Posted on 10/11/2019 12:04:21 AM PDT by Windflier
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for an [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat - it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
100% correct.
*** Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it. ***
Does altruism fit into his equation or what?
I believe that would be part of reason.
*** you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, ***
Argument= reason
Altruism isn’t based on argument. Lately, I have seen the definition of zoological altruism used as the human definition when they are not the same.
There is no true altruism. there is always a self motive, somewhere, otherwise it wouldn’t be done.
*** There is no true altruism. there is always a self motive, somewhere, otherwise it wouldn’t be done. ***
Would that not equate egoism to altruism? Seems cynical to me.
Not virtue signaling, but recently I was at a pharmacy, and a customer could not afford her insulin. I paid for her script. I felt compassion for her, could afford it so I did.
What would be self motive/ self interest in that?
A lesson our liberal ‘betters’ and government in general need a re-education on. Leave me alone or I will make you leave me alone.
Really? If that were true, there wouldn't be any reasons to award the Medal of Honor..
Did the same at a gas station. Young lady ahead of me had a $4.00 charge denied. She looked like she was on her way to work and was devastated when the clerk told her.
I stepped right up and covered her gas. Told her to pass it on one day when she was able to.
“Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force.”
COROLLARY: You can’t reason someone out of something they didn’t reason themselves into.
*** I stepped right up and covered her gas. ***
Thanks for sharing that. I like to think goodness and kindness exist just “because”. We are capable of care for others without some selfish motive.
Good words. Thanks for posting.
Agreed!
Guns Are Civilization.
It made you feel good.
I like that!
*** It made you feel good. ***
Not really. I tend toward dysthymic on an emotional scale. It was probably more like replacing a burned out light bulb.
Something was not working ($200 for insulin), and I had an extra lightbulb ($200) I didn’t need.
An armed society is a polite society
I see that you haven’t responded to my comment about altruism to you, so allow me to expand on the subject a bit:
Gary W. Martini was nineteen years old in April 1967 when his platoon ran into the prepared defenses of an NVA battalion. 14 of his fellow Marines were killed and 18 more wounded and some of those wounded were trapped in the open ground between the trench that the Marines found for cover and the enemy machine guns. Martini ran out into that massed fire to rescue a wounded Marine even though another Marine had just tried that and was killed doing it. He made it back to the trench with the wounded Marine but Martini was wounded himself in the process.
Martini went out again to get another wounded man again through that intense enemy fire. He threw grenades at the NVA machine gun teams and then successfully retrieved another wounded Marine.
At that point, the sole remaining officer told Martini to stay put and not go out again – it was too dangerous.
A Marine who was badly wounded and trapped out in the open begged for help and Martini – when he saw that the officer was looking the other way – went back into the open to get that trapped and wounded Marine and he was shot and killed this time.
So – what’s this crap about “altruism not existing"?
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