159 thoughts on “Admitting Mistakes”

1. Alan Fox: Me, too. Activities that are consensual and harm nobody but the participants should not be illegal. A pragmatic approach to drug use, as is taken with alcohol and tobacco, would have a huge positive impact, in my view. Look at cannabis and the Netherlands.

   Alan, do you take ownership of guns (whatever they are, exactly) to be an activity that harms nobody but the participants? This–along with the drug question, is a probability estimate, isn’t it?

2. walto: Alan, do you take ownership of guns (whatever they are, exactly) to be an activity that harms nobody but the participants? This–along with the drug question, is a probability estimate, isn’t it?

   Oh, no, not at all. Guns make killing other people far too easy and impulsive. Maybe there’s a case for being able to rent a gun if you need to kill yourself! (I’m half-joking here, though I am in favour of euthanasia, at least for myself when the time comes).

3. That “other” biz, is a good point. It does seem to distinguish guns from meth.

4. On a related point–if there were a drug that was instantly addictive, and for which the withdrawal was often deadly, would you still oppose laws against its possession or sale? Can we never protect people against impulses that significantly harm themselves, in your opinion?

5. walto:
   On a related point–if there were a drug that was instantly addictive, and for which the withdrawal was often deadly, would you still oppose laws against its possession or sale? Can we never protect people against impulses that significantly harm themselves, in your opinion?

   It should be the guiding principle. Heroin almost fits that description and I would decriminalise it tomorrow. The benefits of state provision of a clean heavily-taxed product cutting out the illegal suppliers far outweigh the damage addicts do to themselves. Persuade them on to morphine and add in all the education on safe use and support and encouragement to break addiction, it makes much more sense. Think of the reduction in the prison population.

6. Rather troubling for William’s argument that widespread gun ownership is the only effective bulwark against government tyranny is his poster-child for gun ownership, Switzerland. It’s the most tyrannical country in Europe:

   viz:
   In Switzerland first demands for an alternative service had already been made in 1903. Two people’s initiatives for the introduction of an alternative service failed in 1977 and 1984. Improvements in the state’s behaviour towards conscientious objectors came on only very reluctantly and until 1996 only through the military penal law. One of these improvements was the introduction of the possibility of exclusion from the army. Before that, conscientious objectors (COs) were sentenced to several weeks of imprisonment every time they did not return to barracks. Thus, some COs spent several weeks per year in prison. Later, special privileges were given to COs with an acknowledged moral dilemma. They got the possibility to spend their sentence in open prison (“half-freedom”). First, only religiously motivated COs could profit from this new opportunity, later on the “half-freedom” was extended to those with so-called ethical reasons. Every year, up to 800 COs were sentenced to four to twelve months of imprisonment. In 1991 the courts got the opportunity to sentence them to public service in place of imprisonment.

   Before 1996, no freedom of conscience in Switzerland…

7. To be fair, Jock, he didn’t say it was a “bulwark”–he said if your gov’t is tryannical (as you say the Swiss one is), it’s nice to have guns.

8. I don’t think freedom of conscience means what you think it means. It doesn’t mean you can do anything you want to do. It means you can think and say what you want.

   If Switzerland had some history of militarism then opposition to service would be a bit more defensible. And if it prevented citizens from emigrating, it might be tyrannical.

9. With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night’s tragic mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA — I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life. Everything I have to say about this, I said it 12 years ago:

   We are a people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who momentarily snaps. We are a nation founded in violence, grew our borders through violence, and allow men in power to use violence around the world to further our so-called American (corporate) “interests.” The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol. While other countries have more violent pasts (Germany, Japan), more guns per capita in their homes (Canada [mostly hunting guns]), and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do — and yet we don’t seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: “Why us? What is it about US?” Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white males. None of them are committed by the majority gender, women. Hmmm, why is that? Even when 90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, Congress refuses — and then we the people refuse to remove them from office. So the onus is on us, all of us. We won’t pass the necessary laws, but more importantly we won’t consider why this happens here all the time. When the NRA says, “Guns don’t kill people — people kill people,” they’ve got it half-right. Except I would amend it to this: “Guns don’t kill people — Americans kill people.” Enjoy the rest of your day, and rest assured this will all happen again very soon.

   From here