A client of mine with whom I have worked for the last 15 years, called me yesterday and asked me what I thought about some sort of gun regulation. His distress was obvious, and I sensed that perhaps underlying his call was a need to blame someone, as we all need to do when circumstances overwhelm us -- his blame fell on libertarians, and me, as the only libertarian in his life. We talked for a long time. At the end of our conversation, I believe, we understood where each of us was coming from, and how each of us could understand each other a little better.
My client's call was obviously prompted by his perception that libertarians, and especially Libertarians, are causing a whole lot of needless suffering with their conspiracy theories and their "irrational beliefs" (his words). I had to agree with him that sometimes we freely aid such perception.
BTW, my client and I ended up talking about not gun control, not libertarian conspiracies, but about people who desperately need help, do not get help -- and the rest is tragedy.
Marcy,
I explain that libertarians are like doctors in an violence epidemic, we want everyone to be vaccinated.(have a gun). And the best thing about it, is that not everyone needs to have one; only a few will stop the disease from spreading. This spares those who aren't good with the vaccination.
It is only when no-one is vaccinated, the disease does its horrific work. Preventing everyone from vaccination is an abomination. And anti-vaccination hysteria has consumed our culture.
It is especially abominable to create vaccination-free zones and put children into them. These zones are created with the special conditions where the disease can spread. There is nothing to stop the outbreak.
Meanwhile the anti-vaccination hysteria is focused on eliminating all the "germs" in the world.
The thinking could not be more insane. With this thinking, smallpox and polio would be killing families and decimating communities.
This is not to say we can't improve the technology of the "vaccination", to make sure it is inoperable in the wrong hands. We have that technology today. With only a
fraction of the energy spent in the controversy we could be protecting the children tomorrow.
And similarly, there are only bad reasons to put families in the position of the Lanza family, isolated to the remoteness of far-away government-central- command-and-control-help. The boot of government society has crushed the more personal societies out of people's lives. And no amount of more-government can fix what more-government wrecks.
I also explain that we libertarians seek to restore these more-personal societies with more personal-liberty and more personal-involvement.
We are good guys. Meanwhile the other guys have been killing so many people for so long it's normal and expected. That's what they do. But, the fact that they are running things, is no excuse. Usually no explanation is needed for this.
Good analogy. Thank you. Personally, I like analogies, intelligent arguments, sound data. But I can do without the inflammatory language which, I believe, leads good people such as the client I mentioned earlier to perceive libertarians as fringe conspiracy theorists.
Regarding your Brad Pit idea, great if you can do it. We are the local LPSF, and as such, I personally prefer to focus on specific legislation etc our local officials come up with.
Marcy,
Inflammatory language? I agree. I thought I stayed away from that.
Are you saying it's hard to tell what's inflammatory when I'm always on fire?
What was it this time?
John
