http://ericpetersautos.com/
Recovering Our Rights: A Place to Start
By eric
America
didn’t become a continental penal colony overnight. It happened step by
step, over a period of many years. It’d be wonderful if we could do an
overnight re-set, but that’s neither likely nor (probably) practical.
So, what can we do?
How about the same thing that was done to us– only in reverse: A piece-by-piecedeconstruction
A return to the ancient, honorable principle ofno harm – no crime.
Pie
in the sky? Not at all. Consider, for example, the tremendous progress
that’s been made over the past decade or so with regard to re-investing
people with their right to possess arms. “Gun control” – that is,
denying people who have done nothing to warrant it their the right to
possess guns because some people have
misused them – has been rolled back almost everywhere. Even in the
heart of darkness itself – Washington, DC – where it is now at least
possible for a resident to legally own a handgun.
Such a thing would have been inconceivable ten or twenty years ago.
In
nearby Virginia, the peoples’ right to the means of armed self-defense
has been almost fully restored. Open carry is lawful nearly everywhere.
The state must issue
a concealed handgun permit to any person who isn’t a convict who fills
out the form and pays the small ($50) fee. In past years, the process
was mayissue – which meant it was up to the state to issue a permit – or not – at its whim. Often enough, it did not. The applicant had no recourse.
Other states have followed suit.
The one gun a month thing is gone.
Draconian prohibitions on the possession of firearms are now the
exception – not the rule. The demagogically named “assault weapons” ban
(which outlawed rifles that “looked military” even though they functioned no differently than other rifles) is gone. In most states, a person can buy almost any type of gun he wants to.
The wheel has turned.
The
general public no longer supports “gun control” – recognizing that it
was built on a lie (take away honest people’s right to own guns and
crime will go down; in fact the opposite happens
everywhere this idea has been applied; the truth of this is so
obviously self-evident it can no longer be denied). And much more
critically, people are increasingly intolerant of havingtheir rights rescinded on account of what other people have done.
This is a tremendous thing – a near total rolling back not merely of “gun control” laws but of the collectivistideas behind them. The importance of this achievement cannot be over-emphasized. It is also a tonic – a reminder that all is not yet lost despite the almost daily accretion of collectivism.
We can effect change for the better. It is possible to snatch back our liberty.
It just requires the determination to see it through.
Here’s
another area where we might focus our efforts: Mandatory “buckle up”
(and motorcycle helmet) laws. As with laws denying people their right to
to possess arms, these laws attack a basic human right –the right to be left alone by the law unless your actions threaten to harm or actually do cause harm to others.
No one else is harmed – or even threatened – by someone not wearing a
seatbelt. Or a helmet when riding a motorcycle. Therefore, the choice
ought to be a matter of individual discretion – and not a matter for
“the law.”
The
main argument supporting laws requiring us to “buckle up” and to wear a
helmet when riding a bike is that we might impose “costs on society.”
It is a silly, arbitrary argument – and much more profoundly, an affront to our right to be left in peace so long as we are peaceful.
Silly
– and arbitrary – because we don’t sic the law on people for countless
other personal decisions that don’t cause harm to others – everything
from being overweight to exercising excessively to “worrying too much”
to mowing the grass on a 96 degree day. These – and many more such – can
all be said to involve elevated risk to the individual. Getting out of bed in the morning entails more risk than staying in bed. Life itself is necessarily “risky.”
Think of the laundry list of things you could come up with that might potentially involve “costs to society,” but which present no specific threat to any other individual.
It will be a very long list.
Where do we draw the line?
An
important measure of a law’s fairness is its consistency. If a person
deserves to be the object of law enforcement – of men with guns – for
failing to “buckle up for safety,” then consistency demands
that – as an example - people over a certain BMI number likewise be
the object of law enforcement. They, too, can be said to impose “costs
on society” – even though they aren’t actually harming anyone else
because they’re beefy. If they don’t like the idea of being stopped by
cops and ticketed for being overweight, then they need to be made to see
the injustice of stopping not-fat people who choose to go unbuckled.
And so on.
This point – this principle – needs to be hammered away at.
Relentlessly.
The
people who support “buckle up” and helmet laws must have the tables
turned on them. Be made to see that, in all likelihood, there is
something they like to do that could be argued entails increased “risk” – and potential “costs to society.” That the same arguments they use to defrock others of their right to be left in peace can be just as easily used to defrock them of their right to be left in peace.
We must get them to see that ultimately we are all in this together. That when anyone’s rights are threatened, all our rights are threatened. Tyranny cannot be imposed on one man – or a category of men – without imposing it on all men. Perhaps not all at once – but, eventually.
Inevitably.
What is done to the seat belt “scofflaw” today will be done to the tubbies (and others) tomorrow. We must either live – and let live – as free men. Or exist as busybodies, never leaving others alone – and never being left alone in turn.
We must reject the underlying premise of these intrusive, obnoxious laws: That generalized andhypothesiz
And only when his actions are actually harmful to others.
Thus, if a person incurs costs as a result of some action of his, hold him responsible. Not “society” – the statist euphemism for everyone else.
Otherwise, leave him alone.
Leave us alone.
It
is a powerful idea – one that rejects the contrary idea that’s at the
root of the control-freak society we find ourselves immersed in.
Liberty isn’t dead. It just needs to beremembered.
Attacking
“gun control” was a great place to start - quite possibly, the
Lexington and Concord of the new American Revolution. Fighting for the
repeal of “buckle up” and helmet laws could ultimately be as important
as what Washington achieved at Yorktown – because these seemingly petty ordinances represent an assault on a crucial thing, on what it used to mean to be an American: To be free to go about your life unless you - you specifically – were causing someone else – an actual someone, not a hypothetical “society” – an actual as opposed tohypothetical harm.
If
these petty tyrannies are successfully rolled back, we might just roll
back the whole smelly, waterlogged carpet of collectivism – and recover
America.
As we recover ourselves.