Tech Sup­port [xkcd.com]

Any computer-literate per­son who’s ever had to call a cable company’s sup­port line will appre­ci­ate this cartoon.

If tyranny and oppres­sion come to this land, it will be in the guise of fight­ing a for­eign enemy.

John Adams

Addi­tion to the “20 Ques­tions” Response…. S, a reg­u­lar reader and com­menter here, had some com­ments to add to last week’s “20 Ques­tions” post, but for some rea­son his com­ments kept get­ting knocked off the blog. I still don’t know what that was about, but when he sent the com­ment to me via other means I found it much worth say­ing. So here it is.

The answer to all twenty ques­tions is the same:

You and I are dif­fer­ent. I will not use vio­lence to achieve my per­sonal goals. I make my way in the world using peace­ful, vol­un­tary, mutu­ally ben­e­fi­cial trade. I use vio­lence only when nec­es­sary to defend my life and prop­erty from vio­lence ini­ti­ated by oth­ers. Even then, my response will be appro­pri­ate to the threat and circumstances.

You and your ilk use vio­lence to get what you want. Whether it is mar­ket out­comes that dis­please you or tools you fear and loathe vio­lence is your first and only tool. It’s quite pathetic really, how lim­ited your imag­i­na­tions have become. You can’t even imag­ine solu­tions to most prob­lems that don’t involve vio­lence. I typ­i­cally have to choose from a myr­iad of options when nego­ti­at­ing a solu­tion to a prob­lem that trou­bles me; all you can ever do is demand new laws.

You’re also a cow­ard, and unwill­ing to do the dirty work required by your reliance on vio­lence. So you rely on oth­ers to pass “laws,” hire men armed with the very same guns that so ter­rify you, give them cos­tumes and cos­tume jew­elry, steal the money to pay for these par­a­sites from their vic­tims, and then set them upon me.

There’s your answer. There is no fron­tier here, only a bleed­ing edge. Because you will try to have me killed if you can’t make me agree with you, while I will go my peace­ful way and do my best to ignore and shun you. I have trades to make and a life to live. There’s really no point to fur­ther dis­cus­sion with you, since the out­come has already been decided. By you.

Couldn’t say it as well myself. In fact, I didn’t. [The Ulti­mate Answer to Kings]

This was writ­ten in response to a gun con­trol advo­cate, but it applies just as well to any other sort of Social­ist (includ­ing the ones who run the Repub­li­can Party).