"A vacationing businessman was walking along a beach when he saw a young boy. Along the shore were many starfish that had been washed up by the tide and were sure to die before the tide returned. The boy was walking slowly along the shore and occasionally reached down and tossed the beached starfish back into the ocean.
The businessman, hoping to teach the boy a little lesson in common sense, walked up to the boy and said, “I have been watching what you are doing, son. You have a good heart, and I know you mean well, but do you realize how many beaches there are around here and how many starfish are dying on every beach every day. Surely such an industrious and kind hearted boy such as yourself could find something better to do with your time. Do you really think that what you are doing is going to make a difference?”
The boy looked up at the man, and then he looked down at a starfish by his feet. He picked up the starfish, and as he gently tossed it back into the ocean, he said, “It makes a difference to that one.”
Saturday, February 19, 2011
The Legend of the Starfish
via Running 'Cause I Can't Fly"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Good story. Shows the nobility of blocking or repealing just one gun law, in just one jurisdiction (perhaps a small jurisdiction, at that), despite the fact that with tens of thousands of gun laws in the U.S., stopping just one minor manifestation of the scourge of "gun control" might not seem like much.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the inspiration.
What about the huge number of micro-organisms that require beached starfish to survive? It makes a difference to them too!
ReplyDeleteThe boy in this story is a fool trying to impose his will on nature without regard for or understanding of the purpose and function of that which he opposes.
Hey we do what we can do...
ReplyDeleteSome people can't see the point because the one on their head keeps getting in the way.
Yours is a good story, Zorroy. It brings up the old question of whether guns cause more harm than they prevent. Of course you don't really care about that since we're talking about fundamental human rights.
ReplyDeleteIt brings up the old question of whether guns cause more harm than they prevent. Of course you don't really care about that since we're talking about fundamental human rights.
ReplyDeleteVery good--I'm proud of you. If you're catching on to the fact that the essential question is not whether or not having guns widely available is "good" or "bad," but whether or not the people have a right to deny the government a monopoly on force (we do, of course), then we can finally get past arguing about the inconsequential triviality of good/harm calculations.
Is there hope for you yet?
Zorroy, If I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up. The best you could expect really from me is a shift in the argument from whether guns do more good than harm to whether basic human rights include the owning of certain inanimate objects.
ReplyDeleteThe best you could expect really from me is a shift in the argument from whether guns do more good than harm to whether basic human rights include the owning of certain inanimate objects.
ReplyDeleteMy position, though, is not that there exist "basic human rights [that] include the owning of certain inanimate objects"--my claim is that there is a basic human right to not have that possession prohibited by law.
The difference might strike you as being trivial, but it is not. I'm not claiming that the government must provide guns--only that it cannot legitimately stop me from acquiring them on my own.