Stop saying “Please”

September 20th, 2009

Stop saying “Please”!
by Larken Rose

* * The Meaning of “Please” * *

Imagine a slave who, while being whipped, cries out, “Please, massa, no more!” What message does such a plea for mercy convey? Obviously, it conveys a desire for the beating to stop, but it also conveys another message-albeit an unstated one: “Master, I accept that it is up to YOU whether I am to be beaten or not.”

The word “please” is short for “if it pleases you.” In many contexts it is a polite thing to say, implying that it is up to the listener (not the speaker) to decide whether to do something or not. “Please pass the gravy” is a request, not a demand. “Please donate to this charity” is an invitation, not an order. Such uses of the term are both polite and proper. However, the term is not appropriate when the listener has no right to be the one making the choice to begin with. For example, someone confronting a purse- snatcher who just robbed a little old lady should not say, “Please give the lady back her purse.” Rather, the message should be, “Give it back or else!” In most situations, deferring to the listener’s pleasure (implied by the term “please”) is civilized and charitable, but it is not appropriate when the listener is about to harm an innocent person. Then, what’s called for is a command.

* * Begging for Freedom * *

The point of this linguistic lesson is this: The majority of what the “freedom movement” does essentially consists of the victims of tyranny saying to the tyrants, “Please stop oppressing us!” Whether one is lobbying for “legislation,” or trying to get a certain candidate elected, a dual message is being sent to those in power: A) “We want government to stop doing this to us,” and B) “we accept that the choice of whether to stop doing it is government’s (not ours) to make.” Consider just two examples (out of hundreds that could be used):

1) When one lobbies for lower “taxes,” it conveys a two-fold message: A) “We’d like to keep more of our money,” and B) “We accept that it is up to you, the politicians, to decide how much we can keep.” (Contrast that with what was done at the “Boston Tea Party.”)

2) When one lobbies against so-called “gun control,” both messages are again implied: A) “We’d like to keep our guns,” but B) “we agree that we need ‘legal’ permission from you politicians in order to have the right to do so.” (Contrast that with what happened in Lexington, with the “Shot Heard ‘Round the World.”)

While such requests certainly appear, on the surface, to be pro- freedom in nature, in a very real sense they are NOT. The underlying implication of all such petitions to those in government is that it is up to them, not up to the people, what “rights” the people will have. But such an implication completely contradicts the entire concept of individual rights.

Continue:

http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=3113

Sorry for copying from xntryk1's blog, but this needs to be seen by a wider audience.

Dan