Guns

Let’s take a look at gun control for an application of some of my ideas, shall we?

 

The traditional libertarian platform on guns is that ownership rights are absolute. No registration, no background checks, and certainly no outright banning. Many libertarians even go so far as to say that all sorts of weaponry should be available if one individual has the means to produce it and another individual has the means to purchase it.

 

Fair enough. I happen to agree with that to one degree or another. But why do many libertarians hold this position? How do they argue for it, I mean? They appeal to the 2nd Amendment. The people, they say, are each individual American citizen. And the right to bear arms, they say, refers to the right of each individual to own and use (without being an aggressor, of course) any weaponry as they please.

 

I used to think this way. But on deeper thought, this is actually a pretty dumb position to hold. At least as far as you are trying to use it to convince others to agree with your position. In fact, I doubt anyone who wasn’t already inclined to believe in gun rights has ever been convinced by the standard libertarian position on the issue.

 

The problem is that we are using an interpretation no one agrees with of a document no one cares about.

 

We are libertarians. Not legalists, and not even libertarian legalists. Because the law says one thing does not mean that it is the right thing, nor even the most liberal thing. Using the 2nd Amendment to argue for gun rights is a tautology – guns should be legal because they are legal. Yet this is how many libertarians, especially those of the more conservative kind, think about gun control and a host of other legal issues.

 

If we are going to convince others of the validity of libertarian reasoning, we need to convince them on each issue that: (a.) individual liberty is a good thing to have, and that (b.) we can have it without any unnecessary damage. For example, I’ve seen literally no evidence anywhere that implementing restrictions on gun ownership in America even reduces violence. Why is this ignored in favor of pumping the 2nd Amendment? The 2nd Amendment is a short passage on a piece of paper everyone agreed to abide by some 220 years ago. The Constitution has never proven anything to anyone. If libertarians insist on obsessing over every word in this document that, once again, no one cares about besides us, we will never have any political success. Gun rights need to stand on their own, and I think they do, without appealing to the Constitution.

Can we get a libertarian for Obama?

The hostility I see from the more right-leaning libertarians towards Obama is bewildering. I can understand that you disagree with virtually all of his positions – so do I – but there are two things to consider here:

1. Republicans lie. They don’t care about small government. It’s time to face the facts and realize that Reagan was both an anomaly and not as libertarian as the paleolibs who eulogize him today claim. Despite the rhetoric, we’ve been let down by every single Republican presidential nominee since Goldwater. John McCain stands for the continuation of virtually every unlibertarian policy Bush has pushed forward in the last 8 years. The fact that anyone who claims to be a libertarian could even consider voting for him is astonishing.

2. Libertarians need to examine this country and determine what the biggest threats to liberty in America are right now. The biggest theat to liberty is clearly the War on Terrorism. The second biggest threat is the War on Drugs. McCain and the Republicans stand for an even further increase in efforts towards both.

Obama isn’t perfect, but he’ll do better on those two massive issues than any Republican besides Ron Paul would. Libertarians need to stop pretending that if we lower taxes enough everything else will turn out okay. It’s becoming increasingly clear that economic freedom will not lead to social freedom, in the country and in the Republican party – the most economically free states are frequently the most socially oppressive. On the other hand, it seems much more likely to me that modern liberals could be swayed towards the free market, once the realities of economics become apparent to them.

Thus I suggest that the Democratic Party is a more natural ally for libertarians right now than the Republican Party, barring some sort of massive sea change within their ranks. Let the paleolibertarians do what they want; they are more concerned with fantasizing about some ideal conservative libertarian society than actually promoting freedom the best they can. It seems clear to me that an America under Barack Obama or perhaps even Hillary Clinton will be far more free than an America under John McCain.

I will elaborate on my own theory of libertarianism later, because I’d wager that I differ from most on one key point. But I’ll save that for another day…

A Thought on Personal Interactions

As I was driving back from campus today, I was behind a somewhat shabby looking truck that had a flatbed with a motorcycle strapped onto it. It got me thinking about what would happen if that motorcycle came off and landed on my car, and this got me thinking about how I can be sure of my own safety in that situation.

I decided that the only reason I can be assured of the safety of me and my possessions is that the guys driving that truck were just concerned with their own possessions. No government, god, or disciplinary body could force them to make sure that bike was secured properly to the truck, and I doubt they’d care one whit about me and my car. I certainly don’t care about them and their truck. No, what keeps me safe is the fact that they own that bike, or are at the least servicing it for perhaps a customer of theirs. They don’t want to lose their own property, and this is what keeps me from losing mine.

Isn’t it wonderful how we take care of others by just taking care of our own?

I Don’t Care About 9/11

Where were you when you found out about the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01?

I was just 15 years old, a sophomore in high school. Algebra II w/Trigonometry. 3rd period. Lakewood High School, Lakewood, New Jersey. Someone comes to speak with the teacher. They leave. She comes back and tells us that there has been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Details are still sketchy. It’s hard to wrap my mind around. Family..? No, my dad doesn’t work in New York anymore, thankfully. No other family lives or works in the city. Dad’s mom used to, but she’s in California now. Friends? No, no, I can’t think of any whose parents commute to New York.

The rest of the day goes by quietly. A few scattered announcements are made, calling some kids down to the main office. No one I know. I go home, turn on the TV, and watch what’s going on. There’s a lot to talk about. A lot of confusion. I watch it all with interest, but I don’t really get what it means. Finally, I go to bed and wake up the next morning. Same ceiling, same floor, same toothbrush. Different clothes. I spend a lot of time thinking about it, and talking about it. But not feeling anything about it. What was the conclusion I came to?

I don’t care about 9/11. It means nothing to me. It’s something abstract, a something that changed nothing. Different things showed up on the tube, different editorials in the newspaper. Different, different, different. But me, I’m the same. I felt bad about it at first, but over the years I’ve managed to convince myself that there’s nothing wrong with me – at least not involving this issue! I intend to lay out my reasons why, in a likely futile attempt to vindicate myself in the eyes of those who were born with the ability to feel for strangers. Which brings me to the meat of my argument.

Intellectual vs. Emotional Sympathy. It would be a mistake to say that not caring about 9/11 means that I don’t care about the people affected, or that I wouldn’t change if it I could, or any similar such things. No; the “problem” here, as it were, is that I can tell myself it was a terrible event (a truth), but I cannot make myself feel it as a terrible event (my truth). The mind exists outside the heart insofar as the intellect does not always share the same truths as the emotion. This truth cannot penetrate my heart. My heart is selfish, or maybe it’s more accurate to say “ourselfish.” It only cares about matters that personally affect me or the people I know. And, my reason shouts in defense, why should it be any different? How could it be any other way and still function? We are all selfish – the English-speaking world isn’t known for its mendicancy. I’m just making no bones about it. I care about me and my own first, and this leaves me unable to feel deeply about abstract tragedies. I didn’t know any of those people. It’s just a number, a moving picture. That leaves it to me as just… dead people. What is a dead person? There are graveyards full of the dead in every town. I can’t weep for all of them. And if I were going to, there are a lot of other places I could start.

–
I can’t enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening. – Woody Allen
–

Why did I write this? Because I wanted to lay out a middle ground of sorts, between the un-American accusations the bleeding heart nationalists, who would have you exported if you’re not in sackcloth and ashes every time 9/11 is mentioned, and the banal whining of their internationalist counterparts, whose hearts bleed for everything, so long as it doesn’t happen in the United States.. I watch and I listen, and I like to think I’m a fairly perceptive guy. I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. Hell, how many of you went through your work or school day with nary a non-official, non-media mention of 9/11?

The way I feel isn’t wrong, and no longer will I offer any apologies for it. I wish it hadn’t happened, in the same way I wish all bad things didn’t happen to people who don’t deserve it, whether it’s the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or a major terrorist attack on the US. Insincere remarks of grief are meaningless, and so I’ll refrain. Surely those who feel this in their hearts can offer much more than those of us whose perception of the tragedy is a bundle of facts and stats and news neatly tucked away in the back of the mind. But I don’t pity them; there are enough things in life to worry about.