Wouldn't it be nice if we were older?
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long.
And wouldn't it be nice to live together,
In the kind of world where we belong?
-- The Beach Boys
Music by Brian Wilson
Lyrics by Tony Asher
Has it ever struck you as a little odd that in a country with
a Thirteenth Amendment that outlaws "involuntary servitude
of any kind",there's also a "Selective Service"
system that forces men, on pain of imprisonment or death, to join
the military whether they want to or not?
Have you ever wondered why, in a country with a First Amendment
that forbids abridging freedom of speech or of the press, there's
also a "Federal Communications Commission" wholly dedicated
to doing just that and happy to fine you if you use words it doesn't
want you to use?
Have you ever been puzzled (or outraged) that in a country with
a Second Amendment that strictly forbids infringement of "the
right of the people to keep and bear arms", there's an entire
federal bureau built to do exactly that? Or 20,000 lesser statutes
and ordinances -- the very kind of thing that used to be called
"Jim Crow laws" -- written to do the same? A major legal
and academic cottage industry
whose function seems to be making up phony justifications for
doing
it? And a "free press" striving implacably -- under
cover of the First
Amendment -- to obliterate the freedoms supposedly protected by
the
Second?
These are just three out of thousands upon thousands of examples
I
might have chosen to write about, in which the laws that we imagined
were there to control the government, or the rights that we imagined
we possessed, always seem to evaporate, somehow, in the harsh
light of
reality.
It kind of makes all of the blather we hear about "law
and order"
ring hollow, don't you think? Sure, illegal immigrants (just to
name
a single group at random) violate the law every time they step
across
the border, but in exactly what way does that make them different
from
any American president, senator, or congressman you can think
of, any
governor or legislator, any commissioner, mayor, or city councilman
since at least 1912? And tell me why should those dependent on
medical
marijuana (just to name another group at random) respect the laws
when
the very individuals who write, pass, and enforce them clearly
refuse
to?
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in an America
where all these government entities were compelled, not just to
obey
the letter and the spirit of the law -- beginning with the highest
law
of the land, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, commonly
known as the Bill of Rights -- but to energetically and stringently
_enforce_ it, starting with those who work in and for the government
itself?
Many libertarian and conservative thinkers have made estimates
of
how much of today's government would go away under the rule of
law and
how much would remain. Walter Williams, for example, has often
said
that about two thirds of the federal government's current operations
-- which are supposed to be severely limited under Article 1 Section
8
of the Constitution, but are not -- are illegal. Applying that
and
other standards, I'm inclined to think the number is closer to
nine
tenths.
But none of that gives you any idea of what everyday life would
be
like under circumstances like that. New Age thinking (and a lot
of old
age thinking, as well) advises us to clearly visualize our goals
as a
large step toward achieving them. And despite the vital importance
of
understanding the limits that the Constitution was supposed to
impose
on the size and power of the government, simply imagining what
it
might be like, say, to go to the corner grocery store for a loaf
of
bread (and how that might differ from doing the same thing in
the
world we live in today) is probably more useful. That, more or
less,
is what I have dedicated my own life and career to: helping my
readers
to imagine -- in 3-D, living color, and high-definition -- exactly
the
kind of civilization we are struggling every day to bring into
existence.
One of my fairly recent exercises in that area is a book I wrote
with my friend Aaron Zelman called Hope,
in which, through a chain of unlikely but perfectly possible events,
a hardworking self-made millionaire finds himself elected to the
presidency of the United States.
Alexander Hope is a strict Constitutionalist who believes that
the government ought to obey its own rules. He's also a libertarian
who understands that no one -- not even the government -- has
a right to initiate force against anyone for any reason.
This is not a pacifist position -- far from it -- but an absolute
determination, from basic principles, that the only moral justification
for using violence is self-defense.
One by one, Hope confronts the contradictions mentioned above
(and
many others) and does his best, as President, to resolve them
in a
manner that's consistent with the law and common decency. His
handling
of homesteaders and public lands -- or the legality of the income
tax
-- is worth the price of admission alone. Naturally, he generates
many
enemies who often fight back and make his term in office an exciting
adventure.
As a Constitutionalist, Hope knows that every gun law ever written
anywhere in the United States is illegal, because it represents
an
infringement on the unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional,
and
human right of every man, woman, and responsible child to obtain,
own,
and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun,
handgun,
machinegun, _anything_ -- any time, any place, without asking
anyone's
permission. He also sees that it's insane to claim that the government
may regulate a right first written into the Constitution to contol
the
goverment.
As a libertarian, Hope knows that it's wrong to forbid or to
take
away any weapon from anyone who hasn't used it first to hurt somebody
else.
Okay, if you're not used to thinking this way (I've been doing
it
for 43 years), some of the results may seem a bit jarring and
bizarre
at first. Although politicians mouth the word "freedom"
all the time,
thousands of time a year, most of us have grown so accustomed
to the
virtual slave collars around our necks -- taxation, various kinds
of
regulation, conscription -- we have no concept of what it means
to be
free.
But if you stick with me, I believe you'll come to see that
it's "all of a piece", that freedom truly is indivisible
-- that if you lose one of them, you're in dire peril of losing
them all -- and that believing otherwise is one of the great mistakes
that got us into this mess. Ultimately, there's really only one
human right: the right not to be menaced, manhandled, or molested,
either by governments or other individuals.
It's true that occasionally we may disapprove of the way that
some individuals choose to use their freedom (even though the
operative phrase here is their freedom). The mass media,
who are not our friends, delight in focusing on certain individuals
-- Howard Stern, Heidi Fleiss, Paris Hilton, who may exercise
their rights in manners that passing fashion causes many ordinary
people to dislike -- as an attack, not on any particular individual,
but on the concept of rights itself.
Because of that, people sometimes let themselves be stampeded
into
making laws -- or demanding that they be made -- that give idiots
and
thugs ... sorry, I meant politicians and bureaucrats -- the power
to
try and impose limits on the way those certain individuals use
their
rights. However those certain individuals are often rich and powerful,
themselves, and are therefore able to evade those limits. Invariably,
the idiots and thugs abuse the power they've unwisely been given,
and
turn it back on the ordinary people who have foolishly given it
to
them.
Alcohol Prohibition in the 20s, gun control at least since the
30s, and the War on Drugs being waged right now, fit that description
precisely. They have done vastly greater damage to our civilization
(through excessive taxation to support the government's illegal
efforts, through the destruction of immense amounts of private
property, through the injury and death of innumerable individuals,
innocent and otherwise, and especially through the steady erosion
of
protections supposedly afforded by the Bill of Rights) than alcohol,
guns, or drugs ever threatened to do.
Anyone with even half a brain should be able to see clearly
by now
that we're much better off simply letting other people do whatever
it
is they want with their own lives, no matter how irrational and
self-destructive it may seem to us, as long as it doesn't directly
injure anybody else. And please note that I am not talking about
"mental anguish" or any other such malarky, but real,
physical
damages.
The first person who brings up "the children" gets
a philosophical pie in the face. I'm fed up to here with
"the children" being used as an excuse for any kind
of vile excess the idiots and thugs feel like imposing on us.
What "the children" need most is freedom, not tyranny.
What would it be like to live under the Rule of Law instead
of the
continual pressure of hysterical voters and the constant oppression
of
bullies? It starts with what you might call a "freedom state
of mind".
I once defined a decent society as one in which two guys pass
each
other on the sidewalk -- one is bundled up in fur like an Eskimo,
the
other is completely naked -- and as they pass, neither thinks
about
clothes.
In the real world, unfortunately, the situation has only gotten
worse since I conceived that definition. Today, the naked guy
is
likely to be ignored as screaming hordes of animal rights crazies
attack the fur-covered Eskimo guy with picket signs and red spray
paint.
Author and columnist Vin Suprynowicz defines a free society
as one in which a nine-year-old girl can slap gold coins on the
counter at her neighborhood store for a submachinegun, a case
of ammunition, and a week's supply of cocaine without having to
sign a single piece of paper. (You can see this very scene and
read more about it in my own books The Probability Broach:
the Graphic Novel and The American Zone.)
There are some people to whom images like this will be offensive
and infuriating. It's obvious from their writings, for example,
that
would-be Supreme Court jurist Robert Bork and former drug czar
William
Bennett find the thought of unfettered individual liberty physically
painful. Some people hate and fear the idea of freedom simply
because
it's far too much work making their own decisions and taking care
of
themselves. (William Bennett is a gambler who is said to have
lost
millions.)
Some of us, however, will recognize that "there's no such
thing as
a free lunch". While perhaps concerned about the extreme
consequences
of total freedom, we must allow other people to control their
lives as
the price of being allowed by others to control our own. The argument
that certain people need to be controlled has been used so often
as an
excuse to deprive us of so many of our individual freedoms that
we can
hardly imagine being back in the driver's seat of our own lives
once
again.
It's vitally important, however, that we try.
******
As a good beginning, read Hope,
available through www.jpfo.net as well as my own The Probability
Broach which can be obtained as a text novel through my personal
website www.lneilsmith.net
or as a "graphic novel" (comic book) either in "dead
tree" form or online at www.BigHeadPress.com
.
Stay tuned here as I continue the discussion. Next time: brass
tacks.
And remember, all gun control laws must be abolished!
=============================================================
Four-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith has been
writing about guns and gun ownership for more than 30 years.
He is the author of 27 books, the most widely-published and
prolific libertarian novelist in the world, and is considered
an expert on the ethics of self-defense. His writings may be
seen on the following sites:
The Webley Page: http://www.lneilsmith.net
The Libertarian Enterprise: http://www.ncc-1776.net
The Probability Broach: The Graphic Novel, Roswell,
Texas, and TimePeeper (August 2007): http://www.bigheadpress.com
LNS at Random (blog): http://www.bigheadpress.com/lneilsmith/
LNS at JPFO: http://www.jpfo.net/filegen-a-m/lneilsmith.htm
(
Find
other articles by L. Neil Smith)
