CORRUPTION OF DISCOURSE
The shooting first and asking questions later of arguing
backwards from conclusions is not done in the name
of logic and reason, but merely as a means of strong-
arming consent or agreement. In contrast, real dialogue
and discussion always have a quality of thin, clear, air
about them. The open question is unburdened by the
weight of the past, treading lightly as it enters the
unknown, following the evidence wherever it leads.
FREEDOM FROM VIOLENCE
We shape the world and the world shapes us.
With more than 250 million guns in circulation, Americans
have become both guard and inmate of their own prison.
So, 2nd Amendment rights, clearly and unambiguously
intended to safeguard against the tyranny of a King George
the III style centralized, totalitarian power, have become
the clearest example of America destroying itself because
of a false idea of freedom. Freedom is always a question
of balance; it is never absolute. This is true in Nature;
And it it true in Culture.
We must always balance the rights of freedom to—the
right to carry the means of deadly force—with the rights
of freedom from—the right to free of effects of utterly
random use of deadly force.
Without proper balance of the two sides of freedom, society
and its laws tends necessarily to develop in one of two
destructive directions: the Orgy of Me, my friend, my rights,
which ends degenerative chaos; or the stasis of the rigid
authoritarian state where there are no rights or freedoms
at all.
Without the reasoned debate and enlightened thought,
backed by more than 100 years of cultural excellence in
the Arts, Philosophy, Discourse and Language—the 54 men
who came together to compose the Declaration of
Independence had read their Montesquieu in French, and
some their Politics of Aristotle in Greek—would have almost
certainly failed at their historic task.
Are we now failing at ours?