I was catching up on some Porcfest suggested reading over the last few days and came across an interesting idea in Tannehill’s The Market for Liberty. I’m only about a quarter way through (very good so far) but thought this quote was interesting:
It doesn’t matter whether a man goes to church every day or advocates atheism, whether he wears his hair long or short, whether he gets drunk every night or uses drugs or stays cold sober, whether he believes in capitalism or voluntary communalism—so long as he doesn’t reach for a gun … or a politician … to compel others to live as he thinks they should.
This got me to thinking (always dangerous!). It occurred to me that the best way to prevent gun related accidents is to always follow the 4 rules of gun safety. Could we prevent more politician related accidents if we had a similar set of guidelines for using politicians?
- All politicians are always loaded. (No they’re not all Kennedys, but you have to assume they could all go off at any moment, so be careful!)
- Never point the politician at anything you don’t want to destroy. (No further commentary needed.)
- Keep your finger off the politician until he/she is pointed at the target (It’s well known that all politicians have hair triggers, so you want to make sure they don’t pass a law accidentally…or without reading it.)
- Be sure of your target and what lies beyond it (what lies beyond it is usually unintended consequences of which there are always plenty. But have no fear, they can always pass more laws = shoot more bullets, to take care of those!).
Come to think of it, even with these rules I’m not sure there is a safe way to handle politicians. With the 4 rules of gun safety you actually have to violate 2 of them for something bad to happen. We’ve all seen cases where an unloaded politician goes off without anyone touching them.
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