Will the Second Amendment survive?

[piercehawkeye45]

UG, you don't think that you might be a bit biased as well? It is natural for you and Radar to side with unalienable rights because your views do not allow you to have any leeway with those issue so making it absolute works best for your interests. While I and others accept some leeway in some scenarios so I will naturally side with the idea that rights were created by society. Now where we can see how our argument started, lets do this in a more laid out and break this down step by step. Remember, this is just philosophy so there are no right or wrong answers.

By this I am not saying you do not have an answer, just I don't want to put words in your mouth.

Who gives us our rights?
You - ???
Me - We give ourselves rights by justifying our actions but society uses social norms and laws to influence which ones are more important.

What would humans be like without rights?
You - ???
Me - Humans cannot get rid of rights as long as we justify our actions. If we did that, we would still be able to perform the same actions like how any animal can defend itself (right to life) dig a den (right to property...kind of) or hump on my leg (pursuit of happiness) but we would just not justify our actions like how animals don't need to justify their actions.

If rights are just justifications, and humans are the only species that need to justify our actions, we can say that rights would not be discovered/created without the evolution of humans. Explain if you disagree with that logic.

When did the first human group discover/create rights?
You - ???
Me - When justification was needed to explain one's actions.

Did rights exist before humans evolved?
You - ???
Me - No, humans created rights so there was no concept of rights before humans evolved.

If you answer those questions I can get a better idea of what you believe and then we can further this debate.

Making a philosophy fact is exactly the thing that started our nation, I'll have you keep permanently in mind.

We didn't make philosophy fact anymore than Iran made their Islamic philosophy fact or the Soviets made their philosophy fact. We all just made our philosophy into reality. Some will do better than others but that does not make a particular philosophy fact because of the enormous variation of initial conditions that can make or break a theory. Individual preference has a play in that as well because many Islamic conservatives would say their lifestyle is fact just as quickly as you have.

This is not subject to proof or to disproof, Pierce. That you would complain about someone telling you of the freer way and insist on taking the less free way tells us something about your thinking: that it is not free, nor remarkably adult.

At its best, the Libertarian Party is the Party of Adult Thinking. This sometimes leaves the libertarian thinker just a bit uncomfortable. But that's the price of freedom -- and if you can have freedom at that price, that's a damned good bargain.

Oh c'mon. Can you at least try not to be so extremely biased?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Not and remain a decent moral being, no. Not for all the -- youthful -- piercehawkeye sophistry under Heaven. You like to clatter on, and voluminously, but in the end it's all just sophistry, without much wisdom in it.

Can you not abandon a nigh-fascist evil and join the people of freedom?

[classicman]

I thought he laid it out pretty nice for ya UG - why not answer his questions?

[Radar]

Why should he answer pierce's questions when pierce never answered mine?

[Undertoad]

From where I'm sitting, PH laid it out extremely well, very well done, and UG evaded it with utter shameful weakness and an ad hominem jab.

One signal of how strong your philosophy is, is how thoroughly you are willing to sincerely test it. Not just amongst others, but in your own mind as well. An avoidance of tests is telling.

What we repeatedly see from you, UG, is knee-jerk avoidance with flowery language. UG, you're not just hiding things from us, you're hiding things from yourself. All these high-falutin' vocab words are just nuanced obfustication. You believe if you *say* it smart, you don't have to actually *be* smart. And every time you're called on it, you dig an ostrich hole and hide in plain sight.

A more confident person would be embarrassed by this behavior. A smart but self-centered person says, "I know I am right. Bring on all challenges so I can laugh at them." A wiser person says, "I think I am right, but I am not the arbiter of truth. I have not learned all I can learn. So I will honestly check myself at every opportunity. Bring all challenges so I can consider them."

A smart person of weak character says, "These people are not smart enough for me to learn from." A wise person of strong character says, "People are of differing intelligence, but all from different points of view. All people have found their own truths, from perspectives I cannot ever share; therefore, there are no people I cannot learn from."

[Aliantha]

I'd like to know why public school education makes a difference to this debate.

Edit: for the record, I think it's arrogant to ask a question like that and not explain why, especially when pierce asked for an explanation after answering the question.

[Ibby]

Amen, UT.

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by Radar

Why should he answer pierce's questions when pierce never answered mine?

This one?

You say society determines our rights. What is society? A group of individuals. How large a group? If everyone on your block says you don't have a right to live, does that mean it's ok for them to kill you? How about everyone in your town? Would it be ok these people to tell you that you don't own your own body? Does it take everyone in your county? Your state? Your country? How many people exactly make up "society"?

I said I wasn't going to get into that because I have not met a single person who doesn't think that he or she does not have the right to life so trying to take away or debate the right to life becomes pointless but I will try to explain further.

First, I have changed my stance slightly from just society to a more justification standpoint. If someone attacks me with a knife I will defend myself because I think I have a right to life, no matter if society thinks I do or not. Like morals, how strong someone believes in which rights are worth defending are individual decisions, but society will play a role in molding and enforcing those rights.

Since right to life is basically universally accepted I will not get into that right now but if we look at the difference between gun culture in country of America, where belief in the right to bear arms is extremely high, and Britain, where belief in the right to bear arms is lower. Now, it is stupid to say that genetics has anything to do with views because most "rednecks" (I am not using that in a bad way, just a label for whites that live in the country in lack of better word) are Brits, so we can narrow that down to sociological effects.

In "redneck America", the feeling that we have a strong right to bear arms is enforced socially in many ways (preaching, seeing guns in households, learning to shoot guns early, learning importance of guns and gun safety, media) while that enforcement is not present in Britain so it is only natural for "redneck America" to defend the right to bear arms more than in Britain. These are obviously generalizations, it is extremely possible that someone raised in "redneck America" doesn't believe so highly about zero gun laws while there is an equally high possibility that someone in Britain thinks about gun laws in the same way as you Radar.

That is how I believe rights work. They seem to work in the same way I have seen morals work.

Now I will try to dwell into right to life. Now, as I said earlier, I haven't met a single person that doesn't think they have a right to life so not only will every society have a strong social enforcement of the right to life, the individuals that do stray from that will not last long and will be wiped from the gene pool. So assuming that everyone believes they have a right to life, our views come together where there is ideally no justification to taking a life. It would be seen the same, but just not to that extreme, as a group that forces another group to have extreme gun laws against their will or a group that forces another group to have zero gun laws when they do want some.

If a group does not want the right to own assault rifles, then enforce gun laws, its their choice. If a group does want the right to own assault rifles, then don't have gun laws, its their choice. If you live in a society where the sociological voice goes against your personal views, you can either deal with it, fight to get it changed, or move.

To answer your questions more throughly, when I say society, I am making a generalization about what that society says. It obviously gets extremely complicated when we deal with societies that are split on issues and getting into subgroups ("redneck" and Urban America are different societies but both part of American society).

Hopefully that explains my view that guns laws should be democratically voted on and enforced by state, country, or city governments because "redneck" and urban America have such different views on gun laws and rights a universal law would screw over one of the two groups. It makes things more complicated but it is the only solution that does not totally violate a group's wishes.

[deadbeater]

Originally Posted by Radar

As long as they can store them safely without endangering their neighbors with leaking radiation, I don't see a problem with it.

Then prey tell me why Iran does not have the right to have a nuke?

[Aliantha]

That's an excellent question deadbeater. I can't wait for the answer. lol

[Radar]

Originally Posted by deadbeater

Then prey tell me why Iran does not have the right to have a nuke?

They do have that right. All sovereign nations have the right of self-determination and can choose for themselves which weapons they will or won't develop.

The problem is that those nations who got the technology first, like to bully around other nations and say they can't or shouldn't have them.

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by Radar

They do have that right. All sovereign nations have the right of self-determination and can choose for themselves which weapons they will or won't develop.

The problem is that those nations who got the technology first, like to bully around other nations and say they can't or shouldn't have them.

Like the United States?

[lookout123]

to be fair radar has always stayed consistent on that point. he has said in the past that everyone has the right to have every weapon. they simply don't have the right to use those weapons for anything but their own defense. IIRC

[Aliantha]

So he would have been happy enough if Iraq had had nukes and used them on the US when their country was illegally invaded?

what a nice mess we'd be in now if that were the case.

[Radar]

If Iraq had nukes, America would not have invaded. Bullies like Bush are only interested in easy victims.

It seems these days the only way to stop America from invading your country is to get nukes.