The rabid libertarian pack-attack on the hapless ace blogista Brian Linse continues unabated.
But I am addressing the issue, and I have over and over again. I think that the extreme anti-gun “wackos” are as much the problem as the “gun nuts”, and that the Brady Campaign folks are delusional morons. The difference between myself and Perry is that I posess a rational awareness of the fact that the Constitution and the government it guides will protect my liberties. It’s how it works here. Unlike many allegedly free and democratic countries in Europe, individual liberties are protected here.
I reject the link between ‘free’ and ‘democratic’. Britain does not have a written constitution that purports to greatly limit the scope of democratic legislation and is thus profoundly more ‘democratic’ than America… yet the British state restricts liberty in many ways far more than the less democratic USA. Liberty and democracy are only acquaintances, not partners.
But just how are individual liberties protected in the USA? Can I purchase a handgun for my individual protection, put it in my car and drive from New York to Florida without fear of arrest? No. Could my nephew and his 16 year old fiance freely wander the USA without risking arrest for statutory rape or ‘under age’ drinking? No. Can a Dutch tourist go into a café in Miami and smoke a joint as he could in Amsterdam without being arrested? No. Can I walk into a car showroom and pay cash for a car without the government being told of my ‘suspicious’ transaction? No. Even large withdrawals of cash from your own bank account can trigger a call to the IRS and DEA! Can the state make a homeowner responsible for maintaining property he does not even own and make liable for anyone who injures themselves on it? Yes, if a person slips on snow on a sidewalk in front of their house, they can be held liable for the action of a stranger on ‘public’ land. Freedom of religion is protected yet schismatic Morman polygamists face arrest. Not quite so free as you seem to be suggesting.
I am sure you think all these issues are petty but that is because they do not effect you. I am not claiming the USA is like Cambodia or the Soviet Union, but your sense of ‘freedom’ is in many ways an illusion. You live in a highly regulated nation which enforces many of its laws far more rigorously than in the European nations you say (correctly) are only ‘allegedly free’. By all means argue these many and varied US regulations are benign and that I am hypersensitive, but please at least acknowledge that they are there and that a highly regulated society cannot be a society in which the protection of individual liberty is foremost amongst the state’s objectives.
And as I have stated before, if the US Supreme Court would make it clear the the 2nd Amendment is a protected individual liberty, there would be no need for the extreme rhetoric on both the left and the right. Chuck Shumer’s got no chance of taking my guns away, but it’s not because I’m better armed than he is, it’s because the Constitution and the representatives elected by the people won’t let him.
Yet the US Supreme Court has singularly failed to do that. US gun laws are moderate in some regions, yet severe in others. Am I free to arm myself if I live in a high crime area of New York City or Washington D.C. where I am most likely to need a weapon? No, I am not. If I live in New York City or the nation’s capital, Chuck Schumer and his cohorts have already had their way and deprived me of the rights you assure me will be protected by your yellowing piece of paper and stout yeoman democracy.
You dismiss the U.S. Constitution because of forefiture laws? I don’t know how better to explain it than to point out that there is no country on earth that enjoys the same freedoms that we do here in the US. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it is a given that a hard core Libertarian will never see it that way. I guess I find Perry’s lack of faith inexplicable.
Ah yes, I hear what I call ‘The American Mantra’ again and again in e-mails to me from the USA. Certainly there are many very admirable aspects to the exercise of American liberty, such as free speech, and anyone who reads my remarks regularly can hardly have missed my pro-American tendencies. Yet what makes you think “no country on earth that enjoys the same freedoms that we do here in the US”? This seems to be an often repeated ‘article of faith’ rather than a real critical judgement. How many other countries try to tax ‘their’ citizens even when they do not live or work in that nation? Almost uniquely the USA does just that. It seems to suggest the US government actually owns it’s ‘citizens’ regardless of their location and therefore has a proprietary interest in their wealth regardless of where it is. Appalling.
How do you figure that forfeiture laws are not a huge issue? Certainly lots of your fellow countrymen disagree. The state can seize your property on the mere accusation of a crime, without actually even charging you, and even if you are never convicted, it is you, the owner of the property, who must go cap-in-hand with a lawyer for which you have to pay even if you are successful, to sue for the return of your property. If you don’t think that is a massive indictment of the system of US justice, they perhaps you can explain to me why you think that it is a trivial matter. The US Constitution is supposed to prohibit unreasonable search and seizure, yet under these laws you are effectively deprived of due process. My lack of faith in such a system is far from inexplicable.
The first axiom is, I believe, correct. The right to keep and bear is set forth in the Bill of Rights, and the limits that government can put on individual liberties so innumerated are subject to review by the Supreme Court. Just as we limit speech in certain narrow situations, it is perfectly rational and logical to limit gun ownership. If Perry’s logic were argued through, then it would have to be legal to incite to riot, or to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded theatre, etc. This is how the debate is framed.
In supporting the idea of an armed population, I am stating a rational critical preference: nothing more and nothing less. To thereby deduce my views would lead to supporting the right to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre is to suggest that I support not liberty but rather chaos. However the very reason I support an armed society is the view that this is the best way to avoid chaos and disorder, not to mention tyranny. Whilst I distrust the motives of the US state as much as I distrust the British state, I have tremendous faith in the essential underpinnings of American society (more so in fact that British society to be honest).
To support ownership of arms is to support the ability to make choices. Yet to support the ability to choose is not to uncritically support whatever choices are in fact made. Advocacy of ownership of weapons is not to support them being fired off for the hell of it in a public street (the equivalent of your ‘shouting fire in a crowded theatre’). That is quite another issue again. The essence of libertarianism is not to advocate disorder but rather to advocate the right to choose and the right and obligation to reap the consequences of those choices, be they good or bad. If you yell fire in a crowded theatre or fire off guns in the street, expect severe sanction from the people who suffer as a result (be that in the form of the state or whatever proxy)… yet would you licence voices, as you would guns, for fear they be misused?
Is it a belief that these axioms are false that prevents Perry from directly addressing the illegal gun show purchases I’ve noted? Funny how no post in opposition to mine ever directly addresses these issues. Maintaining that the debate is framed by false axioms is a cop out. Show me why I’m wrong within the framwork of the laws that govern us, not the utopian fantasy of a Libertarian State that doesn’t exist.
Again you miss the point… as I do not regard these laws as legitimate, you cannot expect me (or Walter) to argue with you on the basis of how they can be made to work better. I don’t want them to work at all and neither does your chum the ‘gun nut’ who purchases weapons and then buries them as a hedge against future confiscation. You may not like the implications but he (like me) refuses to show you how you are “wrong within the framework of the laws that govern us” because he (like me) will not accept that framework. By his actions, your friend has decided those laws will not govern him and it is implicitly clear he places liberty above democracy. By doing this, he, and I, simply will not participate in a battle on ground of your choosing. He is indeed voting, just not in the democratic process you think so important. That is the libertarian fact, not fantasy. Pass as many laws as you like, in the final analysis reality is not made by congresses or parliaments or kings or pieces of paper, it is made on the ground by people deciding if they will cooperate with their own oppression…or refusing to cooperate. Your friend the ‘gun nut’ has made his position clear by his actions and so have Walter and I.
Sorry, Perry, but we are a government of laws, not a government of men. Natural Law underlies our Constitution, but it is the document itself that makes practical law out of philosophy. I’d rather continue to rely on the system of government that we have established with the Constitution, as opposed to a free for all where the guy with the highest caliber runs the show. Why? Because it works. And the reality is, that the guy with the highest caliber is always gonna be the government. Bottom line? I understand Perry’s views in the context of the Libertarian argument. I’ve got more than a few Libertarian views myself. But this is the very real United States of America, and there is no way in hell that the 2nd Amendment is ever going to be more important than the rest of the Bill of Rights.
That is a masterpiece of inductive thinking and selective logic. You say you support constitutional government yet it is you who seems to regard it as a smorgasbord to pick and choose from. The two salient parts of the second Amendment are ‘regulating’ (you may not shoot your guns off in the supermarket) and ‘keeping and bearing’ (you may both own and carry guns). No one is suggesting the Second Amendment trumps all the others… rights are rights. Yet keeping and bearing are very much infringed. You also contend that the only alternative to the current official (and widely resisted) system of overarching state control, is for the USA to descend into armed chaos similar to Lebanon circa 1988. Yet US history itself is replete with examples of heavily armed communities that were quite functional prior to the existence of BAFT. Laws can only be legitimate if they are based upon objective morality and objective morality does not spring magically from some scripture, be it the Holy Bible or the secular constitution. Morality is either objectively true or it is not and the best a successful constitution can do is to point that out.
There is also no way in hell that the government is ever going to take my guns away. Look, just as there are people in government who don’t want me to have the right to certain forms of political speech, there are also those who don’t want me to own any guns. But they will not succeed.
US gun laws are reasonable in some regions, yet are worse than some other nations in other regions. Am I free to arm myself if I live in a high crime area of New York City or Washington D.C. where I might actually need a weapon? No, I am not. It seem that if I live in New York City or the Capital, Chuck Schumer has already had his way and deprived me of the rights you assure me will be protected by your yellowing piece of paper and stout yeoman democracy. It would seem not.
And yes, Perry, the reason they will not succeed is the power of the Constitution and the moral authority of the peoples’ government.
You may feel ‘The People’s Government’ has moral authority (I cannot wait to get Natalija’s reaction when she read that phrase) to dispense violence backed regulation of fundamental rights, but if that is the case, why is your chum burying weapons in plastic tubes? ‘The People’s Government’ does not seem to have a whole lot of ‘moral authority’ to him… or to me. And why should it? You have given me no reason other than a vague deontological appeal for faith in the state’s exercise of authority.
