08 July, 2016

Whisper comments on Semi-automatic rifle fire during Dallas protests, 7/7/2016

Whisper comments on Semi-automatic rifle fire during Dallas protests, 7/7/2016:


The basic idea behind America is "liberty rather than tyranny", but those words have been repeated so often as to lose their impact, so I'll say it a different way.
The basic idea behind America is that citizens are responsible adults, not teenagers who need minding. In our original, post-1776 political culture, every adult was assumed to be responsible for his own life, and neither entitled to coddling and hand-holding, nor answerable to anyone unless and until he violated someone else's rights.
Saying "You cannot have a gun, you'll hurt yourself, or do something wicked with it" is anathema to the American soul, because it treats the citizen as a child. Canadians, British subjects, Swedes, etc, do not understand this because they live in socialist sorts of nations where it's accepted that people are teenagers and the state is Mom.


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