How Many Lives Is Gun Control Worth?

[MachineGhost]

I have been wondering why so many of doodles posts go on and on about  the definitions of libertarianism.  Perhaps more than one of Modas posts as well, I don't remember.  Perhaps you don't like the connotations of being a statist so have to make us join the club as well.

It is because non-statists have the true moral high ground.  Who can argue with never using coercion to achieve a just and fair society?  It is sweet poetic justice in that it isn't an oxymoron like everything else a statist government engages in.

Of course, behind "government" is just a plutocracy-kleptocracy bureaucracy fiefdom under guise of "doing good for the little people".  That is the real world.  Statists don't (or don't want to) perceive the real world, but want to naively believe in their fictitious utopia.

P.S.  It goes without saying we don't live in an anarchist utopia either, so to the extent "government" co-opts needed social services, we all have no choice but to comply or suffer.  Reform is the only way it will change.

[RuralEngineer]

Moda,

You always love to re-litigate the past and use that to justify the present.  I wasn't alive back when most of the things you mentioned took place. 

Everything is a matter of degree and personal feeling.  You seem to think there are all these lines in the sand that are universally agreed upon as points where violent resistance becomes acceptable to an entire group of people.  That's just not the way it works.  There are all kinds of things the government is doing right now that I'm pissed about that are headed towards my various personal lines in the sand.  Property / Privacy rights and due process are big ones.  When they start snatching American citizens and holding them indefinitely without trial, as they are legally able to do now, I'll have to think very hard about whether I can tolerate that.  If there is another draft to go fight in a foreign war, that's likely something I won't tolerate either.  Just because the first line in the sand reached is gun control for many of us, our position isn't invalidated because we haven't started marching about any other issue.  The reason I'll fight over the 2nd amendment earlier than on other issues is that it is the MEANS by which I can resist encroachment on my other rights.  If the government starts seriously assaulting the 1st amendment, I have fewer tools to resist if I've been disarmed.

I find your position extremely untenable considering that this country was founded over resistance to taxation practices, a topic that I imagine was much less inflammatory than disarming the citizenry back in the 1700's.  Since the 2nd amendment isn't worth fighting over, I can't believe taxation without representation would be sufficient in your mind.

[moda0306]

RE,

I only relitigate issues of the past when people of the present try to complain about a creeping tyranny worth forming an armed revolution over while looking fondly back on the "good ol' days" like they didn't contain far worse coercion.

As you can see, hopefully... I oppose gun confiscation, so I'm not trying to justify anything.  Well, not anything other than justifying my thinking the gun rights revolutionaries are crazy.


Benko,

I'm just pointing out statism is a pointless term unless you're trying to separate anarchists from everyone else. You can either go with the definition that Wikipedia provides and maybe pick a different term to try to describe the nuances of opinions about government, or misuse it and I can just pretend it means something it doesn't for the sake of not grouping all of us together .  Words have meanings, so I propose we use them correctly. 

Doodle and I concentrate on the definition of libertarianism because when you put a bunch of individuals on a big rock they have to share, staging everything in the context of liberty and private achievement and property is logically inconsistent with our very relation to our environment and each other. Maybe if we were just nebulous entities floating through space it would be different, but we're not.

[MachineGhost]

Words have meanings, so I propose we use them correctly. 

You're pulling a doodle! (Or was that RE?)

Words don't have meanings.  People do.

Heck, create a new word if you have to so everyone understands the exact referrant.

[WildAboutHarry]

Words have meanings, so I propose we use them correctly. 

You're pulling a doodle! (Or was that RE?)

Words don't have meanings.  People do.

Heck, create a new word if you have to so everyone understands the exact referrant.

Or simply follow Humpty Dumpty's approach:

When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.