r/serialkillers

1965 photo of Roy Lewis Norris during his time at Greeley Central High School in Greeley, Colorado. According to records, he was a member of the advanced choir.

I contend that liberty is inconsistent with the nonexistence of evil. Unless men’s minds are engineered or controlled so that everyone wants only what is “good”, there will be some people who will be disposed to evil[1]; and unless people are so closely regulated and watched that it is possible to prevent any unauthorized act before it is committed, then some of these evilly-disposed people will actually commit evil. And if people are so closely regulated and watched, then there is no freedom. Furthermore, there is the problem of deciding what is to be considered “good”. There is no such thing as absolute good. Ask any logician. The word “good” is meaningless until you define it in oppositional terms and your definition of “good” determines your system of values or goals. (In practice it would probably be impossible for anyone to explicitly and completely define his whole system of values.) Different people have different systems of values and different definitions of the word “good”. No system of values is “better” than any other, because when you say that system A is “better” (i.e., “more good”) then system B, you are presupposing some prior definition of the word “good”, i.e. a prior system of values. Unless some uniform system of values is imposed on all people by means of behavioural engineering, there will always be as many different systems of value as there are people. Thus it will be impossible for everything to be “good” from everybody’s point of view. No one group of people can have everything “good” according to its own values, in an organized society, unless it directly or indirectly imposes its will on all other people — and then you have no liberty. It therefore seems clear that you can’t eliminate all “evil” and still have liberty. Some may contend, however, that there are some things we can all agree on as being “evil” and that these things can be completely eliminated without loss of liberty. But there is nothing at all that everyone will agree is “evil.” There are, no doubt, even some people who regard such things as pain and danger as desirable in and of themselves. So you say, if only a tiny minority fails to agree that something is evil, why should that prevent us from completely eliminating that evil? Well, to be absolutely because from evil, you would either have to brainwash the opposing minority into regarding it as evil, or you would have to establish such close surveillance and restraint of the minority that they could inextricably be prevented from perpetrating the evil under consideration. Well, maybe you are willing to do this to a tiny minority; say by brainwashing them this sets a precedent for brainwashing the next “evil” minority. And the process continues. There is always another “evil” that someone regards as intolerable and insists must be brainwashed out of people.

For one thing, many of the sacrifices of liberty are made for the sake of security against calamitous events like violent crimes, dangerous accidents, etc. John Doe reads about Charles Whitman, who killed 13 people or so, and he finds it very frightening. So he favors gun-control laws, because they seem to involve such a minor sacrifice of liberty when set up against frightening things like murders. Actually, John Doe’s fear at reading about Charles Whitman is largely irrational, because, in comparison to the entire population of the country, the number of people killed by mad assassins is infinitesimal. If J. Doe viewed the matter in rational terms, he would set that little sacrifice of liberty on the one hand against, say, an increase of one hundredth of one percent in each person’s chances of living to the age of 60, on the other hand. Viewed in these terms it doesn’t seem quite so obvious that the sacrifice of liberty should be made. Other proposed sacrifices of liberty that fall into this same category are proposals for stricter requirements for driver’s licenses, proposals for requiring governor on all cars to prevent anyone from driving over 60 m.p.h., etc.

Another reason people are willing to sacrifice pieces of liberty for pieces of security or material comfort may be that it is easy to give a rational or seemingly rational reason for measures that provide security or material goods. One can talk about 100,000 more TV sets or 2 years of longer life-expectancy. But liberty is an intangible thing. If you try to argue that liberty actually leads to materialistic benefits, you are usually wrong. Furthermore, it is often easy to give facile but naïve arguments to “prove” that such and such a freedom is useless or foolish.

Examples: Against the 5^(th) Amendment (or in favour of wiretapping) you hear people say: “If he has nothing to hide why should he object to answering the question (or having his phone tapped?) And if we repealed the 5^(th) Amendment (or allowed wiretapping) it would be much easier to control crime and Communist subversion.”

In favour gun-control laws: “If the guy doesn’t intend to commit a crime with his gun, why should he object to registering it?”

Still another possible reason that people are willing to trade liberty for security is this: There are a few kinds of liberty that everyone has at least some stake in, but, people being different from each other, most antilibertarian laws affect only a small group of people; e.g. laws against marijuana affect only potheads: gun-control laws affect only those invested in hunting or shooting; a law prohibiting advocacy of communism would affect only the far left; a law requiring “abnormal” people to submit to a compulsory “cure” would affect only that minority regarded as abnormal. The majority is usually willing to support some seemingly sensible piece of legislation which affects only a small minority, but as the number of restrictions keeps multiplying, virtually everyone finds that he belongs to some of the various minorities that are affected. Thus the freedom of the whole population declines. An example: your typical liberal intellectual is quite ready to advocate laws requiring registration of guns. He sees that guns have a destructive potential, and he can’t see why an honest gun owner would object to registration. Bus suppose you suggested to this liberal that every radical speech and evry piece of radical literature should be registered with the polic; or that radical literature should be banned from the mail. He would be terribly upset, and justifiably so. The liberal will probably agree that inciting speeches have a destructive potential, because they have probably been a significant factor in bringing about some of the riots and mob violence of recent years; and he will agree that registration of radical speeches would help police to distinguish between speeches which constitute expression of opinion and those which constitute deliberate incitement to riot. But he will (correctly) object that (1) registration of radical speeches or literature could [CROSSED OUT: correctly] lead to ristrictions on their use or even to their eventual total prohibition; (2) the mere mechanics of having to go through registration procedures would be a significant annoyance to radicals; (3) the registration procedures might later be (intentionally or unintentially) made so complicated as to present a really severe problem to radical thinkers; (4) even if, by some strange magic, an absolute iron-clad guaranty could be given that the registration [CROSSED OUT: procedure] requirement would [CROSSED OUT: UNINTELLIGLBE] never be made more complicated or be followed by any actual restriction or radical speeches or literature, the mere fact that the radical is being watched by big brother is an intolerable intrusion on his privacy and dignity. These same objections can be raised with regard to gun-registration laws, but our dear liberal would pooh-pooh them. He would ive all sorts of rationalizations to show that freedom of speech is more important (to whom?) than the freedom to own a firearm, and even that the freedom to own firearms is actually pernicious. Certainly, the freedom to support radical causes is far more important to the typical liberal intellectual than the freedom to own a gun, and he is so frightened by the idea of physical violence that anything (like guns) which even reminds him of it he regards with abhorrence. He apparently can’t conceive of the idea that some people, with a different set of values from his own, might feel as strongly about their right to own guns as he does about his right to espouse radical causes. He regards with disgust the values of such people and he imagines his own system of values to be in some absolute sense “best”.

I do not mean to imply that liberal intellectuals are worse than most people in this respect. If anything, they are probably a little better. Each little group of people is willing to sacrifice the liberties of some other group of people when these liberties present even a tiny threat to the security of the first group. If we want to keep our liberty, we are just going to have to accept the fact that we will have to pay a certain price in security; furthermore, we will have to agree to pay this price for all varieties of individual liberty, and not just those particular aspects of liberty which are most desired by our own little group.

If this persistent trend toward security as opposed to liberty is to be stopped before our liberty disappears altogether, it seems clear that somewhere we must draw the line and say that we will sacrifice just so much liberty for the sake of security and comfort, and no more. Period. Unless this is done, someone will always be pushing for just one more little bitty sacrifice of liberty for the sake of some terribly desirable objective. I say we should draw this line now. As I have indicated before, I think our liberty is already severely restricted by the structure of society. People will always be wanting to postpone drawing the line because there is something so very important that must be done first. My personal opinion is that the line will never be drawn and that our liberty will finally cease to exist.

[1] Some thoughtless individuals will object that perhaps if people are properly social and educated, they will be “good” automatically, and their minds won’t have to be manipulated. But if educational techniques are so effective that they make everyone “good” without exception, then the techniques are merely a variety of behavioural engineering. Sticking electrodes into people’s heads makes us feel squeamish, but what is the difference whether we manipulate a person by sticking electrodes in his head or by educational techniques if both methods are equally effective in engineering his personality?