question about "the left wing"

[Cindy]

I was just reading through thread catching up, not really interested but doing what Sue pays me for (fat chance ) and had a thought. Isn't it wonderful that we can in fact debate these things and discuss and argue?

If you are homosexual in many countries you are disenfranchised at the best, tortured and killed in others. If you are transgender, goddess help you. Debating political views, and stating opposition to established rules is a gulag or worse.

We need to keep that perspective.

Sorry just a thought that crossed my mind, keep arguing and discussing, but throw a thought out for those who would be persecuted and killed for doing exactly the same.

And the ones who do are greater than any of us here.

May they rest in peace.

Cindy

[Jamie D]

Thank you Cindy. 

From the perspective of someone who believes in the principles of natural law, I suggest we all have the right to be ourselves, and a right of free association, and if we are not impinging on the rights of others, pretty much the right to do what we please in life.

Gay, straight, black, yellow, white, male, female, masculine, feminine, androgynous ... what ever - we own ourselves and our personalities.  Live and let live.

I will say though, last time I was in Australia and spoke poorly about Australian Rules Football, I was locked in the dunny for a week!  Cruel and unusual punishment?

[Cindy]

Thank you Cindy. 

From the perspective of someone who believes in the principles of natural law, I suggest we all have the right to be ourselves, and a right of free association, and if we are not impinging on the rights of others, pretty much the right to do what we please in life.

Gay, straight, black, yellow, white, male, female, masculine, feminine, androgynous ... what ever - we own ourselves and our personalities.  Live and let live.

I will say though, last time I was in Australia and spoke poorly about Australian Rules Football, I was locked in the dunny for a week!  Cruel and unusual punishment?

I have to say I watch NFL I can't stand Aussie rules footy 

You deserve your punishment for even contemplating watching, it was probably more interesting as well!!

[Shantel]

I have to say I watch NFL I can't stand Aussie rules footy 

You deserve your punishment for even contemplating watching, it was probably more interesting as well!!

She really does! Last week we were chatting back and forth as we both watched the Seahawks trounce the Saints, Cindy is our girl!

[amZo]

One major criticism of the concept of natural rights is that, if rights are inherent in the person, than they cannot be forfeited. Without principled forfeiture, the state cannot justify imprisonment let alone execution.

This is why I said before, your rights can only be oppressed. They can't be given nor can they be taken away. If one wishes harm to other innocents, then I believe their rights should be oppressed (suppressed, depressed, enchained,... pick your poison).

I think this is a very important but easily glossed over point. When you accept that human rights are transferable or don't exist at all, then horrible injustices such as slavery (which every human race has endured in history) become something to rationalize.

I don't believe this concept (or law) can be proven any more than we can prove the foundations of mathematics, it's just an axiom we accept as true which builds the foundations of that we're building. You can only determine axioms to be either useful or meaningless. The idea of proving them true or false is not possible, and it's pointless.

I think building a society with the axiom or law that individual laws don't exist is dangerous. I think the hot spots of the world today and history prove this out.

[MadeleineG]

This is why I said before, your rights can only be oppressed. They can't be given nor can they be taken away. If one wishes harm to other innocents, then I believe their rights should be oppressed (suppressed, depressed, enchained,... pick your poison).

Do you believe, then, that incarcerating a murderer convicted by an impartial due process is the state oppressing their rights?

[amZo]

Do you believe, then, that incarcerating a murderer convicted by an impartial due process is the state oppressing their rights?

Yes.

But like I suggested before, don't get too hung up on my choice of verb. If 'suppressing' makes everyone feel more warm and fuzzy, then I say let's go with that.

I support suppressing rights even when a crime isn't committed. I feel if someone is showing strong signs of mental illness and reasonable people feel they're a danger to themselves and others, then committing them to a psych hospital for treatment is proper.

[Shantel]

Do you believe, then, that incarcerating a murderer convicted by an impartial due process is the state oppressing their rights?

When a person commits murder they have arbitrarily abdicated their rights by having taken license. Rights come with responsibility and in a society where responsibility seems to no longer be important we often see license taken over other people's rights.

[MadeleineG]

When a person commits murder they have arbitrarily abdicated their rights by having taken license. Rights come with responsibility and in a society where responsibility seems to no longer be important we often see license taken over other people's rights.

I agree wholeheartedly! The logical problem is that, if we conceive rights as innate rather than constructed, they cannot be abdicated (oppressed), even with rational cause!

[Shantel]

I agree wholeheartedly! The logical problem is that, if we conceive rights as innate rather than constructed, they cannot be abdicated (oppressed), even with rational cause!

There's a fine line there though that doesn't give anyone or group of people license to withhold the rights of others who conduct themselves responsibly just because they don't agree with their particular right, you can extrapolate that even further if that was the case and say that the majority who disagrees with transganderism altogether can make it illegal and imprison everyone with GID issues.

[MadeleineG]

That's where reasoned discourse comes in. Society needs to establish justified (and justifiable) structures and constraints for rights forfeiture. Due process, learned judicial oversight over the legislature, and academic discourse all have a hand in ensuring that forfeiture doesn't become manipulated by populist sentiment.

[amZo]

I agree wholeheartedly! The logical problem is that, if we conceive rights as innate rather than constructed, they cannot be abdicated (oppressed), even with rational cause!

Sure they can. And it should be difficult to do so.

You're actually making a point regarding why I feel innate rights are so critical. It makes the notion of suppressing them hard to fathom, as it should be. I think otherwise, it becomes way too easy as so many other societies have demonstrated. I don't need to list them obviously.

'Abdicate'... I like it Shantel, make it so!

[MadeleineG]

I don't want to go around in circles, but if rights are inviolable, then presumably, the state ought never violate them.

Epistemologically, there's no grounding for claiming rights as a literal "thing." Rights have to ontos that we can point to. The best we can get to is accepting them as convenient axioms and extrapolating from there. Which is what I've been arguing all along! Rights are coherent arguments determined by humans through productive discourse.

[amZo]

I don't want to go around in circles, but if rights are inviolable, then presumably, the state ought never violate them.

Epistemologically, there's no grounding for claiming rights as a literal "thing." Rights have to ontos that we can point to. The best we can get to is accepting them as convenient axioms and extrapolating from there. Which is what I've been arguing all along! Rights are coherent arguments determined by humans through productive discourse.

It was William Buckley who once said he'd rather be governed by the first 500 names in any phone book than the faculty of Harvard. If we do allow humans any say what my natural rights are, I absolutely positively vote for the first 500 names of the phone book in my home town of 'CantFindItOnaMap' Oklahoma over any other group, including especially Harvard.

[MadeleineG]

It was William Buckley who once said he'd rather be governed by the first 500 names in any phone book than the faculty of Harvard. If we do allow humans any say what my natural rights are, I absolutely positively vote for the first 500 names of the phone book in my home town of 'CantFindItOnaMap' Oklahoma over any other group, including especially Harvard.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I've always found variations on that model quite appealing.

A de jure non-partisan legislative counsel determined by random lot, with mandatory service and strict sequestering, a la jury duty.

[amZo]

This is a well thought out reasoned argument for the right to own and possess firearms. I especially like toward the end, her pointing out what was missing in other country's constitutions prior to their tyrannical downfalls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20RoAfflGCM&feature=player_embedded

[Shantel]

 Written by a high school junior and posted today in the Everett, Washington Herald. Smart kid, he had good points!

Liberals' debate lacking in logic
I was watching Piers Morgan debate gun control on his show with Ben Shapiro and many other guests and it was shameful to watch him resort to name-calling and emotionalism. Personally, I think a debate about anything should be done so logically, but it appears that he was more concerned with whose side the crowd was on. I wish him best of luck in his endeavor to come across as more high and mighty by labeling anyone who disagrees with you an idiot, or an intolerant bigot.
This heated debate across America should not be such a difficult issue to resolve. The philosophy is not hard to grasp: realizing that law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed handguns would tremendously disenfranchise criminals, in the same way the fear of being spanked by my dad as a child erased my incentive to misbehave. Ironically, gun free zones serve to encourage deranged murders to commit atrocities because they know that they won't face armed resistance in those areas.
Morgan and others should realize that making gun ownership illegal will most certainly not stop gun violence or even gun ownership. It is illegal in the U.S. for a civilian to manufacture or possess cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin. Surely, no one living in the U.S. manufactures or possesses said substances. Item: over 10,000 cocaine arrests were made in 2010 and half that amount for methamphetamine. My point is that making gun ownership illegal will not stop gun violence. Criminals are defined by their unwillingness to follow the law.
Jacob Thompson
11th grade
Lake Stevens

[amZo]

Ahhhh... people like Jacob give me some hope! 

[Jamie D]

This is a well thought out reasoned argument for the right to own and possess firearms. I especially like toward the end, her pointing out what was missing in other country's constitutions prior to their tyrannical downfalls.

SNIP

"By definition, gun control only disarms the law-abiding."

Wonderful video.

[Emo]

There is something you guys are missing.
If guns are not allowed to be used or owned, no one will sell them legally.
Its kind of obvious if someone is using a gun so it would make it easier to find the one breaking the law.