Gun control ... actual question

Correct...



Hume and Burke both rejected the concept of natural rights and thought that all rights were artificial in construct and came from the civil compact of government (civil rights v. natural rights). Here's a link to Burke, a fairly quick read.

In the end, either individually or collectively, you have no rights you're not willing to defend with life and limb.
 
Not even shin-kicking? Or nougies, or injun burns, or earlobe pinching? Really?

Suppose you were a firearms addict. I'd ask: since you don't mind shooting, would you mind being shot? And if not, why not post your address so we can find you? Yeah, just suppose. Is that a threat of violence?


I have never been punched; i punched an older bully in the nose when i was 5, thats it.

I’m bigger/taller than most and have ( i gather) an imposing physical presence, so people dont mess with me.

Plus, i’m good with words and am a fun, good lookin guy.

Lovable! Non violent.
 
Laurel has made it clear that some can get away with things that others can't. If you don't like it you could always ask for your money back. I could name a dozen people who have violated the rules worst than Lance did and they are still here. Maybe Laurel is getting tired of you.

What a wet diaper you are.:rolleyes:
 
Again, the idea of "natural rights," like a 'soul', cannot be verified. They leave no markers.

Tell that to the Zebra turned lion turds....or the rapist who got pumped full of .380ACP when he tried to rape the wrong woman.

Saying a right exists does not make it so. Rights are aspirations, not realities.

It is if you're willing to make it so.

Wrong....rights are what you make them, they can be as real as you are able to make them.

But don't let that stop you from wailing about the ultimate power of the collective or conflating social norms with natural rights :rolleyes:
 
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In the end, either individually or collectively, you have no rights you're not willing to defend with life and limb.

I think that's setting the bar a bit high. I can, for example, agree that I have the right to domain over my property. If, however, someone threatens that right, I can decide to forfeit it in the interests of protecting my own life or the lives of my children, or, in fact, anyone else. I can't think of any 'thing' I own that I'd be prepared to risk anyone's life for - even the life of the person stealing it.
 
I think that's setting the bar a bit high.

That's the reality of it.

I can, for example, agree that I have the right to domain over my property. If, however, someone threatens that right, I can decide to forfeit it in the interests of protecting my own life or the lives of my children, or, in fact, anyone else.

You can't forfeit something you never had in the first place.

I can't think of any 'thing' I own that I'd be prepared to risk anyone's life for - even the life of the person stealing it.

Then you will forever be a victim. I hope for your sake someone else is or you'll find yourself in a world of shit very quickly when things in the hood start to go sideways.
 
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I think that's setting the bar a bit high. I can, for example, agree that I have the right to domain over my property. If, however, someone threatens that right, I can decide to forfeit it in the interests of protecting my own life or the lives of my children, or, in fact, anyone else. I can't think of any 'thing' I own that I'd be prepared to risk anyone's life for - even the life of the person stealing it.

This is how so many millions have been dispossessed and sold into slavery or worse down through recorded history. This is how the totalitarian regimes in Germany, Soviet Union, and China, murdered almost a hundred million of their own people in the 20th Century.
 
This is how so many millions have been dispossessed and sold into slavery or worse down through recorded history. This is how the totalitarian regimes in Germany, Soviet Union, and China, murdered almost a hundred million of their own people in the 20th Century.

I think that's overstating and oversimplifying things a little bit.
 
We should note that Germany and Denmark, currently under foreign invasion, might become victims again.:D

I think the internet will change the face of war in the civilized world.

It appears, for example, that russia is waging war on the usa via the internet.
 
That's the reality of it.



You can't forfeit something you never had in the first place.



Then you will forever be a victim. I hope for your sake someone else is or you'll find yourself in a world of shit very quickly when things in the hood start to go sideways.

Obviously if you think property trumps a human's life, you're entitled to that opinion. I'm not going to bother arguing about it with you.
 
Obviously if you think property trumps a human's life, you're entitled to that opinion. I'm not going to bother arguing about it with you.

Thinking property trumps a humans life or not isn't the argument.

Weather or not you have any rights in the first place if you're not willing to assert them is.

If you just walk away from your property at the first sign of challenge to that right then you never had the right to that property in the first place.

It's my argument that if you're not willing to fight back in some capacity then it's not even really your property...you're just squatting on or holding stuff until someone comes and claims ownership.
 
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Thinking property trumps a humans life or not isn't the argument.

Weather or not you have any rights in the first place if you're not willing to assert them is.

If you just walk away from your property at the first sign of challenge to that right then you never had the right to that property in the first place.

It's my argument that if you're not willing to fight back in some capacity then it's not even really your property...you're just squatting on or holding stuff until someone comes and claims ownership.

Where exactly did I say I would "walk away from [my] property at the first sign of challenge"? What I actually said was "If, however, someone threatens that right, I can decide to forfeit it in the interests of protecting my own life or the lives of my children, or, in fact, anyone else." I guess I didn't specifically state that the threat to my life was the condition on which I'd be forfeiting, but given that it was in response to the suggestion that "you have no rights you're not willing to defend with life and limb", I sort of thought it was pretty clear.

However, I'll admit I set that bar pretty low, and doubt that I would choose to fight back at all to protect property. (My safety, and the safety of my family, is another thing entirely.) That doesn't mean the property isn't mine. I'm part of a system in which that right is protected by things like law.
 
I wouldn't use lethal force to protect my property. That is a personal choice - I value human life (even bad guys) more than I value my property. It's only stuff. I have insurance. I'd gladly trade all my stuff for a clean conscience.
 
I wouldn't use lethal force to protect my property. That is a personal choice - I value human life (even bad guys) more than I value my property. It's only stuff. I have insurance. I'd gladly trade all my stuff for a clean conscience.

Is it actually legal to kill if they're stealing your stuff, but posing no clear threat to you?
 
You had previously said that natural law applied to all living things, yes?

Ferae Naturae confirmed the biblical man's position at the top of the pecking order of dominion over animals.

Hence the conflict in your position.

Still - not really. Ferae Naturae is a doctrine under Common Law, so it not really related to Natural Rights (a philosophy). Common law (and Ferae Naturae) preceded Natural Rights by centuries. It's roots were theological (the whole dominion thing).
 
When dealing with a Criminal you can be sure of only 1 thing, it's a roll of the dice. You're betting your life or that of a loved one (depending if they are present) on his or her morality, if they are jacked up on something or if they are just filthy scum.
 
Is it actually legal to kill if they're stealing your stuff, but posing no clear threat to you?

In general - no. You can defend yourself and your property (in the US), but the force used must be restrained to that which is sufficient to remove the threat. That opens a lot of wiggle room because if the threat escalates, so does your ability to use force.

Inside your home the Castle Doctrine applies if the threat is to you (or you are protecting another) - and it does include lethal force against assault (disproportionate force). If you wake up and find someone in your house or on your property you can use force sufficient to remove them from the property, but you cannot just flat out kill them. However, if they pose no clear threat to you, you'll most likely be convicted of murder in one degree or another.

If it's just you and the intruder and you use lethal force - well, then it's your word against a dead persons. However, if there are any other witnesses, they investigators and prosecutors will go over the whole thing with a fine toothed comb and if your use of threat was disproportionate or inappropraite, you will most likely be charged.
 
Where exactly did I say I would "walk away from [my] property at the first sign of challenge"?

What I actually said was "If, however, someone threatens that right, I can decide to forfeit it ."

I see those as the same thing.


I guess I didn't specifically state that the threat to my life was the condition on which I'd be forfeiting, but given that it was in response to the suggestion that "you have no rights you're not willing to defend with life and limb", I sort of thought it was pretty clear.

It's irrelevant, at the end of the day you walked away and the property is forfeited to the new owner.

However, I'll admit I set that bar pretty low, and doubt that I would choose to fight back at all to protect property. That doesn't mean the property isn't mine.

Yes, it does....it means you're just holding it until the owner shows up and claims it.

I'm part of a system in which that right is protected by things like law.

AHHH....and by law you mean other people to come do the violence for you.

Not quite the same but a close 2nd, hope they are good.

Is it actually legal to kill if they're stealing your stuff, but posing no clear threat to you?

Depends on the state.

In most red states like Texas you can blast a bitch for stealing your hubcaps, curb stomp them and the cops will just thank you for saving the taxpayers a bunch of money on court costs.

In blue states you have to wait for cops or your going to prison for murder, doesn't matter if they are strangling your kid, wait for the cops. That murderous rape machine violating your loved ones is more important than your loved ones much less your property. You should stand there and watch them get murdered while you wait for the cops to talk them out of it......because progress!!!
 
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One of the WTF threads here recently hosted a batch of images of creatures devouring other creatures. There's a worried-looking mouse peering from the mouth of a satisfied-looking bullfrog. I guess their right to life is conditional: you've a right to live until you are eaten. Everything eventually is eaten. Therefore the right to life must be fought for, to delay lunchtime

Also, evolution, the "survival of change over time," has nothing to do with "survival of the fittest," a phrase Darwin never used. Adaptation to specific conditions drives survival. 'Fitness' becomes circular reasoning: it's fit because it survived, and it survived because it's fit. Duh. And non-living things evolve. Evolution has become the standard model for many fields.

Ants herd enslaved honeydew aphids. Also, And,

Back to natural rights. If they follow the "right to life" model, then all rights exist only when they're fought for. Our right to free speech dies when we're gagged, as does our right to peaceably assemble when thugs in or out of uniform inflict violence. And my right to arm rubber duckies... we'll skip that.

As several others commented in the interim, a "right" is philosophical, the actual exercise or not of that right, the respect of for that right, the disrespect for it, those happen routinely. Rights are often best illustrated in either the honor of or the breach of. Concept vs. Expression. Concepts are universal and constant. Expression is individual and varied.

In the case of the 2nd Amendment the concept is the right to life (natural right) and the expression is the protected civil right (the law of the US). The right to life is universal, the method of expression of that right - greater or lesser adherence to it, especially in the case of self-defense, is variable.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" comes to us from Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Biology" and then was subsequently used by Darwin in "The Variation of Animals..." and then actually added to his "On The Origin of Species" in the 5th Edition, where it remains today. Darwin liked the phrase and so, with Spencer's permission (the two were fellow academics) adopted it.

Your right to life doesn't end when you do. The right remains. You don't. Such is the way the world. It holds to for civil rights as well - the right exists regardless of your personal expression of the right. As an individual you can always choose not to exercise a particular right - sometimes the choice is made for you.
 
In general - no. You can defend yourself and your property (in the US), but the force used must be restrained to that which is sufficient to remove the threat. That opens a lot of wiggle room because if the threat escalates, so does your ability to use force.

Inside your home the Castle Doctrine applies if the threat is to you (or you are protecting another) - and it does include lethal force against assault (disproportionate force). If you wake up and find someone in your house or on your property you can use force sufficient to remove them from the property, but you cannot just flat out kill them. However, if they pose no clear threat to you, you'll most likely be convicted of murder in one degree or another.

If it's just you and the intruder and you use lethal force - well, then it's your word against a dead persons. However, if there are any other witnesses, they investigators and prosecutors will go over the whole thing with a fine toothed comb and if your use of threat was disproportionate or inappropraite, you will most likely be charged.

That seems reasonable. It is kind of freaky having someone in your house in the middle of the night, but I didn't really feel freaked out enough to actually kill them. Or even really injure them - I just wanted them gone. Although I might be a little more forceful in that desire now I have children.
 
As several others commented in the interim, a "right" is philosophical, the actual exercise or not of that right, the respect of for that right, the disrespect for it, those happen routinely. Rights are often best illustrated in either the honor of or the breach of. Concept vs. Expression. Concepts are universal and constant. Expression is individual and varied.

In the case of the 2nd Amendment the concept is the right to life (natural right) and the expression is the protected civil right (the law of the US). The right to life is universal, the method of expression of that right - greater or lesser adherence to it, especially in the case of self-defense, is variable.

The phrase "survival of the fittest" comes to us from Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Biology" and then was subsequently used by Darwin in "The Variation of Animals..." and then actually added to his "On The Origin of Species" in the 5th Edition, where it remains today. Darwin liked the phrase and so, with Spencer's permission (the two were fellow academics) adopted it.

Your right to life doesn't end when you do. The right remains. You don't. Such is the way the world. It holds to for civil rights as well - the right exists regardless of your personal expression of the right. As an individual you can always choose not to exercise a particular right - sometimes the choice is made for you.

I think in the example Hypoxia gave, one could also argue that the mouse has the 'right' to fight for its life. It's just that the outcome is a bit inevitable.

... but that does make me think that I do believe animals have rights. So does that mean I think they're a 'natural' thing?
 
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