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Green Arrow
12-08-2013, 10:22 PM
Continuing a discussion here that was started in Nelson Mandela dies (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19708-Nelson-Mandela-dies), so as not to further derail that thread.
Mr Happy -


I wrote the original post on that subject, and my point was, that left to their own devices States cannot be trusted (sometimes) when it comes to civil rights. My intention in making the post was not to paint Alabama as a whole as a racist state (although, there was massive numbers who were), but to illustrate what can happen when a racist is in charge. Let me ask you this: if there had been no federal civil rights legislation, at the time it was put into law, do you think the Governor of Alabama at the time would have enacted such laws. If you say 'yes', then I am in the wrong. If 'no' then I am in the right. And you know, and I know, that the answer would have been no. Would it have changed over time? Probably. But at the time it was what it was. And that is not supposition. That is fact.
jillian -


what protects against it, however, are federal laws protecting various constitutional rights. the states, since they aren't permitted to protect fewer rights than are guaranteed by the federal government have to provide those rights as well.

i think it's absolutely a states' rights problem. and based on what i've seen i have no reason to believe that anything would be different today than it was sixty years ago if the states suddenly had the right to do what they want.


i wish it were. and in some places it might be. but given what's recently occurred in the GOP legislatures in texas and north carolina and virginia, i wouldn't leave my rights in the hands of the states.

I believe that your issues with states' rights come from a misunderstanding of what the concept of "states' rights" is. "States' rights" is the philosophy which puts more of a focus in governance on states rather than the federal government. In a system which honors states' rights, the federal government would be limited to, say, delivering the mail, protecting our shores, and mediating disputes between the states.

The states, in this system, would handle pretty much everything else. The reason for that is because the larger the government gets, the less it knows and understands about the people it governs. The federal government is not capable of acutely understanding, for example, the unique border security needs of all our southern and northern border states, unless you want to have every one of those states' governors and leaders of the legislatures meet with the President and leaders of the federal legislature for policy summits. Even if we did that, however, these leaders would be spending all their time in summits trying to figure out agreeable ways of governing rather than actually governing. It would be far more efficient if states were allowed to handle their own needs, because the government is much closer to the people and much more aware of what they need.

In your examples, the state government of Alabama was violating the natural rights of its citizens. That's not allowed, even in a states' rights system. Natural rights are incontrovertible. NO government, at any level, has the right to abridge natural rights. Government in general does that, it is not unique to the states' rights system and the states' rights system does not cause it.

jillian
12-08-2013, 10:24 PM
Continuing a discussion here that was started in Nelson Mandela dies (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19708-Nelson-Mandela-dies), so as not to further derail that thread.
@Mr Happy (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=720) -


@jillian (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=719) -



I believe that your issues with states' rights come from a misunderstanding of what the concept of "states' rights" is. "States' rights" is the philosophy which puts more of a focus in governance on states rather than the federal government. In a system which honors states' rights, the federal government would be limited to, say, delivering the mail, protecting our shores, and mediating disputes between the states.

The states, in this system, would handle pretty much everything else. The reason for that is because the larger the government gets, the less it knows and understands about the people it governs. The federal government is not capable of acutely understanding, for example, the unique border security needs of all our southern and northern border states, unless you want to have every one of those states' governors and leaders of the legislatures meet with the President and leaders of the federal legislature for policy summits. Even if we did that, however, these leaders would be spending all their time in summits trying to figure out agreeable ways of governing rather than actually governing. It would be far more efficient if states were allowed to handle their own needs, because the government is much closer to the people and much more aware of what they need.

In your examples, the state government of Alabama was violating the natural rights of its citizens. That's not allowed, even in a states' rights system. Natural rights are incontrovertible. NO government, at any level, has the right to abridge natural rights. Government in general does that, it is not unique to the states' rights system and the states' rights system does not cause it.

i have no "misunderstanding" and you really need to stop doing that. it's patronizing.

i know EXACTLY what the ramifications of leaving things in the hands of states means.

Green Arrow
12-08-2013, 10:34 PM
i have no "misunderstanding" and you really need to stop doing that. it's patronizing.

No offense intended. I apologize if you found it so.


i know EXACTLY what the ramifications of leaving things in the hands of states means.

Yes, there are a lot of varied outcomes. One of which I have already addressed in the OP. States don't have the right to abridge natural rights, no matter what system exists.

iustitia
12-08-2013, 11:16 PM
I think it's naive to suggest that without an imperious unitary state (as opposed to federalism) that racial chaos would break out. Or any other epidemic. The people who often champion the federal government's actions in defense of civil rights never seem to consider why those actions were needed in the first place.

The famous Brown v Board decision only came about because of Plessy v Ferguson a half century prior. Governments are run by men. Now, the 14th Amendment protects the rights of those under US jurisdiction, which means citizens and resident aliens. It is not, however, a license for the feds to impose what are essentially guilt clauses upon states with jaded pasts. Nor is it their job to undermine attempts to thwart voter fraud.

Two things I'd also like to put out there-

1. States' rights was a code-term used by the slave power of the 1800's. It had absolutely nothing to do with the 10th Amendment of state sovereignty. The Northern states were just as up in arms over state sovereignty when it came to the Fugitive Slave Acts, the Dredd Scott decision and Bleeding Kansas/Kansas Nebraska Act. Similarly, the "states' rights" crowd had no problem using centralized power when they were in charge to promote slavery. We seem to forget that the party of slavery, which I will not name so as not to seem partisan, continuously sought more national power. The Louisiana Purchase which doubled our size, numerous slavery compromises and gag rules in Congress, seizing territories in Florida, Texas, California and the Southwest from the Seminole Wars to the Mexican-American War and attempting to expand slavery hence. Let's not forget the Confederate Constitution explicitly mandated slavery as opposed to keeping the question open-ended like the American Constitution. Or Jefferson Davis' dreams of a slave empire spanning Latin-America and the Caribbean. Or the CSA's numerous instances of putting down secessionist movements and trying to conquer non-slave territories. Don't get caught up in jargon, it was never about states' rights. It was just a slave-agrarian alternative to the North's industrial centralism. That's why I always say "follow the money".

2. I think since the Civil War, for better or worse, we've lost touch with the meaning of the word 'state'. A state is a sovereign country. The State of Israel is an independent entity, not a subunit of a larger national power. The entire root of federalism is federation, meaning a union of sovereign states. That's why the 10th Amendment existed. We seem to have, in our day of unitary-ism and centralized statism, forgotten the proper role of government and even the meaning behind words. If the Framers had advanced knowledge that states would come to be known as vassals of the federal government as opposed to the owners of it for greater tasks than one state could manage... the Constitution would not have been ratified.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 04:29 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

jillian
12-09-2013, 04:39 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.

zelmo1234
12-09-2013, 04:44 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

You are over thinking it? If you have no belief in God then it is Given by Nature.

So they are rights that a government can't take away, thought many try,

They are your right to LIFE, or to live

You right to liberty, to make choices for yourself, and your family that are within the law. Such as I will live in this house and work as an accountant and marry miss Jones

And to pursue happiness, Again doing what it is that brings you joy as long as it is not at the expense of others!

zelmo1234
12-09-2013, 04:47 AM
natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.

If they do not exist then we are in big trouble.

But there are those that would have the government decide everything for us. They find a comfort in not having to make decisions, and would rather submit to that confront of having everything in their life planed for them than to seek there own path which of course for those that do it brings both success and failure

zelmo1234
12-09-2013, 04:55 AM
If the system worked as the founders had planned that would in fact be a lot more difference between how the States are governed

While it is and always was constitutional for the federal government to regulate the commerce between the states, the daily government with in the states was to be left up to the people of that state.

Now the abolition of slavery was in fact something that was not totally within a state so it was and actually the founders laid the path for it to be abolished. However the educations of children, the care of citizens even most roads and infrastructure was never designed to be part of a central and all powerful government.

What we have lost is the ability to change quickly to meet the needs of the people! Once upon a time we have 50 different test markets each having to meet the same needs of the people and of course this would have brought about many more ideas, some good and some not so good.

But within this system the people would actually had received better benefits from their government at a lower cost to the people and those states that had different systems would have been free to copy and adapt those better systems to there state.

That is gone now and we drudge through the rad tape and inability to change the massive federal government that has huge a debt around every citizen that can't be repaid!

Cigar
12-09-2013, 07:56 AM
Well ... we all know what happened the last time we took the United out of The United States and left it up to the Individual States.

jillian
12-09-2013, 07:58 AM
Well ... we all know what happened the last time we took the United out of The United States and left it up to the Individual States.

and the result would be the same again.

the issue was supposed to be done and dusted.

jillian
12-09-2013, 08:01 AM
If they do not exist then we are in big trouble.

But there are those that would have the government decide everything for us. They find a comfort in not having to make decisions, and would rather submit to that confront of having everything in their life planed for them than to seek there own path which of course for those that do it brings both success and failure

they do not exist.

and we are not in big trouble.

we are a nation of laws. if we aren't THEN we're in trouble.

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for japanese americans during WWII?

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for people put in GITMO?

how did the whole "natural rights" thing work for blacks in the segregated south or during slavery?

it's ENFORCEABLE LAWS and the ability of government to enforce those laws that are real.

everything else is interesting philosophical musings……. which, while good for discussion in formulating law, are nothing in and of themselves.

Chris
12-09-2013, 08:27 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...


natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.



You two are presenting the basic utilitarian argument here. Utilitarians rejected natural rights for some abstract calculation of the greater good, which calculation no one ever could explain the basis for, the means by which to measure good, or how to actually calculate it.

Natural law is simple, it's the moral foundation of our nation as laid out in the Declaration. Natural law for instance says we as biological and social beings are created equal before it with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that we, as social/political beings, have to right to form a government to protect those rights, and alter or abolish that government if it doesn't.

Chris
12-09-2013, 08:31 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...


they do not exist.

and we are not in big trouble.

we are a nation of laws. if we aren't THEN we're in trouble.

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for japanese americans during WWII?

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for people put in GITMO?

how did the whole "natural rights" thing work for blacks in the segregated south or during slavery?

it's ENFORCEABLE LAWS and the ability of government to enforce those laws that are real.

everything else is interesting philosophical musings……. which, while good for discussion in formulating law, are nothing in and of themselves.



Your sense of injustice seen in posited, enforceable law there, your condemnation of such enforced legal actions as the treatment of people in WWII and Gitmo, blacks, your sense that people ought to be treated with dignity, is based on natural moral law.

Cigar
12-09-2013, 08:31 AM
and the result would be the same again.

the issue was supposed to be done and dusted.

Been there, done that ... ain't going to happen again ... ever.

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 10:23 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

If a super volcano explodes or asteroid hits or markets fail you'll understand natural rights better.

nathanbforrest45
12-09-2013, 10:51 AM
they do not exist.

and we are not in big trouble.

we are a nation of laws. if we aren't THEN we're in trouble.

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for japanese americans during WWII?

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for people put in GITMO?

how did the whole "natural rights" thing work for blacks in the segregated south or during slavery?

it's ENFORCEABLE LAWS and the ability of government to enforce those laws that are real.

everything else is interesting philosophical musings……. which, while good for discussion in formulating law, are nothing in and of themselves.


Laws get broken regardless if they are national or state in origin. To claim we have no natural rights is to claim that anything governments want to impose on us, as long as its covered by a "law" is perfectly acceptable. I won't accept that.

Chris
12-09-2013, 10:52 AM
If a super volcano explodes or asteroid hits or markets fail you'll understand natural rights better.

Yes, natural rights are physical/biological, but they are also social/moral. We are both biological and social. We are also reasoning creatures capable of discovering, to some degree, what these laws are. In the moral realm, for example, we have the basic golden or silver rule, what some refer to as NAP. Natural law is the source of our sense of justice and injustice in man's actions toward each other, individually or collectively, our sense of right and wrong, our ability to judge even man's posited laws as good or bad.

Mister D
12-09-2013, 10:57 AM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

Every conception of universal human rights is necessarily based on the theory of natural rights including the UN Decaration on Human Rights.

Mister D
12-09-2013, 10:58 AM
natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.

So what laws were violated at Auschwitz? None? Just some philosophical mumbo jumbo?

Mister D
12-09-2013, 10:59 AM
they do not exist.

and we are not in big trouble.

we are a nation of laws. if we aren't THEN we're in trouble.

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for japanese americans during WWII?

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for people put in GITMO?

how did the whole "natural rights" thing work for blacks in the segregated south or during slavery?

it's ENFORCEABLE LAWS and the ability of government to enforce those laws that are real.

everything else is interesting philosophical musings……. which, while good for discussion in formulating law, are nothing in and of themselves.

How did the whole postive law thing work for them? Why should we be offended by those actions? Because human beings have an inherent right not to be treated that way? Get it now?

Mister D
12-09-2013, 11:00 AM
Honestly, I'm not exactly a strong supporter of natural rights but the theory isn't that difficult to grasp.

Peter1469
12-09-2013, 12:28 PM
i have no "misunderstanding" and you really need to stop doing that. it's patronizing.

i know EXACTLY what the ramifications of leaving things in the hands of states means.

Should the constitution be amended if we want to take the states out of the picture?

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 12:35 PM
So what laws were violated at Auschwitz? None? Just some philosophical mumbo jumbo?


^^Thank you

Mister D
12-09-2013, 12:36 PM
^^Thank you

I've asked her that at least 6 times. Never get an answer.

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 12:38 PM
I've asked her that at least 6 times. Never get an answer.

Questioning beliefs of any kind, especially those that are meaningful to you is difficult.

Although I would be extremely curious about her response.

Peter1469
12-09-2013, 12:48 PM
I don't believe in natural rights. Nobody has ever been able to explain to me what a natural right is. Chris did once, but it was very convoluted IMO...

It doesn't matter whether one understands / believes in natural rights or not.

Mister D
12-09-2013, 12:49 PM
Questioning beliefs of any kind, especially those that are meaningful to you is difficult.

Although I would be extremely curious about her response.

Apparently, Natural Law is not meaningful to her at all and yet somehow human dignity is. Go figure.

Chris
12-09-2013, 01:11 PM
“The Tao, which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgments. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained. The effort to refute it and raise a new system of value in its place is self-contradictory. There has never been, and never will be, a radically new judgment of value in the history of the world. What purport to be new systems or…ideologies…all consist of fragments from the Tao itself, arbitrarily wrenched from their context in the whole and then swollen to madness in their isolation, yet still owing to the Tao and to it alone such validity as they posses.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

iustitia
12-09-2013, 01:36 PM
I think people are confusing natural rights and civil rights.

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 01:45 PM
I think people are confusing natural rights and civil rights.

Civil rights is what the government gives you. Natural rights are what you're born with and the government infringes upon.

Cigar
12-09-2013, 01:51 PM
Civil rights is what the government gives you. Natural rights are what you're born with and the government infringes upon.

Sometimes you have to remind people of you natural rights ... and I'm perfectly fine with getting someones mind right and memory correct.

The Sage of Main Street
12-09-2013, 02:00 PM
Laws get broken regardless if they are national or state in origin. To claim we have no natural rights is to claim that anything governments want to impose on us, as long as its covered by a "law" is perfectly acceptable. I won't accept that.

But you won't say the same thing about the bosses and the stockholders they step on us for, will you? Somehow you exempt their power from any responsibility, preaching to suckers that if the Capitaliban were really abusing their power, they wouldn't get anybody to work for them. Just like your one-sided view that only the GUBMINT can persuade people to give up their independence, the private-sector tyranny can always get enough people with no pride to go along with what it does to them. I won't accept that.

Chris
12-09-2013, 02:02 PM
I think people are confusing natural rights and civil rights.


Yes, some do confuse the two. But civil rights are posited by man's law, natural rights are not.

Some, too, reject natural rights and accept only civil rights.

Cigar
12-09-2013, 02:05 PM
Yes, some do confuse the two. But civil rights are posited by man's law, natural rights are not.

Some, too, reject natural rights and accept only civil rights.

What is YOUR one definition of one natural right?

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 02:09 PM
Yes, some do confuse the two. But civil rights are posited by man's law, natural rights are not.

Is there not a certain amount of overlap though?

Natural law would dictate that I have a right to freedom of _____ as long as I take responsibility for the action whether positive or negative. Whether it be movement, speech, artistic display, self defense, commerce etc...

^This is more or less codified in every nation's law in history - with some deviation.

However, voting, or having the right to vote, or being eligible for social program etc... hardly comes under the realm of natural law.

Is this not correct?

Green Arrow
12-09-2013, 03:02 PM
natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.

If natural rights don't exist, and all that matters is the laws that are passed, then you have no true "rights." If a right-wing fundie group took over the government, your "right" to an abortion would be removed by the stroke of a pen, and you'd have no real recourse to get it back. Is that really something that appeals to you?

Green Arrow
12-09-2013, 03:04 PM
they do not exist.

and we are not in big trouble.

we are a nation of laws. if we aren't THEN we're in trouble.

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for japanese americans during WWII?

how did the whole "natural rights" law in the air thing work for people put in GITMO?

how did the whole "natural rights" thing work for blacks in the segregated south or during slavery?

it's ENFORCEABLE LAWS and the ability of government to enforce those laws that are real.

everything else is interesting philosophical musings……. which, while good for discussion in formulating law, are nothing in and of themselves.

It was actually your system of enforceable laws that put Japanese Americans in prison camps, created GITMO, and kept blacks enslaved and segregated.

Chris
12-09-2013, 03:04 PM
What is YOUR one definition of one natural right?

Read the Declaration, cigar, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Read the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, the protections of natural rights.

Cigar
12-09-2013, 03:07 PM
Read the Declaration, cigar, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Read the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, the protections of natural rights.

Got it ... people died for Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Chris
12-09-2013, 03:08 PM
Is there not a certain amount of overlap though?

Natural law would dictate that I have a right to freedom of _____ as long as I take responsibility for the action whether positive or negative. Whether it be movement, speech, artistic display, self defense, commerce etc...

^This is more or less codified in every nation's law in history - with some deviation.

However, voting, or having the right to vote, or being eligible for social program etc... hardly comes under the realm of natural law.

Is this not correct?



I would agree. It might be said the distinction you make it between negative rights, the rights to be left alone in your pursuit of happiness, provided you responsibly do no harm, and positive rights, like voting, driving, marriage, what, I'd call privileges.

I often distinguish natural and civil rights as that between pursuit of happiness and provision of happiness.

Chris
12-09-2013, 03:09 PM
It was actually your system of enforceable laws that put Japanese Americans in prison camps, created GITMO, and kept blacks enslaved and segregated.



^^That's what I tried to say but you said it much clearer.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 06:01 PM
If a right-wing fundie group took over the government, your "right" to an abortion would be removed by the stroke of a pen,

And under natural rights she'd still be allowed one? Really?
I should amend what I said about not understanding natural rights. I actually do have a handle on it, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think they are step backward not forward. Aren't most of our laws based on natural rights? The thing I really don't like about them (and libertarianism in general to be fair) is that it's all about "me. me. me."

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 06:15 PM
And under natural rights she'd still be allowed one? Really?
I should amend what I said about not understanding natural rights. I actually do have a handle on it, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think they are step backward not forward. Aren't most of our laws based on natural rights? The thing I really don't like about them (and libertarianism in general to be fair) is that it's all about "me. me. me."

Why are they a step backwards? Homosexuals have a natural right to live free of harm and marry. In Uganda they have no legal right to that.

Jews had no legal rights in Nazi Germany. They had natural rights tho.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 06:23 PM
Why are they a step backwards? Homosexuals have a natural right to live free of harm and marry. In Uganda they have no legal right to that.

Jews had no legal rights in Nazi Germany. They had natural rights tho.

The concept of natural rights is great.
So how well did those natural rights work out for the Jews?

Look, I'm not arguing the concept. Like Jillian, I'm arguing the reality.

Surely English common law - which is what most former English colonies laws are based on - used natural rights as a starting point. That is why they were there at the beginning. But legislation had to be used to enforce those laws. Without the ability to enforce those laws - and a judicial system with little or no corruption to make sure it is done correctly - natural laws mean diddly. As Jillian said, great to philosophise about, but that's it really.

Chris
12-09-2013, 06:36 PM
The concept of natural rights is great.
So how well did those natural rights work out for the Jews?

Look, I'm not arguing the concept. Like Jillian, I'm arguing the reality.

Surely English common law - which is what most former English colonies laws are based on - used natural rights as a starting point. That is why they were there at the beginning. But legislation had to be used to enforce those laws. Without the ability to enforce those laws - and a judicial system with little or no corruption to make sure it is done correctly - natural laws mean diddly. As Jillian said, great to philosophise about, but that's it really.



The questions you ask about injustice are based on your sense of natural moral law and rights. The natural rights of Jews were not protected at all. It's your sense of natural law and rights though that lead you to condemn their treatment. The only thing philosophers do is name it and give us language to discuss it.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 06:39 PM
The questions you ask about injustice are based on your sense of natural moral law and rights. The natural rights of Jews were not protected at all. It's your sense of natural law and rights though that lead to to condemn their treatment. The only thing philosophers do is name it and give us language to discuss it.

That may be true. So does your set of natural laws mean you should be able to carry a firearm? A hand grenade maybe? A flamethrower? How about a tank?

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 06:45 PM
The concept of natural rights is great.
So how well did those natural rights work out for the Jews?

If they had believed in their natural rights they would have fought the law. The illusion that you have no rights other than that which the state gives you is what allows these abuses.

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 06:45 PM
That may be true. So does your set of natural laws mean you should be able to carry a firearm? A hand grenade maybe? A flamethrower? How about a tank?

If you had all those things in your possession would you kill your neighbors?

iustitia
12-09-2013, 06:46 PM
I've always believed that civil rights are an extension of natural rights. That is, the former cannot exist without the latter.

Natural rights are those which one claims as an individual by virtue of being, rights that exist in a state of nature. Civil rights are rights created between men, rights that exist in the civil society. The right to your body, and thus your mind and conscience, is natural. The right to exercise that natural right among other men, in the civil society, is civil. When two individuals come into contact, the state of nature is thus supplemented with the social interaction of the civil society. Men needn't need civil rights in a state of nature because civil rights come from contract and law and can't be exercised without a society to legitimize them, but when conflict and coercion arise - as does between men, civil society establishes boundaries and rights for men.

Basically civil rights are natural rights adapted for the existence of more than one man. Of course, what is a right? By definition a right is a just or moral claim to something.

Chris
12-09-2013, 06:48 PM
That may be true. So does your set of natural laws mean you should be able to carry a firearm? A hand grenade maybe? A flamethrower? How about a tank?

Natural law would be on the level of the right to self-defense. Posited, man-made law legalizes those things.

Mister D
12-09-2013, 06:50 PM
And under natural rights she'd still be allowed one? Really?
I should amend what I said about not understanding natural rights. I actually do have a handle on it, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think they are step backward not forward. Aren't most of our laws based on natural rights? The thing I really don't like about them (and libertarianism in general to be fair) is that it's all about "me. me. me."

Every conception of universal human rights is necessarily based on the theory of natural rights including the UN Declaration on Human Rights. It has nothing to do with libertarianism per se.

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 06:52 PM
I think the flame thrower and grenade argument goes nowhere. Murders use weapons to kill innocent people. Innocent people use weapons to protect themselves from murderers. Laws won't stop that because they don't stop murder.

I would no more toss a grenade at my neighbor than shoot him.

So, yes, why not a tank in my backyard. It won't make me more or less lethal.

There is more danger in the government's monopoly on force than in ours having the ability to fight back against crime and oppression.

Chris
12-09-2013, 06:54 PM
I've always believed that civil rights are an extension of natural rights. That is, the former cannot exist without the latter.

Natural rights are those which one claims as an individual by virtue of being, rights that exist in a state of nature. Civil rights are rights created between men, rights that exist in the civil society. The right to your body, and thus your mind and conscience, is natural. The right to exercise that natural right among other men, in the civil society, is civil. When two individuals come into contact, the state of nature is thus supplemented with the social interaction of the civil society. Men needn't need civil rights in a state of nature because civil rights come from contract and law and can't be exercised without a society to legitimize them, but when conflict and coercion arise - as does between men, civil society establishes boundaries and rights for men.

Basically civil rights are natural rights adapted for the existence of more than one man. Of course, what is a right? By definition a right is a just or moral claim to something.


You might be onto something there, but given that man is biological and social by nature, natural law and rights are both as well. The right to pursuit of happiness for example requires social cooperation. The right to self-defense implies defending oneself against the force or fraud of others.

I view civil rights as rights created by man. They could well support or even extend natural rights. They could run counter to natural law, like the right to own slaves was (still is?).

Chris
12-09-2013, 07:00 PM
Every conception of universal human rights is necessarily based on the theory of natural rights including the UN Declaration on Human Rights. It has nothing to do with libertarianism per se.

It predates libertarianism by centuries.

Mister D
12-09-2013, 07:02 PM
It predates libertarianism by centuries.

Right. I would call it Catholic in this context, you perhaps Greek, but the point is that it's been thoroughly absorbed by modern society. It's the basis of universal human rights. What is the disconnect here?

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 07:09 PM
I think the flame thrower and grenade argument goes nowhere. Murders use weapons to kill innocent people. Innocent people use weapons to protect themselves from murderers. Laws won't stop that because they don't stop murder.

I would no more toss a grenade at my neighbor than shoot him.

So, yes, why not a tank in my backyard. It won't make me more or less lethal.

There is more danger in the government's monopoly on force than in ours having the ability to fight back against crime and oppression.

Well, that is if you don't trust your govt. I trust the NZ Govt mostly. Less so the Australian one.
Most NZers and Australians don't need weapons to protect ourselves. We are not as violent a place as the US though...

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 07:39 PM
That may be true. So does your set of natural laws mean you should be able to carry a firearm? A hand grenade maybe? A flamethrower? How about a tank?

Depends on the people I have to deal with.

If I have a ________ and some jackwagon decides to set my house on fire with a gang of thugs.

I see no problem lighting them up with a _________ as long as I don't hurt innocent bystanders or their property.

Savvy?

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 07:41 PM
I think the flame thrower and grenade argument goes nowhere. Murders use weapons to kill innocent people. Innocent people use weapons to protect themselves from murderers. Laws won't stop that because they don't stop murder.

I would no more toss a grenade at my neighbor than shoot him.

So, yes, why not a tank in my backyard. It won't make me more or less lethal.

There is more danger in the government's monopoly on force than in ours having the ability to fight back against crime and oppression.

Dude, if I could, I would drive an armored quad cannon to work and school. I'd do my bank deposits in it too.

zelmo1234
12-09-2013, 07:48 PM
Actually you are absolute correct in your accusations on 2 out of 3?

The natural rights of the Japanese Americans were in fact violated by the Administration of FDR The were in fact denied their liberty

The Natural right of the Black Americans during not only the segregation era, but also with slavery were in fact violated

Just because they are in fact natural laws does not mean they can be broken! by men, but they can't be taken away, Don't worry you will not understand that!

But you last one you are incorrect? While the prisoners at camp gitmo have lost their liberty? They are not protected by the US constitution!

Because they are not US citizens, And yet they still can maintain there natural rights even in Camp gitmo? Don't worry you will not understand that either!

Codename Section
12-09-2013, 08:03 PM
Well, that is if you don't trust your govt. I trust the NZ Govt mostly. Less so the Australian one.
Most NZers and Australians don't need weapons to protect ourselves. We are not as violent a place as the US though...

If I lived in the Shire maybe I would feel the same way. I've been the fist of this government so I'm more or less skeptical knowing things that i know.

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 08:08 PM
If I lived in the Shire maybe I would feel the same way. I've been the fist of this government so I'm more or less skeptical knowing things that i know.

^^THIS.

The government has no velvet side the the glove anymore, only difference is who it hits more, the one who it hits the least thinks it is love. The one it hits more knows the truth of the matter and the true character of all involved.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 08:11 PM
Dude, if I could, I would drive an armored quad cannon to work and school. I'd do my bank deposits in it too.

I assume you are joking....

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 08:14 PM
I assume you are joking....

You assume incorrectly. :glasses7: Although it would admittedly be quite costly to drive, I would inevitably have to use it for special occasions only.

Chris
12-09-2013, 08:17 PM
Right. I would call it Catholic in this context, you perhaps Greek, but the point is that it's been thoroughly absorbed by modern society. It's the basis of universal human rights. What is the disconnect here?


It's been discovered and developed in every culture, any culture that defined right from wrong.

The disconnect is moral relativism, a defining of morals individually, situationally, emotionally. A denial of man's biological and social nature, for what can only be imagined.

Green Arrow
12-09-2013, 08:36 PM
And under natural rights she'd still be allowed one? Really?

Yes, she would.


I should amend what I said about not understanding natural rights. I actually do have a handle on it, but I guess what I'm saying is, I think they are step backward not forward. Aren't most of our laws based on natural rights? The thing I really don't like about them (and libertarianism in general to be fair) is that it's all about "me. me. me."

I don't think it's all about "me me me," I think it's all about "we we we." Understanding and recognizing that everyone has inherent natural rights and that those rights cannot be infringed involves letting go of your own personal biases in regards to morality and other such issues in order to allow the other person to live their way in peace. That's a concession on your part, and a very uncomfortable one for many people.

Chris
12-09-2013, 09:02 PM
Libertarianism isn't about me me me, it's about the individual and his responsibility in society.

Where'd this me me me myth come from anyhow?

zelmo1234
12-09-2013, 09:27 PM
Well, that is if you don't trust your govt. I trust the NZ Govt mostly. Less so the Australian one.
Most NZers and Australians don't need weapons to protect ourselves. We are not as violent a place as the US though...

Actually you are a more violent place than the USA, I think what you meant to say is that you don't have as many murders by firearms as the USA

you actually have about twice the chance of being the victim of a violent crime in Australia

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 10:47 PM
You assume incorrectly. :glasses7: Although it would admittedly be quite costly to drive, I would inevitably have to use it for special occasions only.

I don't think I could live my life like that...

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 10:49 PM
Libertarianism isn't about me me me, it's about the individual and his responsibility in society.

Where'd this me me me myth come from anyhow?

It's all about individual rights...me. me. me

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 10:50 PM
Actually you are a more violent place than the USA, I think what you meant to say is that you don't have as many murders by firearms as the USA

you actually have about twice the chance of being the victim of a violent crime in Australia

No, I am not in a more violent place. You have different ways of measuring crime. ie, under our definition of assault you don't even have hit somebody to be charged with it...

jillian
12-09-2013, 10:58 PM
I assume you are joking....

why do you assume that?

he also thinks kids shouldn't be spared the rod and "bitches" either

Chris
12-09-2013, 11:03 PM
It's all about individual rights...me. me. me

No, as I've said many a time it's the opposite, as I just posted, rights are a social responsibily.

What you're actually describing is modern liberalism. For instance, one time, arguing her right to abortion, Ravi argued it's my body, funk society. That's me me me.

Cthulhu
12-09-2013, 11:17 PM
I don't think I could live my life like that...

Ah c'mon, ya gotta think festive.

If Somebody does a drive by to my house, and I live through it, they are going to spend some time in the hurt locker when I find them and do my own drive by.

Green Arrow
12-09-2013, 11:39 PM
It's all about individual rights...me. me. me

I addressed (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19814-States-Rights?p=450151&viewfull=1#post450151) that already.

Mr Happy
12-09-2013, 11:55 PM
Ah c'mon, ya gotta think festive.

If Somebody does a drive by to my house, and I live through it, they are going to spend some time in the hurt locker when I find them and do my own drive by.

And why would I want to live my life like that...

Agravan
12-10-2013, 12:06 AM
And why would I want to live my life like that...
"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Emiliano Zapata

roadmaster
12-10-2013, 12:16 AM
why do you assume that?

he also thinks kids shouldn't be spared the rod and "bitches" either I have spanked my children and if some thing thinks she can fight like a man and start hitting like one, I say knock her out.

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 08:55 AM
And why would I want to live my life like that...

Do you realize just how little my house would suffer a drive by having a quad cannon parked out front?

It would never happen. But on the extremely off chance it did - I'm prepared to retaliate.

Weaponry is a massive deterrent to violence.

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 05:54 PM
"It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." - Emiliano Zapata

Great. Hyperbole.

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 05:54 PM
Do you realize just how little my house would suffer a drive by having a quad cannon parked out front?

It would never happen. But on the extremely off chance it did - I'm prepared to retaliate.

Weaponry is a massive deterrent to violence.

Not really.

Codename Section
12-10-2013, 05:55 PM
Not really.

Have you held a weapon on someone and they attacked you anyway?

roadmaster
12-10-2013, 05:58 PM
People will scatter when the other is holding a gun.

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 06:51 PM
Have you held a weapon on someone and they attacked you anyway?

No, I have never held a weapon on somebody. Unless you call a PR24 a weapon, in which case yes, they did attack.

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 06:59 PM
People will scatter when the other is holding a gun.

They must just smell really bad when holding it then, because weapons cannot possibly deter attacks on one's person.

*shakes head*

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 06:59 PM
Not really.

Can you post evidence to that effect?

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 07:25 PM
Can you post evidence to that effect?

Can you post evidence that guns are a deterrent?

Chris
12-10-2013, 07:28 PM
Can you post evidence that guns are a deterrent?

http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19475-Homicides-lower-in-countries-with-lots-of-guns

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 07:39 PM
Can you post evidence that guns are a deterrent?

Don't even need a gun in some instances.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVmvUC95qt0

Without even improvised weaponry, they would have been robbed.

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 10:30 PM
http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19475-Homicides-lower-in-countries-with-lots-of-guns

That whole thread is opinion, not evidence..And if you look through that thread you'll see why i'm skeptical to say the least

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 10:31 PM
Don't even need a gun in some instances.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVmvUC95qt0

Without even improvised weaponry, they would have been robbed.

How bizarre. I was watching that very video on Youtube not two hours ago. Dunno if it proves your point or not.

And if they were robbed, they would have been insured too...

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 10:45 PM
How bizarre. I was watching that very video on Youtube not two hours ago. Dunno if it proves your point or not.

And if they were robbed, they would have been insured too...

Not everybody has insurance to cover these problems.

But you don't know if it proves the point? Come now, it was quite apparent that once people started fighting back with weaponry the robbery was foiled as soon as it began.

jillian
12-10-2013, 10:49 PM
Not everybody has insurance to cover these problems.

But you don't know if it proves the point? Come now, it was quite apparent that once people started fighting back with weaponry the robbery was foiled as soon as it began.


setting off an alarm would have had the same effect.

AmazonTania
12-10-2013, 10:50 PM
That whole thread is opinion, not evidence..And if you look through that thread you'll see why i'm skeptical to say the least

I dunno. US Murder rate is at a 50 year low, while the UK is only at a 7 year low and Australia is at an 18 year low. While property crime in the US is at a 40+ low and violent crime is at a 30+ low, property crime and violent crime ranging anywhere and varies from a low of 9 - 16 years in the UK. And the same sort of crime shows little to no sign of improvement in Australia.

What exactly do you think is the cause of all of this?

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 10:55 PM
I dunno. US Murder rate is at a 50 year low, while the UK is only at a 7 year low and Australia is at an 18 year low. While property crime in the US is at a 40+ low and violent crime is at a 30+ low, property crime and violent crime ranging anywhere from varies from a low of 9 - 16 years and the same sort of crime showing little to no signs of improvement in Australia.

What exactly do you think is the cause of all of this?

Couple of things .... just because the US murder rate goes from 9 per 100,000 to 4.7 doesn't mean it is a less violent place when Australia's is still only 1 per 100,000 and NZ's is 0.9 per 100,000. And as stated on another thread, it depends how you report crime. In NZ an assault can be reported and you don't even have to touch the person.

Cthulhu
12-10-2013, 11:02 PM
setting off an alarm would have had the same effect.

This is an arbitrary assumption with little basis in reality.

AmazonTania
12-10-2013, 11:05 PM
Couple of things .... just because the US murder rate goes from 9 per 100,000 to 4.7 doesn't mean it is a less violent place when Australia's is still only 1 per 100,000 and NZ's is 0.9 per 100,000. And as stated on another thread, it depends how you report crime. In NZ an assault can be reported and you don't even have to touch the person.

I'm not comparing the amount of violence between countries. And I am well aware of how crime is reported, which is why I didn't compare the crime rates between to two. I only compared the trends. And I also know that Northern Ireland is not counted among the statistics of the home office for the UK. Not sure about Australia.

America has more violence and murders than nations like the UK and Australia. It doesn't necessarily indicates that the policies enacted in those places are beneficial. The facts are, for whatever reason, the US is closer to the historic lows in the homicide rates of the 1950's than the historic lows for the UK and Australia. When it comes to property and violent crime, UK has shown some decade of improvement while Australia has shown little to no improvement at all. In fact, I'm more likely to be raped in Australia than other OECD country.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf

If weapons, if not guns, are not a sufficient deterrent against crime, what exactly do you think is reason for these trends?

Chris
12-10-2013, 11:06 PM
That whole thread is opinion, not evidence..And if you look through that thread you'll see why i'm skeptical to say the least

It was at least based on data that no one refuted or countered. Denial is not skepticism.

jillian
12-10-2013, 11:11 PM
This is an arbitrary assumption with little basis in reality.

it has a great deal of basis in reality. alarms make criminals run away because they don't want to get caught.

do guns have utility. no doubt and my objection isn't to guns per se. it's to the idea that guns solve all problems and that everyone should have one.

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 11:19 PM
I'm not comparing the amount of violence between countries. And I am well aware of how crime is reported, which is why I didn't compare the crime rates between to two. I only compared the trends. And I also know that Northern Ireland is not counted among the statistics of the home office for the UK. Not sure about Australia.

America has more violence and murders than nations like the UK and Australia. It doesn't necessarily indicates that the policies enacted in those places are beneficial. The facts are, for whatever reason, the US is closer to the historic lows in the homicide rates of the 1950's than the historic lows for the UK and Australia. When it comes to property and violent crime, UK has shown some decade of improvement while Australia has shown little to no improvement at all. In fact, I'm more likely to be raped in Australia than other OECD country.

http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf

If weapons, if not guns, are not a sufficient deterrent against crime, what exactly do you think is reason for these trends?

I have no idea. But you and I both know that historically the US has always had an armed populence, while NZ, UK and Australia have not. So what about back in the day when the US was still armed to the teeth and we weren't and their stats were high? They didn't seem to work then? I know in NY it was more to do with the Broken Windows initiative than guns

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 11:20 PM
It was at least based on data that no one refuted or countered. Denial is not skepticism.

I did refute it. Her own diagram showed that in certain countries there were less firearms and little violent crime and that some of the stats (especially those collected in Africa and Asia) were dodgy at best...

Mr Happy
12-10-2013, 11:22 PM
In fact, I'm more likely to be raped in Australia than other OECD country.



And i'm twice as likely to get robbed in the US...<shrug>..

Chris
12-10-2013, 11:23 PM
I did refute it. Her own diagram showed that in certain countries there were less firearms and little violent crime and that some of the stats (especially those collected in Africa and Asia) were dodgy at best...

You raised questions, you did not refute anything. One or two variances doesn't affect the probabilistic correlation in worldwide data.

AmazonTania
12-10-2013, 11:34 PM
And i'm twice as likely to get robbed in the US...<shrug>..

Maybe, but you're still more likely to have someone try burglarise your home in Australia.

Home invasion isn't a particular problem with the fear of someone with a weapon being home. Despite the fact that most home invasions in the US happen during the daytime.

AmazonTania
12-10-2013, 11:45 PM
I have no idea. But you and I both know that historically the US has always had an armed populence, while NZ, UK and Australia have not. So what about back in the day when the US was still armed to the teeth and we weren't and their stats were high? They didn't seem to work then? I know in NY it was more to do with the Broken Windows initiative than guns

The UK has always had a lower murder rate than the US for the past 100 years. That hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is that the UK used to have an armed populence. Over the last 100 years, the UK has had a 50% increase in the murder rate. Within that time period, the Government has introduced major firearm legislation in 1920, 1937, 1968, 1988 & 1997. This didn't stop murders from increasing year after year, and like the US, our historic lows are during the 1950's. When it comes to the US rate, it's much more volatile. There are a ton of factors that can attribute to this volatility. With the UK, not so much. It's virtually impossible for anyone there to own a firearm.

Peter1469
12-11-2013, 01:18 AM
it has a great deal of basis in reality. alarms make criminals run away because they don't want to get caught.

do guns have utility. no doubt and my objection isn't to guns per se. it's to the idea that guns solve all problems and that everyone should have one.

Do we know anyone who believes that guns solve all problems, and that everyone should have one?

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 06:31 AM
You raised questions, you did not refute anything. One or two variances doesn't affect the probabilistic correlation in worldwide data.

It does if the data is wrong...or not properly collected...

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 06:35 AM
The UK has always had a lower murder rate than the US for the past 100 years. That hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is that the UK used to have an armed populence. Over the last 100 years, the UK has had a 50% increase in the murder rate. Within that time period, the Government has introduced major firearm legislation in 1920, 1937, 1968, 1988 & 1997. This didn't stop murders from increasing year after year, and like the US, our historic lows are during the 1950's. When it comes to the US rate, it's much more volatile. There are a ton of factors that can attribute to this volatility. With the UK, not so much. It's virtually impossible for anyone there to own a firearm.

I doubt that is the ONLY thing that has changed....there are probably a tonne of other factors to take into consideration. That aside, the UK - in the past 100 years - has never been as armed as the US. And the FACT is - yes fact, not conjecture - is that the US homicide rate is almost five times that of NZ and Australia and we are not armed to the teeth. Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is...

jillian
12-11-2013, 06:37 AM
I doubt that is the ONLY thing that has changed....there are probably a tonne of other factors to take into consideration. That aside, the UK - in the past 100 years - has never been as armed as the US. And the FACT is - yes fact, not conjecture - is that the US homicide rate is almost five times that of NZ and Australia and we are not armed to the teeth. Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is...

Mr Happy why don't you think the fact that our homicide rate is so much higher isn't one indicia that a society that is less armed is safer?

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 06:43 AM
@Mr Happy (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=720) why don't you think the fact that our homicide rate is so much higher isn't one indicia that a society that is less armed is safer?

Remember Rich T from our other boards? I had this conversation with him on few occasions. You know how much he loved his peashooters and how right-wing he was. One day he just up and said "Our society is a lot more violent that yours". You know how straight up he was. Couldn't disagree with him.

As for the 'armed society is a safe society' - that's just an NRA, pro-second amendment mantra that makes people who support those things feel good and that they have 'proven' something.

jillian
12-11-2013, 06:45 AM
Do we know anyone who believes that guns solve all problems, and that everyone should have one?

some people, including the poster to whom i was responding, seem to think guns are a panacea. the reality is, they are more likely to create violent situations than end them. that's just fact.

what is also fact is that some states with the most lax gun laws have far more mass shootings than states which regulate more intelligently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/deadliest-us-shootings/

jillian
12-11-2013, 06:52 AM
Remember Rich T from our other boards? I had this conversation with him on few occasions. You know how much he loved his peashooters and how right-wing he was. One day he just up and said "Our society is a lot more violent that yours". You know how straight up he was. Couldn't disagree with him.

As for the 'armed society is a safe society' - that's just an NRA, pro-second amendment mantra that makes people who support those things feel good and that they have 'proven' something.


i agree with you regarding the above. (and yes, i remember rich t. wonder how he's doing). i was interested in this statement "Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is…"

because i think it *is* indicative that a less armed society is safer.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 06:54 AM
i agree with you regarding the above. (and yes, i remember rich t. wonder how he's doing). i was interested in this statement "Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is…"

because i think it *is* indicative that a less armed society is safer.

I disagree. I don't think it proves the point either way. I am more apt to agree with Rich that your society - in general - is a more violent, or at least has a penchant to settle some arguments with firearms.

jillian
12-11-2013, 06:57 AM
I disagree. I don't think it proves the point either way. I am more apt to agree with Rich that your society - in general - is a more violent, or at least has a penchant to settle some arguments with firearms.

but that comes from somewhere… the question is… where?

i think it does, in large part, come from the whole john wayne "my gun is bigger than yours" mentality.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:05 AM
but that comes from somewhere… the question is… where?

i think it does, in large part, come from the whole john wayne "my gun is bigger than yours" mentality.

Dunno. I do think there is definitely a certain type of American - usually white/male - who struts around like "big man on campus" with his firearm strapped to his side. Some just itch for a reason to use it, or at least give off the impression they are willing to use it to 'protect' themselves...

jillian
12-11-2013, 07:07 AM
Dunno. I do think there is definitely a certain type of American - usually white/male - who struts around like "big man on campus" with his firearm strapped to his side. Some just itch for a reason to use it, or at least give off the impression they are willing to use it to 'protect' themselves...

exactly!!!

…. which means what they actually want is to shoot someone if they can. almost like a "make my day, punk" thing.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:12 AM
exactly!!!

…. which means what they actually want is to shoot someone if they can. almost like a "make my day, punk" thing.

You get what you get I guess...

jillian
12-11-2013, 07:14 AM
You get what you get I guess...

seems so.

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:17 AM
It does if the data is wrong...or not properly collected...

When you take the time to show the UN data wrong, I'll listen.

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:19 AM
I doubt that is the ONLY thing that has changed....there are probably a tonne of other factors to take into consideration. That aside, the UK - in the past 100 years - has never been as armed as the US. And the FACT is - yes fact, not conjecture - is that the US homicide rate is almost five times that of NZ and Australia and we are not armed to the teeth. Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is...



And this is actually where we left the previous discussion, that, yes, there are other factors And all sorts of other speculation--for without data it is simply speculation, not refutation.

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:23 AM
some people, including the poster to whom i was responding, seem to think guns are a panacea. the reality is, they are more likely to create violent situations than end them. that's just fact.

what is also fact is that some states with the most lax gun laws have far more mass shootings than states which regulate more intelligently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/deadliest-us-shootings/



No one I have ever come across believes that.


the reality is, they are more likely to create violent situations than end them. that's just fact.

No, that is mere unsubstantiated opinion.


We've all dealt with mass shootings, how they are rare and don't provide enough data to draw conclusions.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:32 AM
When you take the time to show the UN data wrong, I'll listen.

I already have by showing that some less armed countries have less murders. And lets not forget that most of the stats that support me are collected from first world countries where this kind of information is not only a hell of a lot more accurate, but also collected by govts with the infrastructure to do so. Hell, even you have. You said some of it was collected by using suicide stats. I also stated that they collected some of those stats by using public health stats. How is it possible to know how armed a society is using those stats? Especially in most African countries (which are the main supporter of the contention that less armed societies have more murders) where - in the main - there is no infrastructure to collect such information.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:34 AM
And this is actually where we left the previous discussion, that, yes, there are other factors And all sorts of other speculation--for without data it is simply speculation, not refutation.

And my argument is that due to the way that some of the data was collected, it can't be trusted. I don't even have to refute it if it doesn't pass the Giggle Test...

zelmo1234
12-11-2013, 07:38 AM
I doubt that is the ONLY thing that has changed....there are probably a tonne of other factors to take into consideration. That aside, the UK - in the past 100 years - has never been as armed as the US. And the FACT is - yes fact, not conjecture - is that the US homicide rate is almost five times that of NZ and Australia and we are not armed to the teeth. Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is...

The US firearm homicide rate is what you meant to say!

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:43 AM
The US firearm homicide rate is what you meant to say!

No. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

AmazonTania
12-11-2013, 07:52 AM
I doubt that is the ONLY thing that has changed....there are probably a tonne of other factors to take into consideration. That aside, the UK - in the past 100 years - has never been as armed as the US. And the FACT is - yes fact, not conjecture - is that the US homicide rate is almost five times that of NZ and Australia and we are not armed to the teeth. Does that prove that an unarmed population is safer? Nope, no more than the theory that an armed one is...

Define 'safer,' because there is a reason why these statistics are categorised individually.

The only thing that is much more likely to happen to me in America is be shot or mugged. When it comes to everything else, these incidents are more likely to happen in the UK or Australia. Even still, these incidents are improving in the US, while the UK and Australia are not experiencing the same improvement.

And I still don't understand why you believe it makes sense to compare the statistics of two different nations without considering the trends, when even you admit that the statistics are not uniform.

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:54 AM
I already have by showing that some less armed countries have less murders. And lets not forget that most of the stats that support me are collected from first world countries where this kind of information is not only a hell of a lot more accurate, but also collected by govts with the infrastructure to do so. Hell, even you have. You said some of it was collected by using suicide stats. I also stated that they collected some of those stats by using public health stats. How is it possible to know how armed a society is using those stats? Especially in most African countries (which are the main supporter of the contention that less armed societies have more murders) where - in the main - there is no infrastructure to collect such information.



And again, showing one or two anomalies doesn't change the statistical trend. And again, simply questioning the data, without providing counter data, is not refutation.


You said some of it was collected by using suicide stats.

That was blad's data, happy. He posted a report of a study that claimed to counter the OP's UN data. I demonstrated with that point and many other that the report was disingenuous and the study had failed in its predictions--according to the researchers.

You're confusing two sets of data.

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:56 AM
And my argument is that due to the way that some of the data was collected, it can't be trusted. I don't even have to refute it if it doesn't pass the Giggle Test...

Again, that was true for the data collected in the study blad posted. Not the UN data Alyosha posted

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 07:58 AM
natural rights are nothing but philosophical musings about what "exists". it has no relationship to what exists in reality…. though it's interesting to discuss in philosophy classes.

Agreed. The Declaration of Independence speaks of "unalienable rights", which I presume is meant in this discussion when the term "natural rights" is mentioned. If not, then maybe I missed the definition. The definition requires the existence of God. No God, no unalienable rights.


We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I do believe in God and do believe these rights exist, but proving God, and those rights, exist is impossible.

zelmo1234
12-11-2013, 08:03 AM
some people, including the poster to whom i was responding, seem to think guns are a panacea. the reality is, they are more likely to create violent situations than end them. that's just fact.

what is also fact is that some states with the most lax gun laws have far more mass shootings than states which regulate more intelligently.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/deadliest-us-shootings/

It is interesting that post this.

But if we look at just the few on the front page of this article?

Each and every shooting posted, was in a gun free zone! Now if we look at states like Connecticut they have among the toughest laws in the nation while places like Virginia have more liberal laws.

However the shooting on the WVA campus was a gun free zone.

here is an interesting article if those will take the time to read it that both supports gun control and shows the flaws with gun control I think that pro gum people will find things to be happy and angry with as well as those that support gun control

One statistic is that Guns are used in the prevention of a crime about 68000 time a year in the USA And this does not take into account the time that they deter crimes just because the thugs don't know who is armed and who is not armed. Of that we have not way of measuring.

There are some things that we can and should agree on.

Back ground checks without the registration or psychological condition wording.

More safety training for gun owners, and kids

And more training for those that choose the conceal carry lifestyle

Chris
12-11-2013, 08:10 AM
Define 'safer,' because there is a reason why these statistics are categorised individually.

The only thing that is much more likely to happen to me in America is be shot or mugged. When it comes to everything else, these incidents are more likely to happen in the UK or Australia. Even still, these incidents are improving in the US, while the UK and Australia are not experiencing the same improvement.

And I still don't understand why you believe it makes sense to compare the statistics of two different nations when even you admit that the statistics are not uniform.



He's questioning the report of a study blad posted to counter the UN data. The report misrepresented the study and the study itself failed to find results supporting its predictions.


One aspect of this that could be questioned is the broad stokes o nationwide aggregate data: Is it accurate to say of the US as a whole that it has this violent crime rate and that gun ownership rate? Both are going to vary by location within any nation. In another discussion of this topic I found data that showed incidences of shootings, fatal and nonfatal, in NYC alone and even that showed specific regions of the city more prone to shootings than others--the contrast was extreme.

Here's the map with incidents pinned:

http://i.snag.gy/u2rRF.jpg

The write up and explanation: http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-income-vs-shootings-map-2013-12


In short, aggregates don't tell you about individuals or locations, they're broad generalizations.

zelmo1234
12-11-2013, 08:12 AM
Dunno. I do think there is definitely a certain type of American - usually white/male - who struts around like "big man on campus" with his firearm strapped to his side. Some just itch for a reason to use it, or at least give off the impression they are willing to use it to 'protect' themselves...

In the USA in 48 states that would be called brandishing a firearm and it is a felony with a mandatory 5 year jail term!

this being said while teaching concealed carry classes, there are some that have the attitude that they are going to save the world and this will make them an even tougher guy.

WE and most other Instructors do everything we can to break their spirit or find a way to fail them. They are a danger to themselves.

The people that actually put on a gun each and every day and carry as much as possible are those that seek to avoid dangerous situation with there feet not their gun, they are very aware of their surroundings. and they pray that they never have to use there gun in self defense but are totally prepared and trained to do so if God forbid that occasion should arise.

I would bet that other than those that know what I do as far as self defense training and a few close friends, most of the people that I meet and do business with, have no clue that I have a gun! and while there are a few that can spot people that are carrying, they are few and fare between.

Chris
12-11-2013, 08:16 AM
Agreed. The Declaration of Independence speaks of "unalienable rights", which I presume is meant in this discussion when the term "natural rights" is mentioned. If not, then maybe I missed the definition. The definition requires the existence of God. No God, no unalienable rights.



I do believe in God and do believe these rights exist, but proving God, and those rights, exist is impossible.



Yes, the rights in the Declaration are natural rights.

No, they do not presuppose God, the document specifically refers to the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, a Deist concept.


Correct, you cannot prove God, but you can prove natural rights for denying them leads to absurd contradictions. Even jillian thinks posited law just, but our very sense of justice depends on natural law and rights, so to deny them leave the law justifying itself which legal positivism is circular and meaningless and absurd.

AmazonTania
12-11-2013, 08:19 AM
He's questioning the report of a study blad posted to counter the UN data. The report misrepresented the study and the study itself failed to find results supporting its predictions.


One aspect of this that could be questioned is the broad stokes o nationwide aggregate data: Is it accurate to say of the US as a whole that it has this violent crime rate and that gun ownership rate? Both are going to vary by location within any nation. In another discussion of this topic I found data that showed incidences of shootings, fatal and nonfatal, in NYC alone and even that showed specific regions of the city more prone to shootings than others--the contrast was extreme.

Here's the map with incidents pinned:



The write up and explanation: http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-city-income-vs-shootings-map-2013-12


In short, aggregates don't tell you about individuals or locations, they're broad generalizations.

We already know where most of the crime and murders in the US are occurring.

They're occurring in large metropolitan cities with a population of 250,000 or greater.

Chris
12-11-2013, 08:23 AM
We already know where most of the crime and murders in the US are occurring.

They're occurring in large metropolitan cities with a population of 250,000 or greater.

Right. And that's not really representative of the US.

It's the same with broadly saying the US spends more on healthcare in the aggregate when the highest proportion of that spending is concentrating in the elderly. Young invincibles spend very little.

That's all I was trying to convey.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 08:25 AM
Yes, the rights in the Declaration are natural rights.

No, they do not presuppose God, the document specifically refers to the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, a Deist conceptIncorrect on two points. God is God regardless if you believe that God created the Universe then sat back to watch or that if someone prays hard enough for a red bicycle then God will grant it to them. A few of the Founders were Deists, but others were from a variety of more well known Christian religions: http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html


Correct, you cannot prove God, but you can prove natural rights for denying them leads to absurd contradictions. Even jillian thinks posited law just, but our very sense of justice depends on natural law and rights, so to deny them leave the law justifying itself which legal positivism is circular and meaningless and absurd.That's a circular argument. The fact all consequences have actions isn't proof that natural rights exist. Physical laws can be proven but not rights. Like belief in God, the belief of natural rights is a matter of faith, not hard science.

If you think you can prove they exist, I'd love to see your proof or examples.

Chris
12-11-2013, 08:31 AM
Incorrect on two points. God is God regardless if you believe that God created the Universe then sat back to watch or that if someone prays hard enough for a red bicycle then God will grant it to them. A few of the Founders were Deists, but others were from a variety of more well known Christian religions: http://www.adherents.com/gov/Founding_Fathers_Religion.html

That's a circular argument. The fact all consequences have actions isn't proof that natural rights exist. Physical laws can be proven but not rights. Like belief in God, the belief of natural rights is a matter of faith, not hard science.

If you think you can prove they exist, I'd love to see your proof or examples.



I have no problem with you believing that.

It doesn't matter how many founders were Deists, what matters is that he Laws of Nature and of Nature's God was a Deist concept.


That's a circular argument.

That was my point, to deny natural law and rights leaves one arguing in circles.


The fact all consequences have actions isn't proof that natural rights exist.

I said nothing related to that.


Like belief in God, the belief of natural rights is a matter of faith, not hard science.

No, natural law is a self-evident truth, it is axiomatic, apodeictic.

No, natural law extends from the physical to the social or moral.

I've given you the proof, assuming they don't exist leads to a self-contradiction, an absurdity. For you to say natural law doesn't exist is the same as for you to say there are no morals.

jillian
12-11-2013, 08:34 AM
Agreed. The Declaration of Independence speaks of "unalienable rights", which I presume is meant in this discussion when the term "natural rights" is mentioned. If not, then maybe I missed the definition. The definition requires the existence of God. No God, no unalienable rights.

i think the philosophical concept of "inalienable rights" or "natural rights" goes to the dignity of men. in theory, there are certain things that people should be entitled to… e.g., a vote, equal treatment under the law, the right not to be imprisoned without due process, the right to not be owned by another human and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, to name just a few. however, thinking those things exist absent enforcement by whatever government exists is kind of wishful thinking. as for the declaration of independence, a wonderful document… but not enforceable as law.


I do believe in God and do believe these rights exist, but proving God, and those rights, exist is impossible.

agreed.

Chris
12-11-2013, 08:42 AM
i think the philosophical concept of "inalienable rights" or "natural rights" goes to the dignity of men. in theory, there are certain things that people should be entitled to… e.g., a vote, equal treatment under the law, the right not to be imprisoned without due process, the right to not be owned by another human and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, to name just a few. however, thinking those things exist absent enforcement by whatever government exists is kind of wishful thinking. as for the declaration of independence, a wonderful document… but not enforceable as law.


agreed.




We can agree and disagree on the specifics of what constitutes inaleinable natural law and rights but you have demonstrated their existence in what you sense as being just, and then you have undermined your sense of justice by denying it exists. Your argument is self-contradictory in that you cannot logically assume what you then deny.


I also don't think natural law and rights are so much the specific end conclusions we might reach on what they are but the means by which we arrive at those conclusions.

This is much like the difference between principles and positions argued the other day. Principles are not the end positions we arrive at but the means by which we arrive at them in a rationally consistent fashion.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 08:51 AM
i think the philosophical concept of "inalienable rights" or "natural rights" goes to the dignity of men. in theory, there are certain things that people should be entitled to… e.g., a vote, equal treatment under the law, the right not to be imprisoned without due process, the right to not be owned by another human and a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, to name just a few. however, thinking those things exist absent enforcement by whatever government exists is kind of wishful thinking. as for the declaration of independence, a wonderful document… but not enforceable as law.

Agreed. In some circles it's popular to believe it takes government to deprive a person of their rights, but any student of history realizes that, absent government and law, then lawlessness results in the "Law of the Jungle" where "might makes right".

Where were the "natural rights" of many French citizens during the "reign of terror"? The natural rights of blacks lynched by angry white mobs? The massacre of 347 English settlers in 1622 by Powhatan indians?

While government can be abusive and harm it's citizens, a government established to protect rights, such as ours, does, indeed, protect rights where lawlessness would not.

Gerrard Winstanley
12-11-2013, 08:56 AM
Agreed. In some circles it's popular to believe it takes government to deprive a person of their rights, but any student of history realizes that, absent government and law, then lawlessness results in the "Law of the Jungle" where "might makes right".

Where were the "natural rights" of many French citizens during the "reign of terror"? The natural rights of blacks lynched by angry white mobs? The massacre of 347 English settlers in 1622 by Powhatan indians?

While government can be abusive and harm it's citizens, a government established to protect rights, such as ours, does, indeed, protect rights where lawlessness would not.
The Reign of Terror was instigated by a government, and the empowered Southern authorities were all too willing to turn a blind eye to the lynchings. State bodies have waged a far greater number of genocides, abuses and massacres than have ever come to pass in the absence of central control

Chris
12-11-2013, 09:12 AM
Agreed. In some circles it's popular to believe it takes government to deprive a person of their rights, but any student of history realizes that, absent government and law, then lawlessness results in the "Law of the Jungle" where "might makes right".

Where were the "natural rights" of many French citizens during the "reign of terror"? The natural rights of blacks lynched by angry white mobs? The massacre of 347 English settlers in 1622 by Powhatan indians?

While government can be abusive and harm it's citizens, a government established to protect rights, such as ours, does, indeed, protect rights where lawlessness would not.



Each of your judgements about righteousness and justice are based on what we call natural law.

Aquinas referred to natural law as that much of divine law man is capable of discovering with right reason.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 09:23 AM
The Reign of Terror was instigated by a government, and the empowered Southern authorities were all too willing to turn a blind eye to the lynchings. State bodies have waged a far greater number of genocides, abuses and massacres than have ever come to pass in the absence of central control
Sorry, but mob or even a revolution isn't "a government". The Reign of Terror had leaders, but even the leaders were not immune from the mob as Robespierre found out.

Gerrard Winstanley
12-11-2013, 09:25 AM
Sorry, but mob or even a revolution isn't "a government". The Reign of Terror had leaders, but even the leaders were immune from the mob as Robespierre found out.
Robespierre was killed by the government when it decided the revolution had gone complete tits-up. The mob were subsidiaries to it.

jillian
12-11-2013, 09:41 AM
Robespierre was killed by the government when it decided the revolution had gone complete tits-up. The mob were subsidiaries to it.

iirc, robespierre was killed by his fellow revolutionaries for trying to keep things under control and was branded a "counter revolutionary". i could, of course, be mistaken in my recollection. but i don't think so.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 09:55 AM
Robespierre was killed by the government when it decided the revolution had gone complete tits-up. The mob were subsidiaries to it.

Please post more details of this French government which was running the country at the time.

jillian
12-11-2013, 09:57 AM
You are over thinking it? If you have no belief in God then it is Given by Nature.

So they are rights that a government can't take away, thought many try,

They are your right to LIFE, or to live

You right to liberty, to make choices for yourself, and your family that are within the law. Such as I will live in this house and work as an accountant and marry miss Jones

And to pursue happiness, Again doing what it is that brings you joy as long as it is not at the expense of others!

how did 2nd generation japanese americans feel about those "natural rights"

how did native americans feel about those "natural rights".

how did jews, gays, communists, gypsies and catholics feel about "natural rights" in WWII Germany?

how did blacks feel about those "natural rights" during slavery and segregation?

i'll take laws any day.

Mainecoons
12-11-2013, 10:11 AM
Hmm, most of your "examples" are of offenses of central government against the people. Only the last was regional.

Thanks for making the point as to why nullification is an important tool for states to use against central government.

:grin:

Gerrard Winstanley
12-11-2013, 10:15 AM
iirc, robespierre was killed by his fellow revolutionaries for trying to keep things under control and was branded a "counter revolutionary". i could, of course, be mistaken in my recollection. but i don't think so.
He was one of the violent revolutionaries. I think you've got the wrong man.

Chris
12-11-2013, 10:16 AM
Hmm, most of your "examples" are of offenses of central government against the people. Only the last was regional.

Thanks for making the point as to why nullification is an important tool for states to use against central government.

:grin:



And all her examples express a sense of injustice derived not from posited law but from natural law. For as you point out it was posited law--legislated,, administered, adjudicated law--that was offensive in action or inaction. Posited law is morally just only inasmuch as it aligns with natural law.

Gerrard Winstanley
12-11-2013, 10:17 AM
Please post more details of this French government which was running the country at the time.

The Thermidorian Reaction was a revolt in the French Revolution against the excesses of the Reign of Terror. It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the Terror. This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution.
They then formed a moderate, conservative 'Directory' to run the show.

Gerrard Winstanley
12-11-2013, 10:18 AM
how did 2nd generation japanese americans feel about those "natural rights"

how did native americans feel about those "natural rights".

how did jews, gays, communists, gypsies and catholics feel about "natural rights" in WWII Germany?

how did blacks feel about those "natural rights" during slavery and segregation?

i'll take laws any day.
All of which were conditions imposed by men, typically in extraordinary times. In the absence of a credible government or authority, communities are forced to band and work together; otherwise, they'll all simply die.

Mister D
12-11-2013, 10:27 AM
how did 2nd generation japanese americans feel about those "natural rights"

how did native americans feel about those "natural rights".

how did jews, gays, communists, gypsies and catholics feel about "natural rights" in WWII Germany?

how did blacks feel about those "natural rights" during slavery and segregation?

i'll take laws any day.

Why should we care about any of this? Oh, that's right. Natural Rights. lol

You'll take laws any day? The Nazis, for example, said meh. We'll change them. Logically and ethically you have nothing to say...well other than seig heil!

iustitia
12-11-2013, 10:43 AM
I'm not sure what's even being argued about now. Is the question now whether natural rights exist or whether governments have violated those rights in the past?

Chris
12-11-2013, 10:51 AM
I'm not sure what's even being argued about now. Is the question now whether natural rights exist or whether governments have violated those rights in the past?

Dunno. But I think the original topic was state's rights. But that went off track in post #2 and has been drifting ever since.


If we had a forum rule that said you must post off topic people would post on topic, lol.

jillian
12-11-2013, 11:07 AM
All of which were conditions imposed by men, typically in extraordinary times. In the absence of a credible government or authority, communities are forced to band and work together; otherwise, they'll all simply die.

the point being that there is no such thing as law in the air. rights don't exist unless they are actually enforceable…

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 11:31 AM
They then formed a moderate, conservative 'Directory' to run the show.

So did the group which whacked the Tsar Nicholas II and his family in a basement, but if you consider that "government", then any lynching party is "government".

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 11:34 AM
Dunno. But I think the original topic was state's rights. But that went off track in post #2 and has been drifting ever since.

It still is. The problem is determining what we mean by "state's rights" and that goes directly to the question of rights in general. Does a State government have the power to impose law? To give or take away individual rights? If so, by what authority? If so, then why not Federal or a town? Isn't that just a difference of degree?

If we have unalienable rights and a State chooses to remove them because a person is black, gay or a woman, then does the Fed have the authority to correct that problem? Does anyone?

Mister D
12-11-2013, 11:41 AM
the point being that there is no such thing as law in the air. rights don't exist unless they are actually enforceable…

So then they are entirely at the whim of the state. IOW, you have no rights except what rights are granted to you by the state. You understand that, right? Moreover, no one's rights were violated at Auschwitz or the gulag. That is your position.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 11:48 AM
the point being that there is no such thing as law in the air. rights don't exist unless they are actually enforceable…

You can enforce your own rights. When you believe you can't, you don't? What would have happened if blacks and Jews had fought back proactively? The people and government would have had to make a choice. Had they done it soon enough things would have turned out differently.

There were people I know who "refused orders" to help enforce the natural rights of Afghanistani farmers. You can't sit and wait for the government if you're truly "free" in your head.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 12:00 PM
You can enforce your own rights. When you believe you can't, you don't? What would have happened if blacks and Jews had fought back proactively? The people and government would have had to make a choice. Had they done it soon enough things would have turned out differently.

There were people I know who "refused orders" to help enforce the natural rights of Afghanistani farmers. You can't sit and wait for the government if you're truly "free" in your head.

It's a collective action. If most people disagree with someone asserting their rights, things like the Tulsa Race Riot (http://www.tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/) and the massacre at Wounded Knee occur (http://www.ushistory.org/us/40e.asp).

In the end, every time we fight for someone elses rights, we are fighting for our own.

Chris
12-11-2013, 12:00 PM
the point being that there is no such thing as law in the air. rights don't exist unless they are actually enforceable…



Gravity. Hold something in the air. Let it go. Q.E.D.


BTW, a phrase like "law in the air" assumes what you need to demonstrate.

Chris
12-11-2013, 12:02 PM
It's a collective action. If most people disagree with someone asserting their rights, things like the Tulsa Race Riot (http://www.tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/) and the massacre at Wounded Knee occur (http://www.ushistory.org/us/40e.asp).

In the end, every time we fight for someone elses rights, we are fighting for our own.



And we generally call those right natural rights.

I think there's a lot of quibbling over a word when we're all talking the same thing.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 12:14 PM
And we generally call those right natural rights.

I think there's a lot of quibbling over a word when we're all talking the same thing.

We have no rights except for those we fight for and maintain through law. Look at lawless or survival situations and tell me where the natural law comes from. Wolves don't care about your rights and neither do bandits, marauders or just someone a little bigger than you.

http://www.thepoliticalemporium.com/assets/images/PEST53.jpg

We must fight for our rights. The more who fight, the better our chance of winning. This means it is important to fight for rights of others be it Nazis marching in Skokie or Gays to have the same legal benefits as Straights if we are to maintain our Liberty and preserve our hard fought rights.

Chris
12-11-2013, 12:21 PM
We have no rights except for those we fight for and maintain through law. Look at lawless or survival situations and tell me where the natural law comes from. Wolves don't care about your rights and neither do bandits, marauders or just someone a little bigger than you.

http://www.thepoliticalemporium.com/assets/images/PEST53.jpg

We must fight for our rights. The more who fight, the better our chance of winning. This means it is important to fight for rights of others be it Nazis marching in Skokie or Gays to have the same legal benefits as Straights if we are to maintain our Liberty and preserve our hard fought rights.



So we don't have a right to fight for our rights? Oops.


Posited law once permitted slavery. Was that right?

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 12:23 PM
It's a collective action. If most people disagree with someone asserting their rights, things like the Tulsa Race Riot (http://www.tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/) and the massacre at Wounded Knee occur (http://www.ushistory.org/us/40e.asp).

In the end, every time we fight for someone elses rights, we are fighting for our own.

If you don't assert your own why should others do it for you? I'll stand up with anyone willing to self-protect. I'm tired of standing up for people sitting at home.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 12:31 PM
If you don't assert your own why should others do it for you? I'll stand up with anyone willing to self-protect. I'm tired of standing up for people sitting at home.

A little old lady being beaten by thugs is not in the best position to fight for her rights. The same of a child. Sometimes we need to stand up for the rights of others in order to protect our own rights. If I see the state government trying to create a poll tax or disenfranchise certain people from voting, I can sit back and let them, but what happens when they come for my voting rights?

Would you have put your neck on the line defending Jews in 1930s Germany? The Japanese in this country? Arabs in this country after 9/11?

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 12:35 PM
So we don't have a right to fight for our rights? Oops.


Posited law once permitted slavery. Was that right?

Yes, we should fight for our rights. We should also fight for the rights of others as a means to protect our own rights. What good is the Freedom of Speech if it is eroded by allowing certain people to be silenced because they are not PC in the eyes of the present government?

Slavery was once legal and considered by many to be moral. Do you consider it moral? I mention this as an example of how morals can change.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 12:38 PM
A little old lady being beaten by thugs is not in the best position to fight for her rights. The same of a child. Sometimes we need to stand up for the rights of others in order to protect our own rights. If I see the state government trying to create a poll tax or disenfranchise certain people from voting, I can sit back and let them, but what happens when they come for my voting rights?

Would you have put your neck on the line defending Jews in 1930s Germany? The Japanese in this country? Arabs in this country after 9/11?

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

That proved my point.^

Cthulhu
12-11-2013, 12:39 PM
A little old lady being beaten by thugs is not in the best position to fight for her rights. The same of a child. Sometimes we need to stand up for the rights of others in order to protect our own rights. If I see the state government trying to create a poll tax or disenfranchise certain people from voting, I can sit back and let them, but what happens when they come for my voting rights?

Would you have put your neck on the line defending Jews in 1930s Germany? The Japanese in this country? Arabs in this country after 9/11?

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007392
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

There is a difference between fighting for the helpless, and fighting for those are lazy or who aafraid of risk.

Freedom can never be given, only earned. You can have assistance, but you must earn it. That is why installing a republic is a foolish practice to start. If it wasn't the natives idea, it won't stick well, and it won't be implemented well.

Cthulhu
12-11-2013, 12:41 PM
Yes, we should fight for our rights. We should also fight for the rights of others as a means to protect our own rights. What good is the Freedom of Speech if it is eroded by allowing certain people to be silenced because they are not PC in the eyes of the present government?

Slavery was once legal and considered by many to be moral. Do you consider it moral? I mention this as an example of how morals can change.

Morals and laws can indeed change, but what is right and wrong doesn't.

Chris
12-11-2013, 12:53 PM
Yes, we should fight for our rights. We should also fight for the rights of others as a means to protect our own rights. What good is the Freedom of Speech if it is eroded by allowing certain people to be silenced because they are not PC in the eyes of the present government?

Slavery was once legal and considered by many to be moral. Do you consider it moral? I mention this as an example of how morals can change.

Agree, liberty is worth protecting.

That posited law permitting slavery was wrong is a matter of condemnation based on natural law--natural law is moral law.

Chris
12-11-2013, 12:58 PM
Here's an interesting piece on the myth that while Catholicism embraced natural law Protestantism rejected it:


Protestants and Natural Law (http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/12/002-protestants-and-natural-law-28)


Why did the tradition of natural law fall on hard times in Protestant theology? One might plausibly imagine that the reason lies deeply embedded in the Reformation theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin. However, John T. McNeill, the Reformation historian, concludes otherwise:



There is no real discontinuity between the teaching of the Reformers and that of their predecessors with respect to natural law. Not one of the leaders of the Reformation assails the principle. Instead, with the possible exception of Zwingli, they all on occasion express a quite ungrudging respect for the moral law naturally implanted in the human heart and seek to inculcate this attitude in their readers. Natural law is not one of the issues on which they bring the Scholastics under criticism. With safeguards of their primary doctrines, but without conscious resistance on their part, natural law enters into the framework of their thought and is an assumption of their political and social teaching. . . . For the Reformers, as for the Fathers, canonists, and Scholastics, natural law stood affirmed on the pages of Scripture.



The pressure to abandon the teaching of natural law stemmed not so much from the Reformation as from post-Enlightenment developments in philosophy, especially utilitarianism and positivism...

IOW, we see historically only a utilitarian and legal positivist rejection of natural law.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 12:59 PM
People believe in the law so much that they don't fight. Laws are an invisible wall. We have forgotten that government exists to serve us, not us it.

Had Jews, communists, gypsies, methodists, Catholics, etc said "go blow yourself" to the Nazi's and took a chance while they could they wouldn't have ended up in work camps. The Polish ghetto riots had they happened sooner could have made a huge difference in the same way blacks did for themselves in the 1950s.

The state causes more trouble than its worth.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 01:20 PM
There is a difference between fighting for the helpless, and fighting for those are lazy or who aafraid of risk.

Freedom can never be given, only earned.

Agreed. Ask any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine if they are fighting for your freedom. They aren't. They far fighting for themselves and those around them.

Enlightened self interest says you fight for the rights of others not for them, but for yourself. That's what the Niemöller poem was all about; protecting yourself by protecting others. It's not about altruism, it's about personal survival. Those who don't get that are the very ones who stand on the sidewalk waving flags and tying yellow ribbons around trees but won't pick up a rifle themselves.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 01:22 PM
People believe in the law so much that they don't fight. Laws are an invisible wall. We have forgotten that government exists to serve us, not us it.

Had Jews, communists, gypsies, methodists, Catholics, etc said "go blow yourself" to the Nazi's and took a chance while they could they wouldn't have ended up in work camps. The Polish ghetto riots had they happened sooner could have made a huge difference in the same way blacks did for themselves in the 1950s.

The state causes more trouble than its worth.

Some did fight back, but let's face it. Most people are wimps until backed into a corner and even then may meekly march into the showers. Like I posted above, I don't fight for them, but for myself and those I care about. It just happens that by fighting for them, I protect myself in the long run.

Max Rockatansky
12-11-2013, 01:23 PM
Morals and laws can indeed change, but what is right and wrong doesn't.

So slavery wasn't either right or wrong? There are instructions in the Bible on how to care for your slaves so it must be right, correct?

Chris
12-11-2013, 01:27 PM
Agreed. Ask any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine if they are fighting for your freedom. They aren't. They far fighting for themselves and those around them.

Enlightened self interest says you fight for the rights of others not for them, but for yourself. That's what the Niemöller poem was all about; protecting yourself by protecting others. It's not about altruism, it's about personal survival. Those who don't get that are the very ones who stand on the sidewalk waving flags and tying yellow ribbons around trees but won't pick up a rifle themselves.


But enlightened self-interest is actually altruistic in that defending your rights does defend other's equal rights. As Popper showed in "The Spell of Plato," Open society and it's Enemies, Plato got that wrong, the association of the collective state with altruism and individualism with egoism, the reverse is actually true.

Adam Smith spoke of the same effect as the Invisible Hand: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Cthulhu
12-11-2013, 01:31 PM
So slavery wasn't either right or wrong? There are instructions in the Bible on how to care for your slaves so it must be right, correct?

Save it for the religion forum.

Although that is a good topic to address there.

Here though I will tell you that slavery of a non voluntary nature of any sort is among the blackest of sins one can commit.

Peter1469
12-11-2013, 02:50 PM
Dunno. I do think there is definitely a certain type of American - usually white/male - who struts around like "big man on campus" with his firearm strapped to his side. Some just itch for a reason to use it, or at least give off the impression they are willing to use it to 'protect' themselves...

Have you ever really saw an American open carrying? Outside of a rally or gun show?

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 02:53 PM
Agreed. Ask any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine if they are fighting for your freedom. They aren't. They far fighting for themselves and those around them.

We're both marines--although he's in remission.

We join to fight for our country, we end up fighting for our brothers. I didn't fight for myself. At that point I hated myself, but I loved those guys with me.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 03:41 PM
And again, showing one or two anomalies doesn't change the statistical trend. And again, simply questioning the data, without providing counter data, is not refutation.



That was blad's data, happy. He posted a report of a study that claimed to counter the OP's UN data. I demonstrated with that point and many other that the report was disingenuous and the study had failed in its predictions--according to the researchers.

You're confusing two sets of data.

Roger re the two sets of data.
I don't see them as anomalies. I see the whole set of data totally suspect and unreliable.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 03:43 PM
Define 'safer,' because there is a reason why these statistics are categorised individually.

The only thing that is much more likely to happen to me in America is be shot or mugged. When it comes to everything else, these incidents are more likely to happen in the UK or Australia. Even still, these incidents are improving in the US, while the UK and Australia are not experiencing the same improvement.

And I still don't understand why you believe it makes sense to compare the statistics of two different nations without considering the trends, when even you admit that the statistics are not uniform.

And being shot or mugged - along with being raped - are two of the more worrying trends. If somebody steals my car or burgles my house and I am not at home, I have insurance. Is it annoying? yes. Does it bother me? Yes. Does it give me the desire to go out and buy a peashooter believing that it will make my life better or protect me more? No.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 03:45 PM
Again, that was true for the data collected in the study blad posted. Not the UN data Alyosha posted

As I have stated. I looked at the 115 page report and saw how they collected the data. Via health stats. I don't find that reliable in any way, shape or form. I do not find it an anomaly either, especially when a large portion of the UN data supporting Alyosha's contention relates to African countries. A place where any accurate data is suspect straight from get-go.

Chris
12-11-2013, 03:46 PM
Roger re the two sets of data.
I don't see them as anomalies. I see the whole set of data totally suspect and unreliable.

Well, all I hear is another argument from incredulity.

Chris
12-11-2013, 03:48 PM
As I have stated. I looked at the 115 page report and saw how they collected the data. Via health stats. I don't find that reliable in any way, shape or form. I do not find it an anomaly either, especially when a large portion of the UN data supporting Alyosha's contention relates to African countries. A place where any accurate data is suspect straight from get-go.


But in the field of sociology that's accepted. Until you can point out where and why most of the data is wrong--not just a point or two--you're just arguing your own incredulity.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 03:51 PM
So then they are entirely at the whim of the state. IOW, you have no rights except what rights are granted to you by the state. You understand that, right? Moreover, no one's rights were violated at Auschwitz or the gulag. That is your position.

That is the reality. There is no point in having natural rights unless they can be enforced.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 03:53 PM
And being shot or mugged - along with being raped - are two of the more worrying trends. If somebody steals my car or burgles my house and I am not at home, I have insurance. Is it annoying? yes. Does it bother me? Yes. Does it give me the desire to go out and buy a peashooter believing that it will make my life better or protect me more? No.

What if you are home? I know someone who was in her house when people broke in. What if you're female? In the US 1 in every 5 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Removing guns won't remove violence because rape is violence. All it will do is...honestly if they tried it would cause a revolution I think. NVM.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 03:54 PM
That is the reality. There is no point in having natural rights unless they can be enforced.

You have natural rights and you enforce them. I enforce mine.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 03:59 PM
Have you ever really saw an American open carrying? Outside of a rally or gun show?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9wahCTz08

Plenty of other examples on Youtube...

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 04:02 PM
But in the field of sociology that's accepted. Until you can point out where and why most of the data is wrong--not just a point or two--you're just arguing your own incredulity.

I disagree...<shrug>...

I have already pointed out where it is wrong. You mean all those African countries awash with guns don't really have them as per the data? The UN went door knocking on rebels and govt institutions asking to count their guns? You find that credible? Interesting...

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 04:02 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sj9wahCTz08

Plenty of other examples on Youtube...

We can probably find people screwing sheep on Youtube but I don't really think all yall are doing that down there. I would LOVE to have real open carry in the US. I love my guns. I name them. :D

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 04:04 PM
What if you are home? I know someone who was in her house when people broke in. What if you're female? In the US 1 in every 5 women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Removing guns won't remove violence because rape is violence. All it will do is...honestly if they tried it would cause a revolution I think. NVM.

Having guns won't remove violence either. At the end of the day we're talking psyche's. The US is a lot different from most other Western countries..

Chris
12-11-2013, 04:07 PM
I disagree...<shrug>...

I have already pointed out where it is wrong. You mean all those African countries awash with guns don't really have them as per the data? The UN went door knocking on rebels and govt institutions asking to count their guns? You find that credible? Interesting...

You picked a few data points you were in disagreement with but provided no counter data, just incredulity.

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 04:07 PM
Having guns won't remove violence either. At the end of the day we're talking psyche's. The US is a lot different from most other Western countries..

We are very different which is why it won't work here. We also border with Mexico. Guns won't remove violence, they just give you options.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=838Iy08OULQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJFcmv3xm-E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPfz7ENFUB0

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 05:25 PM
You picked a few data points you were in disagreement with but provided no counter data, just incredulity.

Yep, but the data points I picked pretty much put paid to their way of collecting it. I don't have the means to collect the data. About the only people who do are the UN for this kind of study. Just because somebody collects data doesn't mean it is the the be-all and end-all on the subject. How it is collected matters...

Chris
12-11-2013, 05:29 PM
Yep, but the data points I picked pretty much put paid to their way of collecting it. I don't have the means to collect the data. About the only people who do are the UN for this kind of study. Just because somebody collects data doesn't mean it is the the be-all and end-all on the subject. How it is collected matters...

Again, incredulity. I get it, for some reason you don't trust the data.

AmazonTania
12-11-2013, 06:01 PM
And being shot or mugged - along with being raped - are two of the more worrying trends. If somebody steals my car or burgles my house and I am not at home, I have insurance. Is it annoying? yes. Does it bother me? Yes. Does it give me the desire to go out and buy a peashooter believing that it will make my life better or protect me more? No.

What if you lived in an urban area where this sort of thing would be more routine. What would you suggest then? It's easier for people to fail to understand when they live in a good community.

AmazonTania
12-11-2013, 06:02 PM
We are very different which is why it won't work here. We also border with Mexico. Guns won't remove violence, they just give you options.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=838Iy08OULQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJFcmv3xm-E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPfz7ENFUB0

What is that, a Hello Kitty rifle?

Codename Section
12-11-2013, 06:05 PM
What is that, a Hello Kitty rifle?

Naw, it's a Henry.

Green Arrow
12-11-2013, 06:07 PM
So, back to states' rights.

del
12-11-2013, 06:18 PM
We already know where most of the crime and murders in the US are occurring.

They're occurring in large metropolitan cities with a population of 250,000 or greater.

actually, the top five cities in terms of violent crime barely combine for a population of 250,000

Chris
12-11-2013, 06:57 PM
So, back to states' rights.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

If that means anything anymore.

Mr Happy
12-11-2013, 07:35 PM
Again, incredulity. I get it, for some reason you don't trust the data.

I think incredulity is too strong of a word. Healthy skepticism is more like it...

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:45 PM
I think incredulity is too strong of a word. Healthy skepticism is more like it...

Skepticism stands between denial and accpetance, skepticism would question itself.

We're going in circles, so, another time...

Chris
12-11-2013, 07:46 PM
Back to state's rights, here's an interesting right up on the antifederalist Brutus, from The Antifederalists Were Right (http://mises.org/daily/2335/):


...One of the most insightful of the Antifederalists was Robert Yates, a New York judge who, as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, withdrew because the convention was exceeding its instructions. Yates wrote as Brutus in the debates over the Constitution. Given his experience as a judge, his claim that the Supreme Court would become a source of almost unlimited federal over-reaching was particularly insightful.

Brutus asserted that the Supreme Court envisioned under the Constitution would become a source of massive abuse because they were beyond the control "both of the people and the legislature," and not subject to being "corrected by any power above them." As a result, he objected to the fact that its provisions justifying the removal of judges didn't include making rulings that went beyond their constitutional authority, which would lead to judicial tyranny.

Brutus argued that when constitutional grounds for making rulings were absent, the Court would create grounds "by their own decisions." He thought that the power it would command would be so irresistible that the judiciary would use it to make law, manipulating the meanings of arguably vague clauses to justify it.

The Supreme Court would interpret the Constitution according to its alleged "spirit", rather than being restricted to just the "letter" of its written words (as the doctrine of enumerated rights, spelled out in the Tenth Amendment, would require).

Further, rulings derived from whatever the court decided its spirit was would effectively "have the force of law," due to the absence of constitutional means to "control their adjudications" and "correct their errors". This constitutional failing would compound over time in a "silent and imperceptible manner", through precedents that built on one another.

Expanded judicial power would empower justices to shape the federal government however they desired, because the Supreme Court's constitutional interpretations would control the effective power vested in government and its different branches. That would hand the Supreme Court ever-increasing power, in direct contradiction to Alexander Hamilton's argument in Federalist 78 that the Supreme Court would be "the least dangerous branch."

Brutus predicted that the Supreme Court would adopt "very liberal" principles of interpreting the Constitution. He argued that there had never in history been a court with such power and with so few checks upon it, giving the Supreme Court "immense powers" that were not only unprecedented, but perilous for a nation founded on the principle of consent of the governed. Given the extent to which citizens' power to effectively withhold their consent from federal actions has been eviscerated, it is hard to argue with Brutus's conclusion....

donttread
12-11-2013, 07:47 PM
Somebody actually understands State's Rights !




Continuing a discussion here that was started in Nelson Mandela dies (http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/19708-Nelson-Mandela-dies), so as not to further derail that thread.
@Mr Happy (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=720) -


@jillian (http://thepoliticalforums.com/member.php?u=719) -



I believe that your issues with states' rights come from a misunderstanding of what the concept of "states' rights" is. "States' rights" is the philosophy which puts more of a focus in governance on states rather than the federal government. In a system which honors states' rights, the federal government would be limited to, say, delivering the mail, protecting our shores, and mediating disputes between the states.

The states, in this system, would handle pretty much everything else. The reason for that is because the larger the government gets, the less it knows and understands about the people it governs. The federal government is not capable of acutely understanding, for example, the unique border security needs of all our southern and northern border states, unless you want to have every one of those states' governors and leaders of the legislatures meet with the President and leaders of the federal legislature for policy summits. Even if we did that, however, these leaders would be spending all their time in summits trying to figure out agreeable ways of governing rather than actually governing. It would be far more efficient if states were allowed to handle their own needs, because the government is much closer to the people and much more aware of what they need.

In your examples, the state government of Alabama was violating the natural rights of its citizens. That's not allowed, even in a states' rights system. Natural rights are incontrovertible. NO government, at any level, has the right to abridge natural rights. Government in general does that, it is not unique to the states' rights system and the states' rights system does not cause it.

Max Rockatansky
12-12-2013, 12:18 AM
Save it for the religion forum.

Although that is a good topic to address there.

Here though I will tell you that slavery of a non voluntary nature of any sort is among the blackest of sins one can commit.

While I agree that it is a great moral wrong, the question goes to "Says who?" Morality changes because there are no moral absolutes unless you include God in the equation. There is no such thing as "natural rights" unless God is included. Without God, then it is must photons, atoms and the laws of physics bouncing everything around the Universe.


We're both marines--although he's in remission.

We join to fight for our country, we end up fighting for our brothers. I didn't fight for myself. At that point I hated myself, but I loved those guys with me.

Semper Fi. I was in the Marine Corps from February 1975 to November 1985 and ended up retiring out of the Naval Reserve in 1997.

Cthulhu
12-12-2013, 11:35 AM
While I agree that it is a great moral wrong, the question goes to "Says who?" Morality changes because there are no moral absolutes unless you include God in the equation. There is no such thing as "natural rights" unless God is included. Without God, then it is must photons, atoms and the laws of physics bouncing everything around the Universe.

Common Law, aka God's Law, aka Natural Law etc... they come by many names. Some just prefer certain titles over others. But I will agree that without a belief in something cosmic, or higher than one's self the concept doesn't seem to stay together.



Semper Fi. I was in the Marine Corps from February 1975 to November 1985 and ended up retiring out of the Naval Reserve in 1997.

This forum seems to be a magnet for us I guess.

Chris
12-12-2013, 11:52 AM
Common Law, aka God's Law, aka Natural Law etc... they come by many names. Some just prefer certain titles over others. But I will agree that without a belief in something cosmic, or higher than one's self the concept doesn't seem to stay together.



This forum seems to be a magnet for us I guess.


Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty (http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/one.asp) on that:


1. NATURAL LAW AND REASON

AMONG INTELLECTUALS WHO CONSIDER themselves "scientific," the phrase "the nature of man” apt to have the effect of a red flag on a bull. "Man has no nature!" is the modern rallying cry; and typical of the sentiment of political philosophers today was the assertion of a distinguished political theorist some years ago before a meeting of the American Political Science Association that "man's nature" is a purely theological concept that must be dismissed from any scientific discussion.[1]

In the controversy over man's nature, and over the broader and more controversial concept of "natural law," both sides have repeatedly proclaimed that natural law and theology are inextricably intertwined. As a result, many champions of natural law, in scientific or philosophic circles, have gravely weakened their case by implying that rational, philosophical methods alone cannot establish such law: that theological faith is necessary to maintain the concept. On the other hand, the opponents of natural law have gleefully agreed; since faith in the supernatural is deemed necessary to belief in natural law, the latter concept must be tossed out of scientific, secular discourse, and be consigned to the arcane sphere of the divine studies. In consequence, the idea of a natural law founded on reason and rational inquiry has been virtually lost.[2]

The believer in a rationally established natural law must, then, face the hostility of both camps: the one group sensing in this position an antagonism toward religion; and the other group suspecting that God and mysticism are being slipped in by the back door. To the first group, it must be said that they are reflecting an extreme Augustinian position which held that faith rather than reason was the only legitimate tool for investigating man's nature and man's proper ends. In short, in this fideist tradition, theology had completely displaced philosophy. [3] The Thomist tradition, on the contrary, was precisely the opposite: vindicating the independence of philosophy from theology and proclaiming the ability of man's reason to understand and arrive at the laws, physical and ethical, of the natural order. If belief in a systematic order of natural laws open to discovery by man's reason is per se anti-religious, then anti-religious also were St. Thomas and the later Scholastics, as well as the devout Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius. The statement that there is an order of natural law, in short, leaves open the problem of whether or not God has created that order; and the assertion of the viability of man's reason to discover the natural order leaves open the question of whether or not that reason was given to man by God. The assertion of an order of natural laws discoverable by reason is, by itself, neither pro- nor anti-religious.[4]

He adds...


Or, as a modem Thomist philosopher declares:



If the word "natural” means anything at all, it refers to the nature of a man, and when used with "law," "natural" must refer to an ordering that is manifested in the inclinations of a man's nature and to nothing else. Hence, taken in itself, there is nothing religious or theological in the "Natural Law" of Aquinas.[6]


Dutch Protestant jurist Hugo Grotius declared, in his De Iure Belli ac Pacis (1625):



What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God.



And again:



Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless it can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not extend. . . . Just as even God cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so He cannot cause that which is intrinsically evil be not evil.[7]

Max Rockatansky
12-12-2013, 01:06 PM
Common Law, aka God's Law, aka Natural Law etc... they come by many names. Some just prefer certain titles over others. But I will agree that without a belief in something cosmic, or higher than one's self the concept doesn't seem to stay together.
Exactly.


This forum seems to be a magnet for us I guess.Probably because all good Marines tend to be aggressively assholish but team-oriented. A feature I find endearing.

Philly Rabbit
12-12-2013, 02:38 PM
Well ... we all know what happened the last time we took the United out of The United States and left it up to the Individual States.

"These" United States of America.

Liberals need big central government like the drug addict needs his fix. Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

Green Arrow
12-12-2013, 02:56 PM
"These" United States of America.

Liberals need big central government like the drug addict needs his fix. Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

You mean, imagine America as a conservative echo chamber where a vibrant and strong central government still exists?

Philly Rabbit
12-12-2013, 03:34 PM
You mean, imagine America as a conservative echo chamber where a vibrant and strong central government still exists?

No I mean an America with strong states rights and a very weak central government and lots of local government that's a lot closer to the people.

Chris
12-12-2013, 03:56 PM
I'd settle for ^^that.

Green Arrow
12-12-2013, 04:33 PM
Hell, I'd go for that, too.

Cthulhu
12-12-2013, 04:49 PM
Well, I don't know about that guys, lots of local government can be just as bad if not worse. 1 tyrant a thousand miles away, or a thousand tyrants one mile away?

Just less, of all of it.

Chris
12-12-2013, 05:07 PM
Well, I don't know about that guys, lots of local government can be just as bad if not worse. 1 tyrant a thousand miles away, or a thousand tyrants one mile away?

Just less, of all of it.



That's true. I read it more as a comparative to what we have now, but can see your reading, and definitely less government would be better.

donttread
12-12-2013, 05:27 PM
In fact the very term "United States" or "Union of States" speaks directly to limited federal interference




"These" United States of America.

Liberals need big central government like the drug addict needs his fix. Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

Mr Happy
12-12-2013, 05:46 PM
Skepticism stands between denial and accpetance.

Yep, and that's how I feel about it...

jillian
12-12-2013, 05:46 PM
In fact the very term "United States" or "Union of States" speaks directly to limited federal interference

it speaks to the opposite…. united… one… :rolleyes:

we no longer live under the articles of confederation.

Mr Happy
12-12-2013, 05:47 PM
Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

What an awful place it would be. Lilly white, Christian, with little tolerance of anything...

nic34
12-12-2013, 05:50 PM
"These" United States of America.

Liberals need big central government like the drug addict needs his fix. Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

What, you injun or sumpthin, sonny?

Cthulhu
12-12-2013, 05:51 PM
What an awful place it would be. Lilly white, Christian, with little tolerance of anything...

Pish posh. Nothing wrong with white people, or Christians.

But the bit about tolerance - indeed Christians could be more tolerant, but those who test their bounds need not push the envelope at every opportunity.

Example being slut walk. Try doing slut walk in say...Afghanistan, or Turkey. Preach the values of tolerance to those who need it the most.

Mr Happy
12-12-2013, 05:52 PM
Pish posh. Nothing wrong with white people, or Christians.

But the bit about tolerance - indeed Christians could be more tolerant, but those who test their bounds need not push the envelope at every opportunity.

Example being slut walk. Try doing slut walk in say...Afghanistan, or Turkey. Preach the values of tolerance to those who need it the most.

Nothing wrong with liberals either..
No idea what the slut walk is...

jillian
12-12-2013, 05:54 PM
"These" United States of America.

Liberals need big central government like the drug addict needs his fix. Imagine an America without the influx of liberals (socialists - communists) who unloaded here by the boatload from Europe over what he's referring to.

you mean it should go back to the native americans?

other than that, everyone came over by the boatload from europe… except for the south americans and anyone who came from everywhere that wasn't europe. (you do know there are lots of those, too, right?)

Green Arrow
12-12-2013, 06:03 PM
Well, I don't know about that guys, lots of local government can be just as bad if not worse. 1 tyrant a thousand miles away, or a thousand tyrants one mile away?

Just less, of all of it.

This is true, of course. Any government can and will be corrupted at some point. The trick, as Thomas Paine agreed, is to remain vigilant, and not allow that government to grow to the point where the people lose touch with it, and where it loses touch with them.

Max Rockatansky
12-12-2013, 06:20 PM
Well, I don't know about that guys, lots of local government can be just as bad if not worse. 1 tyrant a thousand miles away, or a thousand tyrants one mile away?

Just less, of all of it.

The Federal government should be big enough to enforce the Constitution, but right now the Feds do a lot more than than.

OTOH, a lot of what is blamed on "the Feds" is really just a lot of States voting as a majority. Texas was blamed for dominating the school text book issue regarding content, but that's because other states wanted to participate in volume buying and not have to pay the expense of higher priced textbooks more to their liking.

The whiny New Yorkers are free to bitch, but nobody is forcing to buy these textbooks.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/

What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas when it comes to textbooks”No matter where you live, if your children go to public schools, the textbooks they use were very possibly written under Texas influence. If they graduated with a reflexive suspicion of the concept of separation of church and state and an unexpected interest in the contributions of the National Rifle Association to American history, you know who to blame.
When it comes to meddling with school textbooks, Texas is both similar to other states and totally different. It’s hardly the only one that likes to fiddle around with the material its kids study in class. The difference is due to size—4.8 million textbook-reading schoolchildren as of 2011—and the peculiarities of its system of government, in which the State Board of Education is selected in elections that are practically devoid of voters, and wealthy donors can chip in unlimited amounts of money to help their favorites win.
Those favorites are not shrinking violets. In 2009, the nation watched in awe as the state board worked on approving a new science curriculum under the leadership of a chair who believed that “evolution is hooey.” In 2010, the subject was social studies and the teachers tasked with drawing up course guidelines were supposed to work in consultation with “experts” added on by the board, one of whom believed that the income tax was contrary to the word of God in the scriptures.
Ever since the 1960s, the selection of schoolbooks in Texas has been a target for the religious right, which worried that schoolchildren were being indoctrinated in godless secularism, and political conservatives who felt that their kids were being given way too much propaganda about the positive aspects of the federal government. Mel Gabler, an oil company clerk, and his wife, Norma, who began their textbook crusade at their kitchen table, were the leaders of the first wave. They brought their supporters to State Board of Education meetings, unrolling their “scroll of shame,” which listed objections they had to the content of the current reading material. At times, the scroll was fifty-four feet long. Products of the Texas school system have the Gablers to thank for the fact that at one point the New Deal was axed from the timeline of significant events in American history.

Codename Section
12-12-2013, 06:22 PM
it speaks to the opposite…. united… one… :rolleyes:

we no longer live under the articles of confederation.

Let's just get rid of states then and go to your plan. :D

Codename Section
12-12-2013, 06:23 PM
What, you injun or sumpthin, sonny?

I'm 20%. But I look 100% European.

Green Arrow
12-12-2013, 06:25 PM
Let's just get rid of states then and go to your plan. :D

Indeed. A necessary requirement of "united" is multiple individual things working together​.

Chris
12-12-2013, 06:46 PM
it speaks to the opposite…. united… one… :rolleyes:

we no longer live under the articles of confederation.

Except for that pesky plural -s on States and that old 10th amendment.

jillian
12-12-2013, 07:00 PM
Except for that pesky plural -s on States and that old 10th amendment.

there is more than one state. But those annoying supremacy, commerce and general welfare clauses get in the way as does the caselaw.

The civil war is over. States rights types should stop trying to fight it by making up heretofore unheard of concepts of constitutional construction.

jillian
12-12-2013, 07:02 PM
Indeed. A necessary requirement of "united" is multiple individual things working together​.

Except if what you were saying were even close to true we'd still be living under the articles of confederation as you've been taught repeatedly.

Green Arrow
12-12-2013, 07:17 PM
Except if what you were saying were even close to true we'd still be living under the articles of confederation as you've been taught repeatedly.

So, "united" doesn't actually mean "united," then. What does it mean?

Chris
12-12-2013, 07:44 PM
there is more than one state. But those annoying supremacy, commerce and general welfare clauses get in the way as does the caselaw.

The civil war is over. States rights types should stop trying to fight it by making up heretofore unheard of concepts of constitutional construction.


Constitution is the supreme law.

Commerce has been tortured from is original meaning.

General welfare is the purpose for which other enumerated powers may be used.

No one's talking civil war.

Chris
12-12-2013, 07:45 PM
Except if what you were saying were even close to true we'd still be living under the articles of confederation as you've been taught repeatedly.

Actually we'd still be living under the Constitution and not a living document interpretation of it.

Philly Rabbit
12-13-2013, 08:44 AM
What an awful place it would be. Lilly white, Christian, with little tolerance of anything...


No it would be Lilly red, white, and blue with governments on the local level so close to the people that they couldn't get away with much of their evil corruption. And most liberals would all still be back in Europe wet dreaming about their heroes Marx and Engals.

jillian
12-13-2013, 08:45 AM
No it would be Lilly red, white, and blue with governments on the local level so close to the people that they couldn't get away with much of their evil corruption. And most liberals would all still be back in Europe wet dreaming about their heroes Marx and Engals.

yeah, and where you could re-enact jim crow laws and only teach bible study.

no doubt it would be the least productive, ugliest country ever.

Agravan
12-13-2013, 08:54 AM
yeah, and where you could re-enact jim crow laws and only teach bible study.

no doubt it would be the least productive, ugliest country ever.
You forget, conveniently, that Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats.
And your hatred of religion, in general, and Christianity in particular, makes the last part of your post even more idiotic than usual.

Philly Rabbit
12-13-2013, 08:54 AM
you mean it should go back to the native americans?

other than that, everyone came over by the boatload from europe… except for the south americans and anyone who came from everywhere that wasn't europe. (you do know there are lots of those, too, right?)


What happened to the Indians in America was the same thing that happened to Americans where the cigard' one mentioned about by the same federal government that could have never existed in the first place if the Thomas Jefferson confederates would have had their way from the get go.

Then we could have kept a few liberals around for amusement as reminders of what big government does to people like the Indians and people who detest centralized authority by such evil means if we ever let the liberals out of their amusement cages in our community central parks.

nic34
12-13-2013, 09:00 AM
It was gun lovin' wackos that ran rough-shod over the natives.... their politics or government size preferences notwithstanding...

nic34
12-13-2013, 09:11 AM
You forget, conveniently, that Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats.
And your hatred of religion, in general, and Christianity in particular, makes the last part of your post even more idiotic than usual.

Party is irrelevant, it's philosophy.

It was christians that practiced slavery, enacted jim crow laws, subjugated the natives forcing them to accept their religion. What's not to hate?

Agravan
12-13-2013, 09:13 AM
Party is irrelevant, it's philosophy.

It was christians that practiced slavery, enacted jim crow laws, subjugated the natives forcing them to accept their religion. What's not to hate?
Party is only irrelevant when it's the Democrats, right?

nic34
12-13-2013, 09:15 AM
Party is only irrelevant when it's the Democrats, right?

Like I said, it's philosophy. Always.

Chris
12-13-2013, 09:18 AM
It was gun lovin' wackos that ran rough-shod over the natives.... their politics or government size preferences notwithstanding...

Sorry, nic, it was mainly the US Government did that. If that's who you mean by gun lovin' wackos, we agree.

Codename Section
12-13-2013, 09:27 AM
It was gun lovin' wackos that ran rough-shod over the natives.... their politics or government size preferences notwithstanding...

...at the behest of the government. So it was an army (hence the uniforms) or militia (hence the bad uniforms).

Mister D
12-13-2013, 09:50 AM
It was gun lovin' wackos that ran rough-shod over the natives.... their politics or government size preferences notwithstanding...

4911

Mister D
12-13-2013, 09:54 AM
You forget, conveniently, that Jim Crow laws were enacted by Democrats.
And your hatred of religion, in general, and Christianity in particular, makes the last part of your post even more idiotic than usual.

She also supports a racist theocracy in the Middle East. Go figure.

Max Rockatansky
12-13-2013, 11:26 AM
Party is irrelevant, it's philosophy.

It was christians that practiced slavery, enacted jim crow laws, subjugated the natives forcing them to accept their religion. What's not to hate?

Are you saying none of the Native American tribes practiced slavery or subjugated members of other tribes? That only whites can hate, but not the "Noble Savage"?

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520226104
http://www.ucpress.edu/img/covers/isbn13/9780520226104.jpg