Guns and stuff... [modified]

[Ro0ke]

Many of these toxins you're talking about are actually the defense mechanisms of plants or animals. Nature doesn't give you the right to live, each person has the sole responsibility of surviving. As civilizations were established, laws came into effect to help enforce this.

[Stan Shannon]

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

No, it wouldn't. Nature gives you a natural want for self-preservation etc. You defend yourself because you want to live. You're naturally imbued with everyone else caring about themselves first and foremost. Rights simply do not exist unless defined by humans.

Oh, a student of nietzsche. then. Not nature but will.

Ravel H. Joyce wrote:

Tell me, how would you define a 'right' outside of humanity?

I would argue that I don't need to. Humanity is a part of nature, the human mind is a part of humanity, and the concept of rights is part of the human mind. The universe is the sum of its parts, which includes the concept of rights.

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

[Matthew Faithfull]

No, I'm not using the Marxist definition of Faschism but the definition of Mussolini who first put it into practice. 'The merger of the corporation and the state'. This has been forgotten by those who only remember Hitler's National-Socialism. The 'fascist' corporation is one which seeks to own and control the state, to take on the nature and powers of a state (e.g. Federal Reserve), to be above the law, beyond restraint by legal or political processes. International capitalism has taken on many of these characteristics by escaping from the authority or control of any single state, giving the excuse for international socialists to demand world government to control world corporations. Of course the very people planning for world government are funded by the world corporations who will nominate its members, fund its policy think tanks and implement its bought and payed for edicts. This is the modern face of international faschism, supported by socialists, packaged as inevitable globalisation. It is I agree the absolute antithesis of Jeffersonian nation self determination, equality under the law and free trade.

Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.

[Stan Shannon]

Matthew Faithfull wrote:

The 'fascist' corporation is one which seeks to own and control the state, to take on the nature and powers of a state (e.g. Federal Reserve), to be above the law, beyond restraint by legal or political processes.

That isn't true. Mussolini's 'corporatism' was the very opposite of that. It was the state controlling the coporations to achieve the objectives of the state - all the resources of the state being combined to achieve the will of the state. I'm not suggesting that there is not a problem with corporations trying to corrupt government for their own purposes, but that is not fascism.

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

[realJSOP]

You do know that you're trying to have a discussion with a fence post...

"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

[Ilion]

digital man wrote:

It got me to go back and re-read the constitution and amendments. It is still a great document and its sentiments are entirely fresh and laudable.

Notice, also, how *short* (how "high-level," rather than "nitty-gritty detailed") it is, amendments and all.

digital man wrote:

And, therefore, I have to admit that I am wrong in this one: whilst I don’t get the personal need for weapons I can see that you need have no other justification for doing so other than that which your constitution provides.

:cool: :rose:

[realJSOP]

It's easy to buy a tank, and there are many private tank owners. It's (almost?) impossible to (legally) buy ammo for it though. In that context, a tank is merely a motor vehicle. You can also legally own a cannon. I'm sure there's paperwork that goes along with those two examples, but you can own them nonetheless.

"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

[Ilion]

Stan Shannon wrote:

Lets at least be intellectually honest about the philosophical history of all this.

From a conspiracy-monger (and with socialistic leanings, at that)?

[realJSOP]

cp9876 wrote:

There are very safe parts of America too

Everything within about 150 yard unobstructed radius of my firing position is safe (except what I'm shooting at of course). Paper targets are in a extreme peril, though. :)

"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

[Ilion]

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

Gun control laws is an attempt to keep criminals from owning/using guns,

That's the *charitable* interpretation of the impulse to nullify others' rights.

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

Gun control laws is an attempt to keep criminals from owning/using guns, but being criminals, they already don't obey the law, so what's the point in prohibiting ownership? I refuse to forfeit my constitutional right to own a gun just because some asshole shot a convenience store clerk in the commission of a crime.

But, even if there are no nefarious hidden reasons, it's still an asinine impulse.

[Matthew Faithfull]

Maybe but still ( a + b ) = ( b + a ) . If the two are merged how can one say whose objectives they are persuing? Only by looking at who benefits financially in terms of gaining power. In Europe at least it is certainly not the states, they have become hollow shells, unable even to pass their own laws in many areas of policy. While the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) can write their own laws, hand them over to the European Commission and have them imposed on 27 states usually without debate and certainly wihtout the possibility of ammendment. In the US when the president wants money to fund whatever he has to get a vote through Congress but they can't give him the money. For that he has to go cap in hand to a private club who will lend the state, their dollars, at an interest rate they decide. If you ever wander where your federal taxes go, the answer is to pay the interest on that money previously borrowed. In effect a secret-membership club of ~20 people have bought the US federal government with its own money. This may not be classical faschism but that's hardly the point, the outcome, mass slavery to a pack of unethical thieving "£$%%^s is the same.

Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.

[soap brain]

Nice one...

Richard of York gave battle in vain.

[Vincent Reynolds]

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. --Thomas Jefferson

[soap brain]

Stan Shannon wrote:

I would argue that I don't need to. Humanity is a part of nature, the human mind is a part of humanity, and the concept of rights is part of the human mind. The universe is the sum of its parts, which includes the concept of rights.

So it is only humans that define rights? But saying that rights are a law of nature is saying that humans define laws of nature.

Richard of York gave battle in vain.

[soap brain]

Ro0ke wrote:

Nature doesn't give you the right to live, each person has the sole responsibility of surviving.

So you agree with me?

Richard of York gave battle in vain.

[soap brain]

John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

It's (almost?) impossible to (legally) buy ammo for it though.

Why?

Richard of York gave battle in vain.

[A Wong]

cp9876 wrote:

What came out yesterday was the idea that gun ownership would protect you from a government that went mad. The Government cannot get out of control without the support of the armed forces, and I can't see that you would make a difference with a few guns when the armoured vehicles come down the street firing 25mm depleted uranium rounds at anything that resists.

I beg to differ. The Vietnam war and Iraq war shows that gurilla tatics does work to a certain point. There are other cases where rebel forces toppled well armed governments as well. Ultimately, it is the will of the citizens that matter, but armed resistance does contribute to it.

[Stan Shannon]

Granted. Jefferson was very much an agrarian and opposed to the rise of the industrial state. I can't argue against that. Hartmann[^] has a good overview of all of that. Still, as with so many issues, it is difficult to separate out where "private property" rights should become an essential concern of a centralized federal authority. Boettke[^] has some thoughts. Modern coporations are an extension of private property, which in my view, is an entirely Jeffersonian concept, even if the man himself had issues with it.

Please excuse my refusal to participate in the suicide of western civilization

[Ro0ke]

Yes, nature doesn't give you rights. But that's not the point, this subsection of the thread started because John mistakenly used the word "natural" when describing the right. I was only stating that many of the paralyzing toxins are the natural defense of plants or animals.

[CataclysmicQuantum]

You realize the federal government can manipulate the States into its will don't you? What if the federal government convince all States to confiscate all guns, would you be OK with that?

The Digital World. It is an amazing place in which we primitive humans interact. Our flesh made this synthetic machine. You see, we are so smart, we know a lot of stuff. We were grown from cells that came from the universe, which the matter and physics I'm typing in it is amazing how the universe is working. Human life is very amazing. How I experience this sh*t its like wow.