Reply To: General thought on old coal mines.

[Rezwan]

Brian H wrote:

Since my post was a mixture of humor and seriousness, I guess I shouldn’t complain when it was so seriously misconstrued.

But it is true we have very different political and global-social pholosophies. Let’s leave it at that.

OK, we can leave it at that. For the record, you’re leaving me confused. I’m sure we have different philosophies, I’m just not sure what your philosophy is. The line was:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

I’m curious – does this mean you like having a strong army and police force? Yes or no? Was this line where you were joking? Being ironic?

What I seem to have misconstrued is that I took you for more of a libertarian with your strong anti-government anti-interference stand, and I was confused that you were suddenly pro-army/police.

I associate police and army with government control. For the record, I do appreciate and admire them when they are working in the public interest – control rods are a great safety feature – but stand (rough and) ready to criticize and oppose them when they go against that interest – they have a lot of temptation.

On a practical level, army and police represent the State right to use force. The very State you see as overrun with flaming eco-whatevers. I.e., it’ll be the police that arrest you when you don’t comply with the draconian environmental laws.

So…any clarifications?

FYI, I’m also trying to help y’all see a bigger picture. You are just amplifying one small sliver of human experience and making it dominant. The line could also be,

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because the world largely operates on trust and collaboration, and on those occasions where opportunistic people resort to violence, men and women of various skills and approaches stand ready to stop their violence with various means, a few of which include violence, but less and less as we figure out better means of dealing with these breakdowns.”

I’m trying to imagine Iraqi people try to sleep peaceably at night knowing they are surrounded by armies of rough and ready men ready to do violence – all of them claiming it’s on their behalf.

And I hear the soldiers themselves are having a hard time sleeping. A lot of sleeping pill abuse out there. A lot of bringing home the violence and not sleeping well when they get back. But even that I would like to hope isn’t permanent – or their natural state. Something they can work through to get to a better state.

I guess I see the presence of all these rough folk (armed people) as a sign that something went wrong somewhere back in the process. The concentration of “rough men ready to do violence” is an indicator of sorts.

It’s like after you have an ecosystem breakdown, all these thorns show up all of a sudden. Deadly-force plants. Somewhere back down the line, somebody put a dam in place, or cut something else down, or set up a “divide and conquer” policy and drew up some stupid map, or happily exercised double standards and contrived a coup against a democratically elected leader or – OH so many things. And then you get this choking algal bloom and call it natural.