Publicola is an interesting and verbose dude

A side effect of all the nonsense that developed around S-Train is that I've encountered a number of people I'd have in no way met under the general circumstances in which I operate. Publicola is a blogger who focuses on the rights of individuals and in particular the Right to Arms—the capitalization is his, and semantically it indicates he deals with it as a high principle.Based on his comments here, I believe his position is the most Libertarian I've ever encountered personally. There are several longish comments there, but I believe the the essential position is:

  1. All human collectives have requirements based on the nature and focus of their activity
  2. All human collectives, as all things, change over time
  3. All human collectives impose on human freedoms in some fashion to insure their continuance because they require specific behaviors of the members that may not be of their own choosing in exhange for some benefit
  4. All human collectives eventually change such that the imposition on the freedoms of their members is greater than the benefits received
  5. All human collectives should therefore be limited such that their impositions are not allowed to dominate human freedoms
Pretty tight, huh? Libertarians have my permission to lift the description.

Now, this line of reasoning makes a nice, heretically sealed self-supporting value system. I do have a couple of problems with it. To begin with I believe the system is derived specifically to provide rational support for the Right to Arms. I believe the perception of the Right to Arms as high principle…or perhaps intense desire, or perceived need…came first. As such I see it as entirely optional, one of several ways to attain the desire or fulfill the need…and frankly I have no truck with high principles. High principles strike me as anither set of laws and hence indicators of some collective view if not an actual collective. Further evidence high principles have a collective root is Publicola's mention of a "Right to Arms world." I believe the Right to Arms is an artifact of the specific collective we exist within.

There are other issues, but I've learned to take things one step at a time.

Of course, none of this says anything about my opinion of the Right to Arms, which I was specifically asked. My opinion is, if anyone has it I want it too. It's a physical safety thing.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on October 15, 2003 - 1:03pm
 
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I've been having an interesting discussion with Publicola in the comments section of my own blog though it hasn't gotten into social theory like your discussion has.

Posted by  Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on October 15, 2003 - 1:49pm.

Really? I should take a look.

Posted by  P6 (not verified) on October 15, 2003 - 2:05pm.

P6, I would steal your description but my friends panic if I write less than 5 paragraphs per single thought. :) I'm not sure I'd describe it solely as a High Principle, & it's weird that it is partially a collective Right, but mainly an individual one, or one that can only be exercised individually even in the collective sense.It's like this: The Right to Arms is a necessary derivitive of the Right to Self defense which is a necessary derivitive of the Right to Life. Somtimes you have to rely on the derivitives to be able to have the main Right. So I see them as linked & in most cases inseperable.The collective aspect comes in only when you're defending your community (or state or country) instead of solely your own life. (Collective is usually a dirty word among the pro-2nd amendment crowd, mainly because our opposition has used a theroy that the 2nd amendment is a collective & not an individual Right to cause us all much harm)But I cannot stress enough that the Right can only be realized in the collective sense if it's first respected in the individual sense.Here's a link to a section of my archives. The first 29 essays are mine. The rest are by people whose logic or points I find interesting if not in line with my way of reasoning.Of note I would point out the first one, called Rights Are Absolute. I attempt to define what a Right is & mention the several different kinds.So you may be correct in that I see the Right to Arms as a High Principle, but if so then I also see it equally as something more basic & needful to us. It all depends on the definition of High Principle & Right.Another gun related question: have you ever tried any of the shooting sports? Like High Power Rifle Matches or Defensive Pistol Matches or Skeet or Cowboy Action Shooting (note: that does not involve shooting Texans who are on the move - yet.)? They're actually very fun & if a couple of simple rules are observed safer than any other sport. (more people get injured playing golf if I recall last years stats correctly) If you haven't I'd be more than happy to try to turn you on to some of them. & if you ever get down around Colorado I'd be happy to show you what I can of the fun side of firearms. The more people that like shooting, the less votes for people who'll do away with it.I'll try to post a more substantial reply in the next few days. things will be a little hectic cause the last of the seasons matches are coming up & I'm gonna try to participate in a few if I can. But I'll try to further define my ideas & address some of the issues you raised.oh, & the system I came up with is based on others views who did not necessarily think about Arms. It's more of a system I believe will protect individual Rights in general. I just focus on the Arms part because that's what my area of speciality is. Substitute any other basic Right & I think the results will be the same under the models I'm working with, plus or minus a few variables.The one problem with my ideal system is it relies heavily on a vigilant, well informed, well reasoned, principled (or moral) populace. It won't last for very long if the people themselves simply don't care, but it's a better attempt than what we have now, or what's been tried before (with a few exceptions which were not perfect but very close to what I think should be). But if we can't have an informed, reasoned, moral & alert populace I doubt any system would work.

Posted by  Publicola (not verified) on October 16, 2003 - 8:27am.

Publicola: The one problem with my ideal system is it relies heavily on a vigilant, well informed, well reasoned, principled (or moral) populace. It won't last for very long if the people themselves simply don't care... But if we can't have an informed, reasoned, moral & alert populace I doubt any system would work.On this point, I agree with you completely.

Posted by  Al-Muhajabah (not verified) on October 16, 2003 - 8:49am.