🚀 go-pugleaf

John M Atkinson wrote:
> 
> Thus Spake klaatu <klaatu@clark.net>:
> 
> %> %Then your argument is that THEY get to shoot US up, but we have to
> %> %just sit and take it?
> %>
> %> My argument is that the United States has political and legal institutions
> which
> %> allow for peaceful and legal redress of wrongs.
> %
> %And do they inevitable guarantee that justice prevails? The fear is that
> %increasingly justice is less important to the powers-that-be than is
> %corruption or party politics.
> 
> No, they don't.  What does?  Unless you have God himself sitting on the jury, it
> will be composed of fallible humans.  Justice will not be served every time.
> Such is the price of being human.  But American political and legal institutions
> are more likely to produce a just result than most other arrangements.

Yes, indeed. But one must understand that simply because something is
the _best of all extant choices_ it need not necessarily be _the best_
as in, 'it might not be all that it could be in terms of justice'.

And some fear that the gap between the present "best of all possible
choices" and the "second-best of all possible choices" is rapidly
shrinking... and also some fear that as America might recede from the
former pinnacle and epitome/exemplar of justice, there's less incentive
for the rest of the world to set their goal towards the American
standard. So our failure to lead gives aid and comfort to wannabee
tyrants everywhere. Corruption spreads, particularly from the top down.
We owe it to the world to hold higher the ideals that once made us not
only the best, but truly great.

> 
> %> Use them instead of going out
> %> with your redneck buddies and declaring yourself an 'independant country' and
> %> shooting the hell out of anyone who goes near your compound.
> %
> %Most of us do, jeeze. You post as if you think that everyone in the NRA
> %is a secessionist. Most of us are nowhere near that point because for
> %the most part, that point has come nowher enear us.
> 
> Every time I post something to the effect of 'push your political agendas all
> you like, but don't shoot anyone' some redneck posts "Well, what about Waco?" or
> whatever.

well, what about it? I damned sure don't want to shoot anyone, heck I
can't count the number of times I've backed away from easily-winnable
fisticuffs because I think that violence is the last refuge of the
incompetant. If I am going to fight in any fashion, it'll be because I
am fighting for my life, or for an Ideal without which life would not be
worth living. 

Waco and Ruby Ridge were clearly symptomatic of a mindset that was
increasingly ignoring the ideals upon which this country was founded.
People noticed, and some were sufficiently fearful of these foul omens
that they started arming. Someone in the government noticed that, and
things are to some degree beginning to "center" themselves again.
Hopefully not too little too late.

> 
> John M. Atkinson
> jatkinso@gmu.edu
> "A nation which despises its soldiers will all too soon
> have a despicable army
>                  --Jerry Pournelle

-- 
Be kind to your       | When the going gets weird the weird turn pro.
neighbors even though | http://www.clark.net/pub/klaatu/
they be transgenic    | Now. chock full of uninteresting links.
chimerae.             |-- Genesis 19:1-13 - Hebrews 13:2 -- 
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Usually I work within the system when it's not trying to get me killed.