Leftforge Doesn't Understand the Second Amendment...

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by Steal Your Face, Jul 29, 2015.

  1. Bailey

    Bailey It's always Christmas Eve Super Moderator

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    FF made his beliefs clear, and since he's the authority on truth if you don't share his conclusions it's because you don't understand or are lying.
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  2. Amaris

    Amaris Witch of Winter

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    He's correct that the rights don't come from the government, however, many rights have to be protected by the government or they are at risk of being suppressed. For example, I have the right to worship as I choose because it derives from my personhood, it is a part of that which makes me human. I'm a witch, so that means my practices differ from the majority Christian population. The US government enshrines in the Constitution my right to practice and believe as I wish, and they can do it all day long, but if they decide not to enforce that Constitutional position, then my right to worship is only as good as the paper it's printed on, and up against a sword or a gun that isn't much.

    Joe Biden's not really wrong here when he talks about gun rights not being unlimited. It would be utter insanity to let any Tom, Dick, or Zutroy to wield atomic weapons, simply because some dumbass is going to let one go off while he's cleaning it, and thousands of people would die of radiation sickness and nuclear fallout. So there is a limit, and that goes for everything. I like to look at one of my favorite movies as an example: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). In it, Klaatu tells people that it doesn't matter what they choose to do so long as they confine it to their world (swing your fist as much as you like, as long as it's not being swung towards someone else), and he follows it up shortly thereafter by saying "we did not give up any rights or freedoms, save the freedom to act irresponsibly."

    You are free to shout.
    You are not free to shout fire in a crowded theater.

    You are free to worship the goddess Selene.
    You are not free to sacrifice someone's dog to Selene.

    You are free to own a gun.
    You are not free to wave that gun about in public and expect people not to notice or consider you a threat as a result.

    We have rights, but there are responsibilities, provisos, asterisks to those rights, because those rights don't exist in a vacuum.
    So yeah, rights don't come from government, but if your government doesn't think your rights matter, you're going to have a hell of a time keeping them.
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  3. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    Just don’t turn me into a newt and we’re all good. The judge addressed private ownership of nukes, you can’t store the material safely on your property without causing harm to others.
  4. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    6C031834-BCBE-4113-A8DF-93123F82EA1B.gif
  5. Amaris

    Amaris Witch of Winter

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    And the absolute and utter destruction of most life might be a problem, too. I'm in favor of gun ownership, but aside from a small group of people, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that everyone who wants one can and should own a nuclear weapon.
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  6. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    I don’t believe the average citizen should be able to own a nuclear weapon either, but that’s not what’s being argued here. That’s what you call a straw man.
  7. Amaris

    Amaris Witch of Winter

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    I'm just going off of what the guy said in the video. He kept open the possibility of owning a nuclear weapon if storage and security were managed. It's not a straw man if that's what he was actually saying.
    That said, like I mentioned before, Joe Biden wasn't wrong when he said that gun rights weren't unlimited. Believe me, I don't like Joe Biden, so I'm not going to agree with him unless I truly think he's correct. For example, his policy of funding more police I'm 100% against, and I think it's the wholly wrong decision in a country where the police already have massively unchecked power, and also carry not only guns, but military grade weaponry. Combine that with an "us vs. them" attitude against regular US citizens, and that's just fucking disaster waiting to happen.
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  8. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    He was partially correct, he got the quote wrong and our rights don’t come from the government. If they did, then that would open up a whole can of worms.
  9. Amaris

    Amaris Witch of Winter

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    True, our rights don't come from the government, but it does require a government, at least at this stage of human development, to secure and protect those rights.
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  10. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    I agree. It doesn’t have to be this way though.
  11. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Boom.
    Lock the fucking thread.
  12. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Dayton is ace.
    Dayton is totally ace.
  13. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    Yeah,Gul was pretty stupid.
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  14. Spaceturkey

    Spaceturkey i can see my house

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    given that you can't seem to draw a line from "provide for the common defense" to "a well regulated militia being necessary for a free STATE", are you sure you'd even know which end of the rifle to hold?
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  15. Spaceturkey

    Spaceturkey i can see my house

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    the only thing close to "home invasions" we have here are drug related on both ends.

    had a friend die in one a couple of years back... pretty TV worthy as he still managed to slash the guy's throat despite getting shot.

    But yeah, he was a coke dealer, so occupational hazard.

    Meanwhile, I still rarely lock my door at night...
  16. Diacanu

    Diacanu Comicmike. Writer

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    Never.

    Yep, that one.
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  17. Steal Your Face

    Steal Your Face Anti-Federalist

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    Another self proclaimed victory.
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  18. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    That feels like a very Wordforge take. Spend ⅔ of the time criticizing a misquote then quietly disagree with the actual quote as it applies here while ignoring the context the quote was in. Man, Judge Napolitano has gone way downhill. Probably a result of getting knocked out of Trumpworld and trying desperately to get back in.
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  19. Spaceturkey

    Spaceturkey i can see my house

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    that'd depend on the right in question.

    life, liberty, and all that? yeah, those are naturally occurring.


    • Freedom of speech.
    • Freedom of religion.
    • The right to bear arms.
    • The right to a fair trial.

    Yeah, none of those exist outside of law/without legal protection.
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  20. Spaceturkey

    Spaceturkey i can see my house

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    Hmm.. Lanz disagrees.

    So you favour star chambers and other extralegal forms of trial?

    that somehow you have a natural right to form an armed gang to shut up those you don't like the opinions or beliefs of?

    or are those protected by decree?
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  21. Amaris

    Amaris Witch of Winter

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    Well, honestly, none of them exist without some kind of protection. I agree with you, my point was just that everything we can do is a human right we possess: the right to feed ourselves, to shelter ourselves, to protect ourselves, to say what we think, and so on, and so on. Those are naturally occurring rights. The problem, of course, comes when civilization, as a whole, decides that some rights are more important than others, and presses to either diminish the "minor" rights, and uplift the rights decreed by the governing body. I believe it is a natural human right to protect yourself. Whether that includes guns or not is definitely a sticking point, but it is a natural right to protect yourself from those who would bring you harm. That's just what I was saying.
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  22. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

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    Free speech, freedom of religion (also freedom from religion) and the right to bear arms (the right of self defense, in other words) are inherent to being human. The right to a fair trial presupposes a functioning legal system, which requires a functioning society.
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  23. Fisherman's Worf

    Fisherman's Worf I am the Seaman, I am the Walrus, Qu-Qu-Qapla'!

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    So all those millenia when humans lacked speech, religion, and firearms were what, exactly?

    And then the next several millennia when those things were developed but not actually rights?

    Those rights are inventions of the late Enlightenment. While I don't disagree with them, I don't pretend we're born with them. 99% of human history agrees with me.
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  24. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

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    Slavery and the divine rule of kings was the norm for tens of thousands of years. Should we still have those things or has our understanding of what it means to be human evolved? Remember, just because a right is infringed it doesn’t cease to be a right.
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  25. 14thDoctor

    14thDoctor Oi

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    "Inherent rights and freedoms" is kind of a goofy concept. Does a pigeon have rights? Or a deer? Even wolves have to trade off some of their rights and freedoms in exchange for the benefits of remaining in a pack.

    Society isn't "real." It's a game, a mutually agreed upon delusion. We decide together what rights and freedoms we have in this game, and what responsibilities and obligations we have as well.

    Anyone trying to say "freedom of speech/freedom from religion is inherent to being human" clearly hasn't noticed how humans decided to play the game for millennia, and how some play it even today. :shrug:
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  26. Fisherman's Worf

    Fisherman's Worf I am the Seaman, I am the Walrus, Qu-Qu-Qapla'!

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    You're proving my point. Those rights did not exist until we created them. To say otherwise suggests some sort of divine intervention.
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