Wednesday, July 23, 2008

One Civil Right Liberty Will Never Support

Gotcha Liberals! These people keep giving us long, patronising lectures about how of course they think citizens should have the right to self-defence. Really? Can anyone imagine the Guardian running a similar nudging & winking article celebrating the government's sleazy denial of any other civil rights? How about an article titled 'Don't Vacuum That Baby's Brains Out' ?

Indeed, the article is the perfect exemplar of the liberal's deranged attitude to self-defence:
Many people hoping for an unrestricted green light to beat up or shoot their burglars or robbers, even unto death, will be disappointed.
Yep that's it. Liberals genuinely believe that people who smash their way into an occupied house at 4 AM are all loveable rogues called 'Lefty' but householders are psychopaths just waiting for the chance to torture people to death. From this bonkers worldview all else follows.

If you truly believe that the real danger with legalising self-defence is that it will allow respectable, middle-aged businessmen to persecute 21 year old smackheads then, yes, the current laws make perfect sense. Hence why Berlins clearly regards the following as a Good Thing:
Nor would the new law help anyone who, warned of a possible break-in, lies in wait and takes forceful action against the burglar. Such conduct has been premeditated. To avoid being prosecuted, it would have to be an instinctive reaction.
Leaving aside the question of just how someone would know in advance they were due to be burgled - a ludicrous red herring if ever there was one - the bottom line is that, by the left's own description, citizens can defend themselves, but only if they're completely unprepared. This is just the legal equivalent of the old line that anyone can eat at the Ritz. Never mind the problems of a family man confronted with a burglar, what are the prospects for a petite twenty-something blonde confronted with an 18 stone rapist with a knife?

The central question hidden in all this is what is the nature of crime? Liberals think crime is just one of those things, and criminality is just another lifestyle choice. There's no outrage there, no sense that criminality eats away at the very basis of human society.

This is the real problem with the whole concept of 'reasonable force'. As DT points out, a smackhead breaking down your door at 4 AM is not a 'reasonable' situation. Suggesting that the courts should consider how householders defend themselves and their families against home intruders in the same way, and using the same criteria, as they consider the fairness of contracts is absurd. Criminals are not part of society, they have voluntarily chosen to place themselves outside the normal restraints of civilisation. The normal assumptions of good faith don't apply. All proponents of self-defence really want is the right to treat them as what they are.

No comments: