We like to tell the anti’s that the law abiding are the least likely to be the ones who will violate the law and thus adding more laws will do nothing to stop criminals. While this is primarily true, it dawned on me the other day that I cannot truly consider myself ‘law abiding’.
This is, of course, by design. One of my most used Ayn Rand quotes is illustrative
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
The problem is there are too many laws. It’s impossible to follow them all to a T and thus, we’re all law-breakers to one level or another. Heck, we’re all felons (see here). The problem is we’re not dangerous to society like criminals are.
I think this is one of those dangerous traps we might be caught in. We rely on the fact that most gun owners are decent people who can be armed to the teeth and yet pose no danger to anyone. We’ve used the term ‘law-abiding’ to describe ourselves as so because we’ve intended it to mean we’re the good guys. But I think we’re going to find ourselves painted into a corner when, unable to ban guns outright, they start relying on the ‘lawbreakers should not have guns’ mantra to remove rights and we find that the fact we didn’t fill out form I985 correctly is considered a crime (that’s the form where you certify you’ve done your morning exercises).
Lord knows I might ignore several laws daily that I feel are not constitutionally permissible or ones that I find abhorrent from a human rights perspective, but that doesn’t make me someone who deserves to have his rights abridged.
I’m just thinking that we’re soon going to be finding ourselves subjected to such oppressive legislation that a lot of us are just going to start going ‘underground’ for many things (doctor care springs to mind already). And then they will use the excuse of “lawbreaker” to say we cannot own firearms.
Just your depressing thought to start your day out with.
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TS
At one point, a loved one was experiencing chronic nausea (over an extended period of time) and losing weight fast. None of the prescription meds seemed to touch it. A little pot now and then would take the edge off. It was the only thing that seemed to work. I was faced with the prospect of acquiring it for her. Luckily, that episode passed before it got to that point, and I remained a "law-abiding" person. I think that buying illegal drugs would have pushed me past my personal breaking point. After that, I wouldn't consider myself to be "law-abiding" and therefore I wouldn't consider if something was legal or not, I would just do what I wanted.
s
(A) You obey every law you know of, because you're strictly law-abiding.
(B) You obey every reasonable law you know of, but "stick it to the man" on the unreasonable laws.
(C) You do whatever you want, sociopath style.
I lived the vast majority of my life in category A. But a few years back, a feeling of oppression pushed me into category B. It started with me making "illegal" but perfectly safe left turns against a turn lane red arrow while the go-straight lanes had a green light. I am 100% convinced that the folks in charge of programming the timing of lights on our major arterials are hard-Left greenies whose goal is to make car transit painful so we will use their sacred and holy mass transit. Which doesn't go where I want nor when I want. So screw 'em; I'm no longer gonna sit idling, wasting gas, for two minutes just because some photons have one wavelength instead of another.
And every single chance I have to do a job - for free - that would otherwise be done by some union puke, like changing a lightbulb at the high school, I'm doing it.
Any time the anti's try to stretch their point on things like speeding = murder, they look like idiots to the uncaring middle because the uncaring middle recognizes how asinine that extreme position is and how it slanders them, and grandpa, and all the other good, normal "law-abiding" people they know, including soldiers and cops.
All we have to do is make it clear that the "law-abiding" applies to all the "good" people and an anti attempt to play semantics will get them ridiculed.
I don't see that turn of phrase biting us as long as we don't push it as literal as opposed to colloquial.
A registered letter isn't good enough for non-violent, non-dangerous offenders?
It does appear that the purpose is to make everyone a felon so that their system of handling prisoners is never out of work, and rights can be denied as some bureaucrat wants. Except voting, of course. They want their core constituency to vote.
The first Law is that all laws must be in compliance with the Constitution, as it is written, not as it is interpreted.
Why, there was a time when the Court said so. Before, that is, it became corrupted by political influence and the ability to increase salaries and other benefits by way of "confiscation". As it stands now, the Court is itself participating in criminal activities.
So "law abiding" would still be correct, but what we need to do is re-purpose the language to its' original intent, and point out - at every opportunity - that law enforcement, cops and courts, has become felonious.
In any case, the backlash against the "law-abiding citizen" phrase has already started - sure, it was just from the CSGV, who are well and truly into their death throes as an organization, but they occasionally serve as a good canary to indicate which way their fellow anti-rights organizations are going to jump. So, if that holds true, "previously unconvicted felon" is the counterpoint this time around...
Keep calling yourself law-abiding if that describes you. At least that way no one will mistake you for a politician.