That Radical Doherty
By Mona
Brian Doherty, author of the just-released Radicals for Capitalism, is interviewed. Excerpt:
Q: What’s a brief definition of libertarianism?
A: The belief that government, if it has any purpose at all – and there are some libertarians who think it doesn’t – then that purpose is only to protect its own citizens’ lives and property from direct force and direct attack. The implications of this can get very radical, from no restrictions on peoples’ use of any drug, whether it be for their own personal pleasure or even for medicine; it could mean an end to prescription drug laws. It could mean an end to all of the overseas military commitments the U.S. has been involved in that don’t actually involve defending the actual borders of this country. So while it’s a very Yankee Doodle philosophy, it’s very much rooted in the American founding. It has implications that are very radical – which is why I put radical in the title of my book.
Q: Is or was America ever a libertarian country?
A: Never in practice. Philosophically, it was extremely libertarian in its founding, but due to the religious and social mores of the time, there were all sorts of restrictions on what people could actually do – including some vagrancies laws that basically didn’t allow certain people to even walk into certain cities unless they lived there or had jobs. And of course, the status of blacks and women, which were horrendous in libertarian terms pretty much until the mid 20th century, prevented the political philosophy from functioning in a libertarian way. So no, libertarian remains a cause whose full flowering remains for the future while being rooted in core American ideas. The 19th century, despite popular myth, was not an era of rampant laissez-faire, which I discuss in my book.
(Via Logan Ferree at Freedom Democrats.)
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Of course, “direct force” includes things like fraud for most of us ‘tarians, in my experience. And, we actually are not, not all of us, opposed to other government services like municipal fire departments and even some social safety nets, depending on scope and design.
Comment by matthew hogan —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:01 pm
And, we actually are not, not all of us, opposed to other government services like municipal fire departments and even some social safety nets, depending on scope and design.
Burn, heretic, burn.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
Besides, who else will protect us from the predations of corporations? The investigative press who will report on and inform people of bad corporate actors who are advertising through their outlets so that libertarians will be able to apply the rule of free markets to avoid companies who do not serve their interests properly?
Comment by von Laue —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
No, wait, hang on, but, The Jungle!
Comment by Leonard —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:49 pm
I’m sure that Doherty means “state” when he says “government”, but this always annoys me when libertarians position us all as opposing “government”. Particularly those whom I respect a lot.
Most people understand that some people simply must be governed. That is, they must be controlled, “nicely” if possible but forceably if necessary. The standard things libertarians talk about: murder, rape, fraud. All of these necessitate the government of those who would engage in them.
But many mundane things also necessitate government. Consider roads. I expect that whoever owns them, there will be regulations as to their use. You will have to pay to use them; you must obey certain rules; failure to obey may cause you to lose the privilege. This is government, no matter whether the enforcement is implemented via the state, as it is now, or if it done via a corporate owner, as I would have.
And yet, when people learn that I am an anarchist or libertarian, a question I have heard more than once is “but what about traffic laws, huh? Those are victimless!”. Gotcha, right. Well I expect the road companies to run — to govern — their roads as well as, even better than, the state runs its monopoly roads.
There are no libertarians, other than possibly some deluded anarcho-communist types, that believe that ‘no government’ can possibly work.
What libertarian anarchists believe is that the state, meaning an entity with a monopoly on the use of legitimized force, should not govern.
Positioning ourselves as “against government” seems like an unnecessary way to antagonize people who might otherwise be sympathetic. Most people eventually learn that “do whatever you feel like doing” does not work as a method to run anything larger than a hermit’s life. For those of us who live in a society full of other people, government is necessary.
Comment by Leonard —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:52 pm
Fraud guy, lawsuit is another way to govern (there it is again) the eeevil corporations. Presumably if SatanCorp is selling rat meat as beef, that’s fraud.
Comment by Leonard —
February 28, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
Mona, it’s a movement, of course, and you are welcome in my book based on being at least a std dev away from the lethal center in the correct “movement” direction.
That said, social safety net funded by taxation?
Burn, heretic, burn.
I do expect plenty of private charity. You might think on that sometime.
Comment by still working it out —
March 1, 2007 @ 12:25 am
I am someone who is trying to look at Libertarianism seriously. First I must say that my biases are strongly against it. But I am trying to examine it honestly and in doing so having the frustrating (to me) experience of finding there is a lot more value to it than I ever thought. It is sometimes unpleasant having your bias’s successfully challenged but we don’t learn by being comforatable.
I hoping you can help me on a question that seems to be a show stopper for libertarianism that I am not able to get a satisfactory answer on. Global Warming.
Assuming global warming is real, and caused by human carbon dioxide emmissions, and that the consequences of it are genuinely very very serious, what is the libertarian response? I can see lots of market based responses that are possible, but none of them work without some sort of mandatory coercive element that directly contradicts libertarianism. Am i missing something?
I know that the scenario I am laying out is not certain. But by now I think any reasonable person has to conclude that there is at least a small possibility the moderate case scenarios will come about and as such its a real possibility that needs at least a hypothetical solution. Almost all the arguments I have heard from libertarians revolve around minimalisation of global warming. They may be right but then again if they believe the climate scientists are fallible and wrong why would I think that they can’t be as well. This lack of engagement of the central problem leaves me thinking there is no libertarian solution to global warming. I would like to know, if global warming is real, very serious and human caused, what would libertarians like to do about it?
Comment by Mona —
March 1, 2007 @ 6:32 am
Fraud Guy:
What predations do you have in mind? The media and writers can and have done a good job of exposing bad and dangerous product design, to the point where a journo such as John Stossel thinks we are “scaring ourselves to death.” And, in most cases tort liability is an excellent deterrent to those who would pollute extensively, or push unsafe or otherwise inappropriate product.
Usually, but not always, I’d prefer to see tort law rein in business. Coercion by the state becomes justified when the extent of the harm — if not prohibited by criminal law — would be so severe that tort liability is insufficient deterrent to the magnitude of risk of extreme and/or pervasive harm to others.
Even there, tort law must be kept within bounds of scientific reality so that good products are not driven from the market by junk science in the courtroom.
Comment by ajay —
March 1, 2007 @ 6:40 am
Is or was America ever a libertarian country?
A: Never in practice. Philosophically, it was extremely libertarian in its founding,
Er, slavery? As in ” was legal under the Constitution”?
Comment by Mona —
March 1, 2007 @ 7:00 am
ajay, and women could not vote. Read the rest of the quote from whence you took your Doherty, as well as the rest of the linked interview, please.
Slavery was the Original Sin of the founding and at the time it was widely recognized as such. But the slave-holding states especially in the South simply would not have come into the Union under any other conditions.
As awful as that Faustian bargain was, nevertheless the American Constitution and Bill of Rights constitute the most awesome, spectacular, totally awesome to the complete max political document in the history of the world (building on the also awesome Magna Carta). That doc and sentiments as in the Federalist Papers or Tom Paine tracts make our founding a very good starting point for liberty and social/material progress, in turn making it largely libertarian.
Comment by mds —
March 1, 2007 @ 9:55 am
Um, you do know what the original use of “Federalist” meant, right? For instance, I wouldn’t consider Federalist 13 or 23 to be calls for decentralization or devolution. Though Federalist 84 does provide a good civil libertarian argument, forseeing the dangers of Scalia-style dismissals of the Ninth Amendment. And if you embrace Paine’s Agrarian Justice, well, then that’s libertarianism I can get behind.
Comment by ajay —
March 1, 2007 @ 10:47 am
So, the Founders were libertarians with one flaw - they made chattel slavery legal, more than a decade after it had been declared illegal in England. Their new model nation, in this (fairly crucial) aspect, was actually more oppressive than the empire they had rebelled against.
I just don’t think you can dismiss that as “oh, it was our original sin, but apart from that the Constitution was FANTASTIC”. Slavery is pretty much the most un-libertarian thing you can do. Slave owners had totalitarian power over their slaves.
And the Founders were willing to accept it - to accept the right of one human being to treat another as property - for the sake of making their new nation as big and strong as possible by bringing the slave states into the new Union.
I know they talked a good Enlightenment game in the declaration, but when they were faced with the choice, they chose state power and chattel slavery. They sold their infant nation’s soul for the wealth of Virginia and Carolina, and the US is reaping the consequences even today.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
March 1, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Mona,
I was being slightly snarky, but based on the current (but slightly receding) kowtowing of media to established power sources, I don’t necessarily see that as an definitive out.
Regarding tort law, government can act as a leveler of the playing field against corporations. I am thinking of the Ford/Firestone issue, where numerous individual lawsuits were filed, settled, and sealed, but the greater public were not informed of the problems for quite some time. I am also thinking of the resources of an individual (or a small group of them) against a large corporation and trying to take a tort through a private legal action (and the resources needed to keep from being buried by a landslide of legal maneuverings).
(Also, Leonard, I have seen a few stories that the private companies who have taken over previously public roads have done a poor job of it.)
I believe that there is a place for public government/state action, to apply resources from the group in ways that individuals would not be able to do. I also believe that corporations, without an effective non-profit adversary such as a state, will effectively become governments without any of the potentially redeeming qualities that a electorally derived government has.
Now, I do think that the state/government should be much smaller, and focused on the services that it can provide. I don’t see any effective replacement for state/government action along those lines that I would be comfortable with. Government would also drop in size by some huge proportion should it stop interfering in the affairs of individuals.
Comment by Leonard —
March 1, 2007 @ 11:56 am
Working, regarding global warming. First off, you’re right, I don’t think most libertarians do take it that seriously. That is for good reasons, IMO, but let me follow you in making the assumption that it really is going to be really, really, super bad; i.e. on the scale of millions of deaths per year caused, and that it is caused by human CO2 usage.
Libertarians are fine with the general idea of property, and of enjoining people not to pollute the property of other people. In this case, what we have is one giant commons — the atmosphere — which cannot be effectively privatized. Thus the people collectively own it, if anyone does, and thus the people collectively must make decisions about how to manage it.
Note that most libertarians will strongly resist having any sort of public property like this, again for good reasons. But I just can’t see any way around it in this case. You just can’t fence C02 the way you can cattle.
A minarchist would probably say that the state should impose some kind of C02 release limits. Anarchists would have protection agencies imposing limits; both systems have the problem of how to get dissenting organizations to conform. War for the environment?
In addition to how to force compliance, there are some other interesting and disturbing twists to the idea of fixing people’s allowed C02 usage. For example, having a child would require either (a) imposing on everyone unilaterally, akin to our current situation, or (b) buying up enough C02 credits to “pay” for it. “Forced” abortions for the poor, anyone? Similarly there’s the problem of the indigent. They’re using C02! And you can’t just lock them up, because they’re still breathing. Should that be a capital offense? (But then they might rot, releasing carbon!) Would it be sufficient to merely force them into whatever lifestyle is determined to be lowest in C02? Would it be necessary?
Obviously there’s a real affront to liberty in scenarios like these. Even the possibility of having a U.N. World Atmosphere Corporation controlling something as important as who’s allowed to breathe is, to put it mildly, scary. Nonetheless, that seems like the only way to handle a situation of a worldwide collectively-owned property.
Fortunately, I don’t think the situation is anywhere near as dire as some environmentalists would like to believe. Oceans slowly rising? Build dikes where it matters (i.e. Manhattan), and just abandon land elsewhere. This isn’t rocket science. There’s plenty of unused land in the world.
And yes, I recognize that may be very unfair. But there’s a lot bigger sources of injustice than the “problem” of Floridians losing beachfront property value. If we have finite energy, we should be first be worrying about the big dangers to life and liberty, like the War in Iraq and the drug war. (Also note that a lot of the problems which are predicted to be caused by global warming should be insurable, a nice free-market way of distributing the costs to global warming doubters.)
Comment by mds —
March 1, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
Note that most libertarians will strongly resist having any sort of public property like this, again for good reasons.
See, this is why I keep going on about royal libertarians, Paine’s Agrarian Justice, etc. Well, one of the reasons why.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
I’m always interested in discussions of basic libertarian principles, and how those principles work when applied to potentially more complex real world socio-economic interactions. For example, while we all know the libertarian stance on drugs (it’s a subset of the ‘all markets should be free’ operator), I’m curious as to how libertarians (at least, the ones who post to this site) view the following:
Arms control – our wonderfully libertarian (slave owning) Founding Fathers felt everyone should be able to own a musket regardless of how the civil authority felt about it. Would a modern day libertarian believe that any individual who can afford one should be able to own an AK-47? A flame thrower? An M203 grenade launcher? A SCUD missile? A B-52 fully loaded with H-bombs? An orbital laser cannon? If yes to any, why not yes to all? Where do libertarian free market/free ownership of property principles end, and concern about exactly what Hugo Drax is going to do with his gigantic stratospheric magnifying glass, legitimately begin?
Voluntary indenturement – What does libertarian philosophy have to say about the idea of an individual being able to enter into a years long contract from which he or she cannot willingly withdraw, for which they are paid a sum of cash upfront, after which they effectively belong to whomever they have indentured themselves to until either a period of time expires, or they can repay their bond? It’s a common enough form of economic slavery, and one that is currently illegal under our present system. Is preventing people from entering into this kind of arrangement intolerable state interference in the functioning of a free labor market? If not, why not?
Debt peonage - Somebody borrows money and can’t pay it back, so they are involuntarily indentured to whoever they owe money to until they work the debt off. What’s the libertarian angle on this? Especially in combination with the very common practice of debt commodization, which is, the sale of debts owed to one entity to another entity at a discount?
I also very much like the global warming question. It’s a perfect example of what happens without adequate central regulation of technology. A free market encourages any kind of technological development that will make a profit, but profits are a short term result unconnected to the long term consequences of said technological development. It’s all well and good to talk about these things being handled by tort law, but who do we sue for a melting ice cap?
My take on libertarianism has always been that it’s a wonderful philosophy that essentially boils down to, I’d like to be able to do whatever I want whenever I want to do it, and I’m willing to pay fair market price for all the goods and services I consume, until my kid needs treatment for cancer, at which point, I’m reaching for my insurance card.
I realize that’s probably unfair, but that’s why I ask these questions, so I can get a better idea of what libertarianism actually is, as opposed to all that “Notebooks of Lazarus Long” stuff I absorbed in my adolescence.
Comment by Mona —
March 1, 2007 @ 1:20 pm
Doc Nebula, I’m only going to address two of your points, and leave it to some of the others to perhaps answer the others.
First, you say:
No, and no. Libertarian opposition to drug prohibition is not driven by free market philosophy, except to the extent we understand that high demand creates dangerous, violence-inducing black markets when a commodity is criminalized and other pragmatic concerns. (We don’t advocate free markets in human beings or children as sex workers.) Rather, libertarians locate their principled opposition to drug laws in views of body ownership or liberty interests. It is simply not the state’s business to tell you what you may inhale, ingest or inject, when the risk of potentially direct harm is to no one but yourself. (Getting behind the wheel of a car when high is different, but the infraction is not being high per se.) Libertarians believe in individual liberty.
Second, I do not advocate every man’s right to own his own nuclear bomb. There is no private use for such a thing that is acceptable, and the potential harm is too destructive to rely on tort remedies or prosecution for “negligent use.” After-the-fact damages awards wouldn’t mean a whole hell of a lot. By contrast, an individual’s right to own a handgun or other defense weapon that has actual beneficial and appropriate use in the everyday world, that liberty interest I defend.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
By contrast, an individual’s right to own a handgun or other defense weapon that has actual beneficial and appropriate use in the everyday world, that liberty interest I defend.
What ‘beneficial and appropriate use’ does a handgun have, in a magical fairy pixie dust (or, ideal theoretical, take your choice) world where no one has any hand guns at all? A hammer is better for driving nails.
If the only ‘appropriate’ use of a handgun is to defend yourself against everyone else with a handgun, your argument, while pragmatic, is ultimately a tautology.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 1:37 pm
Oh, yeah, and, the “I need a handgun for self defense” argument is pretty much the basis of the Mutual Assured Destruction concept. If other people have handguns, and I need a handgun to defend myself from them, well, other people have nukes, and the capacity to deliver them; therefore, I need a nuke, and the capacity to deliver it, to defend myself from their nuclear aggression. Right?
Comment by Mona —
March 1, 2007 @ 1:41 pm
It is not; appropriate use includes being able to defend oneself from any aggressor, including — but not limited to — those with legal or illegal handguns.
So:
Is incorrect. And my right to defend my body, life and property is not the state’s to take away.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
The argument is not a tautology. If you can have a handgun “to defend yourself from harm”, so can anyone else have a handgun to attack you with. You aren’t going to get to be the only person in the world with a handgun (a common recurrent geek fantasy, “if I could just go back to the 11th Century with an M16 and a backpack full of ammo, I’d carve myself out an empire!”) What we’re talking about is the contrast between a system where anyone can own a handgun (the libertarian ideal) and only those the state authorizes can legally own a handgun.
For what it’s worth, I myself believe the Constitution specifically forbids any sort of state gun control, and while I’m not personally wild about that, well, it’s the law. I also think that gun control laws cannot possibly get all the guns out of all the hands that have them; that being the case, they are ultimately futile, although I suppose they can help in some situations.
I came up with a free market type solution to the whole gun control mess that I wrote up on an old blog; you can find it at http://www.angelfire.com/blog/abehm/041104.html. Scroll down to the italicized section labeled ‘bullet points’. Or don’t, I imagine you must be a busy woman.
Comment by Leonard —
March 1, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
Doc, handguns in a pixie dust world without other handguns are great defenses against knives and other lesser weapons, as well as large groups of unarmed people. Mobs can be deterred by guns in way that knives, say, or strong language, don’t, because those other things do not communicate a credible threat of great harm.
In America, defending yourself with a gun against a criminal is the safest strategy you can take, including just giving him what he wants, except when he has a gun also. In that case, giving up the goods is statistically better, but using a gun is still the second best strategy. Since you have your choice to draw or not, there’s not a lot of downside to going armed as a crime deterrant if it is allowed where you live/work/commute.
In any case, it doesn’t matter whether or not guns are useful in any world. What matters is, are they necessarily harmful; must they necessarily impose risk on others who have not consented.
The answer here for handguns, and most weapons properly designed, is “no”. Hence you’ll have real trouble getting a libertarian to agree to ban them.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
Gah. Sorry. I’m at work and being constantly distracted as I type. Sorry. I meant, “your argument certainly IS a tautology”. And hopefully the rest of what I said makes at least nominal sense. And I appreciate you taking the time to speak to me at length on these subjects.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 2:49 pm
Leonard,
I guess I don’t live on the same world as most libertarians. It has been my experience of humanity that nearly all of us (probably the non-libertarians) are idiots and fools; I’d rather idiots and fools did not have the power of life and death over me.
Saying “well, it will all balance out if YOU also have the power of life or death over THEM” doesn’t work for me. I’m an overweight bookworm. I’ll never get my gun out of its holster fast enough to return fire, and frankly, I don’t feel like spending time I could be wasting on the Internet practicing my quickdraw skills. I like civilization because in a civil society I can walk down the street unarmed without having anyone attack me. I like a generally unarmed populace because I can walk down the street without having to worry about getting caught in a crossfire between two bad tempered morons who just had a fender bender.
Maybe a generally armed populace would not inevitably lead to indiscriminate slaughter in the streets, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing me of it. I suppose you can point to the Old West as an example of a place where many always went armed, but I’m of the opinion that our culture has become much more sociopathic in the intervening century or so. I really don’t WANT anyone who has a few hundred bucks to be able to walk around with a pistol on their hips.
As to ‘defending yourself from a criminal’, I suspect the safest strategy you can take there is to avoid being mugged in the first place. It’s always worked for me. And bear in mind, I don’t mind people having guns in their homes to repel home invasion with. I simply don’t want everyone out in a public place with me to be packing heat. I do not trust my fellow man that much. Your mileage, of course, may vary.
Comment by Madeline F —
March 1, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Doc Nebula: Pssh. If someone’s coming at me with a knife, I’d much rather have a handgun than another knife. Also: guns are more fun than other tools (except maybe bows) for putting holes in targets at ranges. Seriously, the handgun issue is a silly one, and the left has been very smart in the last few years to let it lie. There are much better ways to both reduce the murder rate and increase the common good than getting rid of guns.
Leonard: Do you currently donate to charities that help the poor? I’m curious, and also taking the opportunity to pimp Modest Needs, for people who have to choose between getting transportation to their job or paying their power bill.
Comment by Leonard —
March 1, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Madeline: no, I don’t do charities involved in directly helping the poor. My goal in charity is in trying to get liberty back, thus I give to the Institute for Justice. They focus on several key areas of the law which do help the poor. Defending school choice programs is one. Another is attempts to invalidate regulations that are designed to stifle competition. I also sometimes give smallish amounts to charities involving helping third-world people. But mostly I just stick w/ IJ, figuring most other charities are much more popular with mainstream liberals, who are far more numerous than libertarians and so can fund them, whereas they would not fund IJ.
Doc, I used to be a gun-grabber back in the day. I even gave money to HCI once! (Shoot me!) It really was the last issue that separated me from libertarians I read on usenet. And then I looked into it more… and whaddya know, I decided they were right. ‘Course way back then it was a lot harder to get useful info on the net. Now it’s wonderful how easy it is to find data of all kinds.
As for wanting to live in civilization, well, everyone does. May I suggest you read Jeff Snyder’s classic essay on this topic (and also short! very doable in 15 min), A Nation of Cowards? I highly recommend it, as I recall it was perhaps the one piece of writing most catalytic to my own thought at the time.
On the mental qualities of our fellow citizens, well, I hold them in higher regard than you do. I do not imagine gunfights in the streets, because I read the news, and I remember my history. There are many states now where concealed carry is legal (with a permit), but there were not back when I was an arrogant young man. When Florida was passing its “shall issue” concealed carry law, back in 1987 IIRC, there were many commentators, quite seriously, predicting mayhem, gunfights in the streets. Exactly what you fear. It did not happen. In fact the CC permit holders in Florida are more law abiding than the average citizen.
As for civilization more broadly, I certainly agree with you. I like it. I don’t want to need to carry a gun. I avoid “bad” areas, because I cannot carry a gun in the people’s republic of Maryland. As Jeff Snyder says: “Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing themselves that they live, work, and travel only in special ‘crime-free’ zones.”
But the thing to think about here is, what makes civilization? It is the enforcement of law, the forceable imposition of civil society on those who would victimize but who will also accept government (see above). All those stupid people you fear? They can understand basic concepts like: if you kill, we’ll hang you.
There’s a catch-22 here, though. If we are very successful in our civilization, we won’t need arms very much. The population, even the stupid ones, will have internalized the rules and violations will be rare. On the other hand, if we fail to civilize, we will require endless force, including guns, nightsticks, tasers, chokeholds, etc. to govern. (This is essentially the state of our drug-war zones in the inner city.) Many people look at our successful civil society, which needs few guns where it works, and do not see the need for guns to enforce it. It is only when you remove the guns that you see why they were needed to begin with.
If you want to see the results of a nation disarmed, just look at Britain. Rampant criminality in the streets, in homes, rich and poor areas alike. They started right where we did, even through the 1930s: essentially no gun laws at all. Now they are victimized at incredible rates by our standards, and they are now trying to ban kitchen knives.
Comment by Doc Nebula —
March 1, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
Leonard,
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I did an 8 year jolt in Florida; I only managed to escape with the help of my lovely fiancee, who came down and broke me out of the joint with a rented moving van. You say they’re more peaceful than the average citizen, I say those hicks are crazy, many of them violently. But I don’t have to live there any more, so I can shrug and let that one go.
What I will note, however, is a recent law (well, I think it’s two years old or so) in Florida that overturns the longstanding legal principle known as ‘the duty to retreat’. In Florida, a person in public no longer has a ‘duty to retreat’ before using deadly force in self defense. If you are out in public in Florida, strapped, and you feel threatened by someone, you don’t have to make an effort to leave before you slap leather and throw lead. Nosirree. Nowadays, you can blast away.
You do indeed have more faith in our fellow humans than I do. Or I’m more of a coward than you are. I don’t mind being a coward, though; as a sub-class, we do not start trouble and are often pleasant conversationalists. There are worse things to be than a yellow belly, and many of those things probably shouldn’t be allowed to walk around with a loaded Luger.
I’ll read the essay you’ve linked to, but honestly. Every time I read some short story intro by Heinlein in his dotage talking about how he never went out in public without his shootin’ iron, I thought he just sounded deranged. Maybe I’m too civilized for my own good.