Re: Property Rights

Joe E. Dees (joedees@bellsouth.net)
Wed, 26 May 1999 16:16:17 -0500 

Subject:        	Re: Property Rights
To:             	extropians@extropy.com
Date sent:      	Wed, 26 May 1999 13:24:55 -0700 (PDT)
From:           	"Lee Daniel Crocker" <lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net (none)>
Organization:   	Piclab (http://www.piclab.com/)
Send reply to:  	extropians@extropy.com



> > I'm arguing for laws to keep guns out of the hands of immature
> > and sociopathic people, many of which will NOT become KILLERS
> > as a result! For you to rail against that is fucking irresponsible.
>
> ...or maybe it's just evidence that he has sufficient IQ to know
> that laws are just words, and won't prevent someone from becoming
> a killer any more than "Just say no" ended the drug problem.
> I could as easily argue that for you to propose laws without any
> evidence that those laws will protect more people than they harm
> is also criminally irresponsible.
>
As you well know, and as I have already stated, such propositions can ONLY be tested experientially. As I have also stated, to demand evidence while not allowing the gathering of it (by provisionally passing such laws to see if they DO reduce gun murders) is reminiscent of the DEA's intellectually dishonest strategy of saying there's no evidence to support the use of marijuana as a palliative, and by the way, we won't approve any studies to allow you to get any.
>
> I, like most who support the right to use appropriate defense
> technologies, am most enraged by the suggestion that we somehow
> approve of their misuse, or don't want to reduce their misuse.
> Continuing to imply that we do is willfully dishonest, and will
> not help your arguments. Continuing to argue about motives is
> a waste of time.
>
Then walk your talk, and stop being obstructionist about every reasonable reform. Y'all sound just like Vietnam-era slippery-slope Domino theorists!
>
> Gun banners may achieve some small measure of credibility when
> they show that they are able to argue rationally and honestly.
>
Gun nuts may achieve some small crumb of credibility and stop apeearing to everyone else to be mindlessly robotic zombies chanting their mantras with zealous and flat-eyed fervency when they end the true-believer practice of dogmatically rejecting every suggestion out-of-hand, or perhaps (gasp!) even marshalling the temerity to proffer a few of their own, rather than playing ostrich with the problem (What dead kids? I don't see any dead kids! Oops! I got sand in my eye!).
> --
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
>