> At 03:19 PM 1/3/98 -0700, Mark D. Fulwiler <mfulwiler@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >To digress a bit-take the Oklahoma City bombers- please. What cowardly
> morons! Do
> >they try to take out anyone important? (I am not advocating this.) Nope, they
> >indiscriminately kill innocent children and low level government officials.
> Also,
> >they didn't have the sense to realize that in order to start a violent
> revolution,
> >you need about a third of the population on your side to have any chance at
> all.
> >George Washington, for example, had about a third of the colonists on his
> side and
> >he knew damned well that there was a hangman's noose in store for him if he
> lost. He
> >took full responsibility for what he was doing. You don't see many people
> of such
> >high character these days. Yes, he had his major faults-he owned slaves(
> which, to
> >his credit, he freed after his death) and he wasn't a pure libertarian, but
> the man
> >had mostly good principles and a lot of courage. Contrast William Jefferson
> (I gag
> >associating him with our 3rd President) Clinton.
> I disagree on the one-third-of-the-populace-behind-them argument. I think you
> need much less, but you also must be certain that the rest of the people are
> less
> united and don't care. In other words, if 10% of the people support you and
> have
> the will and dough while the rest have neither and don't care, I think you'd
> have a
> good chance. The problem is that today most people who contemplate revolution
> are not the sort of people I'd like to see succeed. In fact, they look a
> little too much
> like the current rulers! (Recall Timothy McVeigh was a decorated veteran of the
> Persian Gulf War.)
Yes, I think you are probably right.
> In real life, I'd rather see a revolution of the peaceful sort, especially
> of changing
> enough people over to our side. And keep others neutral. Someone once said,
> not everyone needed to be enlightened during the Enlightenment, and look what
> came from that. (Can you tell me who said this?:)
Yes, I really don't look forward to another Civil War. And, with the exception
of the American Revolution, almost all wars lead to a massive decrease in
freedom.
I can't tell you the source of your quote. :-(
> But my original point was that there is a difference between morality and
> legality --
> or what is right and wrong and what should be up to the law -- whether enforced
> by a government or what have you -- to decide. Does anyone agree with me
> on this?
The government, if it exists, should only enforce laws to protect people's
liberty and property and make sure contracts are enforced. However, under our
current legal system, acts which are not immoral, like taking drugs are
criminalized, while theft by the government (taxation), certainly immoral, is
quite legal. Ideally, everything immoral should be illegal, and everything moral
should be legal. I am however, speaking of rational morality, not the often
idiotic kind advanced by religion.
For an example of immorality posing as morality, see the truly vile piece by Dr.
Sally Satel (an evil psychiatrist) in today's Wall Street Journal advocating
using coercion against drug users "for their own good." It's a shame this Nazi
bitch is given space in one of our leading newspapers, but the WSJ is run by a
bunch of superstitious religious conservatives who have no idea of the real
meaning of freedom.
Mark Fulwiler