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RE: Firearms in the Hands of a Philosopher
natural rights don't really exist but in the minds of some philosophers, try arguing you have a natural right in court sometime. The proof is that the vast majority of people on earth don't have any of the rights we consider to be natural rights, there is no where else on Earth with both a right to bear arms and a real right to free speech. People have only the rights that their governments actually protect. For most people in most countries that means that their rights are shit.
It's important to remember that the 2nd amendment is a restriction on the federal government, you may want to check your state constitution to see if it also has a right to bear arms. Most do.
You are deluded.
Your rights come from the self-evident truth that you own yourself. That is nature. You are the monarch of your thoughts, emotions, and actions. Each man owns himself, therefore any claim of ownership over another human being is immoral and a gross violation of natural law. That's the reason we're in this mess in the first place, because people are ignorant of Natural Law. Continuing to disobey these natural laws will inevitably result in the self-destruction of our species.
There you have it, billions of people are not remotely free despite natural law, natural law, like any other law, only matters to the extent it is enforced, who enforces natural law?
Throughout most of human history most people were slaves, not tax slaves or wage slaves, they were slave slaves, and we seem to have avoided self destruction thus far.
Only a lucky few have enjoyed the rights that Americans enjoy.
Funbobby, Even with the most tyrannical government, natual law cannot be avoided. Like Locke pointed out, oppression causes revolution, without it there would be no reason to overthrow a system. Again, by denying someone their rights the course of events dictate eventually that the perpetrator has forfeited their own right. A good example that comes to mind is the assassination of Julius Caesar. When he began defying natural rights and became a dictator the responce from the Senate was the course that followed.
Natural rights such as the right to self defense is not made valid by the 2nd ammendment. The entire bill of rights was a compromise. Because people such as Patrick Henry and other anti-federalists were losing the debate at the time, and the populace was moving towards a central government, they found allies in trying to uphold natural rights within the Constitution, and presto they codified them. Natural Rights preexist any document or government. If rights were dictated by governments as your arguements suggest, than Stalin was perfectly in his rights to starve to death millions in Ukraine. That arguement is madness.
Bingo.
Oh right, who can forget when Stalin was prevented from killing millions of people by their natural rights, those work great!
There are billions of Chinese and Indian people and Europeans who are not having a revolution and don't believe in free speech or the right to bear arms.
"Natural Rights preexist any document or government. "
Nope the idea is a product of the Enlightenment.
Stalin was perfectly in his rights to starve to death millions in Ukraine.
Of course he was, that example is good proof that your natural rights are worthless, all those Ukrainians had natural rights didn't they? What good did that do them?
Did he get in any trouble for it? Did he get arrested?
He should have been punished if violating natural rights mattered, right?
All I can say is that your arguements put you on the same side as tyrants like Stalin, Mao, Polpot, and Hitler. Mine put me in the company of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. I hope you are proud of the group that shares your opinion, I certainly am proud of mine. They may not be perfect but they side with life, freedom, and respect for the self ownership of the individual.
That's silly. You don't seem to understand my argument. You seem to have missed the point to come to such a silly conclusion. I guess no internet discussion would be complete without someone proving Godwin's Law.
What I find silly is anyone who has faith in groups of people using force and violence over support of the individual.
My point was only that "natural rights" are a western philosophical concept, they don't exist outside of that context. We are very lucky that the fellows who founded our country were well educated in the philosophy of their day and culture. The vast majority of people on earth are not so lucky, for them instead free speech and the right to bear arms being obvious "natural rights" they are foreign concepts. If they were somehow magical and inherent then you would think they would be universal but sadly that is not so. In many ways the liberties we enjoy in America are an accident of history and a rare one instead of a natural human condition.
Riiiiiight.
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America was founded on the enforcement of natural law, hence the declaration of independence. But slowly the populous has become ignorant of the rights of self-ownership that so many have fought and died for. And quote Jefferson
Exactly, those only became actual rights in America when the government codified them. Although if you look the founders as British citizens at the time had all the rights granted by the British Bill of Rights, like the right to self defense.
Our bill of rights is derivative of that. America was founded by men who were well read in Enlightenment philosophy.
It is not clear what your stance is, but it sounds like you think rights did not exist until the people who didn't have them fought for them through the form of a government. And are you saying that people fought for rights they didn't know existed until there was government?
"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."
But how did they know they know they had the right to abolish government if it was not granted to them?
Governments are instituted among Men to secure these rights otherwise those rights are not secure. And if they are not secured by your government then you don't have them. If you are wondering where the declaration of independence came from and where the bill of rights came from they were both derivative of this
As far as knowing you have a right to abolish the government.
"If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately."
"it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." Government secures your right to abolish it? Where does this right derive from if not from natural law? Or are you just arguing semantics, that any time two or more people decide to abolish a government they become a government themselves? And that without government, no individual has rights, even if they are willing to defend their right to self-ownership?
If you have two people trapped on an island, one person says they are the government, the other person says they will not be governed. The person who declared self ownership does not have rights, and only the person claiming to be government has rights? If they fight what are they fighting for if not their natural right to self determination, self ownership, self preservation, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, etc?
They knew they were committing treason and that if they failed they would be hung. If you win its a glorious and rightful revolution, if you lose its treason.
without government, no individual has rights, even if they are willing to defend their right to self-ownership.
And where is the place without government?
Think about where your rights really matter, they matter in a court of law, so without a court of law you don't have rights that matter and the only rights that matter are the ones that the court you are in grants you.
In America we have a legal right against warrantless or unreasonable searches, when you exercise that right the cops will inevitably search you anyhow, its in a court where you your right prevents them from using any evidence gathered illegally against you. In other countries you may not have that right, where are you natural rights then?