. This is simple historical fact. If I "compromise" today, tomorrow I will be asked to "compromise" again, and my rights will, as they already have been, be slowly whittled down to nothing.
I can't see it when someone says that no one wants to take away my rights, because it is clear that some people do. Yes, they are concerned about certain ills in our society, and they may even believe that their latest restriction will make the situation better, but they also have an irrational fear of other people exercising their freedoms, liberties, and rights, even people who would never harm them in any way. It bothers them deeply, and control is their eventual goal. Drugs are a perfect example -- illegal, but easily available. I can't buy cocaine at the corner drugstore, but I can send a kid down to downtown Boston, Worcester, or Washington DC to get me a big bag of crack, anytime, day or night. The precursors to illegal drugs are often controlled substances themselves, so now we have new classes of mind-altering substances that are made from things like baking soda and No-Doze. Substances that were formerly legal are now illegal, even though the ill effects claimed were few throughout society. More restrictions on
everyone, even those who are responsible.
Pleas of necessity for more restrictions on our rights ignore the fact that such restrictions only affect law-abiding people. Yet they also
harm law-abiding people in numerous ways. Drugs that are easily purchased, without ill effects to the citizenry, over-the-counter in other countries, not only have a much higher price here, but if not obtained through the proper authorities, can, will, and have netted citizens long-term vacations at “club Fed”. Disgusting. And there is absolutely
no proof that allowing people to purchase antibiotics over-the-counter will mean that the population at large will abuse them through self medication. In fact, the only thing that can be proven from the extreme example given is that
DOCTORS have overprescribed them. Those who we are supposed to trust about such matters... and those who very often use their status as a badge that supposedly "automagically" makes them expert enough to condone the destruction of even
more of our freedoms, liberties, and rights!
Prohibition was another prime example. People wanted booze and the law banning it was unpopular, so of course, the booze flowed copiously. Our own Kennedy family has their patriarch to thank for their wealth: their empire was built on bootleg whiskey. History does not even dispute that fact. And yet today's equivalent (marijuana) is equally vilified and flows just as copiously.
Yes, there are certain risks in freedom, but there are also risks in losing it. Thomas Jefferson once stated that he “would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” Regardless of altruistic claims to the contrary, hospitals have, will, can and
do turn people away routinely. The examples are just as numerous and even more heart wrenching than the claims of my cold-heartedness. (In fact, some of those examples could be given from first-hand knowledge.)
As elucidated in the Declaration of Independence, we each have natural, inalienable rights (albeit occasionally limited on a right-by-right basis to ensure that others may exercise
their natural rights - for example, yelling "fire" in a crowded theater, breeding Ebola-infected pigeons, or using suitcase nukes as piñatas). While our Constitutional Republic must have its organizations and controls, its vital life-blood is individual liberty. It is not the business of government to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. The purpose of government controls should extend no further than is necessary to secure the liberties and freedoms by protecting the equal rights of each individual from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions or restrictions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ideals they were created to serve.
Certainly it is true that if you treat an infection with antibiotics but don't get one hundred percent of the germs, the ones that survive will be the most dangerous. The same can be said for those who would plead for power to regulate others. Those omnipotent moral busybodies who exercise their tyranny for the good of their victims are the most oppressive. They are never satiated and will torment us for our own good to no end, all the while doing so with the approval of their own conscience. They will always use the machinery of law and government to the farthest extent that public opinion, their own distortions, and media propaganda will permit. And as long as that is true, just as with the surviving germs, we're really screwed.
“
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” - GOETHE
Individual rights (and make no mistake about it, there are no other kinds of rights) are not subject to a public vote. The majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority and the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from such oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the
individual).
Yet there are still those that believe in this “mobocracy”... this... “majoritarianism"... as L. Neil Smith calls it and he explains it best:
<blockquote>Nothing subject to majoritarianism ever gets better. "If voting could change things," goes an old anarchist saying, "it would be illegal". Set aside the fact that a voting majority always means a minority of the people. Set aside the fact that elections amount to no more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom. Even at majoritarianism's self-advertised best, there are always losers. Sometimes they constitute as many as just one less than half.</blockquote>
For those of us who believe that freedom, liberty, and rights are more than "rhetoric" that simply "sounds nice", it is hard to see even one percent as insignificant. Especially since that one percent always seems to include
us. (Back to L. Neil Smith)
<blockquote>Majoritarianism rests on two false assumptions and a cynical threat. It first assumes that two people are smarter than one person. Strength is additive, two people are stronger than one person, and this has been the primary source of tragedy throughout human history. Even stupidity seems additive somehow, possibly it's a phenomenon of interference which would explain a lot of that history. People, in fact, do possess certain attributes which are additive, and many which are not at all. Decency, kindness, integrity are all individual characteristics. Time is additive only in a limited sense: two women can't have a baby in four and a half months. If you've ever observed a committee, you know that the highest intelligence in a room isn't the sum of its occupants' IQs, but simply that of the brightest individual -- divided by the number of other people in the room. Just as gravity arises from the nature of space and mass, rights arise from our inherent nature as individual human beings. Rights aren't additive. Systems which assume that they are labor under the false and dangerous assumption that two people have more rights than one.
Some claim that majoritarianism, despite its faults, is an alternative preferable to physical conflict. They're wrong: majoritarianism
is physical conflict. Elections (editorial comment: this also includes referendums and votes within the legislature for new laws) are a process of counting fists, rather than noses, and saying, "We outnumber you -- we could beat you up and kill you -- you might as well give in and save everyone a lot of trouble." Majoritarianism, to put it straightforwardly, possesses the full measure of nobility manifested by any other form of extortion. Based in fallacy and threat, majoritarianism is troubled by certain characteristic malfunctions.
Human rights are an aspect of natural law, a consequence of the way the universe works, as solid and as real as photons or the concept of pi. The idea of self-ownership is the equivalent of Pythagoras' theorem, of evolution by natural selection, of general relativity, and of quantum theory. Before humankind discovered any of these, it suffered, to varying degrees, in misery and ignorance. Where they are suppressed or disregarded today, people still suffer. When Pythagoras, Darwin, Einstein, Bohr, and Rand each made his or her uniquely valuable discovery about the way the universe works, mankind took another step away from savagery, toward lasting safety, comfort, pleasure, and convenience.</blockquote>
I've used this analogy before and even though that was in the context of a specific right, it fits into this discussion as it applies equally to all of our rights.
The last thing a potential rape victim should do is willingly allow herself to be handcuffed by her kidnapper. Once captured, rape and death are probable. Escape is unlikely. Once the handcuffs are on, escape becomes impossible and rape or worse becomes a certainty.
Asking the People to buy into sophisticated arguments to give up
any of our rights is like the kidnapper/rapist plying his prey with liquor, sweet talk and promises of a real good time - if only she'll put on the handcuffs.
Well, expecting us to willingly put on your handcuffs (give up our rights...
any of our rights) is not just stupid, it is traitorous, it is national suicide, and it is a hideous, unthinkable betrayal of not only our freedoms, liberties, rights and heritage, it's a betrayal of our children.
Throughout history, oppression has been fought by those who would rather get hurt than give in.
<blockquote>"Still if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
-- Winston Churchill.</blockquote>
Fundamentally it comes down to the premise that people who have to be
persuaded to be free don't deserve to be.
Oh, and as far as researching the Framer's intents:
<blockquote>"On every question of construction [of the Constitution], let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invent against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p322.</blockquote>
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When we were done with our "fun" I told her she had to "play dead" and I sat down with her to wait. I said, "wow, I'm tired... and hungry" and she laughingly responded, "this is (name deleted)'s ghost... there's fresh coldcuts in the fridge..." I laughed and went to the bathroom to clean up, then went and fixed a sandwich. I was back upstairs with the snack and a glass of water basically finished when my friend (the hubby) came in the bedroom door. I looked at him and said, "good roast beef... oh and (name deleted)'s a real hottie. Too bad she's 'dead'..." She went and got cleaned up and they asked me how they could learn about guns and real self-defense. (Did I mention that they're both black belt former instructors? FYI, They are... and now they're both certified firearms instructors.) So... How was I unfair in making my point?
