« ALEA Home | Email msg. | Reply to msg. | Post new | Board info. Previous | Home | Next

Re: Australia hasn't had a fatal mass shooting since 1996. Here's what it did

By: Cactus Flower in ALEA | Recommend this post (0)
Fri, 16 Feb 18 11:45 PM | 53 view(s)
Boardmark this board | The Trust Matrix
Msg. 23811 of 54959
(This msg. is a reply to 23808 by Cactus Flower)

Jump:
Jump to board:
Jump to msg. #

It's not a problem that is hard to solve, except the constitution doesn't help one bit.

Just pick an English-speaking country, borrow its gun laws, use spell check to make the English an American version, vote for it and off you go.

No more dead children. Dead children is the right's cost of what they call freedom, but what they call freedom is, in fact, the elevation of property ownership and exchange rights over all others.

America inherited its idea of freedom and many of its citizens have never really understood it. The right's definition is lousy. That's the problem.

The real version of freedom with property rights is freedom within the law, freedom as far as you do no damage to others, freedom as long as it doesn't harm nature, freedom unless there are grounds for suspicion etc. Freedom is always qualified by its cost.

But the first Americans (ie English colonists) thought they could exist as if no one else did and resources were unlimited. Many on the right just haven't learnt the hard truth that this just ain't so once there are a lot of people. It's hard to discover something new. But freedoms must be shared among one another, which means including restrictions; and in acting freely you can damage the environment so you need to restrict that too.

I am afraid that a sensible definition of freedom wrecks the fun of acting with abandon.

My own suggestion for a cure is that all American children should be taught the happiness philosophies. They will discover that it doesn't come from property rights, at least once you have a sufficient amount of it to survive. Like Jefferson, start with Epicurus.




» You can also:
- - - - -
The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Australia hasn't had a fatal mass shooting since 1996. Here's what it did
By: Cactus Flower
in ALEA
Fri, 16 Feb 18 8:47 PM
Msg. 23808 of 54959

Yes, but let's face the facts. We'll be talking about something else in a few days.

This one isn't going to move unless there's a major Dem sweep of all the government's parts and even then there's now a built-in cheater's majority on the Supreme Court.


« ALEA Home | Email msg. | Reply to msg. | Post new | Board info. Previous | Home | Next