Two quotes for a quiet weekend.
The first is from a post about the 10:10 video over at The Anchoress and explains the righteous mentality perfectly :
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” –C.S. Lewis
Torment without end certainly seems to be where we are headed here in the UK with the constant stream of health warnings and righteous prods to do as they say.
The second quote (by John Stuart Mill) was within an interesting piece about legalising all drugs over at The Adam Smith Institute :
The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right… The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
Which is exactly how things should be and is the core concept behind Libertarianism.
Alas, trying to get that idea across to the righteous seems to me to be an impossibility.
I recently bought a job lot of Action Force comics off Ebay from the 80’s. I used to have a huge collection of the figures when I was a kid and I seem to be going through a phase of going back to my youth. Might be a midlife crisis or something.
Anyway, where was I going? Oh yeah.
One of the strips has a shop owner talking about being robbed and he says, “When will the government begin to understand that banning objects (guns) does not solve problems?”.
This is in a childrens comic that’s over twenty years old.
It looks like they haven’t begun to realise that yet.