Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms – Page 7

The Fantasy of Addiction

As long as this blog has been online, 14 years now, I have railed against the misuse of the the word 'addiction.' Thanks to Dave Lull, I am pleased to see that Peter Hitchens takes a similar line in a First Things article. Excerpt:

The chief difficulty with the word “addiction” is the idea that it describes a power greater than the will. If it exists in the way we use it and in the way our legal and medical systems assume it exists, then free will has been abolished. I know there are people who think and argue this is so. But this is not one of those things that can be demonstrated by falsifiable experiment. In the end, the idea that humans do not really have free will is a contentious opinion, not an objective fact.

So to use the word “addiction” is to embrace one side in one of those ancient unresolved debates that cannot be settled this side of the grave. To decline to use it, by contrast, is to accept that all kinds of influences, inheritances, and misfortunes may well operate on us, and propel us towards mistaken, foolish, wrong, and dangerous actions or habits. It is to leave open the question whether we can resist these forces. I am convinced that declining the word “addiction” is both the only honest thing to do, and the only kind and wise thing to do, when we are faced with fellow creatures struggling with harmful habits and desires. It is all very well to relieve someone of the responsibility for such actions, by telling him his body is to blame. But what is that solace worth if he takes it as permission to carry on as before? Once or twice I have managed to explain to a few of my critics that this is what I am saying. But generally they are too furious, or astonished by my sheer nerve, to listen.

Read it all.

Related: The Case for Nicotine

The Second Amendment, First Principles, and the Right of Revolution

Trigger Warning! Likely to cause snowflake meltdown.

Edward J. Erler offers one of the best explanations of the Second Amendment I have ever read. Clear, scholarly, and right-headed. The folly of Justice Stevens is exposed. An excerpt, with bolding added:

Furthermore, the Declaration specifies that when government becomes destructive of the ends for which it is established—the “Safety and Happiness” of the people—then “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” This is what has become known as the right of revolution, an essential ingredient of the social compact and a right which is always reserved to the people. The people can never cede or delegate this ultimate expression of sovereign power. Thus, in a very important sense, the right of revolution (or even its threat) is the right that guarantees every other right. And if the people have this right as an indefeasible aspect of their sovereignty, then, by necessity, the people also have a right to the means to revolution. Only an armed people are a sovereign people, and only an armed people are a free people—the people are indeed a militia.

Addicted to Food?

This is a re-post (re-entry?) from 9 December 2009. Re-posts are the re-runs of the blogosphere. You don't watch a Twilight Zone or Seinfeld episode only once, do you? The message delivered below is very important and needs be repeated and repeated again.

………………

Can one be addicted to food? If yes, then I am addicted to exposing liberal nonsense. What I have said more than once about the non-addictiveness of tobacco can be applied mutatis mutandis to food 'addiction':

To confuse psychological habituation with addiction is conceptual slovenliness. Addiction, if it means anything definite, has to involve (i) a physiological dependence (ii) on something harmful to the body (iii) removal of which would induce serious withdrawal symptoms. One cannot be addicted to nose-picking, to running, to breathing, or to caffeine. Furthermore, (iv) it is a misuse of language to call a substance addictive when only a relatively small number of its users develop — over a sufficient period of time with sufficient frequency of use — a physical craving for it that cannot be broken without severe withdrawal symptoms. Else one would have to call peanuts toxic because a tiny number of people have severe allergic reactions to them. Heroin is addictive; nicotine is not. To think otherwise is to use ‘addiction’ in an unconscionably loose way.

A Couple of Important Points About the Second Amendment

1) The first is that is that it is not reasonably interpreted as a group right, a right one possesses only as a member of a group such as a militia. This mistaken reading is suggested by the Amendment's unfortunate wording:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It is obvious, however, that a reason for X needn't be the only reason for X. So if a reason for the right is militia-related, there could be others, and it is obvious that there is another, namely, the right to the means of the defense of one's life, liberty, and property, and that of one's family.

The right to life is in every case an individual's right to life; it is plainly not a group right. Now if you have a right to life, then you have a right to defend your life and the right to the means of defense which, in this day and age, won't be an 18th century musket.

Ask yourself: Is the right to free speech mentioned in the third clause of the First Amendment a group right? Of course not; it is an individual right. And the same goes for the right against "unreasonable searches and seizures" mentioned in the Fourth Amendment. The right to the means of the defense of one's individual right to life is also — wait for it — an individual right.

Even SCOTUS, mirabile dictu, came around to this eminently reasonable view in District of Columbia v. Heller.

2) The second point is adequately made by the following cartoon. It is an indication of how moronic 'liberal' positions are that they are refutable by cartoons.

Want to Repeal 2A?

Stop talking and do it.

In Defense of ‘Gunsplaining’

He's a Never-Trumper, but David French does talk and write a good game.

By the way, don't confuse a Never-Trumper with an Anti-Trumper. The former constitute a proper subset of the latter. A Never-Trumper is a self-professed conservative of some stripe or other whereas an Anti-Trumper may or may not be. Every Never-Trumper is an Anti-Trumper, but not conversely.

Terminology matters, in politics as in the gun debate.

One reason gun-grabbing 'liberals' are despicable is that they refuse to invest a couple of hours in learning the terms of the debate. French gives examples.

A Modest Proposal: Revise the Second Amendment

John Paul Stevens today in the The New York Times called for the enactment of laws "prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons" and beyond that, as a "more effective and more lasting reform," the repeal of the Second Amendment.

(I wonder if the good justice understands that semi-autos include most handguns owned and carried by Americans today, and that among these pistols there is the low-caliber .22. Does Stevens propose that the existing stock be confiscated? Is he willing to countenance a huge black market?)

Justice Stevens considers the Second Amendment a "relic of the 18th century" with its talk of "a well-regulated militia." Let us assume, arguendo, that he is right and that the Second in its original formulation, and despite District of Columbia v. Heller, does not recognize an individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms.

Well then, a reasonable course would be to strip out the archaic language and bring the Second Amendment up to date. Not repeal simply, but repeal and replace with something better.

How might it go?

Because the right to life entails both the right to self-defense and the right to the appropriate means of self-defense, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

My proposal is both modest and reasonable and in keeping with American values and traditions. Not only that, it throws a sizable sop in the direction of those leftists who support a so-called 'living constitution.' Perhaps we ought to update the whole constitution, but not along destructive leftist lines which have little to do with our values and traditions, but along sound, salutary conservative lines.

Does my eminently reasonable proposal have a chance? Of course not. How about Justice Stevens'? I wouldn't put money on it.

What I will do is buy more guns and ammo. And you should too. 'Voting' with one's wallet is much more effective than voting. Fund the Right, defund the Left. Money is what gets people's attention. Money and the power that emanates from the barrel of a gun.

Ted Kennedy’s Car

In this Age of Feeling, fact-based cogent arguments have little effect on the febrile pates of liberals. So one needs to supplement calm reasoning with bumperstickers, invective, and contumely, not that 'contumely' is a word one could expect a liberal to understand. And so, for your viewing enjoyment, I present:

Of course, cars don't kill people; people kill people with cars. Ergo, etc. Therein lies the brilliance of the bumpersticker.

If you are not aware of the backstory, see the movie Chappaquiddick. It is supposed to come out in April.

Read the lovable and avuncular Howie Carr's Boston Herald review.

And another thing. Liberals who are presently 'storming' over Trump's sexual excesses ought to look in the mirror and take responsibility for their 'normalizing' of such behavior by their complaisance over the sexual predation of the Kennedy brothers, not to mention that of Bill Clinton with the acquiescence of his hilarious enabler.

Liberals who have made our trash culture should not be surprised by the Trump phenomenon.

Addenda

I said above that cars don't kill people. Qualification: unless they are self-driving. A recent case in Tempe, Arizona.
I forgot to protest the restriction and demonetization of Prager U videos by Google and YouTube. If you watch these vidoes and find them in any way offensive or worthy of censure, then you are intellectually obtuse, morally defective, liberal-left filth.

Is Gun Ownership a Constitutionally Protected Right?

It is important to distinguish between rights and constitutionally protected rights. The right to life, for example, is a natural right. Its existence does not depend on anything of a conventional nature such as a constitution. We have the right whether or not it is constitutionally protected. Our great constitution protects our rights; it does not confer them. You can say that our rights come from God, if you like, or you can say they come from Nature. But the main thing for practical purposes is to realize that our rights are logically antecedent to human decisions, compacts, legislation, and the like.

The right to life generates the right to defend one's life and in consequence the right to the means of self defense. The right to the means of self-defense is protected, not conferred, by the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. As I said, that right is logically antecedent to constitutions and such. It follows that the question whether or not said amendment protects an individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms is a question of constitutional interpretation that is strictly secondary to the question of whether the individual citizen has a right to the means of self defense. Of course he does, as I have argued.

Strictly secondary, but still important. Eugene Volokh argues in a short (4:16) Prager U video that the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected.

If destructive leftists were to repeal the Second Amendment then, strictly speaking, a Second Amendment remedy for this outrage would not be available, but a remedy would be available nonetheless, namely, the overthrow of the leftist tyrants. That would of course require guns. Curiously, then, we need guns not only to protect our rightful gun ownership, but also to protect the constitutional protection of this ownership!

We need guns to: protect our property including our guns; protect our lives and liberties from criminals, terrorists, and rogue elements in the government; fruitfully intimidate destructive leftists so as to insure that they behave properly; protect the Constitution including its 2A protection of our gun rights.

Under the rubric 'protect lives and liberties' comes the right to free speech and the right to protect free speech. For that too guns are needed. Leftists are liberty-denying scum and you must never underestimate their capacity for vicious and totalitarian behavior.

Apple’s War on Cigars

Another example of misplaced moral enthusiasm. Apple has a problem with cigars but not with marijuana. You say that doesn’t make sense? If it’s from leftists it doesn’t have to make sense.

Four Notes on the Gun Debate for the Reasonable

This post has a prerequisite: a modicum of rationality and a little bit of good will. The irrational and ill-willed should head for their 'safe spaces' now lest they be 'triggered.'

1) Is anybody against gun control? Not that I am aware of. Everybody wants there to be some laws regulating the manufacture, sale, importation, transportation, use, etc., of guns. So why do liberals routinely characterize conservatives as against gun control? Because they are mendacious. It is for the same reason that they label conservatives as anti-government and anti-immigrant. Conservatives stand for limited government, whence it follows that that are for government. This is a simple inference that even a liberal should be able to process. So why do liberals call conservatives anti-government? Because they are mendacious: they are not interested in civil debate, but in winning at all costs by any means. With respect to both government and gun control, the question is not whether but how much and what kind.

Similarly with immigration. Conservatives do not oppose immigration; they oppose illegal immigration.

2) Terminology matters. 'Magazine' is the correct term for what is popularly called a clip. Don't refer to a round as a bullet. The bullet is the projectile. Don't call a suppressor a 'silencer.' Is your name Hillary? Avoid emotive phraseology if you are interested in serious discussion. 'Assault weapon' has no clear meaning and is emotive to boot. Do you mean semi-automatic long gun? Then say that. Don't confuse 'semi-automatic' with 'fully automatic.' The 'AR' in 'AR-15' is not short for 'assault rifle.' Bone up on the terminology if you want to be taken seriously.

A stupid article in the Washington Post calls what I have just written 'gunsplaining.' To be 'gunsplained' is to be "harangued with the pedantry of the more-credible-than-thou firearms owner, admonished that your inferior knowledge of guns and their nomenclature puts an asterisk next to your opinion on gun control."

What nonsense! Only a fool dismisses essential distinctions as pedantry. And if one is not willing to learn the elementary terminology of a debate, then one should not presume to enter the debate. One who does not understand such terms as abortifacient, embryo, gamete, and viable should not enter the abortion debate, for example.

3) Gun lobbies benefit gun manufacturers. No doubt. But they also defend the Second Amendment rights of citizens, all citizens. Be fair. Don't adduce the first fact while ignoring the second. And don't call the NRA a special interest group. A group that defends free speech defends a right of all citizens, including those who do not invoke the right. Every citizen has an actual or potential interest in self-defense and the means thereto. It's a general interest. A liberal who has no interest in self-defense and the means thereto is simply a liberal who has yet to be mugged or raped or had her home invaded. Such a liberal's interest is yet potential. When Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, many foolish liberals thought that a fascist was about to enter the White House. Many of these liberals suddenly began taking the Second Amendment seriously.

4) Question for liberals: what is your plan in case of a home invasion? Call 9-1-1? What is your plan in case of a fire? Call the Fire Department? Not a bad thought. But before they arrive it would help to have a home fire extinguisher at the ready. Ergo, etc.

Can you follow this reasoning? If not, you need help. Please seek it for your own good.

John Locke on the Right to Self-Defense

Let's go through the drill one more time.

You have a natural right to life. This right to life entails in others a moral obligation not to harm you. Should anyone attempt to do so, you yourself have a right, directly and not via the invocation of the help of a police agency, to defend your life. But if so, then you have a right to the adequate means of self-defense. Having the right entails the right, though not the obligation, to exercise the right. This implies that the law-abiding citizen has a right to keep and bear appropriate arms for personal and home defense.

It follows that no one and no government has the right to infringe your gun rights.

Much more could be said, but as some wit once observed, and then kept repeating, "Brevity is the soul of blog."

Now what about this right to self-defense? If you were to deny that we possess it, I would pronounce you benighted and not worth ten seconds of a rational man's time. But it is always nice to be able to back up one's assertions by invocation of the views of great philosophers. So we turn to John Locke (1632-1704), a great influence on our Founding Fathers, and The Second Treatise of Government (1690). Chapter III is entitled "Of the State of War." The first paragraph, #16, is as follows:

Sec. 16. THE state of war is a state of enmity and destruction: and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but a sedate settled design upon another man’s life, puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other’s power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power [emphasis added].

Double Indemnity, 1944

I took a welcome break from the cable shout shows and the gun 'conversation' the other night to watch the 1944 film noir Double Indemnity, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, and Edward G. Robinson. The Stanwyck character talks an insurance agent played by MacMurray into murdering her husband in order to collect on a double indemnity policy.

The husband is strangled mafia-style, murderer in back seat, victim in front. But the act is not shown. The viewer is shown enough to 'get the picture.' These old films had sex and violence but one's nose wasn't rubbed in them. Sex and violence were part of the story line. If Bogie was shown taking the leading lady into a bedroom, one knew what was about to transpire, but one was spared the raw hydraulics of it.

But thanks to 'progressives' we've made 'progress.' Much of what passes as 'entertainment' today is meant to demean, dehumanize, degrade, and undermine whatever moral sense is left in people. I leave it to you to decide whether Tucson, Aurora, Sandy Hook . . . Parkland and like atrocities are more appropriately charged to the account of liberal culture rather than to that of gun culture.

You know my answer.

We ought to demand of Hollywood dreckmeisters that they clean up their act and curtail their cultural pollution. Not that these scumbags would ever show any social responsibility.

A Warning is Not an Incitement to Violence

Dana Loesch

Another Argument for Gun Rights

Terror in Budapest

And another. Leftist thugs threaten Jordan Peterson.