Bush will veto hate crimes bill

[Kulindahr]

Yes, it is on the Senate, now. It has been renamed the Matthew Shepard Act, and will most likely be passed sometime this summer.

The bill does not presently have enough support to overcome a presidential veto.

Who's shirking?

 

[White Eagle]

It's a human right, which anyone who's ever actually studied the subject would know. It's the outgrowth of the right to self-defense.

Asking if an individual should be allowed to own a nuclear bomb merely shows ignorance of the whole subject. Engage brain, please -- like, do some reading, before spouting nonsense.

Handguns are for defending your person -- not mowing people down. Clearly you know nothing about firearms -- only in the movies are handguns ever used for "mowing people down", and that by use of a level of skill that is improbable at best in real life.
And the only people I want to "mow down" are individuals set on doing violence to me and/or my loved ones and/or property.
Properly, owning a tank should be legal -- for people for whom a tank is appropriate, i.e. members (plural) of a well-regulated, i.e. disciplined, trained, and drilled, militia. That was the case in colonial times, though the closest thing they had to a tank was a field piece. The same goes for a fighter plane.

The origins of my belief are ancient China, Rome, and various philosophers including Aristotle, Cicero, and Machiavelli. And there are no arbitrary lines: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" means precisely what it did when it was written, but the writers took a good education for granted: "the people" as individuals are permitted to, and ought to, own and carry personal weapons; "the people" as militia are permitted to, and are intended to, have crewed weapons -- all sufficient to overthrow the government.

And it all rests on the only logical foundation for morality: You own yourself. Any other philosophy is a cop-out, a shirking of responsibility, and a refusal to stand up and be your own person, a human being of dignity and worth who displays it by being willing to defend himself against threats personal or corporate.

Why isn't this convo in its own thread . I came here to read about the hate crimes bill.!!!!

 

[Boogerqueesha]

WARNING: *NOT* ABOUT THE HATE CRIMES BILL

It's a human right, which anyone who's ever actually studied the subject would know. It's the outgrowth of the right to self-defense.

Asking if an individual should be allowed to own a nuclear bomb merely shows ignorance of the whole subject. Engage brain, please -- like, do some reading, before spouting nonsense.

Handguns are for defending your person -- not mowing people down. Clearly you know nothing about firearms -- only in the movies are handguns ever used for "mowing people down", and that by use of a level of skill that is improbable at best in real life.
And the only people I want to "mow down" are individuals set on doing violence to me and/or my loved ones and/or property.
Properly, owning a tank should be legal -- for people for whom a tank is appropriate, i.e. members (plural) of a well-regulated, i.e. disciplined, trained, and drilled, militia. That was the case in colonial times, though the closest thing they had to a tank was a field piece. The same goes for a fighter plane.

The origins of my belief are ancient China, Rome, and various philosophers including Aristotle, Cicero, and Machiavelli. And there are no arbitrary lines: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" means precisely what it did when it was written, but the writers took a good education for granted: "the people" as individuals are permitted to, and ought to, own and carry personal weapons; "the people" as militia are permitted to, and are intended to, have crewed weapons -- all sufficient to overthrow the government.

And it all rests on the only logical foundation for morality: You own yourself. Any other philosophy is a cop-out, a shirking of responsibility, and a refusal to stand up and be your own person, a human being of dignity and worth who displays it by being willing to defend himself against threats personal or corporate.

Ad hominem- it describes your style of argument. FYI- attacking a person does NOT invalidate his/her arguments. You must counter the argument itself; when you say "that's wrong cause you're stupid," you LOSE. A nuclear bomb would be a wonderful instrument to defend myself with. If several were to be triggered to detonate at the time (and perhaps location) of my death, I doubt any sane person would try to kill me.

My arguments are very straightforward, of a fact-then-analysis nature. Please mold your own to something similar, for the sake of my understanding. Invoking the names of ancient civilizations and philosophers, but then citing a text thats only ~216 years old... does not logically follow, to me.

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The use of technology changes the nature of human rights. Technology of this sort is, by nature, not natural (har har). If the philosophers of the past were to be told that one person (or even a group of 'well trained' persons) could theoretically make the decision to destroy all of humanity at the push of a button (you might have to explain what a 'button' is), I'm sure they would say that said person(s) would need to have his/her/their freedoms restricted. The question is, how far do you want to take it? The capability to destroy humanity with nuclear bombs? to destroy a city? to destroy a skyscraper with a jet plane? a house with a tank? Or just a couple dozen people inside a classroom building, with a handgun or two? If you cite ancient philosophers, restrict your argument to the 'arms' of their time, please.

The Virginia Tech massacre will made into a movie , I'm sure, but regardless, I disagree with the opinion that handguns are only used in movies to mow people down. The use of handguns in mowing people down is not only well documented, but occurred in the media spotlight very recently. I find it laughable that the right to use something that has only been around for a few measly centuries, could possibly be a 'human right'.

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human right
noun
(law) any basic right or freedom to which all human beings are entitled and in whose exercise a government may not interfere (including rights to life and liberty as well as freedom of thought and expression and equality before the law)

ALL human beings. This includes insane people, retarded people, and BLIND people. The right to own a gun is not only *not intrinsic* to human existence, but it would be preposterous to offer every human being such a right.

 

[Boogerqueesha]

As for the hate crimes bill, Kulindahr-

It is not only the practical aspect, but the symbolic aspect of this bill that matters. By signing into law this bill, our government is acknowledging homosexuals as a group that is deserving of rights.

Even if the law makes no noticeable changes to practice in law enforcement (which remains to be seen), it sets a precedence. ALL three branches of our government are based ENTIRELY off of 1. interpretation, and 2. precedence, and it is of the most vast importance.

 

[White Eagle]

T-Zero
That wasn't particularly aimed at you. I've been sucked into bearing arms with Kuli before. I just wish he would stop hijacking threads.
This veto of the bill is the sickest thing bush has done with bills yet. Nothing surprises me anymore about bush.

 

[Kulindahr]

Why isn't this convo in its own thread . I came here to read about the hate crimes bill.!!!!

Because there are some topics that just aren't tolerated as solutions to things, so one has to stand up for them when attacked.

 

[Kulindahr]

T-Zero
That wasn't particularly aimed at you. I've been sucked into bearing arms with Kuli before. I just wish he would stop hijacking threads.
This veto of the bill is the sickest thing bush has done with bills yet. Nothing surprises me anymore about bush.

I don't hijack threads. I make legitimate comments, and get attacked by the same tired arguments (usually -- T-zero has come at it from a new perspective). So I defend what I said, as I have here.
It's odd that people get so vigorous in their dislike of this one right, when they like so many others.

Bush vetoing this was predictable -- he doesn't grasp human rights any more than anyone who denies the right to self-defense with the means of your choice... maybe even less.
Okay, forget the "maybe".

It makes me feel like getting out a rainbow thong, rainbow chaps, my Gun Owners of America shirt, my NRA Life Member hat, put them on and strap on my... well, I should buy a cheap throw-away, since the uniformed thugs will probably confiscate whatever I wear--- revolver, and go attend church where Bush does, and then stand up during the sermon and ask, "Where does it say some are made less in the image of God than others"?

 

[Kulindahr]

As for the hate crimes bill, Kulindahr-

It is not only the practical aspect, but the symbolic aspect of this bill that matters. By signing into law this bill, our government is acknowledging homosexuals as a group that is deserving of rights.

Even if the law makes no noticeable changes to practice in law enforcement (which remains to be seen), it sets a precedence. ALL three branches of our government are based ENTIRELY off of 1. interpretation, and 2. precedence, and it is of the most vast importance.

Symbols can be powerful, and on that basis alone it should have been signed.
As a precedent... in three generations, gays arming themselves will still be advisable. I know from experience that there are places in this country where a black man walking along a country road would never be seen alive again, and those laws have been in place for a long time.

Right now I'm very, very tired of people who don't believe "that all men are created equal"... some idiot group in Oregon just filed to do the petition thing and pull the new law granting civil unions with equal rights to marriages onto the ballot, which if I understand it correctly means the law is suspended until the next election. And I'm really tired of people who claim to believe in the Creator not granting the truth of what that Creator had this country founded on: "... and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...."

 

[Kulindahr]

WARNING: *NOT* ABOUT THE HATE CRIMES BILL

Ad hominem- it describes your style of argument. FYI- attacking a person does NOT invalidate his/her arguments. You must counter the argument itself; when you say "that's wrong cause you're stupid," you LOSE. A nuclear bomb would be a wonderful instrument to defend myself with. If several were to be triggered to detonate at the time (and perhaps location) of my death, I doubt any sane person would try to kill me.

My arguments are very straightforward, of a fact-then-analysis nature. Please mold your own to something similar, for the sake of my understanding. Invoking the names of ancient civilizations and philosophers, but then citing a text thats only ~216 years old... does not logically follow, to me.

------------------------------------------------------------

The use of technology changes the nature of human rights. Technology of this sort is, by nature, not natural (har har). If the philosophers of the past were to be told that one person (or even a group of 'well trained' persons) could theoretically make the decision to destroy all of humanity at the push of a button (you might have to explain what a 'button' is), I'm sure they would say that said person(s) would need to have his/her/their freedoms restricted. The question is, how far do you want to take it? The capability to destroy humanity with nuclear bombs? to destroy a city? to destroy a skyscraper with a jet plane? a house with a tank? Or just a couple dozen people inside a classroom building, with a handgun or two? If you cite ancient philosophers, restrict your argument to the 'arms' of their time, please.

The Virginia Tech massacre will made into a movie , I'm sure, but regardless, I disagree with the opinion that handguns are only used in movies to mow people down. The use of handguns in mowing people down is not only well documented, but occurred in the media spotlight very recently. I find it laughable that the right to use something that has only been around for a few measly centuries, could possibly be a 'human right'.

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ALL human beings. This includes insane people, retarded people, and BLIND people. The right to own a gun is not only *not intrinsic* to human existence, but it would be preposterous to offer every human being such a right.

There was no ad hominem; I'm sorry your imagination saw one. I saw a very idiotic, irrelevant point that wasn't worth the effort to attack, and pointed out that making such a statement showed ignorance and the need for study -- all true.

And if you truly believe what you say about atomic weapons, you belong where the men in white coats can look after you; you are not fit for holding company with civilized people. And that's another fact, not an attack.

And I'm sorry you can't follow thought through history. It's simple: clear thinkers through history have all seen that the right to keep and bear arms is an intrinsic right; it is the necessary expression of the right of self-defense (which keeps getting mislabeled as "security of person"), which is part of human dignity and the value of the individual. That's what I was pointing out with my sampling of thought over the last several thousand years.

You don't seem able to grasp principles.
Technology does not alter rights except in this: if the technology available to the wrongdoer improves, the technology to which the ordinary person has a right rises commensurately. Every single one of those philosophers, including such as James Madison and Patrick Henry, would agree; indeed, they'd think it was obvious, unless you want to give the advantage to the wrongdoer.

Oh -- if you want to toss around Latin, try non sequitur: you have several, the most egregious of which is spouting about blowing people up with atomic weapons. That doesn't relate to the discussion at all, unless you're proposing (as you already did) that we fight hate crimes with nukes.

Your statement about handgun use, joined with the comment about Virginia Tech, shows total ignorance of the subject. I'll concede this: it would be possible to mow people down with handguns, if (and only if) you had a lot of people with handguns going for the same set of multiple targets in a pre-planned, highly organized fashion.

If those students had been permitted the exercise of their right to self-defense, there wouldn't have been such a slaughter at V. Tech -- there might not have been one at all, since the great majority of mass shooters pick on places they know have been made victim-rich.
And so long as gays avoid being like frogs in a pond, and instead do as the Pink Pistols recommend, Bush's veto won't harm us. In fact, if a couple of gays defended themselves to the mortal detriment of their bashers, people would have to sit up and be more respectful. So long as bashers think we are sheep, they'll bash us, but once they realize that we are aware of, and will use, our God-given right to stand up like men....
well, that's a powerful symbol, too, kind of like the American Revolution.

Heh -- I want a rainbow t-shirt with that snake image from the Revolution, the one that said, "Don't tread on me."

Oh -- your comment about human rights misses one point: all of those can be limited when for a single person the exercise of it is a clear and present danger to others. We limit free speech, freedom of the press, and others on that basis quite regularly.
So your "ALL PEOPLE" argument is empty.

 

[Boogerqueesha]

There was no ad hominem; I'm sorry your imagination saw one. I saw a very idiotic, irrelevant point that wasn't worth the effort to attack, and pointed out that making such a statement showed ignorance and the need for study -- all true.

Yes, yes, we've all seen it before. Once you tell someone they're using Ad hominem, they almost ALWAYS blindly spout more of it out at you. Come on, don't be boring. I hope you know how to use your precious gun better than you know how to use your words- perhaps then, you could successfully intimidate me.

Address my points- be brave, I know you can do it. My objective in posting was not to argue with some baby who's only methods of argument are cliché diversionary tactics. Reason with reason, please, or I shant reason with you at all.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yes, yes, we've all seen it before. Once you tell someone they're using Ad hominem, they almost ALWAYS blindly spout more of it out at you. Come on, don't be boring. I hope you know how to use your precious gun better than you know how to use your words- perhaps then, you could successfully intimidate me.

Address my points- be brave, I know you can do it. My objective in posting was not to argue with some baby who's only methods of argument are cliché diversionary tactics. Reason with reason, please, or I shant reason with you at all.

I addressed your points.
And you retreated again into attacking something that isn't there -- except in your post just now.

 

[Boogerqueesha]

I addressed your points.
And you retreated again into attacking something that isn't there -- except in your post just now.

Well then. If stating that

I saw a very idiotic, irrelevant point that wasn't worth the effort to attack, and pointed out that making such a statement showed ignorance and the need for study -- all true.

is what you consider having addressed a point, it would logically follow that...

Your posts demonstrate a testosterone-motivated lack of common sense, probably caused by a want to compensate for the blow that your self-perceived masculinity took when you identified yourself as a gay man.

Such a lack of common sense, I deem unworthy of attack. By your own standards, and half-logic, there's nothing more to say; I've addressed everything that you've ever said Granted, I think your lack of logic is deplorable... but an eye for an eye, right?

Alright, so stating a subjective opinion, and then declaring that it is 'all true'... no, no, not a logical fallacy at all. Seriously, now, think of what you say before you say it, Oregon boy. Some of us on the internet grew up amidst civilization, you know.

Tata, and have fun.

 

[Centexfarmer]

Does this thread have a point anymore?

 

[LarsVenice]

Re: White House opposes hate crime bill

Because I live in the "redneck" state of Texas, which is also in the Bible belt, I have had many friends killed by people who were motivated by hatred of gays. I had one close friend killed in 1985, and the two guys which murdered my friend got five years. The small sentence was because my friend was gay.

If hatred of gays is the motivation of a crime, then it is relevant.

The point is that laws are not applied equally. We all know it is okay to kill a gay, because it is God's will. (I don't believe this, but we know that has been used more than once to justify a murder.)

I was practically run out of Texas, and I never looked back after I left, but it was very scary living there. I used to hitchhike in the 1970s, usually between Austin and Houston, and I would never accept rides from rednecks. I would take rides from blacks, even though police in Austin warned me not to. Once I got a ride to Smithville by a group of young blacks, and they gave me some money and asked me to go into a store to buy beer for them. I couldn't understand why they didn't just go into the store themselves and buy the beer, but once I got inside, it was abundantly clear. Because I had long hair, I was lucky that they sold beer even to me.

I used to get called all kinds of names walking innocently down the street in Houston - guys in pickups would drive through the gay neighborhoods to harass young gay guys on the street for who knows what reason. I've also had beer bottles thrown at me while crossing the street, and this was not because I was a random person - it was because I was identified as being gay.

 

[Kulindahr]

Does this thread have a point anymore?

Yeah -- it's called attack Kulindahr personally because you can't deal with the logic of his arguments.
Oh -- first it was attack Kulindahr personally because when he says gays should stand up for themselves against hate, that isn't acceptable.

I keep trying to get it back on track, but people seem to prefer to attack me for supporting civil rights and gays having dignity as human beings.

BTW: at my first ever Pride, last summer, the Mathew Shepard booth was right across from the Pink Pistols booth I was manning. For some pretty deep personal reasons, I had to go talk to them, and guess what? They agree that in much of the country, the best thing gays can do against hate crimes is be armed.

It's despicable that Bush vetoed the bill, but that just means gays have to stand up for themselves -- which they did anyway, but now it's more important. Many police departments or sheriff's departments will take this message as saying they don't have to watch out for gays -- which many weren't doing anyway. The only rational recourse is to take our delegated police power back into our own hands, exercise our inherent right to defend ourselves, and let the bashers know that we value our lives -- enough to "stop the threat", as the police say.

That would also let Bush and others who value the Second Amendment know that we, however much they may despise us, are free men.
And that works, BTW -- I've talked with other when I'm out shooting, who are shocked that gays would shoot... and then think about it, and come back and say, Well, maybe you people are okay. It's a way of "reaching across the aisle", or the gap, to the realm of those who generally most hate us, and make friends within the enemy camp.
And it would be sort of the ultimate put-down on Bush: you may think we don't deserve equal rights, but look; by the right you think of so highly, we're Americans, just like all the rest. So suck it up, and sign the bloody bill!

 

[gewhite3]

Kulindahr,

Just a minor correction to your post above. Bush hasn't vetoed the bill yet, the House has passed and it has yet to be passed by the Senate.

 

[Kulindahr]

You turn so many things on their heads here it's hard to know where to begin. But...

As I stated, none of my comments have been about pro or con for the right to gun ownership. It is a hijack when you attempt to turn the discussion from the actual issues being discussed into a pro or con argument for the rights of gun ownership. The posts have been about the contradictions within your own arguments and contesting some of your assertions about security of person not being a human right but a particular method of self-defense being a universal right. Not even an assertion by you originally that self-defense was a human right, but only that a particular and singular method of defense was a universal right. That is an additional issue that was raised, not the pro or con of gun ownership.

Your comments have indeed been about the right to gun ownership, because you've denied it's a right. I didn't turn the discussion at all; I went to the root.
"Security of person" can't be a right because there's no way to secure it. If it can't be secured, it can't be a right -- a goal, perhaps, but not a right.
I pointed out the universal and inherent right to keep and bear arms because that's what was denied. Implicit in that is self-defense, which shouldn't need to be stated, so I didn't originally. But if self-defense is a right, its means must be unlimited, else the right is being restricted. Self-defense relies on the self, and it is the decision of the self, and no other, what defense shall be used.

For example, you argued that there was no such thing as the right to security of person, yet then you argued the rights of self-defense. The rights of self-defense are predicated upon there being a right to security of person. Without a right to security of person there can be no rights of self-defense as you have no right to security of person.

Security of person is a goal, not a right -- it cannot be secured, only attempted. Self-defense is the means to that goal; it isn't derived from it. If you want to restate it and call it a right to guard the security of your person, that works -- and it is broader than self-defense that way, since it includes naturally guarding family, property, and privacy.

You have argued that indivduals have rights, but that states do not have rights. But then you engage in arguments about soveignty and treason. Not only sovereinty of persons but sovereignty of governments. No one has stated civil rights and States Rights are synonymous or that civil rights and human rights are synonymous. But they are each rights which speak to or inform the ability to regulate behavior or not regulate behavior, the behavior of individuals or the behavior of states. The claim is also made that you are failing to make any distinctions between any of these things in your argumentation. You simply make blanket assertions such as "gun ownership is universal right" when the right is the right to self-defense, when guns are merely one means or method of defense and neither create or remove the universal right of self-defense itself.

I don't see where I've mentioned sovereignty of governments except as a response, and to point out that any such sovereignty is derived, as government is derived.
Gun ownership is a universal right, because if it is forbidden, the right to self-defense -- to guard the security of your person -- is eviscerated. A person may assign exercise of that to someone else, as in hiring a bodyguard, but to take it away without consent is coercion, and coercion is always tyranny. Yes, guns are a means -- but they are the means available to the violator of security of person, and so they are automatically included in the right to guard security of person. To deny that is to assert that the predator has greater right to life than the prey, when the reverse is true.

You refer to older philosophers as the basis for your arguments. However, those older philosophers including Plato didn't discuss rights, they didn't recognize rights. They were concerned with what they called "natural privileges"(entitlements). Some of those entitlements you could only obtain by what class you were born into or to what state you belonged and they were non-transferrable and non-universal. Also, when it came to their discussions of state and individuals they also were discussing partly what we would now consider to be civil laws but mostly they were discussing what the function and purpose of the state was and what the function and purpose of the individual was in relationship to the state, but again not in regard to rights but in regard to obligations and duties and what obligations and duties came with which privileges.

Cicero and Aristotle were talking about "laws of nature", which is the same as talking about rights. Both observed that nature has provided every animal a form of defense, but that man has no such natural endowment, and thus it is man's proper place to choose instruments of defense.
As for Plato....

For example, in the Platonian theory of justice we find the principle of "natural" privilege (entitlement) of those in power is supreme and the principle that it should be the task and the purpose of the individual to maintain and to strengthen the stability of the state by conformity. That entitlement of those in power is where your arguments about treason stem from and how it is a crime against the citizens. Because in the Platonian theory of justice the function of the citizenry is to strengthen the stability of the state not to strengthen the liberties of the individual.

I've read Plato in the original, and on a course final demolished him in the original. He is self-contradictory and deceptive, and I have no respect whatsoever for his view that most humans are meant to be little different than slaves, tricked into accepting their place, disposed of as refuse if they do not. He knows nothing of freedom or human dignity, and so is not relevant to a discussion of rights, or even of human dignity -- which is what hate laws are about.

It isn't until the development of humanism that the humanitarian theory of justice begins to emerge where we find the equalitarian principle proper; that is, the proposal to eliminate "natural" privileges. We find in the general equalitarian principle of individualism, the principle that it should be the task and the purpose of the individual and the state to protect the freedom of its citizens rather than the purpose of the state to remove the freedom of its citizens and the purpose of citizens to strengthen the state. It is also from this elimination of "natural privileges" in the development of humanism which gave birth to the development of concepts of universal rights. A concept first expressed in, I think, the 1700s among French philosphers with the manifestation of the "Rights of Man".

The term "rights" may not have been used till then, though I doubt it. But the concept and practice of rights, and the obligation of the superior/state to protect the rights of the lesser/member/citizen appear in Celtic culture and Iceland, at least.
What's interesting about your paragraph is that in practice, both major parties in the U.S. right now, and several of the minor parties, operate on the principle that it is "the purpose of the state to remove the freedom of its citizens and the purpose of citizens to strengthen the state." Bush vetoing this bill is a great example of that, and each of the last four presidents have given other examples.

Also, a human right is not a right that can have limitations placed upon it so that it becomes only a partial right or is only a human right depending on your happenstance of class of birth or nationality, everyone has the full right, it is an inherent right of all, not dependent upon class and not subject to political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. Human rights are not subject to these conditional variables.

Correct -- which is why those countries which forbid arms to their citizens are violating human rights. The free exercise of a right can be denied, and countries around the globe deny the free exercise of numerous rights quite regularly.

There is a right to security of person and from that right stems the rights of self-defense, (I agree you do have a right of self-defense), however, it does not then follow that the means and methods of self-defense are limitless. The means and methods of self-defense are not unlimited and are determined by civil rights. The means and methods are subject to political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Again, security of person is a goal that the right of self-defense aims to achieve.
But if the means of self defense are limited to less than those who would violate your person, then the right of self-defense has effectively been denied. Any restriction at all places the defender in a weaker position than the attacker, and that is a de facto declaration that the defender is of less worth, which is a denial of human dignity.
Any jurisdiction which violates that is in violation of human rights, and is operating on the premise that the state owns the person, thus the person is not free. That's a retreat to before the shift you mention in your French philosopher, humanitarian justice discussion.
Clearly your concept of civil rights is backwards: it is the function of definitions of civil rights not to restrict or undermine, but to make plain, establish, and uphold universal rights. The only legitimate civil rights law is one which guarantees and defends a universal human right -- civil rights are derivative only, with no independent status of their own.
If one country says you can have a building specifically for the purpose of worship, that is freedom of religion. If another country says you can have a building and use it for worship on the day of your choice, but it must be available to others the rest of the time, that is not a "civil right", but a denial of rights, a "civil wrong". Because if a greater freedom is a proper expression of a human right, then any lesser expression is a denial through limitation.

The right to self-defense is not limited, the means and methods of defense are limited. The human right of self-defense it is acknowledged also existed long before hand guns were even invented. It was as technologies advanced and only then that the means and methods of defense began to have limitations placed upon them, but still not removing the right to self-defense. Now, you can argue all you want that the right to gun ownership is a legitimate means and method of self-defense and should be a civil right. That can be a legitimate argument, but just as the con side to that can be a legitimate argument. Which is what I was pointing out in my comparisons of the UK and the US. Neither having the right to gun ownership or not having the civil right to gun ownership has elliminated assaults on persons so stop trying to pretend that it has, and stop trying to pretend that there are not limits placed on means and methods of self-defense even when that concept has been extended to the rights of nations with regarding to defending their sovereinty.

That first line is sophistry. It's like telling a quarterback that his "right" to run with the ball is not limited... but he isn't allowed to wear shoes, even though the opposing quarterback has shoes with spikes to better grip the turf. Anyone with common sense can see that such a rule isn't just limiting the "means", but is limiting the right.
Try telling a carpenter that he has a right to drive nails... but he isn't allowed to use a hammer! Or tell a canoeist that he has a right to get his canoe across the lake... but he isn't allowed paddles! Or tell a baker he has the right to turn out three-layer cakes... but that he can't have any cake pans!
A right without the means to exercise it is no right at all. So any assertion that it's legitimate for some people to have arms to defend themselves but it isn't for others is rubbish -- it's telling the people allowed lesser or fewer choices of means that they aren't worth as much as others, and that's a denial of the foundation of all rights: sovereignty of self, or self-ownership.
Whether free exercise of the right to keep and bear, and make use of, arms, or a denial thereof, has stopped attacks on people is irrelevant. Rights do not aim for perfection, but for human dignity. Denying the free choice of means to exercise a right denies human dignity, because it tells a person he is not in charge of his own life -- someone else is.

First I was not arguing (in the comment you selectively pulled the partial quote from) pro or con for rights of gun ownership, what I was pointing out was that neither the civil right to gun ownership nor not having that civil right has been any more effective in securing security of person, that remains problematic for both the UK and the US for example.

But you were arguing that gun ownership is not a right, because you say it is a means, and so can be limited. But as I've shown over and again, if it can be limited, it is not a right, and if the means to a right can be limited, then the right is being denied.
At root, you're denying the right to self-defense, and arguing that people aren't in charge of themselves.
The civil right to gun ownership, and the free exercise thereof, has in fact been effective, because in every state in the U.S. where "shall issue" laws for concealed carry have been enacted, violent crime against persons and against occupied premises has gone down.
As for the civil wrong in the UK, I'm sad that the people have let themselves be deprived of the free exercise of their anciently-acknowledged right. I would have hoped they had more self-dignity than that.

You are correct in that "people who want to violate someone's person will ignore any such rule", that has some veracity whether you have the civil right or not. That has veracity whether or not we're discussing civil rights or human rights, or discussing any other form of normative law. All normative laws are dependent upon the "honor system", so to speak, that is that people will uphold such principles. However, to use that argument to justify any position is ludicrous, because if you're going to use that line of reasoning then there is no purpose or sense in establishing any type of normative law because anyone at any time can violate a normative law. That's what distinguishes a normative law from a natural law. Natural laws can be neither broken nor enforced. They are beyond human control.

That's dodging the issue: the fact that violaters of persons will ignore all restrictions means that law cannot protect; it follows that people then retain the right to defend themselves as they see fit, with means on par with what they might be faced with and sufficient to stop any threat to themselves, their family, their property, or any threatened persons or property.
The function of a normative law is to set down the penalties for violating what everyone knows to be right and/or doing what everyone knows is wrong. The purpose remains true regardless of whether there are ever any persons who do things worthy of those penalties. It isn't an "honor system", but a system in which the people set down what is acknowledged to be right and wrong with the expectation that the great majority will act accordingly even without the laws -- but, just in case, the penalties are there for everyone to see.

You make ludicrous claims that there is no right to security of person because we cannot be protected against natural laws when both human rights and civil rights are normative laws which govern human behavior whether they are codified laws or moral concepts, and are alterable, while natural laws are not created by man, and are neither enforceable nor alterable by man. Rights themselves, be they human rights or civil rights are solely concerned with normative laws and regulating human behavior.

Everything after the first occurrence of "natural laws" is irrelevant.
But... civil rights are alterable only in the direction of more closely approaching the free exercise of a human right -- otherwise, they are civil wrongs.
Human rights have nothing to do with regulating behavior, except arguably at the level of the true social contract, i.e. acknowledgment of the truth "You own yourself."

You make comments that "any government which does not allow citizens to possess whatever means those citizens choose for the protection of their persons is not a free country", but that equates the human right of security of person and the rights of self-defense which stems from that right, for example, as having equal weight to any means and methods of defending such rights, and elevates the means and methods themselves to being a right of equal weight. As has been pointed out, means and methods are limitable, if they were not then any means and method of self-defense, for example, from hitting someone with your fist, to clubbing them with a stick, to shooting them with a gun, to setting them on fire, to poisoning them when perceived as a personal threat to your security, to running them over in your car, to purchasing an atomic bomb as someone used as an extreme example, would all be permissable whether or not the threat was perceived to be immediate or if the person was perceived to be a future threat to your security. The means and methods of securing or maintaining rights may have limits placed upon them. The limits are placed upon the means and methods not the underlying human right you are protecting or attempting to assure. The limitation is placed upon the means to the end. Not the end to the means.

You've made the claim that limiting the means doesn't limit the right, but that's nonsense on the face of it, as my examples above illustrate. But another one: tell a person he has a right to communicate on the internet, but only allow him a 300-baud connection. By your reasoning, you haven't limited his right -- and that's obviously false, to any person with good sense.
If I have the right to drive on the freeway (end), but you'll only let me have an electric scooter (means), what you've limited is my right to drive on the freeway, and not only because you've decreed that I am lesser than those from places where they may have a Ferrari. So limiting the means, in this case, does in fact limit the end.

Just as you have failed to be able to distinguish between rights and natural privileges, rights from duties and obligations that philosophers like Plato and Aristotle were concerned with, human rights from civil rights, you also make no distinction between having a right from the means and methods of protecting that right. To fail to make those distinctions, especially with regard to the means and methods, and to use the line of argumentation that "people who want to violate someone's person will ignore any such rule" is to defeat the entire purpose of any normative laws regardless of their purpose and to also impose amorality upon any attempt to regulate any human behavior.

It only appears to you that I've failed to distinguish between inherent rights and self-assigned privileges, and civil rights, because you don't grasp the fact that human rights, inherent rights, come first. This isn't a philosophical exercise in which Plato's self-contradictory deceitful scheme has to be granted any validity, but a matter of reality and truth.
Civil rights derive from human rights, and their only function is to open up and guarantee the free exercise of those rights. A law which says, "You have freedom of the press, but you may not make use of any power-driven printing equipment", is not a restriction on just the means, but on the right. If there wasn't even that much freedom permitted before, such a statement might be looked on as a civil rights law, because it would be a step in the right direction -- but it would still, at root, be a denial of the right. Denying or limiting the means of exercising a right is the same as denying or limiting the right, a principle held to since before there was a U.S. Supreme Court to uphold it.

You argue that "if you rely on your law, and I rely on my .357, guess who's not getting bashed?" First of all, as I pointed earlier, the hate crime codes are not intended to be preventative. Secondly, however, disregarding that, that line of argumentation as I also pointed out before is still fallacious. You, I and everyone, all rely on normative laws all the time to regulate human behavior, including your reliance on individuals to even accept the normative laws which form a system of government. Thirdly, you have not proven that a civil right to gun ownership or lack of it has improved security of person (which is why that remains problemantic both in the US where there is such a civil right and in the UK where there is not) or why a means or method is a universal right or itself should be itself anything but a civil right. All you have addressed is a perceived effectiveness from circumstance to circumstance as to the effectiveness of a particular means or method of self-defense, not a reason for why a specific method alone is a universal right. The effectiveness of that particular means and method itself being debateable. All you have been able to argue is that self-defense is a universal right. Yet you even undermined your own argument for self-defense being a human right by contending and maintaing the assertion that security of person is not a human right when it is itself the foundation upon which rights of self-defense are predicated along with providing the foundation for several other not only universal rights but civil rights, as well as the codification of laws which having nothing to do with rights per se, excepting they too are attempts to regulate human behavior to maintain security of person, even the right to hold property can be traced back to the right to security of person.

I don't rely on normative laws to regulate anyone's behavior, because when you get right down to it, they don't except in a very small number of cases -- in which they merely remind people that something they really do (or should) know is wrong is going to bring a penalty. What I rely on is people's inherent grasp of the root principle of civilization (and mental health), "You own yourself", and the obvious corollary, "And so does everyone else (own themselves)".
That's the foundation for the Golden Rule: if I want to be treated like I own myself, I'd better treat others the same way.
Now since I own myself, I have the inherent right to defend myself against any intrusion on my self-ownership. And since I own myself, I, and no one else, am the only judge of what I need for self-defense -- thus I have the right to keep and bear arms, which cannot be infringed without denying that I own myself, since the right is merely an extension of that ownership. It also follows that anyone telling me I cannot keep and bear the arms of my choice is denying my self-ownership, and is thus exercising tyranny.
I have no right to security of person; I have only an expectation or hope that others will see the same plain truth that I do, and treat me as they would like to be treated, as owners of our own selves. I have the right to counter any attempt to interfere with my self-ownership, of course.

You talk about ownership of person and individuality. Ownership of person is simply a euphemism for security of person. It is security of person that allows for individuality. Without it you revert back to the Platonian theory of justice where those in power are supreme and the principle that it should be the task and the purpose of the individual to maintain, and to strengthen the stability of the state by conformity.

Ownership of person is the plain state of nature; it has nothing to do with security. Let's get some basics straight:

Cogito, ergo sum: I (observe that I) think; therefore (I conclude that) I am. My awareness of my own thinking is the evidence to myself that I am in fact a self, who is thinking and is aware of it.
The next step from there is the awareness that my thoughts do what I want, and my body does what I want. I am in charge of myself, and not someone else -- thus I own myself, and not someone else.
Those two truths are, as Thomas Jefferson might observe, "self-evident". Stated or not, consciously recognized or not, they are the foundation of the way everyone lives. They come before everything else not from some philosophical meandering, but because that's the way it is, the way we exist, and because they are thus the way we operate.
One could continue, but from there it only branches to things that stem from my self-ownership -- freedom of thought (implicit), freedom of expression, freedom of movement -- and on to parts stemming from there but defining reality with respect to the observed existence of other persons, other selves.
And only later does any concept of "security of person" come in -- after the two basic truths, after the first batch stemming from the second truth, after the axioms relating those things to other persons, only then, on a fourth-order derivative level, does the notion of "security of person" appear.

You argue a specific means of self-defense is a universal right, but yet as also pointed out it cannot be a universal right, the mentally unstable for example do not have such a right to gun ownership, convicted felons do not have such an inalienable right, but the fact they are mentally unstable or a convicted felon does not deprive them of the universal right to self-defense or security of person. Those are inalieanable rights. Because they are inalianable rights does mean that they do have the right of self-defense regardless of mental capacity or legal standing, that right is not stripped from them. The civil rights however may be denied. Yet, because of other moral concepts which also inform our behaviors we then recognize a duty to then ourselves protect those rights through other means and methods of assuring their security of person. We may fail or succeed because of our human fallibilities , but that doesn't mean we abdicate such obligations to protect their universal rights when we do deprive them of a civil right.

I argue that the free choice of means for self-defense is a human right, inherent and not to be infringed. To deny any means at all is to limit the right, because the right is about the means -- it is the means which enable the exercise of the right.
But those who are clearly incapable of exercising the right may be denied its exercise -- not by arbitrary decree, which is what fools such as Kennedy and Kerry believe (they hold to Plato, apparently), but by reason of truth based on the foundational principle of self-ownership, via the plain corollary that no one has a right to interfere with the self-ownership of others.



I think I hit all the places where you stood things on their heads. I had no intention of turning this into a philosophical disputation; my only intent was to point out the fact that no bill can protect us; we have to exercise our inherent right to do it ourselves, with the means we choose... not some government.

 

[Kulindahr]

^ I think that's the longest post I've ever made....

 

[Boogerqueesha]

I have to give it to both of you, Kulindahr and T-zero... your patience and eyesight far, far, FAR exceed mine.

Not only would I go insane if I actually had to read all that, but I'd be nearsighted to the point of blindness, too.

Good for the both of you

 

[Kulindahr]

i want movies

to JUB!


Um, movies of what? Bush vetoing the bill?