Carl Remick wrote:
[snip]
>>Also, as I've said before: The right will always have more and better
arms.
>That doesn't seem like very good reasoning, to me. It
>sounds too much like 'burglars can always get into your
>house, so why bother locking the door?' or 'we're all
>going to die anyway, so why not ignore dangers?'
>There's a serious false dichotomy at work there!
Hah! I visited my cousin and her husband in Berkeley a while back. They took us to dinner, a terrific Thai restaurant. As we left their parked car, I noticed they did not lock up, and I asked if we shouldn't.
"No" they said, "Burglars will only smash the car window so we leave the car unlocked."
Then it all came back to me. I lived in Berkeley once. I too deliberately had a beatup old car that no thief would ever want to steal. I too kept the car unlocked so that if somebody wanted to rifle my car at least my window wouldn't get broken. And I had nothing of value ever in my car.
I've lived in a different place in Texas too long; middle to upper middle class, a very nice community. I lock everything, although break-ins and burglaries are extremely rare here.
It's such a peculiar thing. Where there is little chance of theft we go to pains to lock things up. And where theft is a matter-of-fact daily occurence, we deliberately do not lock up. It's a kind of basic slum survival that you would not expect unless you have been there.
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