[RedPillAger]

still failed to answer it

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

still failed to answer it

Translation:

[youtube]M1UWPagjNaA[/youtube]

[SilasWegg]

Now... how about my fellow liberals? Do you agree with the good Doctor? 'Tis nobler to die a victim than to insist on one's right to self-defense? Step right up...

Yes, more or less. I would add that I find the NRA extremist position so obtuse not just as to history, but to the meaning of the second amendment, that I find myself supporting more aggressive gun control measures than I would otherwise would just for spite.

[Godstud]

still failed to answer it

Just because you don't LIKE, or understand, the explanation, doesn't mean it isn't a good one.

There is a reason people in most civilized countries, cannot carry guns around with them. That is because most people are not responsible enough to be trusted to use them safely, and without malice.

[One Degree]

I think many against gun control is due to fear of precedent rather than objection to the actual controls. Our society has a tendency to use well intentioned laws as a precedent for creating laws that do not have majority consent. It is quite clear we have not created a governmental system that can be trusted enough to deprive citizens of the need for defense against the government. You may view that defense as inadequate, but it is still more of a deterrent than having guns banned.

[Rancid]

FYI, children are more likely to die in the family swimming pull, than by the family gun.

[RedPillAger]

:roll: Just because you don't LIKE, or understand, the explanation, doesn't mean it isn't a good one.

There is a reason people in most civilized countries, cannot carry guns around with them. That is because most people are not responsible enough to be trusted to use them safely, and without malice.

it isn't a "good one" because you guys failed to answer the questions. i understand what you're saying completely. it's simply not relevant, even if i agreed with it.

i'll ask again. where do any of you get the right or authority to keep another from owning or carrying a weapon? if you do not have that authority yourselves, how do you give it to the government?

asking "where does one get the authority to keep someone from carrying a xxxx?" doesn't answer it. saying that the answer is obvious doesn't answer it. saying that you live in a society doesn't answer it. saying that it's a stupid question doesn't answer it. saying that societies enforce rules to protect society is circular, and doesn't address the questions anyway. saying that you don't trust others does not answer it.

none of you have answered it because you cannot.

[annatar1914]

i'll ask again. where do any of you get the right or authority to keep another from owning or carrying a weapon? if you do not have that authority yourselves, how do you give it to the government?

God.

Government has the duty and responsibility to protect and defend it's citizens, from each other and their enemies outside it's domain, and that duty and responsibility has been given unto it by God. Citizens have the duty to obey actual laws, and the right to be protected by those laws in turn and by their government's responsible use of the monopoly of force. There is no right of rebellion to justify the bearing of arms either.

In a state of Anarchy, other options of course apply, in lawless areas.

[RedPillAger]

God.

Government has the duty and responsibility to protect and defend it's citizens, from each other and their enemies outside it's domain, and that duty and responsibility has been given unto it by God. Citizens have the duty to obey actual laws, and the right to be protected by those laws in turn and by their government's responsible use of the monopoly of force. There is no right of rebellion to justify the bearing of arms either.

In a state of Anarchy, other options of course apply, in lawless areas.

i'm afraid you only beg the question in espousing a theocracy...not the least of which is needing to prove the existence of god, and why, if it does exist, should people bow to its perceived authority.

[annatar1914]

RedPillAger, your replies, and my retorts in turn;

i'm afraid you only beg the question in espousing a theocracy

Not espousing a 'theocracy'. I have been rather pedantic, predictable, and boringly calling for a return to an Orthodox Christian Autocracyform of Monarchism, in which Church and State are in 'Harmonia', equal and interpenetrating in functions and checks and balances upon each other, with both free but mutually reinforcing in their different purposes within society. This is the ideal aimed at in the East Roman Empire and the Czarist Russian Imperium.

...not the least of which is needing to prove the existence of god

No, not at all. Belief comes first, 'proof' comes with trust. You are free to look at the sky any way you wish, standing on the ground or from the bottom of a well. But we, and not you, will be organizing society for your benefit and ours, and to the Glory of God.

and why, if it does exist, should people bow to its perceived authority.

If you don't know that, you cannot be in a position of trust over others in government, because you cannot be trusted even by yourself for your own good, much less others. But, everybody usually has their place in the scheme of things. You do know that for most of even America's history, the oaths of Atheists were not regarded as trustworthy? There is and was a reason for that.... And you can't build any society on that unstable foundation.


If people accept and believe what I have stated in my original post you're replying to, and a government organizes itself around the duties it has to God and to the subjects of government, holding the ordinary monopoly on the use of force, then things go well and the people prosper.

Bottom line: people can't be trusted impartially with even their own self-defense in ordinary circumstances, and society can't be built on a foundation of some 'right to revolt'.

[Drlee]

i'll ask again. where do any of you get the right or authority to keep another from owning or carrying a weapon? if you do not have that authority yourselves, how do you give it to the government?

I am afraid that you simply do not realize that you are asking a ridiculous question. Though you have been answered many times you doggedly refuse to accept what you are hearing. Let me try this so only you can understand what the rest of us have no trouble understanding. I am assuming you are in the US:

Our constitution gives us the power to appoint the officials who govern IN OUR NAME. We the people have in sufficient numbers, made our wishes known to those officials who do our will. Their power to do so coming directly from the people. All power in the US lies in the states and ultimately in the people.

The right to interpret the constitution lies with the supreme court. They have upheld gun control. So the answer to your question has been made. The representatives of the people, acting in congress, their authority to do so upheld by the courts, have decided to enact various forms of gun control. Now you have your answer.

What did the founders think about the possibility that we may some day enact laws that they either never considered or stray from what they considered common and true? Your avatar (who you ought to read for a change) said this:

"Happy for us that when we find our constitutions defective and insufficient to secure the happiness of our people, we can assemble with all the coolness of philosophers and set it to rights, while every other nation on earth must have recourse to arms to amend or to restore their constitutions." --Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1787. ME 6:295, Papers 12:113

Now this is interesting on two fronts. It clearly shows (and Jefferson said this many times and in many ways) that he fully expected future generations to modify the constitutional frequently. He positively advocated for it in practice as well as principle.

But this note of his gives us another insight into the mind of the man who many consider the father of the US constitution. Undoubtedly the foremost expert on that constitution of the time. Notice that he specifically and directly asserts that there is no need to resort to arms to change our constitution. The founders were careful to make that unnecessary.

So clearly they did not see these militias and therefore even more obviously individuals using arms to constrain government.

Now you have a direct answer to your question about authority supported by the words and actions of the people who wrote it.

But I will go one step further. The founders quite deliberately rested most power in the states. The mechanism at the time was that states appointed the national government, In effect they still do. They gave the states the power to amend the constitution. If there was to be a change in the central government they did not imagine for a moment that it would come about as a result of popular uprising. As you can see Jefferson asserts that they were careful to make that completely unnecessary. How? By reposing in the states not only the power to change the constitution but also the job of governing on a day-to-day basis. What would Jefferson have said to gun registration laws? Well he probably would have shrugged and said that this was a state issue. As long as the people have the right to keep arms with the eye to a "well ordered militia" (militias in those days being state organizations) he would have no problem with moderate controls on firearms. If he were to oppose federal gun regulations at all, it would have been on the grounds that they are none of the federal government's business unless the people made them the federal government's business. If you bitched at him about them he would have probably told you to talk to your governor.

Now your question has been answered fully. You can drop your silly authority nonsense once and for all.

[annatar1914]

Drlee, while I cannot speak for our Jefferson-avatared friend, I must agree that I believe you are correct on this one from a Constitutional point of view and certainly from the point of view of the framers of the Constitution. In spite of what I said earlier, people are of course free, and we must take them as they are, not as we would have them be. Counter-Revolution is the opposite of Revolution, it is no terror or tumult; it is the result of theory in contact with reality.

Hence the wisdom in this modern post- American Revolution of Amendments to the US Constitution; it is a clever document indeed.

Whatever our differences, I think we can agree that the 'pro-gun' anti-human nonsense you and I hear as Americans all the time, is simply as non-American extremist fantasy as is the Objectivism from which this 'American Libertarianism' came, in reaction to the Soviet Communism Ayn Rand faced. The 'Gun Culture' is lunatic as can be, and I say that as a Southerner born and bred, where a good deal of it comes.

Interestingly enough though concerning Ayn Rand, she believed I think in a government with a monopoly on force, if i'm not mistaken...

[RedPillAger]

saying that my question is ridiculous does not answer it. and, your describing irrelevant details of your government is only obfuscation.

where do you, dr. lee, get any authority to keep another man from owning or carrying a weapon? if you do not have that authority yourself, how did you give it to the government?

your answer is that the government has the authority, and that you gave it to them. this is circular, and doesn't answer where you got it in the first place. you still have not answered it.

[Americanroyalty]

It's obvious authority comes from guns.
Seriously though the authority of all nations is largely predicated on their ability to control and that involves military/police powers backed with force.

[Decky]

FYI, children are more likely to die in the family swimming pull, than by the family gun.

Only one gun? You need one for your wife and one each for the kids or you will always be a Mexican rather than a true American.

[Drlee]

your answer is that the government has the authority, and that you gave it to them. this is circular, and doesn't answer where you got it in the first place. you still have not answered it.

Come back after you have taken a class in US Government. This argument is obviously way over your head.

[RedPillAger]

Come back after you have taken a class in US Government. This argument is obviously way over your head.

this doesn't answer it either. you cannot.

[RedPillAger]

It's obvious authority comes from guns.
Seriously though the authority of all nations is largely predicated on their ability to control and that involves military/police powers backed with force.

this is a "might makes right" argument. i don't think that qualifies as legitimacy for authority.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I like how Red just keeps on going with the whole "nope, you're wrong because you're wrong" or "nope, your argument is wrong because it's wrong" routine. Instead of critical, abstract thinking, everyone's just wrong while Red is 100% right because he's right. No matter what kind of argument is presented, no matter what kind of ideas and concepts are used, he's right because he's right.

[velvet]

this is a "might makes right" argument. i don't think that qualifies as legitimacy for authority.

Is this because you are a Libertarian, or is there some actual substantial basis for it?