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Saturday, February 11, 2012

I don't live in the real world.

I often wonder, when my liberal or conservative friends tell me I don't live in the real world because I can actually envision living in a world where no one has a free pass to take other people's stuff and tell them what they can't and must do, just who it is they think actually needs to be pushed around to be made to behave.

Me? Do they think if I'm not pushed around and robbed and threatened with death if I do not cooperate I would try to take their stuff and tell them what they can't and must do?
Well, I wouldn't. And I don't now. And it's not because of their threats by proxy.

I have stated publicly in my seldom visited (even by me) blog that I have no proxy. (So I think I will post this there.) No one acts in MY stead to take other people's stuff and tell them what they can't and must do. Besides, I don't have the right to do that, anyway, so how could I delegate someone to do that for me?

Themselves? Is it that they think they would try to take my stuff and tell me what I can't and must do?
Why the hell would they think that? I promise, I won't try to take your stuff and tell you what you can't and must do. I'd appreciate that consideration be returned.
But, you know what? It won't. Because too many of you (pretty much all) won't make the same claim. You will claim that I'm not living in the real world so some gang of people need to be able to push me around and threaten me with death to make me do things I wouldn't do by my own choice. They think because I do these things it is because I do them voluntarily. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do them under ultimately the threat of death. Same with the things I am told not to do that I would do without the threat of death.
Then, I'm ALWAYS told I am the one waving the gun around (because I know that people have the right to self defense and the necessary tools for that self defense). No one can explain how I am the virtual gun waver. I'm simply pointing out the gun they are waving through their proxy.
And as regards people trying to take my stuff. I would prefer you didn't. If I can't reason with you and have us both understand that it is in both of our best interests to live in a society where we do not have to always look over our shoulder, because someone might be after our stuff, then when you come to take it you should not be protected by a monopoly on the initiation of violence from my defense of my property. No matter your badge, title or uniform. But most of you are, at least by proxy. Because the force of so many alleged proxies is overwhelming and the whole liberty or death thing takes on a pretty ominous meaning.

And I'm told I don't live in the real world. Because I can't wrap my head around why it is inevitable that THIS is the real world. Just about everybody I talk to comprehends somehow that THIS is the way it has to be. Why? Are you the one who wants it to be like this?

So, here's a kicker. I'm told I need to work to change it. By voting and writing my congress critter and what not. As if trying to reason with people isn't working to change things.
And I am told that I can't force my views on people. My views being I can't force my views on people, in a society based on reason, not force. Why don't people see the incongruity in telling me that?
Which leads to, how can I work within a system based on force not reason to create a society based on reason not force?
If anyone can explain to me how it is I am supposed to do that, I would appreciate it.
All I can do to work to change the world to one more my liking is to try to reason with people to interact with me only voluntarily.
So when people say I am stupid for thinking that. Or a moron. Or (I can't even figure this one out) a ditto head, does that mean those people desire to take my stuff and tell me what I can't and must do? That is the only conclusion I can draw. If I am incorrect, what is it I am missing?

And I am accused of parroting other people. Another claim I just don't get. I don't know enough people who think the way I do to have very many people to parrot off of. I have been finding more lately. But I formed my ideas more by thinking about them than by reading about them. Yes, when I read I do hear someone express something I know in different words, maybe. So I use those words as well. Who knows what arrangement of words will actually spark a certain array of synapses in someone and a light will go on. Or, I might even run across a string of words that expresses it in such a way that I see a contradiction. Then I would need to resolve it. By asking and answering questions.

So, here is the fundamental contradiction I see in "the real world" expressed as a statement:
"We need a select group of people, different in kind from the rest of us, who are granted a monopoly on the initiation of violence to be utilized to take our stuff and tell us what we can't and must do, to protect us from people who would try to take our stuff and tell us what we can't and must do."

In what way(s) can this contradiction be resolved?

And what is the fundamental contradiction in my fantasy world (and it being a fantasy world cannot, in and of itself, be a contradiction)?

1 comment:

  1. Matt,

    The one I get a lot is that I live in a universe with unicorns and cotton-candy trees. Or worse, they call me a Republican or a Marxist. (Try to figure that one out.) I'm told that if people aren't forced to pay taxes, that there will be "deadbeats" who mooch all the "highly desirable public services" that "we" can't live without, but that, strangely, I don't want.

    Bastiat observed, 160 years ago, that legislators seem to think themselves "made of finer clay."

    Dave

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