Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms

  • Cigarettes, Rationality, and Hitchens

    Substack latest: Let's talk about cigarettes. Suppose you smoke one pack per day. Is that irrational? I hope all will agree that no one who is concerned to be optimally healthy as long as possible should smoke 20 cigarettes a day, let alone 80 like Rod Serling who died at age 50 on the operating…

  • Diversity Worth Having

    Diversity worth having presupposes a principle of unity that controls the diversity. Diversity must be checked and balanced by the competing value of unity, a value with an equal, if not greater, claim on our respect.   Example. ONE language only in the public sphere makes possible MANY voices to be heard and understood by…

  • Civil Liability for Gun Manufacturers?

    Of course not! Substack latest.

  • An Anti-Gun Argument No Longer Heard

    Time was, when 'liberals' would argue that citizen ownership of firearms was unnecessary for protection  against the criminal element because the police would provide the needed protection. It was a weak argument then, but a nonexistent one now, what with the defunding of the police, the elimination of cash bail, and all the other 'reforms.'…

  • Smokers as Contemplatives?

    Now that's a stretch to elicit scorn, but this article does make some good points pushing back against the extremism of the tobacco wackos. The most absurd view of smoking known to me is the one that was the party line of the Rand cult. See Is Smoking a Moral Obligation? wherein I quote Murray Rothbard.

  • Should Firearms Manufacturers be Civilly Liable for Gun Crimes?

    Joe Biden thinks so: Hold gun manufacturers accountable. In 2005, then-Senator Biden voted against the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but gun manufacturers successfully lobbied Congress to secure its passage. This law protects these manufacturers from being held civilly liable for their products – a protection granted to no other industry. Biden will…

  • On Transcending Tribalism

    Jonathan Haidt: Humans are tribal, but tribalism can be transcended. It exists in tension with our extraordinary ability to develop bonds with other human beings. Romeo and Juliet fell in love. French, British and German soldiers came out of their trenches in World War I to exchange food, cigarettes and Christmas greetings. The key, as…

  • The Right to a High-Capacity Magazine in a Time of Civil Breakdown

    Here: With no police or security within sight, Mark and Patricia McCloskey stood with their backs to their house wielding a small pistol and an AR-15. The “peaceful protest” featured a screaming scrum of hundreds smashing down the gate to a privately-owned neighborhood as they poured onto the privately-owned street just a few feet from…

  • The Bookman and the Rifleman

    You know things are getting bad when a bookman must also be a rifleman if he intends to keep his private library safe from the depredations of leftist thugs who are out to 'de-colonize' it. You cannot reach these evil-doers with arguments, for it is not the plane of reason that they inhabit; there are,…

  • Good Advice

    If possible, avoid the near occasion of armed confrontation, assuming that such avoidance is consistent with manly virtue. But with hot civil war nigh, manly avoidance may not be possible. If push comes to shove, and shove to shoot, you had better be prepared both for the shooting and its aftermath. Intellectually, though, it is…

  • Are You a Gray Man?

    In contemporary Internet lingo, a gray man is typically a prepper who seeks to be unobtrusive and to blend in.  He is 'gray' in that he tries not to call attention to himself, his beliefs, and his stock of guns, ammo, food, and other survival supplies that he hopes will see him and his family…

  • The Christian Case for Carrying Firearms

    Here, by Tim Hsiao. (HT: Elliot Ruffin Crozat) This essay offers a comprehensive defense of the position that Luke 22:36 endorses the carrying of weapons for personal self-defense. I address in detail every objection to this view that I have been able to find.

  • Self-Defense Shootings in Times of Turbulence

    Governments that favor criminals over the law-abiding cause the latter to look to their own defense, often with tragic results.  Massad Ayoob offers sage advice for citizens who plan to arm themselves. On matters of personal defense and the use of firearms, Ayoob is a reliable and recognized authority. Ayoob has made a number of…

  • Foolish Leftists

    The political authorities are tasked with the protection of life, liberty, and property. But when the authorities abdicate, fearing the charge of 'racism,' the citizen must look to his own protection. And so the leftist foolishly works against his own interest: he wants fewer guns in civilian hands, but coddles criminals, thereby giving the citizen…

  • The ‘Progressive’

    A typical 'progressive' will insist that the law-abiding citizen exercising his constitutionally protected (not constitutionally conferred) right to keep and bear arms has no need of weapons since it is the job of the police to protect the citizenry against the criminal element. At the same time, this  'progressive' works to undermine the police and…