I know that people are clueless, that they are indoctrinated, that they don't think very well, all that. Yet I still find it nearly incomprehensible that they don't realize that people who don't want to obey the law won't obey the law. How hard is that to understand?!
It's not hard to understand that people who don't want to obey laws will disobey them. It's hard to _feel_ that they shouldn't be stopped from doing bad things.
And since the way civilized people stop people from doing bad things is by writing laws, they want to write a gun control law.
What they forget is that civilized people need a way to respond to uncivilized people, and that cuts against gun control laws.
Well put. Also, it's the feelings that so often get in the way, and we are living in a neo-Romantic age -- feelings are all that really matter. So if I _feel_ that laws ought to solve things, then they ought to solve things. :)
Right. So their feelings mean good people don't carry weapons as much, which means bad people don't have as many negative consequences as they should, which means bad people get more brazen, which means good people suffer.
So: Good people suffer because they highlight feelings and neglect incentives and consequences when they formulate their responses to problems.
Now apply that to economics, race, immigration, crime... and our solutions for them.
Almost all of our worst impulses -- socialism, DEI, open borders, excessive leniency -- come from a heart-and-mindset that could be considered good: respectively, care for the poor, raising up people who have historically been discriminated against, empathy for people trying to make a better life for themselves, mercy and forgiveness.
But they backfire because the incentives and consequences are all wrong when we rule by feelings.
I know that people are clueless, that they are indoctrinated, that they don't think very well, all that. Yet I still find it nearly incomprehensible that they don't realize that people who don't want to obey the law won't obey the law. How hard is that to understand?!
It's not hard to understand that people who don't want to obey laws will disobey them. It's hard to _feel_ that they shouldn't be stopped from doing bad things.
And since the way civilized people stop people from doing bad things is by writing laws, they want to write a gun control law.
What they forget is that civilized people need a way to respond to uncivilized people, and that cuts against gun control laws.
Well put. Also, it's the feelings that so often get in the way, and we are living in a neo-Romantic age -- feelings are all that really matter. So if I _feel_ that laws ought to solve things, then they ought to solve things. :)
Right. So their feelings mean good people don't carry weapons as much, which means bad people don't have as many negative consequences as they should, which means bad people get more brazen, which means good people suffer.
So: Good people suffer because they highlight feelings and neglect incentives and consequences when they formulate their responses to problems.
Now apply that to economics, race, immigration, crime... and our solutions for them.
Almost all of our worst impulses -- socialism, DEI, open borders, excessive leniency -- come from a heart-and-mindset that could be considered good: respectively, care for the poor, raising up people who have historically been discriminated against, empathy for people trying to make a better life for themselves, mercy and forgiveness.
But they backfire because the incentives and consequences are all wrong when we rule by feelings.
Brilliantly put! Amen.