This sounds rather like a circular and obtuse justification for anything. How could these facts of a liberal democracy suggest that it is best to have people armed? If anything, the only way you could even begin to place the importance of the people to be armed, is to require all citizens to be equally armed. At the moment, only those who are most paranoid and relatively extreme are holding weapons. People like the David Koresh's will always take better advantage of gun ownership over those who either don't choose to have weapons or cannot afford to stock them away as such.It is wrong to assume that most who are armed are paranoid and/or extreme. And it is best to have people armed because liberal democracies are fragile things.
Natural rights refers to rights that an individual enters into society with that governments are not supposed to deny. They do not generally apply to animals.Break it down like this: All laws, constitutional or otherwise created by governments either proscribe or prohibits some social behavior. A prohibition is also a proscription to all others to have the legal right NOT to do something. In essence, all laws are rights such as those which we proscribe in a constitution. The only difference is the ease for which those laws can be changed, if at all. So this implies that we are not "supposed to" deny any law. This includes the government considering they are part of the same democratic population. So governments, too, are not supposed to deny any law. What distinguishes your absolute "right" then from merely obeying the law at any given time? It's only your active obedience that suggests that you are "right". And any behavior to the contrary is "wrong". If these rights and wrongs are determined by people alone, then these claims are just arbitrary conventions and do not belong to some external universal force of nature, like the laws of matter and energy. So there is nothing "natural" about them.
Take a shield and a spear....are you honestly going to tell me that the spear is the defensive tool and the shield is some superfluous useless piece of decoration? Did armies of the past believe that the spears serve to defend the armies from the unruly civilization?Also, how do you figure that a gun is a means for personal "defense"? Shouldn't you be investing in bulletproof vests instead? In fact, without having to check, I'm pretty certain that the sales of bulletproof vests are somewhat insignificant to those of guns.How would bulletproof vests allow a person to defend themself? And that's assuming the vest even stopped the bullet and the person wasn't shot in the face or the leg or something.
Regarding about restructuring it, that is in reference to those who say that the Constitution as a whole is outdated and needs to be re-written to bring it "up-to-date." I was pointing out that the Constitution covers basic timeless principles. You can update it here and there via the amendment process, but trying to bring it "up-to-date" specifically regarding modern issues will result in a Constitution that is outdated within a few decades or shorter. And it is not a futile exercise to amend the Constitution, as it has been done multiple times before.Then I guess then the "timeless" amendments that are more than a few hundred years old are really outdated then, wouldn't you agree?
And how would you propose to solve this? The voting population only has to require being over 18 years of age. There's no educational prerequisite. Do you propose discounting those ill informed people the vote? Do you propose just ignoring those other people's interpretations when it comes to deciding to create a law? Or do you think that it might be wiser to negotiate an improved law that everyone can understand equally?Regarding multiple interpretations problem: And where does your authority come from to be the wiser? What assures you that anybody who interprets it different than you, must not "know anything about it"? And in respect to scholarly controversy, you seem to believe that everyone is on the same side of all issues which is very naive. ...Because the people who "interpret it differently" usually show a complete lack of knowledge of the other arguments on the issue. And I never said that everyone is on the same side of all issues.
And this arbitrary nature of people to be correct at assessing their authority at knowing when a government is bad for everyone else is a wise reason to assure that they have the capability to overthrow them? ...thus requiring that they need to have the right to be able to stockpile the weapons to do so?If you can't come up with a precise formula to determine the good from the bad, every gauge of estimation is useless and an insufficient reason to just allow people arbitrary powers to decide when it is right to assert a bad government and a right to overthrow it.It isn't useless or insufficient. But it can be a bit arbitrary.
Communism = the state in which all property and means of production are owned and operated by everyone in the community. Capitalism = the state by which property and means of production can or may be owned by individuals. Such ownership is one's capital. Socialism = the economic means to distribute social equality to its members of some defined class. [non-members do not necessarily qualify] Members of one social group, for example, like the sick, qualify for some equal standard of treatment. Nationalism = the belief that a particular group of people, like a race or population, is special and should be treated with that respect. It is the pride in one's heritage, culture or historical roots of a select people who believe they must raise this consciousness in awareness of all to preserve a common collective mindset. Democracy = any system that uses some form of voting procedure to elect governments or common laws to represent them. (Is interpreted ambiguously because no system beyond direct control and access to creating laws or immediate rule actually involves all the people all the time. Only Athens came close to it as a political reality.) Dictatorship = any system by which rules or laws are 'dictated' by an authorized group or individual without the direct consent of the people at large. (This is an ambiguous term because when one country determines some official leader as 'dictating', it implies that it is without consent when in fact the people may actually grant that consent in some form or another.) I looked up the Wikipedia on Hussein and I stand corrected that he was likely national socialist. However, this definition doesn't distinguish America without these qualifications. The national pride is the status that Americans grant their superiority over others by their promotion of its heritage, its ideals, and its imposition to preserve it throughout the world. The social programs are everywhere though they place more emphasis on granting privilege to non-governmental organizations to do these services. I would define the U.S. as National Social Capitalists. The Nazis, by comparison, had a unique National identity that limited them to German aboriginals, a race, whereas the States do not (at least for most people). But Social aspects of the Nazis was mainly in respect to a German middle-class distribution of equality and unfortunately, the select distribution of equal treatment in very derogatory ways to other groups (the Jews, the mentally ill, etc.) They were capitalistic though. They only socialized major means of production but enabled Germans to own private property and other means of production.Then I can assure you that you seriously lack an education yourself with respect to politics and governments in general. Hussein was communistic, not national socialist [Nazi]. In fact, the United States is the only government that comes close in comparison to Hitler's conception of government, if any should.Hussein was not a communist. His regime was modeled on the Nazi party. And the United States is about as far to the opposite of Nazism as one can get. Nazism was not a case of capitalism mixing with government. That is the classic, and wrong, claim of what fascism is. Fascism is a variant of socialism, where the government directs the economy. That is how the Nazi economy functioned and how the Italian government under Mussolini functioned. A really good book on the Nazi economy is The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze. A book to check also is Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom.
The U.S. nuclear arsenal is not what gives it its superpower status. I'd say it's the opposite, the arsenal is more a result of its superpower status. It's superpower status comes from its economic and military power overall and political influence. Regarding policing, nations that are virulent dictatorships that only seek a nuclear weapon to be able to bully other nations, should not be allowed to possess such weapons if anything can be done about it. Countries like the United States do not possess nuclear weapons for bullying purposes, they possess them for defensive reasons.Okay, presuming fairness, is not your argument to allow the general public to be armed no different? The American nuclear arms arsenal represents the right of America to own a very big gun. Can you not extend the right to bear arms to your own citizens for a real fear of a possible takeover in such a delicate system like Liberal Democracy to other nations? If not, you presume that the totality of American citizens are far morally superior than other people in other nations.
No?... just the creation of Homeland security and Guantanamo Bay and the ability to detain anyone without due process in the name of National Security!George Bush is a tyrant too! The only thing that saved his ass from being impeached is that he immediately created a secrecy act to protect all Presidential conversations from being able to be legally heard or used for fifty years past his term in office. And nobody stopped him or seemed to want the possibility of a stain on American pride.George Bush was not any tyrant. Far from it. You didn't see all of his critics in the government and the media getting thrown into prison or anything.
Nor did Bush some how become a king. As for impeachment, he wasn't impeached because there was nothing to impeach him on. If anything, he had the least scandal-wracked administration of any recent president (including Reagan and now Obama).How can you impeach a President when he disabled the court's, let alone the public at large, to be able to discover fair evidence? By creating that law to ban all Presidential communications from publicity extended to police investigations. What he did was to make it actually illegal to impeach a President until fifty years later, a time he is likely to be dead! And how do you measure this 'least scandal-wracked' qualification? The ideals of the Republican Party represented by Bush means that he believes in the smallest government possible (Dictatorship is the best) whereby favoring certain capitalist organizations to take over those powers (Aristocratic Rule without responsibility or representation its citizens) and installment of the ability to use tax dollars to foster particular religious affiliations (abandonment of the First Amendment). On ideology alone, his aim is clearly National Socialistic.
Is this just another blind belief in something else that's 'supposed' to be?Granting Saddam's cruelty, the U.S. was not in any threat from him and your President and staff among other supporters around the world (including ours, Canada), knew this. The U.S. was wanting to finish their war with Saddam from the early nineties but he pulled back and gave no one justification to continue. 9/11 was a convenient excuse but they tried desperately to try to find a natural connection which wasn't happening. The lying and innuendos was their strategy. And though they did a dumb-ass job about it, half of our populations (that includes Canadian and UK opinions) are either really stupid or just willing to pretend they are.They didn't lie. Outright lying would never have made it past the Congress.
How was the significance of Iraq's evil dictatorship more prevalent than say, taking out North Korea's, instead? Why no same heartfelt concern for the Ethiopian, Rwanda, or Somalian genocides that killed way more people than Iraq? It doesn't add up that American interests were to protect a people needing democracy to those who idealistically and intrinsically hate Americans regardless of what aid they could use to 'free' them. The North Korean people would actually be more welcome to the Americans upon saving.When you say, well, "he was really bad anyways", the logic is no different to the emotional play that a prosecution makes to sway the jury by pointing to the horror and nature of a crime and then associating the fact that the defense did something else that was bad in their life, even if they have no connection.The logic is different. Because Hussein was being invaded for all of those reasons. He wasn't on a man on trial with the jury having to consider whether he was guilty solely over one thing.
You presume that I'm making this up out of thin air, or what? The conservative political agenda of the Republican Party is to conserve the traditional institutions and people of those who they believe to be more original to the United States Nationality and pride. This, to them, is the Protestant Christians, the capital interests of the economic status quo and their social privileges. This is no different than Hitler's preservation of the past Aryan nationality to Germany. For gains, see: Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers]To begin with, conservative politics believe in what they claim is "smaller government". But to their reasoning, it should be passed to preferential corporate interests for the nations sake: that is, they spend money on corporations to do what is lost in government. [This, by the way, is what National Socialism did in Germany.] One of the things that Bush did was to encourage war in order to create economy for the military machine and particular favored corporate interests (like Halliburton, for instance) The loss or cost of the debts of the war are passed on to the common people through lives, taxation, and loss of rights to privacy and securities at home. But these are not incurred by people like Bush. If they could, they would bankrupt the government as is to make it impossible to exist (smallest government). All those he wanted to gain personally, are and have been secured.You starting to sound like a left-wing caricature about what the right supposedly stands for. Conservative politics is not about mixing big business with government (though some corrupt Republicans seek to do this, but they are not being conservative). And no, that is not what Nazi Germany did. Nazi Germany's businesses didn't have a say in what they had to do. They were commanded by the government. Also, you need to provide some proof regarding your claim that Bush pushed for war to "create economy for the military machine" and "favored corporate interests."
Bush was not talking about nuclear bombing other countries. He was saying that the United States would go after any nation that harbored terrorists. It was perhaps an oversimplified form of wording, but he wasn't saying either you are with the United States regarding whatever it wants to do or you are with the terrorists, he was saying either you are with the United States and seek to undermine terrorism or you are aiding the terrorists, and thus against the U.S.No one interpreted Bush as threatening nuclear war on them. It meant economic sanctions. Don't dismiss his intent by your assumptions. His words were clear.
Communism was illogically feared in the first place. The mere paranoia from the Americans is mostly responsible for the treatment of the U.S.S.R. towards their people by forcing unnecessary resources to fund their own nuclear armament and effort to secure themselves. I wander if they were just left alone from the beginning without external pressures and economic sanctions whether they would have either succeeded to a better society or learned earlier on their own to abandon it.?America, contrary to your propaganda, was not the determiner of the break of the U.S.S.R.. There are a lot of factors that went into it. Italy, I'm sure is amplifying the fact that it was the new Pope from Poland who initiated the fall. We have also learned through recent times that the Soviet Union's people had more just reasons to fear the Americans throughout the cold war due to their paranoia.The only reasons the Soviet peoples had to fear the United States was from the aggression of the Soviet government itself towards the free world. The United States was not the sole cause of the Soviet Union's collapse, I agree. But the United States was the main power that stood as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and global communism throughout the Cold War. And although the U.S. wasn't solely responsible for the Soviet Union's breakup, it did play a major role nonetheless.
Break it down like this: All laws, constitutional or otherwise created by governments either proscribe or prohibits some social behavior. A prohibition is also a proscription to all others to have the legal right NOT to do something. In essence, all laws are rights such as those which we proscribe in a constitution. The only difference is the ease for which those laws can be changed, if at all. So this implies that we are not "supposed to" deny any law. This includes the government considering they are part of the same democratic population. So governments, too, are not supposed to deny any law. What distinguishes your absolute "right" then from merely obeying the law at any given time? It's only your active obedience that suggests that you are "right". And any behavior to the contrary is "wrong". If these rights and wrongs are determined by people alone, then these claims are just arbitrary conventions and do not belong to some external universal force of nature, like the laws of matter and energy. So there is nothing "natural" about them.Whether a majority of people think the concept of natural rights are right or not is irrelevant. That is why we have the government in existence to protect them (or it's supposed to). I would also disagree that a prohibition is a proscription to have the right not to do something. Making speeding illegal is not thus making it a right not to speed.
Take a shield and a spear....are you honestly going to tell me that the spear is the defensive tool and the shield is some superfluous useless piece of decoration? Did armies of the past believe that the spears serve to defend the armies from the unruly civilization?Not sure I follow here. Both spear and shield were used as both offensive and defensive weapons. You can hit someone with a shield.
Then I guess then the "timeless" amendments that are more than a few hundred years old are really outdated then, wouldn't you agree?Not at all. Right to free speech, right to arms, right against unreasonable search and seizure, etc...are just as applicable now as they were then.
And how would you propose to solve this? The voting population only has to require being over 18 years of age. There's no educational prerequisite. Do you propose discounting those ill informed people the vote? Do you propose just ignoring those other people's interpretations when it comes to deciding to create a law? Or do you think that it might be wiser to negotiate an improved law that everyone can understand equally?You do not ignore other people's "interpretations," you point out to them how they are wrong.
And this arbitrary nature of people to be correct at assessing their authority at knowing when a government is bad for everyone else is a wise reason to assure that they have the capability to overthrow them? ...thus requiring that they need to have the right to be able to stockpile the weapons to do so?No. You protect the right of the people to keep arms in the event that the government becomes outright tyrannical (for example, if a Lenin takes over, one isn't really going to have to debate the issue at that point). But also, the people being armed is to serve as a check on groups that would seek to overthrow the government as well (insurrections).
Communism = the state in which all property and means of production are owned and operated by everyone in the community. Capitalism = the state by which property and means of production can or may be owned by individuals. Such ownership is one's capital. Socialism = the economic means to distribute social equality to its members of some defined class. [non-members do not necessarily qualify] Members of one social group, for example, like the sick, qualify for some equal standard of treatment. Nationalism = the belief that a particular group of people, like a race or population, is special and should be treated with that respect. It is the pride in one's heritage, culture or historical roots of a select people who believe they must raise this consciousness in awareness of all to preserve a common collective mindset. Democracy = any system that uses some form of voting procedure to elect governments or common laws to represent them. (Is interpreted ambiguously because no system beyond direct control and access to creating laws or immediate rule actually involves all the people all the time. Only Athens came close to it as a political reality.) Dictatorship = any system by which rules or laws are 'dictated' by an authorized group or individual without the direct consent of the people at large. (This is an ambiguous term because when one country determines some official leader as 'dictating', it implies that it is without consent when in fact the people may actually grant that consent in some form or another.) I looked up the Wikipedia on Hussein and I stand corrected that he was likely national socialist. However, this definition doesn't distinguish America without these qualifications. The national pride is the status that Americans grant their superiority over others by their promotion of its heritage, its ideals, and its imposition to preserve it throughout the world. The social programs are everywhere though they place more emphasis on granting privilege to non-governmental organizations to do these services. I would define the U.S. as National Social Capitalists. The Nazis, by comparison, had a unique National identity that limited them to German aboriginals, a race, whereas the States do not (at least for most people). But Social aspects of the Nazis was mainly in respect to a German middle-class distribution of equality and unfortunately, the select distribution of equal treatment in very derogatory ways to other groups (the Jews, the mentally ill, etc.) They were capitalistic though. They only socialized major means of production but enabled Germans to own private property and other means of production.Well socialism I would say is when the state runs the economy as opposed to the free-market. Some define socialism as being when the state owns the means of production, but the thing is, if the state does not own outright the means of production, but directs the companies in terms of how and what to produce, then you get the same result. This is what the Nazi economy did. They outright nationalized certain industries, but other "private-sector" businesses had to abide by the central planning laid out (or else face outright nationalization). Prices, wages, dividends, production quotas, etc...all were tightly controlled. I would disagree that the U.S. is nationalist. Americans tend to be proud and patriotic, but not nationalist.
Okay, presuming fairness, is not your argument to allow the general public to be armed no different? The American nuclear arms arsenal represents the right of America to own a very big gun. Can you not extend the right to bear arms to your own citizens for a real fear of a possible takeover in such a delicate system like Liberal Democracy to other nations? If not, you presume that the totality of American citizens are far morally superior than other people in other nations.A few things: 1) Nuclear weapons are not arms. Arms are the basic tools of war that you use one-on-one (swords, knives, axes, firearms, etc...). Not things like bombs. 2) I have no problem with other free countries have nuclear weapons to protect themselves. I do have a problem with violent regimes possessing nuclear weapon however.
No?... just the creation of Homeland security and Guantanamo Bay and the ability to detain anyone without due process in the name of National Security!They don't have the ability to detain anyone without due process. And how is Homeland Security the sign of a tyrant? Guantanomo Bay was created because there just isn't any other place to put the terrorists that were being held. Remember how President Obama, upon becoming President, said that Guantanomo Bay would be closed within a year? And then they found out the hard way why it had been opened in the first place.
How can you impeach a President when he disabled the court's, let alone the public at large, to be able to discover fair evidence? By creating that law to ban all Presidential communications from publicity extended to police investigations. What he did was to make it actually illegal to impeach a President until fifty years later, a time he is likely to be dead! And how do you measure this 'least scandal-wracked' qualification?Not sure which law you are referring to (could you provide a link?). Also, the president does not create laws, they only enforce them. To create laws requires Congress. As for the least scandal-wracked, well Bush didn't have any equivalent to Iran-Contra like Reagan, nor was he getting blow jobs like Bill Clinton, nor were there any IRS, Justice Department, NSA, Benghazi, etc...scandals like with Obama.
The ideals of the Republican Party represented by Bush means that he believes in the smallest government possible (Dictatorship is the best) whereby favoring certain capitalist organizations to take over those powers (Aristocratic Rule without responsibility or representation its citizens) and installment of the ability to use tax dollars to foster particular religious affiliations (abandonment of the First Amendment). On ideology alone, his aim is clearly National Socialistic.Where did Bush favor dictatorship or "certain capitalist organizations" to take over? And why was Bush such an ally to Israel then? Truly tyrannical regimes make friends with other tyrannical regimes.
Is this just another blind belief in something else that's 'supposed' to be?As I pointed out, top members of Congress don't get their intelligence from the White House. So it wasn't like all Congress had to rely on was the Bush administration itself on the issue.
How was the significance of Iraq's evil dictatorship more prevalent than say, taking out North Korea's, instead? Why no same heartfelt concern for the Ethiopian, Rwanda, or Somalian genocides that killed way more people than Iraq? It doesn't add up that American interests were to protect a people needing democracy to those who idealistically and intrinsically hate Americans regardless of what aid they could use to 'free' them. The North Korean people would actually be more welcome to the Americans upon saving.I agree on that part. That the people of Iraq were oppressed wasn't significant justification unto itself from a blood and treasure standpoint to go invading the country. But that was in addition to the evidence regarding Hussein having WMDs.
You presume that I'm making this up out of thin air, or what? The conservative political agenda of the Republican Party is to conserve the traditional institutions and people of those who they believe to be more original to the United States Nationality and pride. This, to them, is the Protestant Christians, the capital interests of the economic status quo and their social privileges. This is no different than Hitler's preservation of the past Aryan nationality to Germany.There is a HUGE difference between what the conservative political agenda is and Hitler's National Socialists. For one, if conservatives really believed in preserving specific economic interests, they would not favor smaller government. Smaller government doesn't preserve said interests. If you want to control economic interests, you want large government. But conservatives believe in economic freedom. Historically, economic freedom is tied to political freedom, which is something else conservatives also believe very much in. You are confusing the term "conservative" as it has traditionally been used in European nations to refer to aristocrats who want to preserve the status quo. Conservatives in America do not want to preserve any status quo. They do seek to be fiscally conservative, are often more socially conservative, and seek to preserve the main institutional pillars of our society, but those pillars are what allow constant change and dynamism. So for example, conservatives will argue against larger government in the economy because this infringes on the free market and thus its ability to create constant innovation, change, and economic growth. Conservatives argue in favor of liberal democracy because it permits constant change in the political system. The term "liberal" also gets misused. In America, "liberal" means of the left, but in other countries, the word refers to those on the right. National Socialism actually had a lot more in common with progressivism (as like socialism, it is a variant of the left). Both favor large government, government control over the economy (or a large governmental presence in the economy), and eugenics. It was the progressives who drove the eugenics movement in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Here it resulted in the forced sterilization of many people. In Germany, it resulted in outright genocide. It was the United States where the eugenics movement originated, but then the Nazis picked up on it. And this is one of the reasons why conservatives are oftentimes so against things like abortion, because abortion means one is allowing the State to determine the intrinsic value of human life, which can be dangerous (IMO both left and right take the abortion issue to the extreme).
No one interpreted Bush as threatening nuclear war on them. It meant economic sanctions. Don't dismiss his intent by your assumptions. His words were clear.I don't think he meant any specific policies, he just meant if you harbor terrorists, you will not be considered a friend of the United States.
Communism was illogically feared in the first place. The mere paranoia from the Americans is mostly responsible for the treatment of the U.S.S.R. towards their people by forcing unnecessary resources to fund their own nuclear armament and effort to secure themselves. I wander if they were just left alone from the beginning without external pressures and economic sanctions whether they would have either succeeded to a better society or learned earlier on their own to abandon it.?!!!!!!!!!!!! Communism was illogically feared? And the U.S. was responsible for the treatment of the Soviets towards their own people? For one, they were left alone. They only got countered by the United States due to their constant aggression. Keep in mind what they did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia for example. They funded oppressive communist regimes all over the world, and regarding their treatment of their own people, that is because they were an authoritarian socialist system that was horrendously oppressive.
There are God’s Laws and The Constitution.
God’s laws mostly tells you what you can’t do. There are what, 613 of god’s laws in the bible?
God’s gun law is; life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot."
The Constitution says you can speak and defend yourself.
The Bill of Rights gives us the Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. And “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is a well-known phrase in the United States Declaration of Independence.
Your right, the Constitution needs to be put in a form that commutates the same meanings to everyone.
A book written in 2009 by Harvey Silverglate called, Three Felonies a Day, says that the Americans unwittingly commits three felonies a day because of vague laws.
That tells me that we are in a very dangerous place of our history.
Now we are giving absolute power to the government over everything we say and do.
Sad to say, but it might just be these nuts that flip out with an AK-47 that will keep the government from exercising total control of all aspects of life over the people.
Any government that creates or allows a class system has no business having the control it does today.
LogicMan Post #15
That would be a coup. As for if the people support the dictatorship, that is why we are a Constitutional republic, designed to protect the minority from the majority (and the majority from the elite minority).
If we are going to have a class system then a speeding ticket that in California costs the driver $900.00 should cost the rich $15,000.00 and the elite $250,000.00 to have the same total effect of being a penalty that will hurt the person in a financial way as stop a repeated offence. Story in today’s news about Hedge Fund Managers making $1M/hr. They make in one hour what takes the average guy 47 years to make. They are in a class of their own. Their ticket should be $90,000,000.00 to be fair and have the same effect of law.
How is the Constitution going to address these class problems? I might be a little heavy on the class differences today because they just about passed a Farm Bill that some congressmen claimed as many as 10M Americans would be without anyway to get food. Not that the upper classes give a daxx.
Same with business, a lot of business today, especially banks figure in Federal and State penalties as part of doing business. The small guy would be put out of business with just one of these fines.
I’m not trying to throw a wrench in the thinking. I just see so much of a difference in classes that the Constitution services the people differently according to their class or connections.
Note, the Veda and the Babylonians had class systems and different payments for the class systems; it even applied to payments for medical services. Let me make it clearer, the Veda had four classes; you paid a fine amount based according to the class you were in.
On the third point of what America’s war machine should do.
I always thought WMD or not, I was upset on the pictures of the nerve gases used against a Kurdish village in northern Iraq. That was enough for us to go into Iraq. We set him up in power the right thing was to take him down.
But the new issue is going to be China. In twenty years they may have the technical edge on us. Did you see in the news the other day that China now has the most powerful computer in the world?
I think that debating over gun control is quite pointless
Most studies of the impact of gun control laws have found little impact on violence rates
Encyclopedia of Social Problems, Volume 1
edited by Vincent N. Parrillo
page 423
Personally, I think there are other aspects of society which need to change.
For example considering that “”“ there is a small group (5%) of young males who are committing most offences. These are the young people who require the bulk of our attention.
”“”
Maybe countries should start ensuring that there are enough organization of help young people.
And then there is the criminal justice system as whole
http://technorati.com/politics/article/are-violent-offenders-beating-the-criminal/
And THEN there is how some politicians in our country are (not to say their all the same):
Loonwatch.com | "The Mooslims! they're heeere!" ( this is a funny video so i highly recommend everyone watches)
Whether a majority of people think the concept of natural rights are right or not is irrelevant. That is why we have the government in existence to protect them (or it's supposed to). I would also disagree that a prohibition is a proscription to have the right not to do something. Making speeding illegal is not thus making it a right not to speed.I wasn't making any argument to appeal to majority. My point was that there are no such thing as absolute rights in the universe for humanity or any other being. We create them by convention. And so any government's constitutions have no absolute validity in "nature" for which you were claiming there is by implication. Just because a constitution was created for your country on paper that declares itself eternal doesn't mean it must. In fact, the same can be argued for a constitution in a Communist country. Imagine this: "Oh, damn, I know our [Communist or X, or Y] system is bad, but the constitution was written long ago and declared itself eternal. Therefore, we must abide it no matter what!" That's your argument. Your speeding example: you're making an inappropriate comparison to my meaning. In the speeding case, you would say the the law to prohibit speeding is equal to a law that guarantees the safety of individuals from being harmed by others who speed. It is obviously easier and logical to state most laws in a prohibitionist form because otherwise you would be forced to do a lot more writing to get the same point across. Likewise with certain proscribed (or positive) laws. A law guaranteeing freedom of speech is the same if worded in a negative (prohibitionist) form: viz. No person may limit another's freedom of speech.
Are you even being serious? I am certain that you get the argument and are just playing the duck.Take a shield and a spear....are you honestly going to tell me that the spear is the defensive tool and the shield is some superfluous useless piece of decoration? Did armies of the past believe that the spears serve to defend the armies from the unruly civilization?Not sure I follow here. Both spear and shield were used as both offensive and defensive weapons. You can hit someone with a shield.
In 'nature', I have every right to kill you just for being paranoid that you might harm me by whatever means. In fact, in 'nature', I have a right to torture you just because I'm bored and want to practice my hunting skills like a wild cat may to an animal it doesn't need or intend to eat. Other than human convention, what do you suppose a "right" is?Then I guess then the "timeless" amendments that are more than a few hundred years old are really outdated then, wouldn't you agree?Not at all. Right to free speech, right to arms, right against unreasonable search and seizure, etc...are just as applicable now as they were then.
Again, you're being obscure. I think that in your mind, you seem to think that there is an innate set of entities or absolutes that assure that there are rights and wrongs even without humans being there to use them. I'm guessing that you are a theist considering you seem to think you know the correct versions of rights and wrongs that only entities like gods declare.And how would you propose to solve this? The voting population only has to require being over 18 years of age. There's no educational prerequisite. Do you propose discounting those ill informed people the vote? Do you propose just ignoring those other people's interpretations when it comes to deciding to create a law? Or do you think that it might be wiser to negotiate an improved law that everyone can understand equally?You do not ignore other people's "interpretations," you point out to them how they are wrong.
It's not possible for a government, being a group of people in and of itself, to be overtaken by insurrection without them thinking that you are the ones in the wrong. Thus, to them, regardless or how evil you could choose to declare them, they would see you as the evil ones. It is always the victor that declares the other as tyrannical and evil. If Hitler succeeded and Germany had a society that existed based on his philosophy today, they would interpret their ways as just. Even if such a society frowned upon his genocidal decisions, they would be just as trivialized in the modern context as the average American views the genocide of North American natives and slavery of the Africans.And this arbitrary nature of people to be correct at assessing their authority at knowing when a government is bad for everyone else is a wise reason to assure that they have the capability to overthrow them? ...thus requiring that they need to have the right to be able to stockpile the weapons to do so?No. You protect the right of the people to keep arms in the event that the government becomes outright tyrannical (for example, if a Lenin takes over, one isn't really going to have to debate the issue at that point). But also, the people being armed is to serve as a check on groups that would seek to overthrow the government as well (insurrections).
Well socialism I would say is when the state runs the economy as opposed to the free-market. Some define socialism as being when the state owns the means of production, but the thing is, if the state does not own outright the means of production, but directs the companies in terms of how and what to produce, then you get the same result. This is what the Nazi economy did. They outright nationalized certain industries, but other "private-sector" businesses had to abide by the central planning laid out (or else face outright nationalization). Prices, wages, dividends, production quotas, etc...all were tightly controlled. ...I would disagree that the U.S. is nationalist. Americans tend to be proud and patriotic, but not nationalist.You are incorrect. Nationalized industries is not nationalism as the Germans understood it; Nationalism referred to
National Socialism, German Nationalsozialismus, also called Nazism or Naziism, totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler as head of the Nazi Party in Germany. In its intense nationalism, mass appeal, and dictatorial rule, National Socialism shared many elements with Italian fascism. However, Nazism was far more extreme both in its ideas and in its practice. In almost every respect it was an anti-intellectual and atheoretical movement, emphasizing the will of the charismatic dictator as the sole source of inspiration of a people and a nation, as well as a vision of annihilation of all enemies of the Aryan Volk as the one and only goal of Nazi policy. from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/405414/National-SocialismAlthough this source points out its emphasis to the dictator, the people would not have viewed him personally as the essential reason for voting in him (no one anywhere actually reasons, "Let's follow one person's arbitrary desires because we like to be submitted to tyranny.") The people's [German aboriginal's that is] admiration for him was that he empowered them by their sense of heritage and superiority, a strong patriotism that united them by embracing their common ancestral "rights", as they saw it. All our democratic societies today have way more nationalized industries than Hitler ever did. You obviously didn't watch the documentary that I referenced that showed how the Bush administration indirectly nationalized it's preferential powers by handing contracts to particular private industries that are the core of the Republican Party's foundation. By taking the decisions out of the democracy's capability to oversee, those industries have no accountability to the people of the United States who vote. This is an indirect way of tyranny because only Republican Party supporters actually decide what those businesses do because the supporters and the companies are one and the same. This is even sneakier than what Hitler even proposed because, at least, he was open and honest about who actually had the authority to govern these businesses. Also, if Hitler was overthrown within his own government, the people would still be able at least to retake the reigns over those nationalized corporations. In America and similar Capitalist societies, this isn't possible any longer. You, as a citizen, are not able to have a say in those companies that are not part of the actual federal government. I urge you to watch the documentary. You asked for that evidence and I gave it to you. It's now your burden to actually look at it.
Like the spears and shield example I gave, you are just playing the duck here. [Playing the duck = acting like a decoy duck does to hunting: faking an innocent dummy to coax the prey in to shoot.] Nuclear Arms are to countries as fire arm are to individuals. Your distinction is insincere to reason. I already argued the relativity of what one group of people consider evil or violent to another. You'd have to provide evidence that demonstrates that the other sides sincerely believe that they are inherently evil -- that they believe that they are 'wrong'. I also clearly pointed out that villains do not attempt to appear like comic villains because they don't see themselves as such, contrary to what you want to think. For example, Hitler's mustache that was uniquely definitive of him and scares people today was inspired by Charlie Chaplin (He didn't know he was Jewish.) He wanted to look admirable as his hero. Another example: the Hitler salute was inspired by America's Pledge of Allegiance salute. Only after WWII did the American's decide to change the salute to placing one's hand to their chest over their heart's instead. Even another example: the Swastika that is a symbol of fear to most people today was actually a cool looking symbol, unique, and quite an attractive piece of art. It wasn't designed as an evil insignia. In contrast, most countries do not think of their flags as magical insignias of essential pride to entrench an absurd law to make it illegal to burn like the American's do. To them, it's freedom of speech. Only American flags get burned elsewhere because it represents such an insignia to them as the Swastika did to Germany then.Okay, presuming fairness, is not your argument to allow the general public to be armed no different? The American nuclear arms arsenal represents the right of America to own a very big gun. Can you not extend the right to bear arms to your own citizens for a real fear of a possible takeover in such a delicate system like Liberal Democracy to other nations? If not, you presume that the totality of American citizens are far morally superior than other people in other nations.A few things: 1) Nuclear weapons are not arms. Arms are the basic tools of war that you use one-on-one (swords, knives, axes, firearms, etc...). Not things like bombs. 2) I have no problem with other free countries have nuclear weapons to protect themselves. I do have a problem with violent regimes possessing nuclear weapon however.
Watch the damn documentary I presented for such example's of abuses. Homeland Security is the same as Hitler's policing organizations (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheitspolizei). The term, "Homeland Security" is friendly sounding term. But it's superfluous in meaning considering American's already have the FBI for internal security policing, the CIA for external security policing, a Secret Service for top secret Government protections, regular police forces for State and City governments, police for special cases like Highway Patrols, Sheriffs (originally, land right protection police [other country's sheriffs usually only serve as rentalsmen or real estate right protectors.] The terms governments that conservatives create are always rhetorically created for emotional affect. For example, the Estate Tax, a tax for real estate inheritance was renamed, the Inheritance Tax by the Bush administration to garner fear that people are losing something by inheriting anything.No?... just the creation of Homeland security and Guantanamo Bay and the ability to detain anyone without due process in the name of National Security!They don't have the ability to detain anyone without due process. And how is Homeland Security the sign of a tyrant? Guantanomo Bay was created because there just isn't any other place to put the terrorists that were being held. Remember how President Obama, upon becoming President, said that Guantanomo Bay would be closed within a year? And then they found out the hard way why it had been opened in the first place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13233 This is another example of how your Republican government likes to name things. In this case, they wanted to hide the relevance of this act by labeling it with as much an innocuous description as possible. Executive Order means that it was a law commanded and enacted by the President alone! That is, an exemption to skip your elected Representative. The Iraq war was a scandal, as the rest of the world and half of your own population clearly sees it. The appointments to oversee Wall Street which pretended to investigate the frauds that the big bankers, brokers and other wealthy and powerful schemers but did not even try to put any of them in jail is another example. Likely, the schemes would have linked the cons directly to the politicians and friends as the investors who gained from them. It was not rationally possible not to discover anything since there were plenty of people willing to come forward to prove this but were absolutely ignored! The billions of dollars stolen by these people ruined the economy and harmed people in more real ways than what President Clinton did. His act to "get a blow job" is a personal indiscretion that has zero effect to other people's lives and fortunes. Other than his own personal relationship, the only people it had any consequence to is to religious assholes who seem to think somehow their god is going to curse America or something. Also, the costs to the taxpayers by the Republican Congress to attempt to indict him was another absolute rhetorical device meant to create a monster out of a Democrat when they had nothing real to actually vilify him with.How can you impeach a President when he disabled the court's, let alone the public at large, to be able to discover fair evidence? By creating that law to ban all Presidential communications from publicity extended to police investigations. What he did was to make it actually illegal to impeach a President until fifty years later, a time he is likely to be dead! And how do you measure this 'least scandal-wracked' qualification?Not sure which law you are referring to (could you provide a link?). Also, the president does not create laws, they only enforce them. To create laws requires Congress. As for the least scandal-wracked, well Bush didn't have any equivalent to Iran-Contra like Reagan, nor was he getting blow jobs like Bill Clinton, nor were there any IRS, Justice Department, NSA, Benghazi, etc...scandals like with Obama.
Watch the documentary. Here it is again: Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers ]. The State of Israel itself is a contentious issue that Republican defenders pretend are good people without warrant. Republicans have always supported them regardless of their ever more National Socialist attitudes similar to the Nazis they were targeted by. And their National Socialism is Constitutionalized! The belief that Christ will come down only when the Jewish Temple is rebuilt necessarily requires that Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians to support them.The ideals of the Republican Party represented by Bush means that he believes in the smallest government possible (Dictatorship is the best) whereby favoring certain capitalist organizations to take over those powers (Aristocratic Rule without responsibility or representation its citizens) and installment of the ability to use tax dollars to foster particular religious affiliations (abandonment of the First Amendment). On ideology alone, his aim is clearly National Socialistic.Where did Bush favor dictatorship or "certain capitalist organizations" to take over? And why was Bush such an ally to Israel then? Truly tyrannical regimes make friends with other tyrannical regimes.
See the Executive Order link in the previous post.Is this just another blind belief in something else that's 'supposed' to be?As I pointed out, top members of Congress don't get their intelligence from the White House. So it wasn't like all Congress had to rely on was the Bush administration itself on the issue.
How was the significance of Iraq's evil dictatorship more prevalent than say, taking out North Korea's, instead? ...I agree on that part. That the people of Iraq were oppressed wasn't significant justification unto itself from a blood and treasure standpoint to go invading the country. But that was in addition to the evidence regarding Hussein having WMDs.Saddam didn't have WDMs. Where were you when the one single informant who gave the justification for the second Iraq War by Bush was blindly trusted without normal justification procedures that even a local newspaper is assured to follow? This wasn't a simple accidental oversight. All news publications, scientific journals, ordinary police officers, and any everyday Joe wants corroboration to determine any serious accusation to charge someone of offense. Am I able to accuse anyone of a crime, not to mention, in anonymity, and have someone, not just charged with whatever offense, but convicted without authorities corroborating the evidence? It isn't possible that even the dumbest President would not question it without being sincerely crooked and deceptive himself. And certainly, a whole large organization of highly trained CIA agents could not have had at least one person who would question the integrity of such a claim. It is like a guard at a Nazi an extermination camp declaring oddly that he didn't notice the population of people had any Jews!
The Nazi Government was extremely small. To govern requires those who govern to have control on what happens. I think a "dictatorship" tends to suggest extremely limited government, wouldn't you say? Also, the Nazi's believed in economic freedom. That freedom was limited to the German Aryan race, however. In Americas origins, they too had a selective mindset as well, considering they didn't invite the large Native population as relevant to land ownership and other economic freedoms.You presume that I'm making this up out of thin air, or what? The conservative political agenda of the Republican Party is to conserve the traditional institutions and people of those who they believe to be more original to the United States Nationality and pride. This, to them, is the Protestant Christians, the capital interests of the economic status quo and their social privileges. This is no different than Hitler's preservation of the past Aryan nationality to Germany.There is a HUGE difference between what the conservative political agenda is and Hitler's National Socialists. For one, if conservatives really believed in preserving specific economic interests, they would not favor smaller government. Smaller government doesn't preserve said interests. If you want to control economic interests, you want large government. But conservatives believe in economic freedom. Historically, economic freedom is tied to political freedom, which is something else conservatives also believe very much in.
You are confusing the term "conservative" as it has traditionally been used in European nations to refer to aristocrats who want to preserve the status quo. Conservatives in America do not want to preserve any status quo. They do seek to be fiscally conservative, are often more socially conservative, and seek to preserve the main institutional pillars of our society, but those pillars are what allow constant change and dynamism. So for example, conservatives will argue against larger government in the economy because this infringes on the free market and thus its ability to create constant innovation, change, and economic growth. Conservatives argue in favor of liberal democracy because it permits constant change in the political system. The term "liberal" also gets misused. In America, "liberal" means of the left, but in other countries, the word refers to those on the right. National Socialism actually had a lot more in common with progressivism (as like socialism, it is a variant of the left). Both favor large government, government control over the economy (or a large governmental presence in the economy), and eugenics. It was the progressives who drove the eugenics movement in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s. Here it resulted in the forced sterilization of many people. In Germany, it resulted in outright genocide. It was the United States where the eugenics movement originated, but then the Nazis picked up on it. And this is one of the reasons why conservatives are oftentimes so against things like abortion, because abortion means one is allowing the State to determine the intrinsic value of human life, which can be dangerous (IMO both left and right take the abortion issue to the extreme).You made more distinctions without actual differences in this quote more than ever. Conservative and Liberal are appropriately understood by intelligent people everywhere in the same way. You have to provide evidence where such and assumption that others presume otherwise rather than just making it up. Where you get the idea that anyone would ever presume "liberal" mean right is absurd. In fact, more likely, you yourself do not know the actual meanings. Liberalism, is understood everywhere to mean a political philosophy which grants the right of all individuals the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want as long as they do not infringe on the same freedoms (liberty) of other people to do and be the same. For example, I am able to smoke pot, for instance, in such a philosophy, if only I act in such a way that it could not possibly limit another person's liberty to exist freely. This is considered contentious by some even who are 'liberal' because some believe that it does infringe on other people's rights to the liberties of life they choose. We do not allow murder because if I have such a freedom, then it means that I can limit another person's freedom to live. Contrary, Conservatives (a rather inexact term because only in a contemporary reference does it imply any special philosophy because the conservatives of Lincoln's day were actually of the Democratic Party which defended the older ways of slavery, for instance), want the older ways of religious absolutism of morality that dictates from things like the Bible what should be right or wrong, not a convention of people who vote for what is moral based on a freedom to do anything you want.
President George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us ] This source also references and links you to the actual speech in full. He didn't 'just mean' that. What you miss that other nations don't is that they pay attention to media more globally than most Americans. We watch all your media as well as our own with the same fervor. You miss how our own politicians act globally and then get American political responses. Prior to 9/11 Bush was pushing for war with Iraq and our countries were not convinced through the U.N. Bush was denouncing the U.N. because they wanted to act but the majority of all democracies represented by them did not have legitimate logical grounds for war. And on 9/11, Bush unilaterally decided to go to war without the U.N. (majority of all democratic nations) Only Britain and Australia gave their full support and were given this attention by America. Bush claimed in the speech things like Al Qaeda as being associated with Iraq which were blatantly false. Everyone supported the war in Afghanistan which was relevant because that is where the terrorist of 9/11 were from. We also all knew that the Arab nation was also at fault because that is where Osama Bin Laden's family, finances, and support were from. America tolerated the totalitarianism and tyranny of Arab and even Pakistan which were more of the cause of 9/11 than Muslims from anywhere else.No one interpreted Bush as threatening nuclear war on them. It meant economic sanctions. Don't dismiss his intent by your assumptions. His words were clear.I don't think he meant any specific policies, he just meant if you harbor terrorists, you will not be considered a friend of the United States.
Every large country has it's horrors that they've done to their own people throughout history. It doesn't justify anything. But it should point out that acts done in the name of all political philosophies have equal credit to severe injustices. What bothers me is when people credit certain ideologies with the innate justification for atrocities that occurred inappropriately. Bush's acts for instance are due not to American ideology of philosophy. They are his and those who support him alone.Communism was illogically feared in the first place. The mere paranoia from the Americans is mostly responsible for the treatment of the U.S.S.R. towards their people by forcing unnecessary resources to fund their own nuclear armament and effort to secure themselves. I wander if they were just left alone from the beginning without external pressures and economic sanctions whether they would have either succeeded to a better society or learned earlier on their own to abandon it.?!!!!!!!!!!!! Communism was illogically feared? And the U.S. was responsible for the treatment of the Soviets towards their own people? For one, they were left alone. They only got countered by the United States due to their constant aggression. Keep in mind what they did to Hungary and Czechoslovakia for example. They funded oppressive communist regimes all over the world, and regarding their treatment of their own people, that is because they were an authoritarian socialist system that was horrendously oppressive.
I wasn't making any argument to appeal to majority. My point was that there are no such thing as absolute rights in the universe for humanity or any other being. We create them by convention. And so any government's constitutions have no absolute validity in "nature" for which you were claiming there is by implication. Just because a constitution was created for your country on paper that declares itself eternal doesn't mean it must. In fact, the same can be argued for a constitution in a Communist country. Imagine this: "Oh, damn, I know our [Communist or X, or Y] system is bad, but the constitution was written long ago and declared itself eternal. Therefore, we must abide it no matter what!" That's your argument.The Constitution is not eternal as we can modify it. But natural rights are eternal. The Constitution is written to form a government to protect them.
Are you even being serious? I am certain that you get the argument and are just playing the duck.I was being serious as I did not understand your point. A spear can be either an offensive or defensive weapon. Same with a shield.
In 'nature', I have every right to kill you just for being paranoid that you might harm me by whatever means. In fact, in 'nature', I have a right to torture you just because I'm bored and want to practice my hunting skills like a wild cat may to an animal it doesn't need or intend to eat. Other than human convention, what do you suppose a "right" is?A right is a pre-existing principle of freedom.
Again, you're being obscure. I think that in your mind, you seem to think that there is an innate set of entities or absolutes that assure that there are rights and wrongs even without humans being there to use them. I'm guessing that you are a theist considering you seem to think you know the correct versions of rights and wrongs that only entities like gods declare.Nope, not a theist. The concept of natural rights does not require any god and predates Christianity.
It's not possible for a government, being a group of people in and of itself, to be overtaken by insurrection without them thinking that you are the ones in the wrong. Thus, to them, regardless or how evil you could choose to declare them, they would see you as the evil ones. It is always the victor that declares the other as tyrannical and evil. If Hitler succeeded and Germany had a society that existed based on his philosophy today, they would interpret their ways as just. Even if such a society frowned upon his genocidal decisions, they would be just as trivialized in the modern context as the average American views the genocide of North American natives and slavery of the Africans.Just because different sides declare each other evil doesn't mean that the concepts of good and evil are arbitrary. That communists declared Nazis evil and Nazis declared Communists evil didn't stop them both from being evil. And the genocide of the North American natives and the slavery of the Africans is not trivialized in modern America, it is something taught to every American in elementary school.
You are incorrect. Nationalized industries is not nationalism as the Germans understood it; Nationalism referred toThe people of Germany did decide to follow Hitler's desires, as they voted to give him dictatorial powers. And I wasn't saying that nationalism depends on nationalized industries, those are a facet of socialism.National Socialism, German Nationalsozialismus, also called Nazism or Naziism, totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler as head of the Nazi Party in Germany. In its intense nationalism, mass appeal, and dictatorial rule, National Socialism shared many elements with Italian fascism. However, Nazism was far more extreme both in its ideas and in its practice. In almost every respect it was an anti-intellectual and atheoretical movement, emphasizing the will of the charismatic dictator as the sole source of inspiration of a people and a nation, as well as a vision of annihilation of all enemies of the Aryan Volk as the one and only goal of Nazi policy. from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/405414/National-SocialismAlthough this source points out its emphasis to the dictator, the people would not have viewed him personally as the essential reason for voting in him (no one anywhere actually reasons, "Let's follow one person's arbitrary desires because we like to be submitted to tyranny.") The people's [German aboriginal's that is] admiration for him was that he empowered them by their sense of heritage and superiority, a strong patriotism that united them by embracing their common ancestral "rights", as they saw it.
All our democratic societies today have way more nationalized industries than Hitler ever did. You obviously didn't watch the documentary that I referenced that showed how the Bush administration indirectly nationalized it's preferential powers by handing contracts to particular private industries that are the core of the Republican Party's foundation. By taking the decisions out of the democracy's capability to oversee, those industries have no accountability to the people of the United States who vote. This is an indirect way of tyranny because only Republican Party supporters actually decide what those businesses do because the supporters and the companies are one and the same. This is even sneakier than what Hitler even proposed because, at least, he was open and honest about who actually had the authority to govern these businesses. Also, if Hitler was overthrown within his own government, the people would still be able at least to retake the reigns over those nationalized corporations. In America and similar Capitalist societies, this isn't possible any longer. You, as a citizen, are not able to have a say in those companies that are not part of the actual federal government. I urge you to watch the documentary. You asked for that evidence and I gave it to you. It's now your burden to actually look at it.Sounds like conspiracy theory to me. Also, what makes you think this documentary is at all truthful? The presidency does not have the power to just hand contracts to particular private industries of its choice. I would be more concerned with the influence of the large public employee unions, which the Democratic party answers to, and which feed off of the taxpayer, which really are a subversion of democracy.
Like the spears and shield example I gave, you are just playing the duck here. [Playing the duck = acting like a decoy duck does to hunting: faking an innocent dummy to coax the prey in to shoot.] Nuclear Arms are to countries as fire arm are to individuals. Your distinction is insincere to reason.Not meaning to act like any "duck" at all. Nuclear weapons are to countries what firearms are to individuals, but you were asking does an individual have the right to possess a nuclear weapon.
I already argued the relativity of what one group of people consider evil or violent to another. You'd have to provide evidence that demonstrates that the other sides sincerely believe that they are inherently evil -- that they believe that they are 'wrong'. I also clearly pointed out that villains do not attempt to appear like comic villains because they don't see themselves as such, contrary to what you want to think. For example, Hitler's mustache that was uniquely definitive of him and scares people today was inspired by Charlie Chaplin (He didn't know he was Jewish.) He wanted to look admirable as his hero. Another example: the Hitler salute was inspired by America's Pledge of Allegiance salute. Only after WWII did the American's decide to change the salute to placing one's hand to their chest over their heart's instead. Even another example: the Swastika that is a symbol of fear to most people today was actually a cool looking symbol, unique, and quite an attractive piece of art. It wasn't designed as an evil insignia. In contrast, most countries do not think of their flags as magical insignias of essential pride to entrench an absurd law to make it illegal to burn like the American's do. To them, it's freedom of speech. Only American flags get burned elsewhere because it represents such an insignia to them as the Swastika did to Germany then.Yes, the Finnish army I believe had swastikas on their military vehicles. Some people mistakenly see those and think they are German military vehicles from WWII, but the German vehicles had a cross symbol. That said though, I disagree that it is relativist to determine what is an evil regime or not. It doesn't take a genius to figure out whether it is safer to visit France or Iran, Germany or North Korea.
Watch the damn documentary I presented for such example's of abuses. Homeland Security is the same as Hitler's policing organizations (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheitspolizei). The term, "Homeland Security" is friendly sounding term. But it's superfluous in meaning considering American's already have the FBI for internal security policing, the CIA for external security policing, a Secret Service for top secret Government protections, regular police forces for State and City governments, police for special cases like Highway Patrols, Sheriffs (originally, land right protection police [other country's sheriffs usually only serve as rentalsmen or real estate right protectors.] The terms governments that conservatives create are always rhetorically created for emotional affect. For example, the Estate Tax, a tax for real estate inheritance was renamed, the Inheritance Tax by the Bush administration to garner fear that people are losing something by inheriting anything.Both sides pull that stunt of naming things in completely rhetorical ways. And the Estate Tax (or Inheritance Tax, whatever they want to call it) is a wealth (i.e. property) tax and as such should be done away with IMO. I agree that Homeland Security is probably a useless organization, but that doesn't mean that its creation implied a tyranny or anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13233 This is another example of how your Republican government likes to name things. In this case, they wanted to hide the relevance of this act by labeling it with as much an innocuous description as possible. Executive Order means that it was a law commanded and enacted by the President alone! That is, an exemption to skip your elected Representative.Executive Orders are not laws commanded and enacted by the President alone, they are ways of enforcing existing law on the books. Again, the president cannot create laws. Only Congress can do that. That said, that appears to have been a stupid executive order.
The Iraq war was a scandal, as the rest of the world and half of your own population clearly sees it.It wasn't a scandal, and what "the rest of the world" and "half of the population" thinks is irrelevant to what the facts are.
The appointments to oversee Wall Street which pretended to investigate the frauds that the big bankers, brokers and other wealthy and powerful schemers but did not even try to put any of them in jail is another example. Likely, the schemes would have linked the cons directly to the politicians and friends as the investors who gained from them. It was not rationally possible not to discover anything since there were plenty of people willing to come forward to prove this but were absolutely ignored! The billions of dollars stolen by these people ruined the economy and harmed people in more real ways than what President Clinton did. His act to “get a blow job" is a personal indiscretion that has zero effect to other people’s lives and fortunes. Other than his own personal relationship, the only people it had any consequence to is to religious assholes who seem to think somehow their god is going to curse America or something. Also, the costs to the taxpayers by the Republican Congress to attempt to indict him was another absolute rhetorical device meant to create a monster out of a Democrat when they had nothing real to actually vilify him with.I agree on the issue about Bill Clinton. I am not interested in the private lives of officials. Also ironic was one of the main people who went after him was Newt Gingrich, who himself cheated on his wife. Regarding holding Wall Street accountable, well the Democrats were in control of the Presidency, the House, and the Senate for the first two years of Obama's presidency and didn't hold anyone's feet to the fire. Regarding oversight in the run-up to the crisis, that was the result of numerous problems, from the SEC being understaffed to the complexity of the modern financial instruments.
Watch the documentary. Here it is again: Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers ]. The State of Israel itself is a contentious issue that Republican defenders pretend are good people without warrant. Republicans have always supported them regardless of their ever more National Socialist attitudes similar to the Nazis they were targeted by. And their National Socialism is Constitutionalized! The belief that Christ will come down only when the Jewish Temple is rebuilt necessarily requires that Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians to support them.Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. Any person of any faith can live safely there. Muslims don't have to fear for their safety living in Israel. Jews do have to fear for their safety living anywhere else in that region. And Israel is not anywhere remotely close to being "National Socialist." If some extremist Jew takes over the country with a dictatorship, granted him by the Israeli people, and declares that all Muslims must die, then that will be Hitler-like, but otherwise, the only countries in that region that resemble the Nazis are all of the ones bent on destroying Israel. And a documentary like that still doesn't prove that Bush was any dictator/tyrant/National Socialist.
See the Executive Order link in the previous post.That just had to do with access by historians to the president's records after they leave office. It has nothing to do with the Iraq War.
Saddam didn't have WDMs. Where were you when the one single informant who gave the justification for the second Iraq War by Bush was blindly trusted without normal justification procedures that even a local newspaper is assured to follow? This wasn't a simple accidental oversight. All news publications, scientific journals, ordinary police officers, and any everyday Joe wants corroboration to determine any serious accusation to charge someone of offense. Am I able to accuse anyone of a crime, not to mention, in anonymity, and have someone, not just charged with whatever offense, but convicted without authorities corroborating the evidence? It isn't possible that even the dumbest President would not question it without being sincerely crooked and deceptive himself. And certainly, a whole large organization of highly trained CIA agents could not have had at least one person who would question the integrity of such a claim. It is like a guard at a Nazi an extermination camp declaring oddly that he didn't notice the population of people had any Jews!Your criminal comparison doesn't hold here. You make it sound like Saddam Hussein was just minding his own business, then suddenly President Bush said, "He has WMDs! Let's invade!" Hussein had a history going back years regarding trying to acquire nuclear and chemical weapons (and having used chemical weapons) and of being a brutal tyrant. Colin Powell blew his reputation over this issue. He would not have done so had he not believed all of the evidence about Hussein's WMDs. and we know that Hussein did have the ability to quickly scale up his WMD production and he may have had WMDs but managed to move them out of the country prior to the invasion.
The Nazi Government was extremely small. To govern requires those who govern to have control on what happens. I think a "dictatorship" tends to suggest extremely limited government, wouldn't you say? Also, the Nazi's believed in economic freedom. That freedom was limited to the German Aryan race, however. In Americas origins, they too had a selective mindset as well, considering they didn't invite the large Native population as relevant to land ownership and other economic freedoms.1) The Nazi government was not small. A dictatorship requires a large bureaucracy to run things. Also, the term "limited government" means limited with regards to being involved in people's lives. 2) The Nazis did not believe in economic freedom. They were a form of socialists and ran the economy via state direction (which also required a large bureaucracy). 3) America's treatment of the Native Americans and blacks was terrible, but it is something the country moved itself away from (and went through a civil war about in the case of the slavery).
You made more distinctions without actual differences in this quote more than ever. Conservative and Liberal are appropriately understood by intelligent people everywhere in the same way. You have to provide evidence where such and assumption that others presume otherwise rather than just making it up. Where you get the idea that anyone would ever presume "liberal" mean right is absurd. In fact, more likely, you yourself do not know the actual meanings. Liberalism, is understood everywhere to mean a political philosophy which grants the right of all individuals the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want as long as they do not infringe on the same freedoms (liberty) of other people to do and be the same. For example, I am able to smoke pot, for instance, in such a philosophy, if only I act in such a way that it could not possibly limit another person's liberty to exist freely. This is considered contentious by some even who are 'liberal' because some believe that it does infringe on other people's rights to the liberties of life they choose. We do not allow murder because if I have such a freedom, then it means that I can limit another person's freedom to live.Look up the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom or in Australia. Look up neoliberalism and critics of it. Liberal in other countries means right-winger from an economic standpoint. Only in America does it mean a left-of-center person. Conservative also has different meanings outside of the United States. In America, the left tend to adopt the socially-liberal aspects of liberalism but not the economic aspects. So-called liberals in this country seek to regulate and control pretty much every aspect of people's lives with the exception of abortion and same-sex marriage. Conservatives in America are very liberal economically and in most ways, but do seek to regulate people's lives regarding abortion, same-sex marriage, and sometimes sex period.
Contrary, Conservatives (a rather inexact term because only in a contemporary reference does it imply any special philosophy because the conservatives of Lincoln's day were actually of the Democratic Party which defended the older ways of slavery, for instance), want the older ways of religious absolutism of morality that dictates from things like the Bible what should be right or wrong, not a convention of people who vote for what is moral based on a freedom to do anything you want.I agree that conservative is an inexact term, but the morality you speak of that conservatives in modern America adhere to only infringes on freedoms in certain ways which I mentioned above. Otherwise, it is very much a philosophy about allowing people the freedom to do anything they want. For example, you do not find conservatives in America seeking to dictate to people what kind of toilets they can keep in their homes, what kind of light bulbs they can use (the legislation was signed by Bush but the ban itself was inserted by Nancy Pelosi), what kind of shower head you can have in your shower, how much money you can make, what kind of car one can drive, etc...
President George W. Bush, in an address to a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001 said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You're_either_with_us,_or_against_us ] This source also references and links you to the actual speech in full. He didn't 'just mean' that. What you miss that other nations don't is that they pay attention to media more globally than most Americans. We watch all your media as well as our own with the same fervor. You miss how our own politicians act globally and then get American political responses.I read the speech and saw the quote in context, and IMO it has been taken out of context. What Bush was saying is what I said, that if you are aiding the terrorists, you will not be considered a friend of the United States. If you are not aiding the terrorists, then you will be devoted to helping bring the terrorists to justice. In that sense, either countries were with the United States or with the terrorists. And I highly doubt that all that many non-Americans watch "all American media." For example I don't imagine the average French person or German person watching something like Fox News.
Prior to 9/11 Bush was pushing for war with Iraq and our countries were not convinced through the U.N. Bush was denouncing the U.N. because they wanted to act but the majority of all democracies represented by them did not have legitimate logical grounds for war. And on 9/11, Bush unilaterally decided to go to war without the U.N. (majority of all democratic nations) Only Britain and Australia gave their full support and were given this attention by America. Bush claimed in the speech things like Al Qaeda as being associated with Iraq which were blatantly false. Everyone supported the war in Afghanistan which was relevant because that is where the terrorist of 9/11 were from. We also all knew that the Arab nation was also at fault because that is where Osama Bin Laden's family, finances, and support were from. America tolerated the totalitarianism and tyranny of Arab and even Pakistan which were more of the cause of 9/11 than Muslims from anywhere else.The UN is not representative of democracies, it is representative of quite a few tyrannies as well. It is really a joke of an organization. And some of the nations were not eager for any war because it would cost them money (France for example lost business with Hussein).
Every large country has it's horrors that they've done to their own people throughout history. It doesn't justify anything. But it should point out that acts done in the name of all political philosophies have equal credit to severe injustices. What bothers me is when people credit certain ideologies with the innate justification for atrocities that occurred inappropriately. Bush's acts for instance are due not to American ideology of philosophy. They are his and those who support him alone.Bush did not slaughter anyone like the Soviets did their own people and others.
The Constitution is not eternal as we can modify it. But natural rights are eternal. The Constitution is written to form a government to protect them. ... A right is a pre-existing principle of freedom. ... The concept of natural rights does not require any god and predates Christianity.What is your logical argument to support these statements?
You're trivializing the distinction by appropriating a relative definition that is irrelevant to the discussion. An iron, candlestick, or pipe, can be all used as weapons similarly. They can also be used defensively in similar contexts as well. But why doesn't a dictionary define these terms in those respects. You won't find the definition of an iron as a device that can be used as either a defensive or offensive weapon to harm or protect oneself. in any dictionary, even though they are true. You're evading reasonable argumentation by diverting the ordinary meaning of what weapons or defenses actually functionally and intentionally mean.Are you even being serious? I am certain that you get the argument and are just playing the duck.I was being serious as I did not understand your point. A spear can be either an offensive or defensive weapon. Same with a shield.
Just because different sides declare each other evil doesn't mean that the concepts of good and evil are arbitrary. That communists declared Nazis evil and Nazis declared Communists evil didn't stop them both from being evil. And the genocide of the North American natives and the slavery of the Africans is not trivialized in modern America, it is something taught to every American in elementary school.Define good and evil; right and wrong.
What is your logical argument to support these statements?My logical argument, well let's see. I'd say that life forms are basically sophisticated forms of chemistry that reproduce. Life started off as a self-replicating molecule, evolving gradually over time into more complex self-replicating molecules, eventually forming the first single-celled life forms, which then continued developing into the multi-cellular life forms of today. Life forms are born naturally into freedom and must seek food to reproduce and also possess the ability to protect themselves from other life forms that would kill them (usually for food). As such, all life forms have a natural right to protect themselves as self-protection is a part of existence for all life. Life forms are free unless another life form seeks to oppress them in some manner. With humans, since we are so prone to killing each other, one way for us to live peacefully is to create a government that protects our pre-existing natural rights, such as our right to protect ourselves. Other natural rights are things like one's right to live their life as they please so long as they are not harming anyone else, right to free speech, right against unreasonable search and seizure by the government, right to privacy, etc...
You're trivializing the distinction by appropriating a relative definition that is irrelevant to the discussion. An iron, candlestick, or pipe, can be all used as weapons similarly. They can also be used defensively in similar contexts as well. But why doesn't a dictionary define these terms in those respects. You won't find the definition of an iron as a device that can be used as either a defensive or offensive weapon to harm or protect oneself. in any dictionary, even though they are true. You're evading reasonable argumentation by diverting the ordinary meaning of what weapons or defenses actually functionally and intentionally mean.Okay, you mean tools that are specifically designed to be used as weapons. However, I wouldn't put a shield into the same category as say an iron or a pipe. A shield is specifically designed as a tool for war, and depending on the design, can serve as primarily a defensive device or equally an offensive or defensive tool. For example, the Greek hoplites carried a shield that could also be used to thwack their opponents with.
Define good and evil; right and wrong.In this case, I'd say evil is when one person, group of people, or philosophy seek to kill and/or destroy other peoples because it disagrees with them in some way. Good is when one is not evil.
What is your logical argument to support these statements?... Life forms are born naturally into freedom and must seek food to reproduce and also possess the ability to protect themselves from other life forms that would kill them (usually for food). As such, all life forms have a natural right to protect themselves as self-protection is a part of existence for all life. Life forms are free unless another life form seeks to oppress them in some manner. With humans, since we are so prone to killing each other, one way for us to live peacefully is to create a government that protects our pre-existing natural rights, such as our right to protect ourselves. Other natural rights are things like one's right to live their life as they please so long as they are not harming anyone else, right to free speech, right against unreasonable search and seizure by the government, right to privacy, etc... So you seem to agree that even things like bacteria have these natural rights. So doesn't this propose that we defend the right for all living things in the same manner? Perhaps we can presuppose that one who washes their hands should be charged with the mass genocide of billions of innocent Bacillus, Clostridium, Sporohalobacter, Anaerobacter and Heliobacterium, just to name a few. If humans have the only exemption to these "natural rights", what is your argument for our special privilege? Likewise, why do we not go further and include non-living matter in all its forms? Should we leave the nature of a raw ore undisturbed because it alters its natural inclination to be what it is? If this is absurd to you, we can bring the reality closer to home...should the natural nature of the predators of any species have a right to life since they must kill other animals in order to survive? Do prey have a better right to life if they do not require killing other animals? If you accept the premises of evolution, then could you not agree that we humans are also continuing to evolve and that divisions such as races that may eventually not be able to breed with each other justify intolerance toward one another if they are in competition to survive? What is unnatural about selectively declaring one group of human species deserving or undeserving of rights since they both may require killing each other in order to survive?
If a shield is specifically designed as a tool for war, what does that make a gun then?You're trivializing the distinction by appropriating a relative definition that is irrelevant to the discussion. An iron, candlestick, or pipe, can be all used as weapons similarly. They can also be used defensively in similar contexts as well. But why doesn't a dictionary define these terms in those respects. You won't find the definition of an iron as a device that can be used as either a defensive or offensive weapon to harm or protect oneself. in any dictionary, even though they are true. You're evading reasonable argumentation by diverting the ordinary meaning of what weapons or defenses actually functionally and intentionally mean.Okay, you mean tools that are specifically designed to be used as weapons. However, I wouldn't put a shield into the same category as say an iron or a pipe. A shield is specifically designed as a tool for war, and depending on the design, can serve as primarily a defensive device or equally an offensive or defensive tool. For example, the Greek hoplites carried a shield that could also be used to thwack their opponents with.
So if you try to kill a person who is offensively placing a gun at your head who just believes its necessary to do so for their own needs or philosophies, because you disagree with them, are you not just as wrong?Define good and evil; right and wrong.In this case, I'd say evil is when one person, group of people, or philosophy seek to kill and/or destroy other peoples because it disagrees with them in some way. Good is when one is not evil.
So you seem to agree that even things like bacteria have these natural rights. So doesn't this propose that we defend the right for all living things in the same manner? Perhaps we can presuppose that one who washes their hands should be charged with the mass genocide of billions of innocent Bacillus, Clostridium, Sporohalobacter, Anaerobacter and Heliobacterium, just to name a few. If humans have the only exemption to these "natural rights", what is your argument for our special privilege?Our special privilege is that there is no way for all life to co-exist at once. Certain life forms survive by feeding on others. Since we are humans, we apply our protections for our natural rights to our fellow humans. We also protect ourselves from non-human life forms of all kinds, but note that we do not treat those life forms in the way that we treat humans. If a bear breaks into your home and goes into the refrigerator, we don't arrest and charge that bear, then send it to jail or prison. Our fellow human beings, however, may not infringe on anybody's natural rights.
Likewise, why do we not go further and include non-living matter in all its forms? Should we leave the nature of a raw ore undisturbed because it alters its natural inclination to be what it is?Ore isn't a life form, it's just a material.
If this is absurd to you, we can bring the reality closer to home...should the natural nature of the predators of any species have a right to life since they must kill other animals in order to survive? Do prey have a better right to life if they do not require killing other animals?All life forms have a right to life in that one should not go about just killing them unless they present some large threat.
If you accept the premises of evolution, then could you not agree that we humans are also continuing to evolve and that divisions such as races that may eventually not be able to breed with each other justify intolerance toward one another if they are in competition to survive? What is unnatural about selectively declaring one group of human species deserving or undeserving of rights since they both may require killing each other in order to survive?"Race" doesn't really exist. And the distinguishing feature of humans is our capability for higher level reason. You can't have a conversation with other creatures about how to live in harmony.
If a shield is specifically designed as a tool for war, what does that make a gun then?A tool designed for war. That's what arms are. The basic tools of war. That is why the Second Amendment protects the right of the citizens to possess arms. Because war is not just something that countries do to one another. War is something individual humans can make on one another. If you are trying to kill me, you're making war one me. So it is my natural right to possess the basic tools of war to be able to make war back at you to protect myself. That is why police officers carry guns as well.
So if you try to kill a person who is offensively placing a gun at your head who just believes its necessary to do so for their own needs or philosophies, because you disagree with them, are you not just as wrong?You are not just as wrong, because you are acting in self-defense.
I think I’ve argued this fairly and clearly, Logicman. Hopefully, you will absorb it on your own now. I’m certain that you are intelligent enough to at least understand why people have a good justification to be concerned about unrestricted gun ownership. Thanks for the debate.