Words on Paper

SB501 is a bill coming up in the Oregon senate this year, apparently written by children, that aims to make it all but impossible to own, much less buy and sell, a firearm. It’s even got a bullet-per-month limit. My first reaction was the knee-jerk, “We gotta fight ‘em!” that quickly bubbles up to the surface when anything this absurd and liberty killing comes up. But why so angy? Why the programmed response? The same response, over and over, and around we go...

I live in a state that is controlled essentially by one city that believes that they are weird, unique, and morally superior to any person outside of their willfully ignorant echo chamber. When really they are not much more than Southern California's fat friend, desperately trying to seek attention and approval, showering skinny white dudes with obscene amounts of attention. The governor represents this city, not my state. Of course there is a bunch of Soros and big money that comes in and so on and so forth. This is all worth paying attention to, but then what?

We scream and we yell, we make threats that we don't intend to follow up on. We take pictures of our guns and bullets, how many we have, and post them online next to a rant about gun registry's. We call out our governments and demand that they start paying attention to us and pass laws that protect our rights, not the rights of those others, but ours. We too, are an aggrieved minority, and therefore need special help from powerful people. In doing this, we let our "leaders" know that we still consider them as such. That they still have the power to lift up groups over others, and that the only way we can be free from the tyranny is to shout until somebody else fixes the problems for us. Meanwhile, in the real world, not a whole lot changes. And as long as we continue to pretend that we have to play this stupid game, nothing will.

We say, “But the constitution! But the bill of rights! You can’t do that!” And then they do. Our response? The same arguments as before, to the same effect. We are in the right. Not just about guns, but about our freedoms and where they come from (though I wonder how many actually believe what they say...). Truth, history and righteous indignation are strong in this camp. But these are not tools that win battles. They are useful only for telling us who we are or who we want to be. They tell us that we are on the right side, they do not put us on the victorious one. And when we try and use these tools in battle, we rarely win. The laws still get passed, the bullies and baby tyrants celebrate, and we come out angrier and more tired than when we went in.

“No more!” We cry out. “Our elected officials must do better!” We scream. But they don’t, and we keep voting for them. And so the city, and all of the baby tyrants that it produces become empowered to take more, and so they do. They do because they are allowed to. And it’s not the fault of the My Little Demagogue’s with all of the votes. It’s yours. It’s mine. For believing that the power they wield is near absolute, and the only way that we can change the outcome of our State and its people is to vote for the person who says some of the things that we like to hear. Then, like the raccoons in the cities we leave them to it and go back to our trash piles and shiny things.

It’s your fault. It’s my fault. But it doesn’t have to be anymore.

Laws make stupid people feel safe.

If that statement makes you upset, then you are the problem. It is law that a vehicle stop for a person navigating a cross-walk, but you better believe I still look for idiots before I step out and share the road with thousands of pounds of fast moving steel. That is not the collective thinking however. With all of our talk about alpha males, rugged individualism, crushing snowflakes, and ‘merica, we still look to bought-and-paid for politicians to put onto paper, words that protect us from the words on paper that the opposition wrote that told us we couldn’t do something that the words on the original piece of paper said that we could do. Do you see how this is your fault? Do you see how this is my fault?

Laws make stupid people feel safe.

Like our paper debt money, these laws only have power over us as long as we continue to believe that they do. Fools get together in front with the radio turned up, and vote on what direction to take our lives in. We sit in the back seat and grumble about our piece of paper, instead of just getting out of the damn car and taking it with us. It’s our fault because we believe that what they write has power over us. We tell ourselves that we live in the original system and that we can fix it with the tools of that system. But we simply do not reside in that world anymore. We told them that they could have it a long time ago, we just haven’t admitted it to ourselves yet.

The answer, as I see it, is rather simple to start. And it only requires that people keep doing the same thing, nothing. Only with a different purpose. Let them write their hollow words on their important paper. It holds as much meaning to me as mine does to them. Tell me that I cannot have the things which I already own and watch me keep them. As I walk down the street harming no person, lecture me on what I can and cannot say or do, and marvel as I continue to carry on as normal. These things cease to have any meaning once we decide that the do not.

Make them back up their words. Force them to show us just how much power they have and we will find that it is none, because it comes from us.

No violence unless violence is brought. We do not need to waste our time, energy, and sanity trying to win ‘arguments’ with children and baby tyrants. You will never win because there is nothing to win. You succeed only in turning into the miserable prick that you argue with. There are true evils in this world that people we put into ‘power’ refuse to address. Yet we seem quite content to wait for a 'good one' to come by and maybe try and fix some of it. If that is your attitude, then you are no more use than the person who expects words on paper to make their world a safe place to live in.

Let them write what they want to write. Ignore their words and the only option they have to keep their power over you is force.

Make them play that hand.

It’s weak.

-ybd