A “right” that requires “government” permission is not a right, but a government-granted privilege. A “right” that legislation can negate is not a right. And yet most of the pro-freedom movement goes to great lengths to ASK those in “government” to please not violate our rights. FULL ARTICLE
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5 comments ↓
It’s like the “tea party” protests that get government permits to get out in the streets.
When you have to ask permission, you don’t have the right to assemble. You’re just allowed to when they say you can.
Many people have criticized Socrates for choosing the drink the hemlock. Why obey bad laws?
Perhaps it reinforces the notion of why it is so important to have good laws in a nation of people who respect the rule of law, and find principles of arbitration to which they willingly accede.
All technology empowers the individual. Several hundred years with access to canon and firearm have greatly instilled a notion of technological equality between persons. Perhaps this is the source of confusion that the individual must stand against bad laws alone. When it gets to that point, liberty is already lost. If liberty is a duty, then libertarians must march to the aid of all free peoples. Perhaps liberty is not an immortal property of free minds, but an immanent bond between them.
Larken Rose is accurate that we are native born as sovereign individuals. It was this fact that Jefferson referred to as unalienable.</br>
Jefferson was also a fan of Rousseau’s Social Contract, which suggested that we choose to surrender some measure of this sovereignty when we form societies. You can’t have roads without taxes, you can’t solve crime without investigations.</br>
It is certainly true that finding the amount of government necessary seem to be a point of some dispute. Rose suggests that argument can be won only with weapons.</br>
I would remind people before they set down a path towards killing their fellow man over politics, that King and Ghandi and women’s sufferage were all quite successful without using violence. In fact violence on their opponents part helped their cause.
This is scary stuff, but it ultimately seems to ring true. If the “authorities” come to arrest you for exercising your inalienable rights and you go along peaceably, you can practice passive resistance forever in prison but it won’t do a thing to protect your lost rights, much less reinstate them. What Mr. Larken proposes is true, but what he’s asking is that you resolve to die for your rights. If your home is being invaded by the police and you begin blowing them away for not having a search warrant, you ARE in the right. Trouble is, you are also about to die at the hands of SWAT. Our forefathers would have understood exactly where he’s coming from, and I think we do to. The American Revolutionaries were prepared to go there, and many did. The fans of American Idol might have second thoughts, and that’s the author’s point. The Redcoats weren’t taking any freedoms away from our forefathers without one hell of a fight. The American Revolutionaries WERE prepared to die for their principles at a moment’s notice. The Republicrats can have most any freedom they choose to cancel today, as long as they don’t cancel COPS. It’s a sad state of affairs. Are we willing to take a bullet for freedom? If not, then we won’t be free for long. Powerful article.
Jerry, it sure is scary. I personally believe in non-violent resistance and activism, but do know that in history there have come times where people go the other route. I think that would be quite bad, but in moral terms agree that resisting aggression is acceptable.
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