I just read a great a great article on self-defense by R. Lee Wrights, of the Libertarian Party of North Carolina http://www.lpnc.org. In his article, The Sanity Of Self-Defense, he explains why people need to take their defense into their own hands, and not relinquish their liberty and responsibility to governments for the promise of safety.I completely agree with R. Lee Wrights for the same reason I agree with Benjamin Franklin , who famously said that those that would give up their freedom for safety deserve neither. It’s especially stupid to disregard the advice of Wrights and Franklin, because the only “safety” achieved is an illusion. Governments never provide, and can’t provide, real safety.
Why would people give up their freedom for the illusion of safety? As I said, these people don’t want to take responsibility for themselves; they’re irresponsible. As George Bernard Shaw said, “Liberty means responsibility. That’s why most men dread it.”
The only way we can be truly safe is to take responsibility for our own safety, and minimize the intrusion of in our achievement of that end. They key is self-defense not government.
Here’s my favorite excerpts from the R. Lee Wrights Article:
“When I was a youngster, growing up in the turbulent ’60’s, I learned quickly that self-defense was the most basic instinct instilled in mankind. I discovered, mostly out of necessity, that there is nothing stronger in human nature than the drive for self-preservation. I also learned that defense of self cannot be trusted to the hands of others that share the same natural disposition of self first. I learned that rarely was anyone in a position of authority around when I really needed them. In other words, those who were charged with my safety proved incapable of rendering the service.”
“…those charged with my personal safety, i.e., the police and politicians, were not likely to be in the vicinity when I actually needed protection. The older I got the more apparent it became that the real insanity in the area of self-defense was relinquishing the responsibility of self-preservation to groups or governments that could not possibly protect me.”
“And what forty-three years of experience has taught me is that surrendering the responsibility for our own personal security, in exchange for a mere promise of safety, is anything but sane. In every instance of my life when I needed protection I have taken the initiative of self-defense because without it there would have been no defense at all. It has been from necessity, not desire, that I have had to defend my person and property.”
Read the article: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=19
