'The true Soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because He loves what is behind him.' -G. K. Chesterton

02 October 2010

Reason or Force, Great Logic

A good friend of mine in Wy, sent this to me; he and I agree that it makes a lot of sense.

It was written by Marko Kloos over at The Munchkin Wrangler.

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason or force.

If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or Force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad equations. These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat---it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong,and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even and armed one can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gum makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists,bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the guns makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equal armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.

Thank You


This preceding information just makes perfect sense to me. I hope you can benefit by it as I did.

Sarge

3 comments:

Rourke said...

Excellant points.....

Rourke
ModernSurvivalOnline.com

Sarah said...

This is one of my favorite essays because the points are dead on and because the writing is excellent. One minor point, however, is that Marko Kloos over at The Munchkin Wrangler wrote it. His version is different from this one in a few ways, so it's worth heading over to his site and taking a look at what he published:

http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/

Sarge said...

Sarah,
Please except my humble thanks for setting me streight on the author. I did go over to the Munchkin Wrangler (Marko Kloos) and did read his essay. Also I read some of the comments to his post and most were in agreement with a few exceptions. I do want to give credit where credit is due, and obviously Marko Kloos wrote it. Again the points are right on the mark and I simply didn't do the required investigation. Thanks again for setting me striaght.