I have long said that people who sneer at CCW holders because gun-carrying shouldn’t require a license – a position with which I agree wholeheartedly, just not the sneering – should look in their own wallets. If they have a driver’s license in there, they should maybe turn down the contempt a notch or two because they’re not being consistent.
In a local conversation I dragged that argument out and got it thrown back in my face: Driving, I was told, is a privilege because virtually all roads essentially belong to the government and the government gets to decide who uses them.
So then, I asked, is it a privilege to be permitted to walk on a right-of-way? Yes indeed, said this person. In fact there’s a widespread precedent: Try hiking on a freeway shoulder and see how far you get before the cops come by.
And you know, he had me there.
I want more people to carry guns. Effective ability for self defense is an absolute right, and I don’t believe it should be licensed – at all. The only halfway-good argument for licensing handgun carry is to document having satisfied a training requirement, which was always the argument I heard for driver’s licenses. Would I want to share the road with a world full of completely untrained drivers, because driving is considered an absolute right? I really wouldn’t. True, untrained gun carriers are not as dangerous as untrained drivers, because a holstered handgun never hurt anybody. But nobody ever argued that gun carriers should not seek training – only that it shouldn’t be a prerequisite for exercise of the right because then it isn’t a right – it’s a privilege granted by law. Like driving.
Curiously, in the conversation above the topic of training never came up. My companion said driving is a privilege because of the matter of road use: The boss’s roads, the boss’s rules. I’d never thought of it that way, but if you accept the premise the argument makes sense. I’m not sure I accept the premise, but can’t coherently argue against it.
And – my point, at last – it seems to put a stick in the spokes of my old argument equating carry licenses with driving licenses*.
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*Full disclosure: I don’t have a driver’s license either. And no, I’ve never been busted for DUI or any equivalent. I have, however, been busted for driving without a license.
well, not to belabor the point overly….
you don’t need a DL to drive on private property.
BUT. FWIW, the much bedraggled and maligned Constitution doesn’t say beans about a right to ride a horse, but it *does* say something pretty clearly about ‘arms’.
The “right” is to life and liberty, not bits and pieces of that. The natural condition of human beings is self ownership, self responsibility, and responsibility for the consequences of not taking full control of one’self. If someone decides to put their finger in a light socket, they will automatically pay the price in pain. That’s the way it ought to be with everything.
The only reason the government “owns” the roads is that they’ve been allowed to do so. The only reason they’ve been allowed to “license” anything is that people have been convinced that their safety can be assured by it. We’d all like to know that there are no irresponsible drivers on the road… and we all know that the “license” has nothing to do with assuring that. Otherwise, the thousands of wrecks each day would not be happening.
Far too many have not taken the trouble to see that there is little guarantee of safety no matter how careful they are, and even less if they rely on someone else for it. The person who chooses to be irresponsible with any tool will do so, and no “law” or license scheme can prevent that. With a car or a gun or any other tool. Which is all too often the reason the next step for those who want a guarantee of safety at someone else’s expense must be confiscation of the feared tool… from the mundane and entrusted only to the government. And we all know how well that works out…
A lot of state drivers license laws cover commercial use only. But they still insist that we all have them. Go figure. And who says the Government owns the roads? WE own the roads. We pay for them… Just another right stolen from us at gunpoint, and sold back to us…
Government doesn’t own the roads. It claims it does and backs that claim with violence and theft.
Roads are paid for by theft- “taxation”. They are built on land which was either stolen outright or “bought” with stolen money. A thief doesn’t own the stolen property he controls. He merely controls it until the rightful owner takes it back. Driving is an absolute human right, which government violates by demanding a “license”. Just like government violates most rights.
The ones I feel I can “get away with” exercising without begging permission, I do. Those where the risk to me is too great, I pretend the government has the “authority” to demand a license just so the goons working as its enforcers are less likely to murder me- at least for that “crime”.
All analogies are flawed in some way. And controlled access highways are a mere fraction of the highways and byways of the USA.
There are no such things as rights. When people argue about rights, it always sounds like they are arguing religion (with all that entails). There is a reason for that; rights are a religious notion. That’s why such arguments always end up in logical dead ends.
http://strike-the-root.com/life-without-rights
http://strike-the-root.com/i-dont-have-rights-nor-do-i-want-any
Whenever I bring this up, I always expect a thoughtful defense of rights, but never get one. Either people can’t actually defend the notion, or they just wish I would shut up and go away.
As to thievery, I think you are off a bit, Kent. When somebody steals something from you, it is no longer yours. Maybe you get lucky once in a while and get it back, maybe even undamaged. But in any real sense it is not yours when he has it.
“Would I want to share the road with a world full of completely untrained drivers, because driving is considered an absolute right? I really wouldn’t.”
Until 1948 Wyoming did not require driver’s licenses. I don’t recall reading anywhere of the rash of crashes back then. Like anything else, people have incentive to get trained, all by themselves. Government does not add anything positive to this picture. All they are good at is providing the illusion of safety.
As to your old argument, there was nothing wrong with it. People put up with stuff when they think they have to.
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Amendment IX (1791)
And what, pray tell (for you religious types) are those rights retained by the people?
Everything, and if you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you.
I know more about the Constitution than Obama knows about America.
You work with whatchagot. I got a new set of circumstances here in Orange County that say I can get a CCW. So I have set the groveling for permission to exercise my rights in motion. It’s now a waiting game as to if I am permitted to get said permission. I hate that I have to bow and scrape to do what I should and be able to do without special grant, indeed many states now are headed toward no longer forcing the groveling.
Now Paul, I contend that your mindset that we don’t have rights is false. I don’t care if it originates from religion, common law or men from Mars, if we start letting anyone say we don’t have rights, soon we don’t.
I have rights purely because I assert that I have rights. At the point I am no longer willing to fight for them, I no longer have them.
There has to be a starting and stopping point. As in the tip of my nose.
If you can’t get a reasoned argument that opposes your point of view from anyone you contend with, I suggest the flaw is yours.
Also, the theft Kent speaks of is a coercion with promise of benefits.
I say even non drivers have a right to the highways if at any time they paid into any of the various tax schemes that fund the entities. Kent stands correct in my mind. We are stolen from in our own name, therefore that which is taken is still ours by implication of the use of the lucre.
The problem is, if you refuse to ay and they notice, the fallacy that you think you have to gets a severe test. Possibly a fatal one. Oh, yeah, the fact remains, the stereo stolen from my car in 1988 is still mine.
I find it incredibly annoying when a police officer reminds you that driving is a priveledge, not a right. As if he is your daddy and the priveledge comes from him personally.
I read somewhere that a licence is something the gov’t sells you after they’ve stolen the right to it from you at gunpoint. It’s done for revenue, not safety.
Buck, it is apparent you did not read my articles, or at least did not understand them.
Give it a try, seriously. They are not very long, and the points are not difficult.
“It’s done for revenue, not safety.” Interesting argument, but if that were true, a drivers license would be a lot more expensive. If it came right down to it and your livelihood depended on the license, how much would the average wage-slave pay?
I submit that licenses are really about government control. If you NEED a driver’s license, and the government has the right to take yours away, then you have incentive to do things (especially drive) the government’s way.
Paul: In the “Life without rights” essay you talk about “How wonderful could our world be if the majority of people doubted there was any right at all to rob their neighbor for some supposed social good? If it was considered robbery, plain and simple, with no justification?”
Without a right to property, there can be no such thing as theft/robbery. Theft is taking what isn’t yours- a violation of property rights. If there are no rights, then you can’t take what isn’t yours- it’s all up for grabs. Yes, sometimes that’s how it looks, especially under a “State”, but the way I know a “State” is the bad guys is in the way they ignore rights that don’t suit them. Through, for example, permits, “taxes”, eminent domain, anti-liberty “laws”, and all the rest of what they do.
When someone steals something of mine, it is still mine. Otherwise if I took it back I would be the thief. I am not obligated to go take my property back- I might even decide it isn’t worth the trouble and “give” it to the thief by relinquishing my rights to it. But it’s my choice, either way.
Maybe in the Big Picture, rights aren’t necessary to live a decent life respecting the person and property of others. But they are still a real thing, not a religious notion.
You’re right, Ben, in that the license to drive is inexpensive. Now try liquor, cab, and the other myriad of licenses needed by folks just to business in their chosen field. You’re also right that licenses are about control, often to control how many people are able to engage in business to prevent too much competition. And for the government to exert its power over the peasants.
Lol. Driving a privilege? Feels more like a chore and dishonor to me! Gotta deal with speed traps, people tailgating you, people going slow in the fast lane, people cutting you off, people walking into traffic blindly without being in a crosswalk, people not looking where they’re going, etc….