Author: thewriterinblack

Saw somebody making that claim.  Yep.  Here we go again.

There is a certain element that uses the “you owe to society” or worse the “social contract” to claim obligations on you that you had no say in.

One might argue that there are certain responsibilities.  Most of those responsibilities are negative in nature:  Don’t hurt other people.  Don’t take what other people own.  Essentially, don’t infringe on other people’s rights.

And even a pretty strongly libertarian leaning individual such as myself can recognize that a certain amount of “law and order” actually improves my liberty.  As I have noted elsewhere, being able to get up on my roof with a rifle to defend my home from ruffians is liberty.  Having to spend all my time on that roof because the ruffians are so ubiquitous that I don’t dare do anything else is not.  So having a police force that through deterrence and administering at least theoretically impartial justice to keep those ruffians in check improves my liberty.  I can come down from the roof and go shopping, or playing in the park with my children.

And nobody has been able to demonstrate a scalable method of creating that “law and order”, one that will work on any but the tiniest of societies for long, without the use of coercive force.  The problem, of course, is that once you start using coercive force in a society for the purpose of increasing the net liberty of that society, there’s always the temptation to increase the use of that force.  And there are plenty who are more than willing to give in to that temptation.  It’s a constant battle to prune back the uses, one that is generally unpopular and so doomed to ultimate failure.  So the use of force increases from liberty to overstructure to tyranny until something happens to light a fire under people to make the efforts necessary to prune back government and restore at least a semblance of liberty.

So even when one accepts that ironically some use of coercive force is necessary to maintain a civilized, and free, society, (and, yes, I know that some argue that it’s not–that’s a discussion for another day) one nevertheless must cast a jaundiced eye at increases of that force.

That’s where the advocates of “social contract”and “you owe society…” come in.  They say that because we have police helping to keep crime down so I can come down from that roof, that we have fire departments so that I have less worry that a fire at my neighbor’s house will also burn down my property, that we have courts so that interpersonal disputes don’t turn into generations long blood feuds with the collateral damage they bring, that we have roads so that travel and trade are easier, that we have a military so some foreign power cannot come and take it all away…that because we have all that I have an obligation, a contractual one, to provide whatever it is that person wants provided.

The fact that I pay for that police and fire service, that I pay for those courts, that I pay for those roads and that military isn’t enough to fulfill the contract.  Oh, no.  It’s not enough.

It’s never enough.

The problem with “social contract” and “you owe society” is that they’re open ended.  No matter how much stuff you decide to “pay” on that contract, there’s always something else.

No, I am not obligated to pay for your social program because I use roads.  I paid for the roads in the first place.  That is the sole extent of my “obligation” for use of the roads.  Yes, it’s nice to have police keeping at least a partial check on crime.  I paid for those police.  Obligation for that ends there.  The same for the other.

The fact that I “make use of” or benefit from something that I. paid. for. (or a portion of according to law as it was written) does not obligate me to anything else.

If you want to sell me on why I should pay for something you want, sell it on its own merits.  Don’t hand me a line about “social contract” or “owing” because of things I’ve already paid for.

 

These have been showing up lately.  There’s a lot here today.  The music styles are more varied than is my usual wont.  Not everyone may agree that some of my selections are “breakup songs” but they come across that way to me:

And that’s all for today.  (I know.  That’s enough.)

The subject keeps coming up about people making a big deal about this, that or what other thing one should care so hard about.

I don’t care.

I don’t care who you sleep with, singly or in groups, or with no one, provided that everyone involved is a consenting adult.  I don’t care what gods or goddesses you worship, or none again, provided you don’t try to use force (including government force) to impose your religious beliefs on me.

And, frankly, my friend Michael Z. Williamson said it well in this essay from 2001 (used with permission):

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Friends Don’t Care

by Michael Z. Williamson
July 4, 2001

I can be your best friend.

Not because I care, but because I don’t.

I don’t care what church, if any, you go to. I don’t care if you are Church of God, Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, Church of Christ reformed, Church of Christ Scientist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Byzantine Catholic, Roman Catholic, Jewish Congregationalist, Hindu, Shinto, Islamic, Buddhist, Greek Orthodox, Native American, Irish Druidic, Scandinavian Druidhe, Pagan, Wiccan…Hell, I don’t care if you worship the Great Pumpkin. Or no deity at all. How you spend your Sundays, Saturdays, Fridays, Tuesday evenings, full Moons, or eclipses is up to you.

I don’t care if you have sex with men, women, both, or neither. If it’s in private, and they are freely consenting adults, it’s your business. I may not like it myself, but I don’t care about you.

I don’t care what brand of beer you drink or not, if you drink wine or not, liquor or not. I don’t care if you brew your own, grow your own or roll your own. I don’t care if you smoke dope, rope, or nightshade. It’s your body, poison it any way you wish. Just keep the residue in your own home, okay?

Vegetarian? Okay. Vegan? Great. Rare steak only, or raw rattlesnake? Cool. Squid with the tentacles still wiggling? Suits me just fine. 

Are you skinny? Fat? Ugly? Overdressed? Underdressed? Naked? Hey, it’s your life, do what you wish. If I don’t like it, I won’t watch.

I am a politician’s worst nightmare. I can’t be made to hate, I can’t be panicked by the strange, and I’ll react ungraciously to attempts to inspire me so. I vote on issues, not on smokescreens, and no Orwellian pigs in suits need apply.

I’m not part of a vast conspiracy to put Candidate X into office–Candidate X is an idiot, and so is Candidate Y. I voted for the Manchurian Candidate myself, because I don’t care. I don’t belong to the Hate Group of the Month Club on the Evening news, because I don’t care. How can you possibly think I have anything in common with them?

Oh, right. I own guns. So do they. I’ll bet a bunch of them read Doctor Seuss growing up, too, as did I. I don’t see how that’s relevant, either.

So that’s it. Power scares you. And by not being a pawn, by being able to think, and by daring to think differently from you, I scare you. Well, relax, because I don’t care.

Read the papers of the country, or for that matter, the world. You’ll find me right there defending the unpopular in letters to the editor, in marches, in protests and sit-ins. I don’t care so damned much that I’ll go far out of my way to prove it. When your oppressors refuse to believe I don’t care, I’m willing to reinforce the point…WITH force. 

The only actions of yours I care about are those that actually affect me. Try to rape my wife, and you die. Try to assault me, and you die. Touch my children…Well, then you’ll die slowly, as a lesson to others.

Try to take my guns away, or send someone else to do so…well, then I care. Keep in mind–they protect you, too. The people who DO care about silly details of your life DO have guns, whether you call them extremists, fanatics, cults, militias, or Federal Agents. It’s easy to hate a name, isn’t it? I’d hate the names, too, if it would make any difference, but it doesn’t. Hateful people hide everywhere, and I don’t care. Only when they ACT on that hate do I become aroused. By acting on hate, they interfere with my ability not to care. And that just ruins my whole day. Sometimes it takes the threat of force to prove I don’t care. That’s why I have the guns.

Why would you want to take my guns away, knowing I don’t care? I’m no threat. I’m your best friend. I don’t even care if THEY have guns. I don’t even care if YOU have a gun. I care even less if you don’t like ME having a gun.

So do me a favor and don’t come to my door asking me to turn over my tools of reason.

Because I don’t care who interferes with my right to not care. 

And neither do my guns.

Copyright 2001 by Michael Z. Williamson. Permission is granted to copy in whole for non-profit purposes, provided due credit is given. Please inform the author directly via his site Michael Z. Williamson or through http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com when you do. Mr. Williamson’s online archive is found here: http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com/Williamson.

An annual tradition:

If you’re an Atheist or Agnostic who doesn’t like “Merry Christmas.”
If you’re a Christian who doesn’t like “Happy Holidays.”
If you’re a Jew who doesn’t like “Blessed be.”
If you’re a Wiccan who doesn’t like “God Be with you.”
If you’re a Muslim who doesn’t like “Gud Yule” or “May Thor hold his hammer between you and harm.”

I have one thing to say to you: Grow. Up. Take these things in the spirit they are offered, one of well wishing, and leave it at that. And on that note, may I wish you a very merry Christmas and may Thor hold his hammer between you and harm.

Gud Yule, everyone.

The irony of the same people who once told me that there’s no need to arm against a government turned tyrannical because it would never–never, ever, ever–do so and that the magical powers of Democracy would ensure that it never did now screaming that Trump is the new Hitler is delicious. (Never mind that if Trump is trying to be Hitler, he’s doing it wrong.)

And even with their cries of “new Hitler” these same people still swear up and down that it’s okay to give the government still more power over people’s lives because, “that will never happen here”.  Cognitive Dissonance is a real thing.

But I’ve written before on the subject of “It can’t happen here.” Nothing really needs to be changed about it except what I’ve written earlier this year about depriving people of their property without due process of law, Civil Asset Forfeiture.

Note that this was originally written in 2015, before the current administration, when people were oh, so sure that “It couldn’t happen here.”

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The Second Amendment is Obsolete, some say.  The idea that the United States could ever turn tyrannical is pure paranoia, some say.

Well, let’s look at that. Rounding up people and sending them to concentration camps (whether called “reservations” or “relocation centers”). Check. (Treatment of Native Americans.  Japanese-American “Relocation Centers” during World War II).

Illegal medical experiments involving infecting people with diseases, not treating them, and observing the effects done on people without their knowledge or consent. Check. (Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment–and particularly interesting how that was “explained” to the victims as they were getting free health care from the US Government.)

Arbitrary searches of American citizens’ households aimed at the seizure of property without either probable cause or any kind of warrant. Check. (post-Katrina gun Confiscation)

Laws passed allowing the indefinite detention of American Citizens without due process of law. Check. (NDAA 2012)

American citizens going about their daily business being stopped and searched again without probable cause or any kind of warrant (or even the “reasonably articulable suspicion” for a “Terry Stop”). Check. (TSA, not just at Airports, but at bus terminals, rail and subway terminals, highways, even High School Proms.)

“Can’t happen here?” It has and is happening here.

Tell me again how the Second Amendment is obsolete since it’s not needed to defend against tyranny.

But “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”

Yet, still, “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Addendum Chicago police are instructed to shoot people for obeying the law. Background:  Illinois, the last state in the Union with no provision for legal handgun carry for self defense, had its “no carry” law struck down and was given a timeframe in which to come up with some kind of carry law before the existing law went away entirely.  So, Illinois now has provision for concealed carry.  But the Chicago police Chief vowed to train his officers to shoot people obeying that law.

Addendum 2 EPA exposes people, without informed consent, to high levels of toxic chemicals to track the effects.

What?  Philosophy has often been termed “Navel Gazing”.

One of my primary carry options is my Kel Tec P-3AT.  It’s small size makes it an excellent choice when I need deep concealment.

Unfortunately, a few days ago I was taking the pocket holster containing the gun out of my pocket and discovered that the hammer spring catch was loose in my pocket.  The reason the catch was loose was that the hammer spring had broken.  Sometime since the last time I’d had it at the range, the hammer spring had broken meaning that I had been relying on a paperweight for my personal defense.

Not good.

I call Kel Tec.  They ask me a few questions.   Am I the original owner? (Yes)  Do I have the receipt? (No) They refer me to the web site where I can order parts or request service.

Before I do that, I call the shop where I bought the gun.  Could they print a copy of my original purchase receipt?

No.  The original owner had retired and sold the shop.  Legally that meant the original shop went out of business and a new shop with a new owner started in the same location and having the same inventory.  That meant that all the original records were turned over to the ATF. (And as much as I do not like that–yes, I do have a problem with the government keeping records of who buys what firearms–it is the law currently.)

So I go to Kel Tec and start a support ticket.  I explain the situation, including that I do not have the receipt.  I ask them what they can do for me.

Kel Tec’s representative comes back with two options:  Either they can send me the hammer spring if I’m comfortable doing that (they appended instructions to the support ticket) or I can send the gun back and one of their gunsmiths would do the job for $65 (labor and return shipping).

I ask them so send the spring.  They mail it first class mail and when it arrives I see that it’s not just the spring but an assembly including the hammer, the hammer spring, the hammer spring catch, and the hammer spring pin.

I reassemble the gun and by turning it I can fit the hammer spring catch and pin assembly down the mag well so I don’t have to disassemble the subassembly in order to install it in the gun.  I need to grab the assembly with pliers and pull it out far enough to seat it in its place.  I probably could have done it a better way but I got impatient.  The pliers did mar the plastic of the hammer spring catch a bit but it’s a carry gun, not a show piece.  I’m not worried about a bit of cosmetic marring on that piece.

And the gun is all assembled.  Dry fire function test.  And I’ll test it out when I next I go to the range.

All in all, I am very happy with Kel Tec’s customer service.  They were willing to ship me the part I needed free of charge even though I could not show that I qualified for “original owner” warranty service.

Another Snippet from one of my active works in progress.

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I drove past the hotel.  I wanted to take a look before committing to stopping.

“See anything?” I asked.

“No cars I recognize,” Jeff said.

“Becki?”

“Was that car there before?” Becki pointed to a Hyundai sitting near the entrance. There were only a few cars in the lot. “Didn’t I see one of your teammates in a car like that?”

“Ben’s was red, not gray,” Jeff said. “I don’t think that belongs to anyone on the team.”

“All right,” I said.  I pulled into a lot just up the street of the hotel, checked traffic, then backed into the street to turn back toward the hotel.

We parked.  I glanced at Becki as she got out of the car.  The red mark on her throat had faded to a light pink.  From a distance, there would be no indication that she’d been hurt.  Of the three of us, I looked the worse.  My face swollen from the beating Chuck had given me.  I could barely see out of my left eye.  My knee felt stuffed with pillows but it managed to support my weight.  Later, it would hurt.  Probably a lot.

I followed close behind Jeff as we entered the hotel, letting his bulk shield me from view.  He nodded at the clerk at the desk and we turned down the hall to the elevators.

We reached the room without incident and found nobody waiting.  We had clearly beaten Ata back.  I began to breath a little easier as we stuffed our few belongings into bags.

I was packing the last of my alchemical supplies into a case when someone pounded on the door.

“Open up.  Police.”

Becki’s hands snapped up to cover her mouth.  Jeff looked at me, his eyes wide.

“What do we do?” he whispered.

I shrugged. “Open the door.”

Becki went to open the door.  I still had my hands in my bag, feeling for the jar I wanted.

The door opened.  A police officer stood in the doorway.  I quickly twisted the cap off the jar.  The police officer wore dark glasses, even in the poorly lit hallway.  His hand rested on the butt of his gun.

I heard the snap of the release of the retention strap on the holster. “You.  Hands where I can see them.”

I turned, lifting my arms as though raising my hands.  The police officer started to draw his gun.  At the top of the arc of my arm motion, I flicked my wrist and opened my hand.  The jar went tumbling across the room, spilling its contents in a cloud in its wake.  The jar hit the police officer in the chest just as his gun started to come up.  He drew a breath, probably in preparation for speaking.  His face went slack.  He crumbled to the floor.

Becki’s eyes rolled back in her head and her own knees buckled.  She collapsed on top of the police officer.

Jeff started forward but I held a hand in front of him. “Wait.”

Jeff paused and looked at me.

“Don’t breath the dust or you’ll be down there too.

He nodded and took a deep breath and went to grab Becki, pulling her out of the rapidly settling cloud of sleeping powder.

“So what do we do now?” He asked.

“We get out of here.  Did you notice the glasses?” I turned on the light next to me, then crossed to reach the light next to one of the beds.  Jeff caught the idea and set Becki on the other bed and turned on more lights.

“He’s one of those things?” Jeff asked.

“Ridden by one, I think.  Whether the police in general are after us, or just this one, I don’t know.” I stood staring down at the police officer on the floor. “If the police are after us they’ll probably have a description of the Green Monster.”

“What are we going to do.”

“Get out of here first.” I grabbed my bags. The powder had settled enough. “Can you get Becki?”

Jeff nodded and hoisted Becki into a fireman’s carry.

My mind raced as we descended the back stairs toward the exit.  The last time I had to do back to back identity changes was before the modern day of ubiquitous identification and government computers all networked together.  It took time to insert data into the system.  And while I still had an emergency stash of gold, I did not have much ready cash.  I would have to sell some gold chain, but that would have to wait until pawn shops were open in the morning.  But first we had to get out of town and avoid the police in doing so.

We reached the exit door.  The red and blue lights of a police cruiser flashed outside.  I peered at the car, shielding my eyes against the glare.  No one seemed to be inside.  It seemed there was only the one police officer.  Police cruiser in one direction, Monster in the other.

I nodded at Jeff, pushed through the door, and dashed toward the Monster.  I pulled open the back door on the near side before rounding the Monster to get in at the driver’s side.

Jeff took the hint.  He shoved Becki into the back seat before jumping in behind her as I started the car.  As soon as I heard the back door slam, I put the car in gear and pulled out.  While my hindbrain beat at me with the need for frantic haste, I nevertheless carefully pulled into the street and drove at modest speed, nothing to draw attention.

My heart sounded loud in my own ears as I turned onto Madison Avenue, heading south.  Later, when we passed the Marion county line I began to breath a little easier.

So, Joy Reid of MSNBC has called rural voters “the core threat to our democracy”.  Well, it’s MSNBC so it’s not surprising but, really, this may be a new low even for them.

This is why America was never intended to be an absolute democracy.  Ever.  It was a representative Republic intended not merely to follow the will of the majority but to protect the rights of the minority from being trampled on by a majority.  The old joke about “Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner” has more than a little truth to it.

There are several things intended to protect the minority in the US.  First is the separation of powers.  The Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary were intended as co-equal branches where any two can check the third.

Then there’s the division of the Legislature into the House and Senate.  The House, proportional representation with numbers based on the population of each State, represents the people of those States.  The Senate, however, represents the States as States (and going to the direct election of Senators was, perhaps, one of the biggest mistakes among the various Constitutional Amendments).  So the more populous States (generally more urban) could not entirely run roughshod over the less populous (generally more rural).

The Bill of Rights and other rights protected in the Constitution provide another level of protection.  The need for a supermajority not only of both the House and Senate, but of State Legislatures to make changes to any of this is supposed to be a strong protection of the rights of the people, majority and minority alike.  Unfortunately, the tendency to “redefine” terms in ways that the ones who wrote them had undermined this protection.

One protection, one that Ms. Read presumably wants to bypass, is the Electoral College. (The DNC Chair Tom Perez has claimed that it is not a creation of the Constitution, after all, the term “Electoral College” appears nowhere in the Constitution, but the system of electors, chosen by the States and numbering the sum of Senators and Representatives is so spelled out whatever label one applies to it.) The Electoral College ensures that the candidates for President cannot simply look to the highest population density areas–generally largely urban areas–and ignore those outside those areas.

Here’s the thing.  What people in dense urban areas want, based on their situation, does not necessarily match what those in less densely populated, more rural, areas need.  People who live in the big city do not know (and rarely care) what is is appropriate for people living in the countryside.  Their may be more of the former, but their numbers do not give them the right to dictate the lives of people living in rural areas.

The Electoral College means that a candidate has to at least try to appeal to those in both areas.

But now, certain people want to eliminate that simply because their candidate failed to do that.  That candidate’s supporters want a “do over” because things did not go the way they wanted.  They want the high density urban areas to be able to dictate arbitrarily to everyone else.

That’s not what the American Republic was intended to be.