I intended to post a new, much delayed journal entry about post-prom thoughts and pictures and thanks for all the great folks who I met and who commented in my journal even though I have an extremely lazy and absent online personality. Instead, this huge and rambling journal post is my personal response and feelings about guns, power and coersion yet again. This is my second time rambling for pages on this. This time it was inspired by Jazmin's recent journal entry.
If you don't want to read for ever, and EVER, and EVER then you can read this comment by the more laconic s5 in the old thread were I first was rambling about it. It makes a reasonable precis of most of the high points. Another option is to ignore this and wait until I post the journal entry I meant to in the first place (maybe tomorrow?). It is mostly a stream of consciousness for my own benefit because I only figure out what I think when I discuss it or write it like this.
For those patient or interested enough to tolerate my ramblings (and everpresent appologies for said ramblings), read on...
A critical part for me in this issue is my fundamental optimism and idealism possibly born in part of my lack of experience with adversity but mostly connected to my fundamental inner philosophy. I believe that accepting imperfection and compromising decisions for some perceived concept of "being realistic" is something that fundamentally frustrates our ability to move towards our supposed ideal. I do my best, whenever possible or safe in my own life, to live as if things were (or at least could be) as ideal as I want them to be. If I don't believe that guns, violence, coercion and locks are good things for us (which I don't) then I will do my best to avoid using those tools and helping to perpetuate the climate in which they are the preferred, or at least accepted tools. The short version of this is that I don't accept that guns play any personal part in the world that I want to live in and I get to choose how I perceive/react to/construct the personal world that is my life.
That said, I balance the unfortunate and sad paranoia and isolation that locks and security devices bring into our emotional life against the realistic need for the security they provide. I opt, sadly, to lock my apartment when I leave (and even lock my bike up at Burning Man) because of how I judged the risk/cost either way.
When it comes to accepting in public society the easy availability and proliferation of efficient tools for killing, and more importantly accepting that in my own life, there is no question for me, in my experience, where the higher risk for damage lies. In part, this is because I have admittedly been sheltered and successfully avoided situations where I, or my loved ones, needed to physically defend themselves from anything.
In the end, though, I feel there is more poison for me in becoming highly proficient with a killing tool and keeping one nearby then there is in accepting the risk of others being more powerful than me. And if I do not become highly proficient then I feel the killing tool will more likely cause me harm than help protect me (as obsidity said in her comment in Jazmin's Journal). Even if I am proficient then at the very least the stakes are raised to a much more deadly level that I refuse to accept. I much prefer a climate where the aggressor feels in control and less threatened and may simple take what they want and leave. I know some will kill or wound the helpless when they have power over them, but I will just maintain an optimistic hope to continue my 30 year streak of avoiding them with maybe another 60 years or more
One key point here about me is that I do not feel that the best way to get or retain what I want in this life is to be more powerful and able to exert coercive force nor is it to be more able to defend myself against physical violence. Exerting force is not my way. I resonate with (my meager understanding of) Taoism a little more than other value sets or paths in this respect. I understand others may try to exert physical force against me, but I prefer to avoid them instead of struggle against them physically, and when it is not possible then I would try to accept the consequences and/or attempt a weaker, less prepared and possibly futile defense.
And finally I'll respond to the idea of using guns to defend against a violently oppressive government. I my opinion, using guns or threats of physical force in a widespread manner to oppress and control your own populace is a very awkward and blunt tool of limited effectiveness. It would be extremely volatile and difficult to wield, especially in an international climate like this one, for a country with such a history of at least purported freedom so highly touted and deep rooted and revered. I feel that defending against or deterring the imagined threat of a militarily totalitarian government by owning firearms is somewhat paranoid and unrealistic. Not when there is an arsenal of much more refined, acceptable and wildly more effective weapons being used already.
I choose to strengthen my defenses against propaganda, mass media and other manipulations of opinions and values that created and maintain the state of the current spectator democracies. I choose to struggle against mindless acquiescence to conventional roles, traditions, morals, and rules of behaviour by challenging them and adopting morals and behaviours that I personally can believe in. I would resist irrational or oppressive laws or legal and economic manipulations. I would oppose actions, foreign and domestic, that encourage a climate of isolation, paranoia and fear that I believe is a very root cause of the desire to own and use guns (opinion partially crystallized/borrowed from Michael Moore's conclusions in Bowling for Columbine). Although I am too passive and apathetic to struggle even in this arena, if I did feel inspired to actively defend myself then these are the weapons and battles that would worry me more than the threat of someone with a gun. I would probably find some role models I respected (like our own s5 for example) to direct me by example and education towards these sorts of struggles long before I would ask someone to help me with my gun shopping.
I also didn't go too deeply into the fact that my point of view implies a heavy reliance on others who are coercive or wield physical force or intimidation (police, etc) to give me some space in which to be my hippie self. That doesn't make me want to own a gun. That makes me want to say "thank you officer" and go on being a hippie-love type guy, since that is my true exercise of the freedom I get from my supporting group of force wielders.
If you still haven't had enough of my rambling on this topic (which always seems to get me relatively passionate) then look at an ancient post or two from Oct, 2002 about "how I feel about guns" personally. It overlaps some of this but mostly talks about it from another angle and covers some other points. The rest of the thread is overshadowed by Helter intelligently baiting and battling tryptamine and others (as he often did). He also brings up some interesting points early on that were only lightly pursued and tentatively wonders about general ownership of arms perhaps being correlated to increased safety, but the intelligent replies from Lil_Tuffy and especially this one by s5 resonate much more with me. In fact, I am going to post that last link as an excellent and accurate "short-version" of a good bit of this babble that I've spewed out.
Disclaimer: All of these opinions are those of a sheltered, Canadian, semi-Taoist, hippie type guy who has never had to feel physically threatened in his life. Hopefully it would just reinforce my convictions about not owning a gun as s5 said... if it didn't leave me already dead, of course.
If you wanna feed back on this big rant then feel free to post a coupla paragraphs here or if we feel the need to go back and forth at length we can revive the old dead-horse of a thread or start a new one linking back to this journal to discuss it there or the best option is take me out and buy me a drink and we can talk about it there
If you don't want to read for ever, and EVER, and EVER then you can read this comment by the more laconic s5 in the old thread were I first was rambling about it. It makes a reasonable precis of most of the high points. Another option is to ignore this and wait until I post the journal entry I meant to in the first place (maybe tomorrow?). It is mostly a stream of consciousness for my own benefit because I only figure out what I think when I discuss it or write it like this.
For those patient or interested enough to tolerate my ramblings (and everpresent appologies for said ramblings), read on...
A critical part for me in this issue is my fundamental optimism and idealism possibly born in part of my lack of experience with adversity but mostly connected to my fundamental inner philosophy. I believe that accepting imperfection and compromising decisions for some perceived concept of "being realistic" is something that fundamentally frustrates our ability to move towards our supposed ideal. I do my best, whenever possible or safe in my own life, to live as if things were (or at least could be) as ideal as I want them to be. If I don't believe that guns, violence, coercion and locks are good things for us (which I don't) then I will do my best to avoid using those tools and helping to perpetuate the climate in which they are the preferred, or at least accepted tools. The short version of this is that I don't accept that guns play any personal part in the world that I want to live in and I get to choose how I perceive/react to/construct the personal world that is my life.
That said, I balance the unfortunate and sad paranoia and isolation that locks and security devices bring into our emotional life against the realistic need for the security they provide. I opt, sadly, to lock my apartment when I leave (and even lock my bike up at Burning Man) because of how I judged the risk/cost either way.
When it comes to accepting in public society the easy availability and proliferation of efficient tools for killing, and more importantly accepting that in my own life, there is no question for me, in my experience, where the higher risk for damage lies. In part, this is because I have admittedly been sheltered and successfully avoided situations where I, or my loved ones, needed to physically defend themselves from anything.
In the end, though, I feel there is more poison for me in becoming highly proficient with a killing tool and keeping one nearby then there is in accepting the risk of others being more powerful than me. And if I do not become highly proficient then I feel the killing tool will more likely cause me harm than help protect me (as obsidity said in her comment in Jazmin's Journal). Even if I am proficient then at the very least the stakes are raised to a much more deadly level that I refuse to accept. I much prefer a climate where the aggressor feels in control and less threatened and may simple take what they want and leave. I know some will kill or wound the helpless when they have power over them, but I will just maintain an optimistic hope to continue my 30 year streak of avoiding them with maybe another 60 years or more
One key point here about me is that I do not feel that the best way to get or retain what I want in this life is to be more powerful and able to exert coercive force nor is it to be more able to defend myself against physical violence. Exerting force is not my way. I resonate with (my meager understanding of) Taoism a little more than other value sets or paths in this respect. I understand others may try to exert physical force against me, but I prefer to avoid them instead of struggle against them physically, and when it is not possible then I would try to accept the consequences and/or attempt a weaker, less prepared and possibly futile defense.
And finally I'll respond to the idea of using guns to defend against a violently oppressive government. I my opinion, using guns or threats of physical force in a widespread manner to oppress and control your own populace is a very awkward and blunt tool of limited effectiveness. It would be extremely volatile and difficult to wield, especially in an international climate like this one, for a country with such a history of at least purported freedom so highly touted and deep rooted and revered. I feel that defending against or deterring the imagined threat of a militarily totalitarian government by owning firearms is somewhat paranoid and unrealistic. Not when there is an arsenal of much more refined, acceptable and wildly more effective weapons being used already.
I choose to strengthen my defenses against propaganda, mass media and other manipulations of opinions and values that created and maintain the state of the current spectator democracies. I choose to struggle against mindless acquiescence to conventional roles, traditions, morals, and rules of behaviour by challenging them and adopting morals and behaviours that I personally can believe in. I would resist irrational or oppressive laws or legal and economic manipulations. I would oppose actions, foreign and domestic, that encourage a climate of isolation, paranoia and fear that I believe is a very root cause of the desire to own and use guns (opinion partially crystallized/borrowed from Michael Moore's conclusions in Bowling for Columbine). Although I am too passive and apathetic to struggle even in this arena, if I did feel inspired to actively defend myself then these are the weapons and battles that would worry me more than the threat of someone with a gun. I would probably find some role models I respected (like our own s5 for example) to direct me by example and education towards these sorts of struggles long before I would ask someone to help me with my gun shopping.
I also didn't go too deeply into the fact that my point of view implies a heavy reliance on others who are coercive or wield physical force or intimidation (police, etc) to give me some space in which to be my hippie self. That doesn't make me want to own a gun. That makes me want to say "thank you officer" and go on being a hippie-love type guy, since that is my true exercise of the freedom I get from my supporting group of force wielders.
If you still haven't had enough of my rambling on this topic (which always seems to get me relatively passionate) then look at an ancient post or two from Oct, 2002 about "how I feel about guns" personally. It overlaps some of this but mostly talks about it from another angle and covers some other points. The rest of the thread is overshadowed by Helter intelligently baiting and battling tryptamine and others (as he often did). He also brings up some interesting points early on that were only lightly pursued and tentatively wonders about general ownership of arms perhaps being correlated to increased safety, but the intelligent replies from Lil_Tuffy and especially this one by s5 resonate much more with me. In fact, I am going to post that last link as an excellent and accurate "short-version" of a good bit of this babble that I've spewed out.
Disclaimer: All of these opinions are those of a sheltered, Canadian, semi-Taoist, hippie type guy who has never had to feel physically threatened in his life. Hopefully it would just reinforce my convictions about not owning a gun as s5 said... if it didn't leave me already dead, of course.
If you wanna feed back on this big rant then feel free to post a coupla paragraphs here or if we feel the need to go back and forth at length we can revive the old dead-horse of a thread or start a new one linking back to this journal to discuss it there or the best option is take me out and buy me a drink and we can talk about it there
VIEW 25 of 40 COMMENTS
scorpio_:
I can't believe you flashed me, you sick bastard!
retroactivwe:
See you at Disneyland, my bi-annual compadre.