Outlaw Country
magazine.atavist.com
magazine.atavist.com
"The social contract is not a buffet—if you opt out because you want absolute freedom, you have to accept that no one will come to save your ass when trouble starts."
Reminds me a bit of the cryptocurrency market. :-)
Edit: Since apparently I'm so wrong does anyone care to explain why?
Society tends to look at these groups as well at least we don't have to deal with them and as long as they stay up there, then let them sort it out among themselves. The sad reality is that had he buried the body and been "hardened" like the rest of them, it would have not caused an issue for the local sheriff and the sheriff would have most likely just ignored it unless someone came around making an issue over it.
I have been in these kinds of environments in FL, when I was a child the everglades and the glades-men where frontier territory and they are a hardened lot, they will kill you, especially if they have an issue and get themselves worked up while drunk. One of the most dangerous occupations, back then, was being a Florida game warden, due to these types. We had them go missing all the time back in the early 70's and 80's.
Everyone up there, in this story said, he was going to kill him had Taylor not acted and at the point that a person brought a 55 gallon barrel and a buddy to tell me I was going in it, I personally would have been plotting how I was going to kill him in self defense before he killed me. I honestly do not believe I would have let either of those men leave my property that day standing on their feet. I don't say that to sound "Internet Tough" but rather to highlight, given my experience in frontier areas, the mentality I would have been in and the mentality I would assume a guy like Taylor would be in. The reality is that the law was not coming to save him, and given the repeated incursions and threats on his property it was only a matter of time.
That being said, I do believe the other gentleman would have eventually killed him but he sensed weakness in Taylor after the second exchange where Taylor was bending over backwards to "make it right". So the plot to run him off his land and buy it up seems plausible. The problem is Taylor was not in on that plot, being the target and he was being threatened in a lawless territory. His only rational had to be, I am on my own and do I want to live?
This is exactly the white people version of the hood and gangs. It's the only reality they have and it present few good choices. It's raw survival.
What about option three, move to Des Mones and get a job at 7-11?
Does it really surprise you that there are people who find that idea of life worse than death?
I would sooner end myself. I'm very grateful that people who find such an existence fulfilling exist.
That isn't a thing. I work for an organization (military) that sometimes gets involved in search and rescue. Our society doesn't let people die in agony alone in the woods. If you are attacked by a bear, or your boat sinks, a helicopter will be sent to pick you up. You cannot opt out of that. Even if you say no, we will send the machine. Eventually you will fall unconscious and then we will treat you. That's modern society. "Just let them die" isn't real. It is pure fantasy to pretend that anyone can opt out of humanity.
Canada is constantly dealing with this problem. People want to live in the middle of nowhere but they still get government services, even the ones they might not want. You cannot choose to live outside of basic health care any more than you can opt to live outside the legal system. Given that reality, why should the larger society cover the costs of people who want to live a wilderness fantasy? Why should we allow people to live in places where they will inevitably need very costly rescue services, where their kids will be needed to be flown to and from they basic schooling they deserve?
This isn't a good example.
Lots of people simply can't afford healthcare. They need coverage anyway. Yes, there is the occasional jerk who can completely afford it and won't buy it. But they're not the common case, in my experience.
I am with you about building in fire areas. There should be regulations requiring you to carry sufficient insurance that also defrays the cost of dealing with you when the fire shows up--not just rebuilding you after the fact.
You have the freedom to choose not to go out there. But you wish to restrict the freedom of others to go there.
Much of the live-off-the-land lifestyle is already illegal. Contrary to the TV shows, one cannot just hunt anything they want when they get hungry. They need tags. Animals can only be hunted during specific seasons. And there are weapons limitations. These are normal regulations that make living a wild lifestyle, a legal one, very very difficult.
Just saying that people can't live there because you might feel the need to go out there and save them from themselves is deeply problematic in my view.
Society didn't want to come save him when he needed help but was willing to throw him in jail when he saved himself.
I happened on ads for those lots myself when looking around Zillow for odd or interesting places. You can see a bunch of them here: https://bit.ly/33tqbVM
Even Klamath Falls doesn't have a great reputation in Oregon. Life that far out has got to be rough.
If you want to go out to the middle of nowhere, wipe your ass with grass an live without any person or government's help/interference, that is totally your prerogative. But the irony of someone surviving off welfare checks, killing a man because of police inaction, and then suing the county for inadequate mental health support is palpable.
You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Mooching off of welfare programs and posting tough-guy memes while calling everyone else pansies and having a hard-on for rugged 1800-style living? Cry me a river.
Even the guns they so cherish, 18th century firearms weren't what we would call reliable. They didn't always fire properly when needed, especially when old/wet. So even these tough bush people, if they carry ammo manufactured in recent decades, remain reliant upon modern production tech.
Right. The wheat they sold went out on the train and the train delivered all those things. And when their crops failed and they busted out the city slickers charity saved them from staving.
I think the impetus there is that he had a long history of negative social experiences. The article repeatedly indicates he couldn't rely on other people but other people considered him to be reliable in certain respects. He could be turned to for help, but he seemed to have no one he could turn to.
Given that experience of life, I see no contradiction in his desire to go make it on his own in the middle of nowhere and his complaint that he's been given no help. I think they are two sides of the same coin.
Modern society is a very abstract place in which people find it difficult to meaningfully trade favour. In cities at least, a whole bunch of stuff is out of the control of individuals and in the control of a bureaucracy.
Wanting to escape that I don't see as being foreign at all.
Makes me think of the movie Falling Down. There are certainly times that I enter some sort of internal monologue and just think - look, I'm here, open and kind; perhaps not always, but in this moment I am. And others are here acting as obstacles... because it's "their job", or whatever.
It's similar to how capitalism can get recontextualized into something meaningless and shitty by Objectivists. When capitalism works, it can almost seem magical, because it's basically a greedy algorithm that can often produce a net good for most of the population, based on individuals looking out for their own interests. Hence notions like "greed is good" or "selfishness is a virtue". But the whole point of those notions is, they're built on an assumption that those things lead to a net good for everyone involved. To the degree that capitalism works, it's because it allows wealth to be created, which is a net good for everyone.
The purpose of capitalism as the core of a civilization is wealth creation, where people exchange things they don't want in return for things they do want. All participants in the transaction are better off than before in their eyes, but nothing new has been created. Money and goods and services have simply changed hands. Everyone's better off than they were before, but no new goods have been created, and no new money has been printed. It's like creating something from nothing. If any argument can be made in favor of selfishness being a virtue, this is it- it's a virtue because in this context it supposedly leads to a better world for everyone, not just individuals.
But I've known plenty of right wingers who claim to draw inspiration from libertarianism, or who claim to have a special understanding and reverence for capitalism because they're Objectivists. And yet, they never talk about wealth creation. To them, selfishness is a virtue simply because that's the world they want to live in. These are the temporarily frustrated millionaires living in compounds in Wyoming, mooching off the government while complaining about urban welfare recipients. They think Objectivism or libertarianism or their religion gives them cover to go around thinking that greed and selfishness are actually good things, without ever embracing or even understanding the foundations of those beliefs- that they're only good things in the context of maximally efficient and rational markets, and only because they supposedly lead to wealth creation (everyone getting richer in some sense, not just individuals getting rich at the expense of other individuals). But they're not in it for the wealth creation- to them, capitalism isn't good because it creates wealth, rather capitalism must be good because they think it means it's OK for them to be selfish assholes.
Can't say I can understand what's ironic, could you extrapolate that one?
> a hard-on for rugged 1800-style living?
I don't recall TFA mentioning the 1800s.
It's towards the end of the piece.
In the country, it's unlikely that anyone will arrive in time to protect you. So people buy the guns to protect themselves. And they want the same laws to apply both where they live, and in densely populated urban areas where a single AR-15 can do a lot of damage.
A single AR-15 can do a lot of damage at a rural high-school all the same.
The reason for the second amendment is defense, of person and of society. The police have issues with response times in cities, and in the event of disaster. Let us not forget of police abdication of duty during the LA92 Riots and the "Roof Koreans."
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Arguments about 2A's intent are endless, and given the polarized nature of the debate, also futile.
A bold interpretation. Does that include babies and seniors with dementia? They are part of the people by most definitions. Should we allow them to have arms? Hand a .22 pistol to an eight-month old? If not, where do you draw the line? Is a well-regulated militia a very distinct subset of the people?
> The state exists for the welfare of the people.
Theorists of the state would dispute that, and we have endless examples that contradict you. States generally exist to serve themselves, often at the expense of the people.
> To say it isn’t for the defense of the people is an argument of semantics.
The interpretation of a foundational text of US democracy is a matter of semantics. Semantics is about what words mean. You say they mean one thing. I happen to disagree with you. So yes, the whole nature of this dispute is semantic, and not in the sense of "semantics are trivial". The gist of the question is in assigning meaning to the words of 2A. And if you think they "just mean something and it's so obvious that no alternative meanings can be discussed," then you are begging the question.
2A explicitly says it is in defense of a state, not a people.
Reminded me of the nearby Humboldt County, California. Similarly remote, rugged, quite lawless and attracting people who want to stay hidden. It also the focus of California's secretive marijuana industry. There is a good documentary series about it: https://www.netflix.com/ee/title/80217475
God forbid the jury include anyone who's ever had to mentally grapple with the possibility they might be in a situation like that.
The whole trial smells of a prosecution that has lofty and unrealistic ideas about the immediate relevance of its authority in BFE.
Last time I checked murder required intent. I don't see intent here.
Which situation? The one where you move to a remote wilderness locale, ransack your neighbor's property, and then shoot him twice in the back? Or the one where you fatally misjudge the shotgun wielding newcomer you're trying to bully? Makes me glad I live in civilization. Think I'll pop down to Wawa for a soda.
The guy who got shot:
- Flipped out over an honest mistake that Taylor tried to make right
- Used a weapon to threaten him
- Stole Taylor's only method of calling for help on the day that he said he would kill him
- His close associates went on the record that he was really willing to kill Taylor
As far as I can see there's no question that Taylor's actions were self defense.
And it appears the associates only went on record after the first trial.