Mars Needs Saloons! - Mars for Free People

Starship Trooper · 2003-04-01 17:03:55

THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE
Number 190, September 16, 2002
190 PROOF ISSUE

Mars Needs Saloons!
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.com

Exclusive to TLE

It says here -- according to Reuters by way of the Associated Press and America On Line -- that "Mars could resemble the lawless Wild West if privately funded adventurers seeking to exploit the planet get there before governments, a leading British astronomer said Wednesday".

Ooooooooh ...

The "leading astronomer", somebody calling himself Sir Smugly Pinchbottom-Rabbitwarren -- or at least he should have been -- a net tax consumer wallowing in a plush gig at something calling itself the Institute of Astronomy, was addressing some sort of science conference in Leicester, England when he delivered his dire prognostication. I'm pretty sure that a cold shiver of goosefleshed apprehension traveled through the assembled nerdity, government-nourished one and all, as he did.

There could well be a permanent human presence on the Red Planet within a century, Sir Smugly boldly predicted (somehow completely unaware of predictions exactly like that having been made for more than a century). He warned his audience that if these settlers are privately funded adventurers of -- gasp! -- free-enterprise, or even anarchic disposition, the result could resemble the American Wild West.

Heaven forfend!

Doesn't everybody know that if humankind continues to insist on expanding outward from Earth, into the rest of the Solar System, that explorers and settlers must be preceded by bureaucrats who will set up offices for the IRS (make that "Inland Revenue for Sir Smugly), the EPA, and the ATF? It wouldn't be real civilization without them, would it?

The remainder of the article, which an old friend was kind enough to send me, confined itself pretty much to this telescope-jockey's antiquated views on "more efficient propulsion systems" and space elevators. Through the whole thing, though, I kept wondering why he cared.

What makes Sir Smugly interested enough in exploring the void and settling new worlds to make a speech about it? What golden vision of the future moves him besides more rules, more regimentation, more parking meters, more George Bush and more Tony Blair? If that's all Sir Smugly wants out of the future, he can stand on any streetcorner in London (Islington's nice; you can visit a quaint street market, buy tiny clams in a paper cone, and eat them raw with salt), breathe the pollution, and appreciate all of the scenic hundreds of DON'T DO THIS signs.

Me, ladies and gentlemen, I want that "lawless Wild West", he whimpered about, because -- in a way the 20th century has utterly failed to do -- it worked. A sociological study twenty years ago showed that in the third quarter of the 19th century in the "lawful mild East" -- Nantucket, I think it may have been (or is that just the limerick I'm remembering?). No, make it New Bedford, Mass. -- where hardly anybody had a gun and they suffered 140 murders in ten years and a proportionate number of other violent crimes. In Leadville, Colorado, by comparison, a town of similar size and composition, they had exactly zero murders because everyone had guns and knew how to use them.

Look at it this way: there were so few violent criminals in the American West that to this day we remember their individual names. Can you think of any famous eastern American criminals from the same period of history? If you can't, it isn't because they were so few of them.

As I write this, there's a big, heavy, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol lying on the desk beside my keyboard. (There's always a big, heavy, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol lying on my desk beside my keyboard.) I have a low-slung belt for it somewhere, and a western style holster. Why is it there, cluttering up my mouse-space? Partly I just love looking at the damned thing. Partly, it'll put a hole in an intruder I can throw a dog through. Partly, I know from experience that I can hit a man-sized target with it anywhere within a hundred yards.

If I live long enough to go to Mars, that heavy, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol, or something like it, is going with me, to slap my right thigh as I shuffle through the Martian desert looking for ... but that's another story, isn't it? One I'll write after I finish Ceres.

I'll be the crusty old-timer nobody can understand -- the oxygen helmet probably won't help -- who fills 'em full of bullets or laser holes or something whenever they try to set up an office for the Department of Agriculture or the Veteran's Administration. They won't hang me for it, though. I'll be backed up by other crusty old-timers who don't want to see the faintest trace of government besmirching the pristine surface of the Red Planet. A good thing, too, because getting hanged on Mars will be even more unpleasant than getting hanged on Earth, involving weights tied to your feet, or a big, complicated centrifuge, or a gallows three times as high and rope three times as long.

Somebody needs to tell Sir Smugly that individuals flock to a frontier because they want to get away from things like government. The great Freeman Dyson once observed that when we finally get out to the asteroids, the IRS will never be able to find us. It's true, sooner or later, the preachers and bankers and lawyers come along to spoil it all, but before that, our species gets to try out new ideas and reshape its way of life. Human progress gets made before the Roddy MacDowalls insinuate themselves and stifle it, and it's time to move on.

Finally there wasn't a place in the American West to move on to. But as Captain Kirk should have observed, space is the endless frontier. First the planets, then the stars, and eventually other galaxies. Which means perpetual human progress -- something that statists, authoritarians, and bureaucrats, suffering a sort of sociopolitical "motion sickness" Robert LeFevre first described, all fear.

But humanity needs to learn to live without government because it's killing them. Amnesty International tells us that, between war and other officially-sanctioned bloodlust, governments of every type possible murdered a quarter of a billion in the 20th century. It will be able, thanks to technology, to kill many more than that in the 21st century.

If I live that long, I plan on not being here.

How about you?

Article URL here

Three-time Prometheus Award-winner L. Neil Smith is the author of 23 books, including The American Zone, Forge of the Elders, Pallas, The Probability Broach, Hope (with Aaron Zelman), and his collection of articles and speeches, Lever Action, all of which may be purchased through his website "The Webley Page. Autographed copies may be had from the author at lneil@lneilsmith.com.

L. Neil Smith writes regular columns for The Libertarian Enterprise, Sierra Times RoadHouse, and for Rational Review

- Mike Blessing / Starship Trooper
The "Assault Weapons" Ban Must Die

Shaun Barrett · 2003-04-02 06:04:19

I'm with you, Starship Trooper!
All those in favour of a strict ban on preachers, bankers and lawyers on Mars, raise your right hand ... and swear after me: When on Mars, I promise to shoot, lynch, scalp or otherwise immolate any man, woman or dog who even smells faintly like a government bureaucrat or representative of the Inland Revenue .. so help me God! Amen.

MarsGuy2012 · 2003-04-02 13:10:52

Hallalujah Brother!!!
:Stands up from his front row bench, looks skyward with glazed over eyes, and faints...twitching in reverie...:

Palomar · 2003-04-02 15:05:13

*Um, will my room in the hab be fitted with a strong, sturdy LOCK? Maybe a couple of locks? And a regular chair, to push under the door knob?

Just wondering.

--Cindy

Bill White · 2003-04-02 16:01:24

I'm with you, Starship Trooper!
All those in favour of a strict ban on preachers, bankers and lawyers on Mars, raise your right hand ... and swear after me: When on Mars, I promise to shoot, lynch, scalp or otherwise immolate any man, woman or dog who even smells faintly like a government bureaucrat or representative of the Inland Revenue .. so help me God! Amen.

May I suggest that you keep these feelings secret until after you obtain your $150 billion in seed money from those same people. . .

:laugh:

Kinda reminds me of a typical US-ian college student -

"Mom, Dad, just so you know - I despise everything you have ever done with your lives and I despise everything you believe in, and well,

Can you please send $20,000 for tuition and beer money?"

Love,

Your Child.

clark · 2003-04-02 16:40:21

As I write this, there's a big, heavy, large-caliber semiautomatic pistol lying on the desk beside my keyboard.

I don't know about all of you, but I sure do feel better knowing people that think like this are armed.

Obviously there is nothing wrong with an individual who owns a weapon for self defense. However, dosen' it push the credibility gap just a *wee* bit when we claim that we need a "big, heavy, large-caliber semiautomatic" anything, in an enclosed, pressurized environment surrounded by unbreathable vacuum?

In the mean time, let's get tanked at the saloon, afterwards we can go on an EVA and shoot Martian rocks. I hear it is hunting season, and them reds are getting upity.

The NRA, friends of the paranoid since Colt 45.

Josh Cryer · 2003-04-02 21:50:18

I don't know about all of you, but I sure do feel better knowing people that think like this are armed.

Heh. Your sarcasm was noted, yes.

I was going to go down his article and just note all the stupid stuff he said, but nah. I just think he might be missing the point that space coloniztion would benefit Earth just as much, if not more, than it would benefit the colonizers.

MarsGuy2012 · 2003-04-07 11:24:04

Exactly Josh,

Earth will benefit greatly from the colonization of Mars. One of the greatest benefits will be the new Political, Social, and Economic ideas. There will be plenty of room to experiment and no entrenched system to overthrow. Hopefully the Martians will be good examples to the rest of humanity.

Personally, I don't care for guns. I do hate the restrictions the Undermining Socialist Administrators (USA - I just made that up all by my little 'ol self. ) put on people who do like guns.

clark · 2003-04-07 11:31:50

Personally, I don't care for guns. I do hate the restrictions the Undermining Socialist Administrators (USA - I just made that up all by my little 'ol self. ) put on people who do like guns.

Like mandatory background checks, yeah, that is a bad idea.
Or perhaps those restrictions on magazine size, after all, people have a right to 60+ ammo clips, who hates to reload during a firefight with a squirrel. Or better yet, those restrictions on hollow point bullets, bad idea, after all, everyone should be able to buy ammo that puts soccer ball size holes in things. Or restrictions on fully automatic assualt rifles, hey, who wants to aim when they're hunting quail, I'd rather just spray in the general vicinity, thank you very much Mr. Congressman.

MarsGuy2012 · 2003-04-07 11:51:06

Hey Clark,

They need to get a smile face with two rams butting heads.

In this society that seems to breed pshyco killers we do need gun control. I would never advocate opening the floodgates of a problem before correcting the problem at the source. That's the hard part, though.

I don't care if someone wants to blow car sized holes in things. (Their own things - of course.) I do care if people have violent tendencies, though. Check out my Violence post in Civ. and Culture.

Charno · 2003-04-13 21:23:38

Or restrictions on fully automatic assualt rifles, hey, who wants to aim when they're hunting quail, I'd rather just spray in the general vicinity, thank you very much Mr. Congressman.

The point isnt to hunt quail, its to shoot down the criminal / ATF guy (one and the same) on your front lawn. Why are people such damn pussies about guns?

Charno · 2003-04-13 21:25:49

May I suggest that you keep these feelings secret until after you obtain your $150 billion in seed money from those same people. . .

Who needs fed money? It'll come with strings attached, and no one wants that. Any government boondoggle project to go to space will fail, I guarantee it.

Then you go from the topic of government to the topic of parents and a child. I guess this is how you think of your relationship to government.

Josh Cryer · 2003-04-13 21:31:41

The point isnt to hunt quail, its to shoot down the criminal / ATF guy (one and the same) on your front lawn. Why are people such damn pussies about guns?

Hehehe, I'd enjoy seeing some idiot gun nut shoot down an ATF guy, he'd be taken down so quick it wouldn't even be funny.

I'd like to see you handle a gun in a hab which is, well, pretty damn fragile. I'd like to really see a place on Mars where this is the case. It would be so amazing. It really would.

A gunfight in Mars gee! Can you imagine?

Charno · 2003-04-13 21:39:53

Hehehe, I'd enjoy seeing some idiot gun nut shoot down an ATF guy

I would too.

I'd like to see you handle a gun in a hab which is, well, pretty damn fragile.

First of all, making a fragile habitat seems like a really dumb idea to me. Secondly even if that was the case, I'm sure that adjustments could be made (for instance, there are types of ammunition that can be used safely on airplanes0.

A gunfight in Mars gee! Can you imagine?

Pretty cool, eh?

Josh Cryer · 2003-04-13 23:04:03

First of all, making a fragile habitat seems like a really dumb idea to me.

Um, granted, you're going to be underground and all that, but who knows what kind of disastor you could create by firing off a weapon in an enclosed space. At the very least you'd want some rule saying ?no firefights near the scrubbers, please.? Put up a nice little sign or something ridiculous like that.

Personally, I find people who see the necessary for a gun very paranoid, if not pathetic. Though I have a gun, I know that I'm not going to be needing one in a hab inside a vaccume. If someone is going to kill you, they'll find a way, and you won't always be able to see it coming to prevent it.

I'm sure that adjustments could be made (for instance, there are types of ammunition that can be used safely on airplanes)

Hey, good idea, at least that's a nice commodity that can be made. I should sell such ammo to my libertarian friends so that they can go have their silly gunfights and darwinism can take control. Easier than fighting with them myself.

clark · 2003-04-14 09:43:47

First of all, making a fragile habitat seems like a really dumb idea to me.

Agreed. But spending the time and resources to build a pressurized habitat surrounded by vacum millions of miles away from any type of relative saftey and then fill it with armed people with guns seems like a really dumb idea to me.

Secondly even if that was the case, I'm sure that adjustments could be made (for instance, there are types of ammunition that can be used safely on airplanes0.

Agreed, adjustments could be made. However, why go to such lengths and invite additional calamity by securing weapons capable of hurtiling projectiles as other human beings? If you're willing to go through the trouble of developing projectile weapons that are safe in a pressurized environment, why not choose stun guns or other devices that look to incapacitate another individual?

Guns make sense in an open environment, because your use of the weapon is legitimate in the application of self defense, since this self defense really only endangers any who may wish to harm you. However you do not have a right to weapons that can infringe upon others saftey, even if used in the capacity of self-defense. That's why an individual can have a gun, but not a nuclear bomb. A person with a gun in an enclosed, pressurized environment, can endanger the lives and saftey of all others through the misuse, or misapplication of their weapon.

It represents an inherent danger that can not be justified within the environment. Unless somehow you can say otherwise.

Charno · 2003-04-14 15:17:41

Agreed, adjustments could be made. However, why go to such lengths and invite additional calamity by securing weapons capable of hurtiling projectiles as other human beings? If you're willing to go through the trouble of developing projectile weapons that are safe in a pressurized environment, why not choose stun guns or other devices that look to incapacitate another individual?

Maybe people will prefer non lethal tasers or something to guns. I dont know. Its my personal opinion that there would still be a large market for guns. If there isn't I wouldn't have a problem with it... its just people who want to restrict the actions of individuals to set up their retarded idea of a martian utopia that i object too.

clark · 2003-04-14 15:26:34

Maybe people will prefer non lethal tasers or something to guns.

Do you think people living in an environment like the one to be found on Mars are better served by having everyone have weapons capable of damaging the systems they all depend on?

Are people better served by having these weapons excluded from their habitat?

Can alternatives be employed that pose less of a threat to the environment, yet offer similar results as the guns?

If so, are guns still neccessary, or is it merely to meet your own retarded conception of what life on Mars should be?

Please don't take offense at 'retarded', it just seems you would prefer your world view over some other utopians vision.

have a reason for your vision and others will be more receptive.

Charno · 2003-04-14 15:40:27

Haha. I didn't say guns are necessary, I said there's likely to be a market for them. Nothing is "necessary". As I said in my earlier post and am now repeating, I just object to statists who want all that crap regulated.

clark · 2003-04-14 15:41:43

I didn't say guns are necessary, I said there's likely to be a market for them.

So you believe there shouldn't be any restrictions or regulations on the market?

Charno · 2003-04-14 15:45:50

I didn't say guns are necessary, I said there's likely to be a market for them.
So you believe there shouldn't be any restrictions or regulations on the market?

Correct.

clark · 2003-04-14 15:47:23

So if I want to sell drugs to 5 year olds, and they have the money, that is okay?

Charno · 2003-04-14 15:52:32

So if I want to sell drugs to 5 year olds, and they have the money, that is okay?

Yes.

MarsGuy2012 · 2003-04-14 16:24:32

Well Charno,

I agree with what you say about deregulation, but I think minors should be protected - they don't have the same reasoning ability as adults. Deregulate everything in the adult world - just prohibit violence and deception.

Clark,

If you shoot a large caliber bullet through a kevlar dome it would take weeks for the air to leak out - plenty of time to make repairs. Kevlar is a rip-stop fabric - it won't catastrophically fail. So let's just make all our domes out of kevlar. We can even put up kevlar wallpaper in the underground living spaces. If someone were to get drunk at one of the saloons and unload his twenty round semi-auto on the roof of the dome there would still be time to make repairs. The only thing I would be concerned about would be deliberate sabatoge. Even with gun control laws sabatoge is possible - you just have to be more creative.

As an early mission planner I would send pacifists to Mars and try to help create a society that doesn't like guns or violence. That way there wouldn't be a need for anti-gun laws, social pressures would do the job.

clark · 2003-04-14 16:42:02

Charno, your answer says everything I need to know. Thank you, and have a nice day.

MarsGuy

If you shoot a large caliber bullet through a kevlar dome it would take weeks for the air to leak out - plenty of time to make repairs. Kevlar is a rip-stop fabric - it won't catastrophically fail. So let's just make all our domes out of kevlar.

If I shoot the machines, it might not be as repairable. I think I made my point, and the neccessity of 'guns' is weak and unjustified given alternative solutions.

You don't need guns on mars. Period.

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