The Risks of Freedom.

The Risks of Freedom.

It has been a year since my last post. Elections have been held and America seems to be at a turning point. The country has chosen to give up many of its freedoms in a bargain for comfort and security. Certainly the people have to right to make such a choice. But the choice should be deliberate and conscious. In the marketplace of ideas and information there is a tendency to get so caught up in looking at a tree that we completely forget about the forest. The most recent example of this is the current debate over "gun control".  

Everybody looks for an easy answer to violence and guns but the question is very complex. It is not just the fact that guns exist. They do and they will not go away regardless of how many tough laws we pass. If guns exist they will be used. Notwithstanding the pleas of environmentalists, I predict that in the year 2020 and 3020 people on this planet will burn some type of fossil fuel to stay warm or cook food and use some form of firearm for protection or aggression.  The only way human beings can deal with technology is to either replace it with something so superior that going backwards is unthinkable. Or to learn to use it responsibly and hold users accountable for such use. Neither fire nor firearms are going away any time soon. 

The American culture as an emerging society has had to learn how to responsibly use fire and must do the same with guns. No one (so far) is required to get a permit to burn hydrocarbons in the backyard in order to prepare a steak. And no one even discusses that possibility. So why are guns different? Why is the regulation of firearms in the US different from the rest of the world?

First, we are arguably the most free society in the world. That freedom is based on a Constitution that is in turn based on the premise that the people are free to do whatever they want up to the point where their actions  intrude upon the rights and/or property of others. That premise is embodied in the relationship between freedom and responsibility. 

If each man in a social group is responsible for his own actions

then

society in the form of group or individual can hold another responsible for his actions.

That simple truth is at the core of the American psyche. 

What enabled civilization to spread across an enormous frontier was the delegation of civil and legal authority to every citizen. The pioneers were not accompanied by sheriffs, That tradition of personal authority and responsibility is at the heart of the Constitution in general and the 2nd Amendment specifically. 

Our freedom makes life riskier than does the government of almost every other place in the world. (Today's circumstances may call that claim into question.) The price for freedom is risk!!! If, as a people we are no longer willing to accept the risks that go with it then we are choosing to give our freedom away.

Freedom and Independence are directly related. As one goes up the other goes up.

Risk and Dependence are inversely related, as risk goes down dependence goes up.  

Congress does not need to debate the Debt Limit or Gun Registration. They do need to debate how much freedom are Americans willing to give up to reduce their risks?