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The
Below Comments Relate to this Newslink:
The NRA sees a bleak Hobbesian world. So why does it want to arm individuals with guns?
Submitted by:
Mark A. Taff
Website: http://www.marktaff.com
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Doing so is difficult, however, because Hobbes argues that in the absence of government, individuals will frequently attack and kill one another in what he terms “the war of all against all.” It is not that he thinks humans are evil; far from it. But he argues that our natural tendencies — vanity, competitiveness, fearfulness and glory-seeking — will inevitably lead us to fight, and frequently kill, each other. As a result, without government, human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Faced with such a bleak existence, Hobbes argues that there is only one solution to the problem of a violent and chaotic world: a government with absolute power. |
| Comment by:
MarkHamTownsend
(4/20/2018)
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| I wonder if the author considered the possibility that the NRA took its position not by a silly conflating of John Locke and Thomas Hobbs but by a serious consideration of our modern condition, informed by the philosophies of those who support and donate to the NRA? |
| Comment by:
PHORTO
(4/20/2018)
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| False dichotomy. But then, what else would you expect from WaPo? |
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| QUOTES
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| "Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy ... censorship. When any government, or any church, for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,' the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." --Robert A. Heinlein, "Revolt in 2100" (Pg. 68-69, Baen Books paperback edition, 1999 printing) |
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