A Good Example

How to be a Good Example: Why two wrongs do make a right. Part 4 of 4

 

Ronald Reagan once said, “I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

 

Let’s get to my point: To ban guns because criminals misuse them is telling law abiding citizens that our rights and liberties depend not on our conduct, but on the conduct of the criminals. In other words, the law will permit law abiding citizens only those rights and freedoms that the lawless have not exploited.

 

I’m convinced that society can't control crime by forcing law-abiding citizens to accommodate themselves to the behavior of criminals. Society should control crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of law-abiding citizens.

 

Let’s carry this to the extreme. Imagine what would happen if no one complained about rules: I’m convinced that local, state, federal, and international agencies would constantly be creating new rules for everything you can imagine; and for a lot of things you can’t imagine. Ultimately we would have no freedom at all.

 

We would be told when to get up, how to dress, what to eat, where to work, how to get there, what to do while we’re there, when to leave, and how to get home. It would extend to where we could live, who we could marry, how many children we could produce, what their names would be, and what they would learn in school.

 

Our lives would not only be totally dictated to us, we would be monitored every moment of every day. Cameras at intersections, cameras at work, cameras at parks, cameras at home, cameras at church, cameras in our cars … oh wait … I’m not sure we’ll have cars. All of this would be “for our own good” of course, and I’ll admit that the reasons would “make sense” to most people.

 

Don’t look now but recent news stories suggest that this is happening as you read this. It’s not our future it’s our present and the only way to stop it, or at least slow it down, is to push back. As citizens, and more importantly as humans with natural rights, we need to resist the creation of more and more rules that are imposed “for our own good”. We, The People, need to become rebels for our own cause.

 

I’m not suggesting anarchy, society requires rules, and I’m not sure how to balance this requirement for rules and the freedom to ignore them. I admit that it’s a difficult problem, but it’s important that we refuse to reduce our sense of what’s right and wrong to someone else’s complicated list of rules. If we don’t I believe that what we cherish as humans will be lost, and that our society will ultimately fail, because we’re giving up our ability, and our right, to determine our own lives.

 

So be a good example: Rock the boat; create some waves; walk on the grass; freely give to the homeless guy; take your elephant for a walk; remove the water restrictor in your shower; go where no man has gone before; ignore the sign that says “No Dogs”; embrace the idea that rules are meant to be broken; choose to be the bad apple; and follow the sound of a different drummer once in a while.

 

Yes society may require rules, but you have a right to live without a bunch of crazy rules enacted for the “greater good”; or at least you do today. If you don’t recognize and react to the threat to your liberties now, you are going to lose everything that is important.