Some bravely anonymous columnist at the New York Times recently lamented the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Chicago handgun ban in a piece titled, “Court Ignores Bloody Reality.”
To begin, Mr. Fearful of Retaliation from Those Bad Anti-Government Types characterizes as “flawed logic” the rationale by the five affirming judges that a militia is a group of common people banding together for purposes of mutual defense. What else is it or can it be? A government entity? Get real.
Further, he wants readers to quail at the hobgoblin of gun violence by stating that inthe Windy City in 2009, 258 public school students were shot last year – 32 died. While this is unquestionably a tragedy, it is really a more potent case against government schools and the atmosphere of bullying, clanship, and animosity they inherently produce. The writer totally ignores studies such as John R. Lott, Jr.’s “More Guns, Less Crime” – demonstrating beyond any reasonable doubt that gun ownership deters criminals, and stops as many as 2,000,000 crimes from being committed in America each year, often without any shots fired. Indeed, in every unbiased study by any group – ranging the full gamut of the political spectrum – statistics bear Lott’s research out.
Yet, angrily and most arrogantly, the writer states that “Mayors and state lawmakers will have to … keep adopting the most restrictive possible gun laws – to protect the lives of Americans and aid the work of law enforcement officials.”
Ah, yes: Those wearing government costumes and receiving government paychecks (stolen tax revenues) are always superior to the dumb unskilled peasantry, aren’t they? Especially since every court ruling in America at every level of the State-monopolized dispute resolution system have concluded that the police – and other government entities – are under no obligation to protect you or I. But you’d better damned well pay those taxes, chump…or we’ll shoot you. That’s our version of protection.
This deluded individual also claims that, in response to gun rights groups, “Officials will have to press back even harder.” Oh, the noble bureaucrat, only striving to do what’s moral, just, and true – pitted against the evil of those whose wish is to be independent, sovereign, and in control of his or her own life and property. Such people make the editorialist in question grind his teeth and pull out his hair in rage and frustration. How dare they protect themselves! How dare they not go along with the will of politicians and bureaucrats! The court is ignoring bloody reality!
And what else is new, mate? The court always ignores reality – like all government – by virtue of the fact that it even exists. No group self-appointed authoritarians has any legitimate right to dictate edicts that in any way effect your person or property, or mine; your liberty or mine. Lysander Spooner talked all about it way back in 1850 in his essay “The Constitution of No Authority.” I could care less what the Second Amendment says or doesn’t say, in the end. Natural law always trumps artificial, meaningless government “law” every time. I exist, and that automatically means I have every right to defend myself and my property with whatever weapons I choose. End of story.
So take that and get lost, Mr. Scared Anonymous – and while your’e at it, take the arrogant, worthless government you revere and identify with so much right along with you. No thinking man has any use for it.
Mr. Knight,
Excellent article. I just want to mention something grammatical. In the second paragraph from the end – "I could care less what…." It should be, "I COULDN'T care less what…." Saying that you could care less implies that you have some cares about the subject – I'm sure that you don't care what the Second Amendment says. Thanks for your time.
Daniel Wulsch
"could care less" has been used in every day conversation longer than i have been around to make the point that you couldn't care less it is strange but i don't believe it is grammatically incorrect,
I have to agree and disagree with you. By saying that you "could care less", you are saying that you do have some cares about the subject. I know that you don't. You are correct, though. It is in use in everyday conversation – I even heard "I could care less" used in a top song. Just because it is in everyday use doesn't make it correct. We had slavery in this country for almost 100 years. It didn't make it right.
No one robs the Hell's Angels clubhouse.
Much worse than the overused idiom "could care less" is this:
"Especially since every court ruling in America at every level of the State-monopolized dispute resolution system have concluded that the police – and other government entities – are under no obligation to protect you or I."
The correct usage is "to protect you or me."
Alex, your grammar needs work. Perhaps a proofreader would have helped. You have a lot of good things to say, and I do agree with you. However, as you can see for yourself, grammatical errors in an otherwise great article ultimately become the focus of attention, rather than the ideas within that article. That is a real shame.
Also, within the same example:
“Especially since every court ruling in America at every level of the State-monopolized dispute resolution system have concluded that the police – and other government entities – are under no obligation to protect you or I.”
"Every court ruling" is singular, so the word "has," rather than the word "have," should have been used.
Sorry for the nitpicking, Alex.
Bloody hell – what is the world coming to? Americans chiding each other about grammar as their government does its level best to set the world on fire and the political-parasite class increases the pressure of its boot on the lnecks of its livestock.
I confess that I nitpick sometimes, but I try to make it about substantive issues (in the piece on anosognosia I commented on the other day, I pointed out that the pons asinorum was usually a reference to Euclid's fifth PROPOSITION or POSTULATE, not Euclid's fifth "theorem" as the writer had claimed… y'see?).
And let's not even start talking about 'M'rkin orthography – the inability to properly render words like 'colour'. And "different THAN"? Gah.
But seriously: language is about the transmission of ideas – it is only the soi-disant elite who invented stupid grammatical rules (esp. the split infinitive) and – to a lesser extent – 'proper' orthography. And that was really only in order to create an artificial "barrier to entry" ito the market for ideas: if your material was not properly rendered, you were a dunce. (Shakespeare would have had a hard time in England after the mid-1700s – he had a tendency to neologise, and spelt his name at least 7 different ways).
If you want to see how badly language works when you have some self-appointed arbiters of rightness (who then proceed to ignore the big flaws), look no further than French and German (and non-English european language, actually). You spend more time (either consciously or otherwise) conjuugating and getting gender and number agreement on adjectives, than you do actually putting together a thought. Madness.
In time, we will dispense complete with stupid verb conjugation (it will become "I have, you have, he/she/it have", "I be, you be, he/she/it be") and move even closer to perfection in the structure of our language – and then there will be a Websterian overhaul of orthography (which already takes place in informal communications, innit).
English's strength is that it is NOT overseen by some bunch of political hacks like the Academie Francaise: English evolved organically (quasi-anarchically) and continues to do so – which is why it is quite simply the best language for expression of IDEAS on the planet. Once we slough off conjugation and return to 'laissez faire' orthography, our domination of the world's languages will be complete.
Yors sinseerlee
Jefree
Oh – and as is always the case with Alex R Knight III's work… cogently and concisely expressed, and conformable to my prejudices (although I always like there to be some small call to anti-State violence, so that the NSA harvesters waste some more server storage).
Cheerio
GT
language changes over time. slavery? are you seriously using that as an example.
Ummm…I could use lots of things as examples. That it ended HERE over a hundred years ago is one thing. That it is still being practiced in parts of Africa today is another. Yes, I am seriously using slavery as an example.