Oleg, Darn It
It's kinda late in the day for you to kick my brain into gear.
The penalty for that is that you get my stream-of-consciousness ramblings.
Tomorrow I'll probably read this and repent, but for now, here we go:
Common goals. As Americans, what are the goals we have in common? Sorry, no Gallup poll for this one.
Americans have some things in common that could be called irreducible minimums.
We want to be healthy.
We want our kids to grow up and succeed.
We want to be free to go where we want when we want.
We want to be adequately compensated for our efforts.
We want to know that, not only will we ourselves not be enslaved, but also that our sons and their sons will not be enslaved.
We want to have free access to knowledge.
We want to be able to leave a meaningful legacy for our posterity.
While we may not necessarily want to be famous, we want our lives to matter.
We thrive on challenge.
We want life to be interesting.
We want to win.
This is all pretty obvious stuff.
Where we begin to diverge is often in the "how" of these things. Also in little nuanced things, like you will notice I did not include "We want to be safe" in that list. Many of us want that, and to a degree, all of us. However, "be safe" is not a vector quantity, and the "how" of it is a source of much dissension.
Some of us want "to be kept safe" (passive) while others simply want to be allowed "to keep myself safe" (active).
It is here, at the fork in the road called "responsibility" that much of our friction begins.
The people who torment you with demands for "why do you NEED a gun" actually share many of the same common goals that you have.
To bicker with someone over whether a gun is needed is to reinforce certain fixed ideas they already have.
Instead, let us speculate on a conversation:
- You: Let me ask you, what is truly important in your life?
- Him: Why?
- You: Just help me out here; one important thing; what would that be?
- Him: I want peace.
- You: We all do. I'm asking about you personally: your life, something important just to you.
- Him: Well, I want my kids to have good jobs.
- You: Okay. Fair enough.
- Him: And I want to retire in comfort.
- You: Right. Okay. Now, how does being disarmed further that goal?
- Him: What??
- You: Stay with me here. You want your kids to succeed, and you want to make it to retirement and have a decent retirement. Is that a fair summary?
- Him: Well, yeah, but what's that got to do with being armed or not?
- You: It sounded to me like you felt it was important to be disarmed. I was wondering how that contributes to the goals you really value.
- Him: They're really not related.
- You: Do you feel the authorities can keep your kids safe? Can they keep you safe? Can you attain those goals if violence derails your life?
- Him: Well, we're talking very low probabilities here.
- You: Granted. But, like me, you probably carry a spare tire in your car. I haven't changed a flat in ten years. How about you?
- Him: I see where you're going with this. I still don't think people need guns.
- You: Fair enough. I have some goals, too. Some of them sound just like yours. I just don't know that I can depend on the authorities for my safety. I feel like at least part of that's my job.
- Him: Well, I trust the government to do its job.
- You: Okay, then. We're not that different in the things we want from life. I hope you get those things that matter to you.
And now you're not a nut job.
Sometimes we don't grasp truths all at once. Sometimes the realization is dramatic. Sometimes it's gradual.
If you're not fighting with your fellow man, he has nothing to resist. You cannot push against what does not push back.
They can understand.
Help them see.