— “There oughta be a law” is an admission of abject failure

Sometimes I’ll think of a post and then be more motivated to tap it out by getting curious about what set of 4 options the Midjourney AI image generator will create for me.

I used to have this post title I’d sometimes use, “Sunday Church for Human Animals,” which should be taken to mean that even though I often harken back to our natures as animals, it does not mean we can’t have civility, organization, culture, or good will towards men. Love. Taking responsibility.

As I often do with posts, in addition to using AI to generate the post image, I often use it to organize long post ideas, as it does a bang-up job with essentially creating a complete outline for an idea you wish to write about. I also use it to summarize posts I’ve written, which is what I did here. I first went to ChatGPT-4 at OpenAI, which I pay the $20/m subscription for. Great summary, but too long and detailed. Then I went to the embedded GPT-4 here and used the variation that’s connected to all the blog content, and I got weird results for some reason. Then I went to the variation that’s not connected to the internal content and got it just right, no edits.

… Before getting into the subject—the failure of law—a bit of housekeeping. I’ll do a numbered list, to impose some brevity upon my verbose self.

1. I’ve moved reports/discussion concerning the business project to the Business topic in the member’s group. There’s simply not enough interest, even amongst members, to justify blog posts about it. Understandably. Not everyone needs or wants to get into online content creation and its marketing.
2. The last week or so has been illuminating as I have dropped all “free content” so that the substantial portion of my posts are for members and when it’s a public post, it’s really a marketing piece with a pitch and call to action. If that’s not for you, click unsubscribe below. I no longer provide any free value whatsoever. There is no upside to that, any more than there would be to have a “free stuff” table in your brick & mortar store.
3. If you’re not ready to be a member and understand my position in #2, above, and wish to stick around for the time-being, then you’re welcome. We understand each other.
4. Putting the word “Bullshit” in the subject of yesterday’s email really brought the bunched-panty sorts out of the woodwork. One person must have searched his/her/they/them archives for hours to find every previous email ever sent to file a complaint. 30+, I think. Probably a worthless vegan with an email of banana_peeler@[domain]. The person also doesn’t know that in terms of my complaint score, one email address = one complaint. Multiples don’t count unless on email sent after the date of the first complaint. It need not worry about that. It also should eat some real protein and fat.
5. About 73 unsubscribes over the last week. Good. It’s an even split between those grabbing the free downloads and longtime subscribers. As in the foregoing, there is absolutely no point in sending out emails to anyone for whom being a member is out of the question…and if that’s you, unsubscribe so I have more accurate numbers to judge business actions. It’s like persevering and persisting in pursuing a chick who’s just not into you. Dumb. Don’t do it.
6. On the bright side, there’s about 150 NEW subscribers over the last month who have stuck around. I don’t know for how long, but it suggests to me that they’re at least curious, or open to the possibility of becoming members.
7. I’ve hugely revamped the membership subscription landing page. All are invited to take a look, and I’d love to hear back with some input from any pro copywriters out there. Part of the theme of it is knowing when you’re wrong. So if I’m wrong, please do let me know ASAP.

I saw a great quote via Twitter this morning and had my little mind-worm-thing to pop off a post about, since this reflects my own position for over 3 decades, now.

Now let’s dive in.

First, here’s the reference tweet link.

Here’s what I wrote about it:

It also brought to memory two other replies to tweets recently.

And…

Let’s see if I can relate the principle at work here by using a concrete example most Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and right-thinking independents understand completely:

“If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.”

The problem here, though, is that people look at this as a one-off rather than the underlying principle at work, which applies to all “valid” laws; by which I mean, the laws you have no need or use for…you wouldn’t do it even if there was no law prohibiting it.

Folks understand that “outlaws” don’t care if guns are illegal.

Well…

• Murderers don’t care if murder is illegal
• Rapists don’t care if rape is illegal
• Kidnappers don’t care if kidnapping is illegal
• Child molesters don’t care if child molestation is illegal
• Robbers don’t care if robbery is illegal
• A conman doesn’t care if fraud is illegal
• A brute and batterer don’t care if assault and battery is illegal

Catch my drift?

So, back to the example of gun laws. Who do they affect? There’s a plethora of them, so who do they affect?

They all affect those who don’t need them, who wouldn’t knowingly misuse a gun anyway. And at best, they put up mere feather-duster obstacles to those who would knowingly misuse them and thus, don’t give a shit about any of the laws.

Add on top of that, all the victimless “crimes;” and on top of that, all the unjust laws, that violate base human rights.

These are actually more pernicious in society because these are some things that some people might actually do, benefiting others and society, in the process, but because they’re upstanding people, they voluntarily curtail their activities or much take risks or incur undue costs to operate gray or black.

One example of that is licensing laws. Of course, it’s arguable that some licensing laws exist with good intention and for good measure. Physicians, surgeons, bus drivers, commercial pilots, etc. Areas where the public is at great risk for incompetence.

And yet, the same principle applies.

1. Good, upstanding people are not going to perform these services before first learning how to do them competently and getting a ok-clear from a competent mentor in the field with a reputation that precedes him or her.
2. Those who wouldn’t care anyway already exist. We hear stories all the time. The law did not stop them.

How about drug laws? This is a bit more tricky because they can sneak up on the innocent and unsuspecting, but the same principle still applies.

1. Good people, and especially people brought up in the ways they should go, usually don’t have problems with drugs and if they do, are of sound-enough mind to fix it.
2. Obviously, drugs laws never stopped anyone who really wanted them from getting to them…even if already locked in a jail cell for drug or other offenses.

And, of course, as if to illustrate the pernicious evil of the state, the worst and most damaging drugs are legal (alcohol, prescription meds).

… There’s another element to this as well, and that’s the Darwin-Awards effect. You understand the theme behind the Darwin Awards. It’s to recognize improvement in the gene pool by weeding out stupidity and carelessness (hopefully prior to passing those genes to offspring).

But that’s not even the worst of it, which is: all the affirmative laws that essentially makes everything easy for the worst genes, the most inept, the stupidest, the talentless, the lazy, the dishonest, the sociopaths and psychopaths in society.

… And of course, the underlying reason for that is simple and obvious: a never-ending supply of Democrat voters…