I think I’ve told the story about how, in a college literature class, I raged against a line in “The Catcher in the Rye” that said:
The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.
I see a lot of fantasy persecution on the Internet – second amendment discussions where writers imagine their embrace of firearms is vital to resisting an increasingly tyrannical government. Legal discussions where writers imagine that jury nullification is a vital tool for resisting the abuses of corrupt judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers. Discussions of societal trends where Christians and men’s groups imagine they are the real persecuted victims.
In every case, it seemed to me, the real problem was that the world was not emotionally satisfying to the writer and working within the system would be hard, incomplete, and still emotionally unsatisfying. The reality is that, given a broad enough perspective, we are all more or less interchangeable cogs in a vast universe that will grind along just fine with or without us. That’s a tough situation for an individual ego.
The temptation is to become the hero in one’s own personal narrative. And, being Alexander, cutting the Gordian knot with your sword gives you a better shot of dopamine than being part of a committee tasked with unraveling the damn thing.
But, at some point, most of us have to grow up and do what we can to help the system grind along in a more or less satisfactory manner. It’s not glorious. But it’s a citizen’s duty.
Why you pickin’ on me, Doug?
Gotta get my kicks somewhere.
Parsing your argument leaves us with this:
1. It’s a citizen’s duty to suppress the second amendment to not resist an increasingly tyrannical government.
2. It’s a citizen’s duty to suppress jury nullification as a vital tool for resisting the abuses of corrupt judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers.
3. It’s a citizen’s duty for Christians and men’s groups to be persecuted victims.
You might not like such a bare presentation of your position, but logically, this is exactly what you said.
Thank you for being so clear. Rarely have you expressed yourself with such candor to make fully evident the relative importance you regard the individual in juxtaposition to a group.
Questions:
1. To whom does this citizen owe a duty?
2. Where does this duty originate?
3. What does the citizen receive in exchange for the undertaking?
4. What is the penalty for breaching a duty?
The tyranny and persecution is illusory. It exists in the fevered imagination of the lazy and unhappily insignificant. So, I deny your premise.
Doug, here’s an accurate parsing of your argument: It’s a citizen’s duty to do what we can to help the system grind along in a more or less satisfactory manner.
Questions:
1. To whom does this citizen owe a duty?
2. Where does this duty originate?
3. What does the citizen receive in exchange for the undertaking?
4. What is the penalty for breaching a duty?
Sure, I’ll play:
1. To whom does this citizen owe a duty?
The country of which the individual is a citizen.
2. Where does this duty originate?
Peoria, Illinois.
3. What does the citizen receive in exchange for the undertaking?
Not living in a state of nature.
4. What is the penalty for breaching a duty?
Depends on the breach: Civic disapproval, increasingly dysfunctional government, criminal sanction.
1. So every regime is due a duty from its citizens to keep the order in place? You’ve articulated the quintessential authoritarian position.
Answer #2.
3. The Hobbesian fallacy. Hobbes has been thoroughly discredited. Find a better cite. Further, don’t presume others obtain a benefit from being forced into a collective. What you’re ultimately saying is that Doug enjoys not living in the fictive “state of nature,” so all others must sacrifice and perform a duty to the state so Doug can live as he wants. Your position is selfish, and selfishness is fine, as long as you don’t force anyone else to pick up your tab.
4. Amazing and terrifying. You’d impose criminal penalties in complete absence of harm to another, Your argument logically terminates in criminalizing mere speech, as it is the order that is due protection, and all who violate their duty to the order merit sanction.
You’ve articulated a Communist system.
Your arguments are so flawed where does one begin.
1. Citizens have a duty to obey the law, which exists to maintain civil order. He had articulated a safe society that nearly all nations have elected.
2. Hobbes view of human nature is rather dreary, but nearly all sane citizens elect not to live in the “state of nature.” It is a contract that you cannot annuedl except by emmigration. Somalia is nice this time of year.
3.Communism is the collective ownership of the means of production. Find another word. And all that due violate the law deserve sanction to preserve order.
Ain’t no hammered like vodka hammered. Switch to rum. You won’t have such a dour Eastern Bloc disposition while tying one on.
As expected, not rational response.
Bark away.
The citizens don’t necessarily have any obligation to the regime. At least under our system, if they don’t feel the regime is serving the country’s best interests, the citizens can vote in a new regime.
I’m glad you believe Hobbes has been thoroughly discredited. But you won’t be surprised that I believe you’re wrong.
Are you really terrified? Or are you just exaggerating for effect? Because if my writing causes you to feel terror, it would explain a lot, but medications are probably indicated. In this case, you’re getting the vapors because of your inability to read. I pretty clearly said that the penalty is going to depend on the breach. One penalty might be civic disapproval. Another might be criminal sanction. Somehow (probably because you wanted to) you construed that as meaning that there would be a criminal penalty in every case, even in the complete absence of harm to anyone.
There might be a rational basis for going outside the law to exchange an unsatisfactory government for a new one. But, at that point, abstract notions of right and wrong don’t make a practical difference. The only relevant question is whether you have sufficient force to accomplish regime change. Being able to persuade others that you are right might increase the force available to you and decrease the force available to the regime. But it’s persuading others that matters. Actually being right isn’t a requirement.
If I can borrow a phrase from Vonnegut & his Kilgore Trout, “at least part of the trouble was slipshod storytelling in the New Testament.” I know I’ve said this before, but if you look at the Beatitudes, it’s not easy to be among the “blessed” — unless you’re poor or in mourning, then you have to do the hard work of “peacemaking” or “being merciful.” But being persecuted the easy way to be among the blessed, since other people do all the work.
Maybe that’s not a conscious decision by most people; but it does seem an easy shortcut to seeing yourself as righteous or among the “elect.”
This reminds me of what many have observed about how a lot of the political sound and fury among Bible enthusiasts is focused on gays and abortion despite limited Biblical support on these issues. And, yet, economic issues – about which Jesus had somewhat more to say – go largely ignored.
To those who feel the Second Amendment is their means to repress a tyrannical government: the federal government has nukes and bombs and tanks and planes and drones and computer-aided guidance systems. You have a collection of handguns and rifles that, if you’re lucky, you’re not shooting yourself or loved ones with while cleaning them. Good luck with your armed resistance.
Precisely my arguments. It in indicative of a fertile mind that the government is always after them — and that they could fend it off, if it truly was after them. Very circular logic, which explains why they so often shoot (and sometimes kill) themselves with the very guns they procure to protect themselves. See one sheriff of Fayette County – my birth county.
And how do we identify the most dangerous people in a society? Who is the most likely to be dangerous to others and one’s self, yet most difficult to persuade from being otherwise? The paranoid, armed person: the one who believes that others are out to get him and has armed himself to the teeth.
“Who is the most likely to be dangerous to others”
All history has shown that collectivists are the most dangerous, having killed hundreds of millions. I can’t think of a single libertarian genocidal maniac with boxcars, concentration camps, gulags, and the rest of the apparatus employed by the Left.
When you really want a mass murderer, you find yourself someone who thinks he knows what’s good for people. You’re not going to rack up the body count with a libertarian-minded dude who doesn’t believe he’s fit to tell you what to do, in any way, much less think he has the authority to load you and your family on a boxcar for a long train ride.
Do you profess being a libertarian-minded dude? Yes/no question with a yes/no answer.
When I say assessment of dangerous, I mean like when you are sitting in the same room with a guy who has a loaded weapon. If you have any sense, you are interested in his state of mind, not whether he is a collectivist. That’s is usually not the first, or even last, question that you should consider..
Stuart, I worry more about the greatest capacity to kill, and the wholesale killers are always found in government.
Joe, I scored a 94% Libertarian on this test:
http://www.isidewith.com/political-quiz
Please share your score.
I find your statements about HJR3 wholly incompatible with any profession of libertarianism.
http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/07/the-libertarian-gay-marriage-paradox
Some 6% there.
That’s because you lost the argument and have a very poor grasp of the issue.
A great article from Pat Buchanan today:
http://buchanan.org/blog/freedom-dies-6255
What is the reference to Reason supposed to mean or prove?
We’re having an argument? Good. You do poorly at those.
You claim to be a libertarian-minded dude. (We can discuss the “dude” part later.) Your position on gay marriage isn’t libertarian. It’s “Nanny State conservative”. You know, the thing you’re running around blasting people about being.
The libertarian position on marriage is the one mentioned in the article and the one I’ve been saying in these parts for months now – get the government out of the marriage business.
So I find it hard to believe you’re libertarian.
Another example – the guy I voted for in the last gubernatorial election, Rupert Boneham. The Libertarian Party candidate for the governor of Indiana. His position on gay marriage:
“Your position on gay marriage isn’t libertarian.”
Proof? You’re utterly unqualified to evaluate any libertarian argument, and you fail at this argument for precisely the same reason you lost the argument on gay marriage:
You don’t know what you’re doing.
“The libertarian position on marriage is the one mentioned in the article”
Oh, it’s a monolithic group, now? Please, you don’t understand libertarianism, so you sound silly when you claim all libertarians are of the same mind. For its part, Reason is regularly blasted as being the mouthpiece of the Beltway libertines.
It’s evident you haven’t spent a second attempting to understand my position on gay marriage. You merely glanced at what box was checked, and you’ve been making a spectacle of yourself by flailing hysterically since that moment.
Put ten libertarians in a room and you get 15 opinions, none of them workable or logically consistent. And a few are homophobic because libertarians are just right wingers that wish to get high, have sex with “Consenting” children and break the law at will.
Freedom – I give you a fair amount of latitude because you bring dissenting opinions and help break up the group think a bit. But there’s no need to be a dick about it.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I know full well what I’m doing. I’m letting you point out your own inconsistencies in your own positions. That you spent your entire reply attacking me says it worked as expected, that you don’t have a response otherwise.
“It’s evident you haven’t spent a second attempting to understand my position on gay marriage.”
It didn’t take much longer than a second – the government should be involved in regulating who should and should not get married.
Which is fine. Just admit that’s what it is – not a libertarian position. It’s not less government, and it’s not more freedom.
You’re an authoritarian, not a libertarian.
Libertarianism is, and always has been, fundamentally anti-capitalist in outlook precisely because capitalism–and especially laissez-faire capitalism, is a fundamentally oppressive and authoritarian mode of socioeconomic organization.
And I most certainly do know about the authoritarian movement (that has malnamed itself “Libertarianism” even though it’s anything but) you’re a part of. I was a part of it myself, too, for a decade and a half. Then I decided to start thinking about things and including the real world in my analysis.
SDF, Neither Murray Rothbard nor Ludwig von Mises were anti-capitalist.
Therefore, neither Murray Rothbard nor Ludwig von Mises were libertarians, were they? That link explains it well–libertarianism has always been anti-capitalism. Advocates of authoritarian capitalism such as Rothbard, von Mises, and the modern-day mal-named “Libertarian Party” (actually an authoritarian party) are a recent phenomenon of dishonesty, compared to the history of the term “libertarian.”
Your suggestion that Christian men aren’t persecuted victims is mean-spirited and I’m going to got pout now. Or maybe I’ll wait until after my granddaughter’s birthday party. If I was going to do my citizenly duty, I think I’d do it with a blog that renounces Satan, and all his works, and all his worship, and all his angels, and all his pomp.
How about this. Freedom, you are a brave, loyal, no doubt barrel-chested American Patriot whose keen insights have enriched us all. Thank you for your eternal vigilance in defending the flickering flame of liberty.
Happy? Good. You may go troll elsewhere now.
Doug, I can understand wanting to bring dissenting opinions and help break up the group think a bit, but “Freedom” is like letting a skunk in your living room because you want a little different scent.
If I had low blood pressure, I could take a steady dose of this.
I’ll make you a deal: You quit poisoning the Internet, and I won’t rebut you.