t33j wrote:This is getting beyond what I know about history but let's ask why they forced him to sign it? I imagine for tangible, legally recognized rights and not to rectify some philosophical incongruity.
Read up on the divine right of kings. Yes, they wanted it legally recognized, but the philosophy (which was still developing well into the 18th century) was the justification. Why is the right to keep and bear arms (a direct extension of SD/life) a right, but owning a home is not? If you claim that the only justification of rights is what the government says, then owning a home is a right if they say it is. So is all the other other welfare nonsense the liberals push.
The concept of natural rights is derived from ethics. We recognize unethical treatment of other humans as such regardless of what the law says. Rights are really just the practical necessity to promote the ethical treatment of other human beings. E.g. it is unethical to deprive someone of their life, but practically there always have been people who do just that. The right to keep and bear arms it just one way of stating that since it is unethical to deprive another of their life that they have the Right to defense and by extension need access to the best available tools. The 2nd protects arms, which is not limited to firearms. Said a different way, the Right to life requires the Right to self defense which requires the Right to keep and bear arms for that purpose...there is no distinction between an individual murder and King George.
t33j wrote:This makes it sound like there's some other-worldly court of rights where everything must be justified by claiming equally impalpable concepts. How about a real-world lack of legal rights as justification for war? I'd say that's a pretty good reason.
No, you're missing the point. We order our lives and societies around philosophical principles (e.g. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...utility...religious codes...etc.) regardless if we realize it or not. Further we need a way to adjudicate between axioms because as soon as we have more than one, there likely exists a situation where the two are at odds. E.g. life and liberty. We need some mechanism to decide when the exercise of liberty is threatening another's life and also decide which is greater. I.e. is life greater than liberty so that we should restrict liberty when it endangers life or is liberty greater than life so that we should accept the risk to life so that liberty is not restricted?
Most people don't put much thought into how they are ordering their lives and societies. They base everything off of opinion and reaction to something and are horribly inconsistent. I.e. they lack principles. E.g. they are all for free markets and the prosperity they bring until the very same mechanisms causes gas to go to $5 a gallon, then they turn out to be rabid statist demanding liberty and the free market be squashed for cheap gas!
If the axiom is true and the logic is correct, then we should stand by the principle regardless if it brings us wealth and prosperity or $5 gas.
t33j wrote:Calling a natural right a right where no legal right simultaneously exists is ascribing a label to an idea which gains nothing and ultimately means nothing material unless acted upon.
If you understood the paragraphs above, it should be obvious there is a critical distinction between legal rights and natural Rights. Governments are always trying to restrict legal rights as much as possible, but that is incongruent with a society based on freedom. It may be legal, but it isn't right.
The Right to life extends to groups of people, not just individuals. A self-defensive war seeking only to throw off the aggressor and tyranny is justifiable just as you shooting a murder who breaks into your home. However, seeing some dude wanted for murder and just busting a cap in his head is not. Here we have a situation where the same axiom is at conflict with itself and we need a mechanism for adjudication. We have one and it claims that using force, up to an including lethal force, to stop another from committing the violation is just, but you may not be the aggressor.
Certain wars are justifiable on that axiom alone; if we are attacked we may respond. However, just like SD, wisdom is required to know how and when to respond. Shooting a unrecognizable blob in your house at night is just as likely to lead to tragedy as it is to justifiable homicide.
t33j wrote:I have no plans to overthrow governments.
Nor do I, but history teaches that it is sometimes necessary. Discussing and maintaining the legal right (as the natural can never be revoked), if such a scenario becomes necessary, is not treason or conspiracy, it is prudence. The founders didn't put the 2nd into the Constitution because they didn't think we would ever need it. They hoped we wouldn't, but prudence said be prepared. Of course that is just one type of threat. Other governments and fellow citizens also may pose such a threat and the Right may be invoked.
t33j wrote:Calling a legal right a right is still not ideal but I can point to it and tell my government to back off... until it takes it away. I guess this is where the eternal vigilance bit comes in.
What are you being eternally vigilant for? If there is no distinction between legal and natural rights than you have nothing to complain about when they take it away. On what grounds are you going to object? I liked that right? That's what you do with a privilege, you object, but have no ground to stand on if the granter decides that they no longer wish to grant it.
You by necessity must appeal to a higher standard to make a claim that the lower standard is wrong. I'm doing exactly that implicitly when I state something like this: Enslaving blacks may have been legal at the time, but it wasn't right. The founders didn't fight that battle then, but many of them knew exactly that, but they put in place a government which made it legal! They fully expected that the principles of freedom would eventually rewrite that piece of legality so that it was principally corrected.
If there is no higher standard that binds the government, then you have nothing to appeal too and no justification for your actions to the contrary. I'm not saying the government will recognize that (they won't), but that is exactly why Jefferson had to write the Declaration. It wasn't written for King George, it was written for the rest of the worlds people and government to justify the colonists actions by appealing to a higher authority then the King! It then detailed how the King had violated that higher standard and refused to redress their grievances so they had no other choice, but to fix it by force.
The King considered it rebellion and treason...if there where no higher standard then he was right and we are nothing but the disloyal descendants of a bunch of traitors. If Jefferson was right and there was a higher standard that bound even the King, then we are our own people not only lawfully, but ethically and morally.
t33j wrote:gunderwood wrote:If the government grants it, then it is a privilege, nothing more.
So here we are back at CHPs. The government grants them as privileges. The typical citizen is unable to get in the game (CC) without buying into the permit system.
I've noted how we consider ourselves so civil, but deny such a basic right to people who haven't filled out the form or are ineligibly because of some arbitrary standard (e.g. age). As a matter of principle I'm against the concept and people should enjoy constitutional carry without infringement. Practically we have decayed so much that the only way to get to that point is to continue liberalizing CC and OC until the majority of people realize that CHPs are a useless security blanket. Anyone who wants to illegally CC and use that to harm another isn't going to care about a CHP law. Liberalizing to the point that constitutional carry could pass is the goal. CHP is a begrudged stepping stone at best.
to the club! 