p.20 #1 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
jcolwell wrote:
Could you please review those fundamental rights for us? Briefly and concisely.
In a nutshell, the individual right to self-ownership and the right to property. Everything else follows.
Since every human has these rights, logic dictates that noone may violate these rights of other people. Since experience tells us that there are people that do -illegitimately- violate these rights, forcefully denying an individual the right to possess means to fend off an attack on their person is inherently immoral.
I know this is an unusual look at things in a world that is largely collectivist in practice and also in thought, but deep down, when we think about our own persons, we all know that human rights are individual rights that are not negotiable and that ultimately, there is no "institution" that cares as much about your right to life as yourself, especially if that institution has for example calculated that your right to life has to take a back seat to the "greater good" of the collective.
p.20 #3 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
And now, in order to contribute something on-topic (), one of my most unusual images of the year (NEX 5n with C/Y 35-70/3.4, 35mm/5.6, as if that mattered).
No editing was done besides a healthy saturation/contrast boost during raw conversion.
p.20 #4 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
dcjs wrote:
In a nutshell, the individual right to self-ownership and the right to property. Everything else follows.
Since every human has these rights, logic dictates that noone may violate these rights of other people. Since experience tells us that there are people that do -illegitimately- violate these rights, forcefully denying an individual the right to possess means to fend off an attack on their person is inherently immoral.
I know this is an unusual look at things in a world that is largely collectivist in practice and also in thought, but deep down, when we think about our own persons, we all know that human rights are individual rights that are not negotiable and that ultimately, there is no "institution" that cares as much about your right to life as yourself, especially if that institution has for example calculated that your right to life has to take a back seat to the "greater good" of the collective. ...Show more →
I'm curious where you'd draw the line. Is there no line? Do you think that citizens should be able to own any type of weapon? Should I be allowed to purchase a fighter jet, missiles and other high tech weaponry, if I can afford it (or if I can build it?) The dialogue in this country seems to be more about the types of weapons citizens should be allowed to own, and what kind of measures these citizens have to take in order to own these weapons, rather than a simple black and white issue of "yes" guns or "no" guns.
I'm genuinely curious. I'm not trying to provoke you or anything.
p.20 #5 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
For the current topic..
Sure, people are stupid. And if they have guns its bad thing. But there are slight problems..
1) you can control only official distribution (and there is large world-wide non-official distribution aka black market)
2) police/army can be only at one place at the time and if something happens they need to move to that location (which as for example Breivik proved, can take a bit longer than you would imagine in worst dreams)
3) you never stop madman (if they wont get guns, they will get something else, there is countless way to slaughter a LOT of people at once) and crazy guys will always appear no matter what you will do
My conclusion is that, no matter what you do, bad guys can and will kill you if they will have a chance. It doesnt matter much if you are gutted out with blade or shot. You will die anyway. Only way to not die is simply to be prepared..
Im quite peaceful guy I think. I dont pick fights, I try to avoid them (best way to deal with any fight is to avoid it). Im not venturing alone in dark places. Still I was ambushed by two guys after they politely asked me "if I have cellphone" and I answered "No." (if you dont know its common tactic of thieves to ask for your cellphone or if you can borrow it for second, so they can see what you have and how "easy" you will be).
That happend in broad daylight on quite frequented place in Prague. I didnt carry gun, but I had quite nasty stainless steel boxer with sharp tips. Its nice, pocketable, resonably heavy and it tears through flesh. In this case I was lucky to run into amateurs and they chickened out when I just showed it.
Obviously nobody is lucky always. So in town where I live, I was having fun in pub with girl and her friend (another girl), when two slightly drunked guys made few horny/nasty comments about them, then "joined" them by force and had hands where they shouldnt. After short verbal communication and following non-verbal communication via me showing boxer to them, they first sorta backoff, then figured that they are two and I am one. And Im not exactly bodybuilder.
Long story short. Girls had time to run away and I have unwillingly visited hospital. And those guys when they almost finished me jumped into car and vanished. Apparently it had something to do with fact that some kind soul called police and they luckily were quite close nearby.
Im glad I have good sturdy bones.. But gun would be better that time.
p.20 #6 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
Please can we not get political in this forum? I come here to escape into our shared love of photography and not worry about those things that are divisive. I have lots of other outlets for that stuff.
p.20 #8 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
dcjs wrote:
To me, a statement that endorses the violation of fundamental rights of other people is offensive
jcolwell wrote:
Could you please review those fundamental rights for us? Briefly and concisely.
dcjs wrote:
In a nutshell, the individual right to self-ownership and the right to property. Everything else follows.
Since every human has these rights, logic dictates that noone may violate these rights of other people. Since experience tells us that there are people that do -illegitimately- violate these rights, forcefully denying an individual the right to possess means to fend off an attack on their person is inherently immoral.
I know this is an unusual look at things in a world that is largely collectivist in practice and also in thought, but deep down, when we think about our own persons, we all know that human rights are individual rights that are not negotiable and that ultimately, there is no "institution" that cares as much about your right to life as yourself, especially if that institution has for example calculated that your right to life has to take a back seat to the "greater good" of the collective. ...Show more → douglasf13 wrote:
I'm curious where you'd draw the line. Is there no line? Do you think that citizens should be able to own any type of weapon? Should I be allowed to purchase a fighter jet, missiles and other high tech weaponry, if I can afford it (or if I can build it?) The dialogue in this country seems to be more about the types of weapons citizens should be allowed to own, and what kind of measures these citizens have to take in order to own these weapons, rather than a simple black and white issue of "yes" guns or "no" guns.
I'm genuinely curious. I'm not trying to provoke you or anything.
I think we should be able to own any kind of gun, most hand-held rockets, grenades, and so on!
I think there should be local (no state of federal ties) community organizations which oversee training for storage, use and handling which carries out periodic meetings and on-site inspections of sites with more than x amount of arms.
Violent crime and gun related crime in the USA declines with increased gun sales and ownership. This is a fact that's not arguable but from ignorance or twisted statistics.
I also think whoever said "Since every human has these rights" in the post above is completely out of touch with reality and doesn't know what property rights actually are. American's for example do not own property in most cases where they think they do. A few places in a few states still respect something similar to actual property rights - but it's rare. No one in the UK but the Queen owns property. The free world people so often refer to is often less free than the states they demonize for the lack of freedom. The USA as a "free country" is long gone! These days it's edging down toward just how much slavery and dictatorial power we're willing to subject ourselves to. And that is a direct correlation in buffer with gun ownership!
The US was founded with one of the main ideas being that we the people ARE the militia and therefor standing armies are NOT needed! When/as that changed that's when the shite started. The last 50 wars we've been in are illegal wars for the expansion of a corporate fascist Empire almost no American actually wants. And in great part because of a run-away military industrial complex (standing army) we're not even supposed to have.
At one point in WWII Japan was strategically positioned for an invasion of California with a good chance for success - militarily. Later when the generals were asked why they didn't attack they said it was for the single reason that they knew every American owned guns and the Japs were not prepared to wage urban warfare on such a large scale. Of course back then many Americans were owning 50cal. machine-guns and canons too!
Today the threat is not so much from countries outside our boarders like Japan but rather from within. From those with a socialist agenda, from those in the UN, CFR and the global banking community who "want to have it all" or want to have control over it all in any case. For the past 100 years or so they have been using the methods of Fabianism to achieve their goals and with great success I might add. Today and since the OCB and 9/11 or there abouts some factions of power have been wanting to "go hot" so to speak. Disarming the American people is one of the hurdles which must be undertaken in order for that to occur.
p.20 #9 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
jcolwell wrote:
dcjs, you're still evading the real issue: people with guns kill far more people than people without guns.
I wasn't trying to evade anything, I was just trying to concisely answer your question, and in fact my answer to that new question is contained in the last sentence of my previous answer. If you really get to the bottom of it, all your collectivist (and I mean that strictly descriptively here) assumptions of what might happen if society was shaped (by whom and with what legitimacy?) in a hypothetical way do not matter when the individual rights of people are at stake.
Of course noone would be killed by guns if no guns existed. The simple fact is that guns do exist, we are not going to be able to revert the invention of the firearm. So, I think it is sensible to include that fact into our considerations. Now if you start "banning" or restricting guns, you are, at least firstly, targeting those that obey laws, which means that they are not going to illegitimately use their guns against others anyway, leaving people who don't even violate laws (much less rights) defenseless. And no, the existence of police is no compensation for this, as any victim of a crime will vividly experience during the minutes before the police arrives at the scene to clean up the mess. Neither does the fact that not all people are competent with guns or willing to carry one mean that they are allowed to prohibit those who are competent and willing from using them for protection. Again, this is about an individual right, and the moment he is attacked, everyone will notice that his individual right to life cannot be weighed against utilitarian statistics saying that him being able to defend himself right now is "bad for society as a whole".
What you are trying to do is ending an ongoing war by putting down your own arms in the hope that the attacker will miraculously change his mind and agree to coexist peacefully ever after. Of course you are free to try how that works for you, but I would consider it offensive if you wanted to include me in that curious experiment of yours.
p.20 #11 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
I don't police threads, as a rule, and especially since this thread is owned by someone else, and although it is interesting about the world view of weapon ownership, there is surely another venue for this sort of thing. Just because one shoots a scene with a camera, does it follow that we can discuss the rights to shot with a weapon, at least on this forum.
p.20 #12 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
Nya, don't sweat it Jimbo... these things usually don't go past a post or two each on this site. People here get hotter about dead photographers and Canon vs. Nikon than they do these OT issues.
p.20 #13 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
douglasf13 wrote:
I'm curious where you'd draw the line. Is there no line?
If you use basic morality that virtually everyone in our society accepts, and just apply it consistently, there is no line I'm afraid. Just as there is no line on the other side of the spectrum, where collectivists claim that a gain for "the greater good" justifies the restriction of individual rights. What if someone could comprehensibly explain that your violent death would profit society as a whole in a substantial way? Would you accept that, or would you feel that they have crossed a line that is not negotiable?
Now, practically speaking, since pure logic and principles only go that far in practice, I think the very states that are telling their citizens that they shouldn't own guns for protection, or what guns are "appropriate" for protection, offer a very practical example of what guns are actually useful for that task, because they equip their police forces with just those guns. I think it is reasonable to state that a gun that is deemed appropriate by the state to be used by police to protect themselves and other people is appropriate for people to own in order to defend themselves. This is just bare-bones common sense.
It would be enormously funny if it wasn't such a serious issue, that you see newspaper articles stating that "assault rifles" are supposedly "only suitable for mass murder, crime and terrorist acts, while the accompanying images show dozens of policemen at a crime scene armed with just those very guns. Just watch! Those are the tools that the state deems appropriate to bring to a scene where someone is committing violence, in order to protect people! Why on earth wouldn't it be appropriate for an andividual to react to the same threat in the same manner with the same tools? Yes I know, the collectivist argument, but we've dealt with that before.
p.20 #15 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
And add to that the fact that "assault rifles" are very very VERY rarely used in a crime. The VAST majority of gun related crimes are undertaken with hand-guns.
p.20 #17 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
dcjs wrote:
I wasn't trying to evade anything, I was just trying to concisely answer your question, and in fact my answer to that new question is contained in the last sentence of my previous answer. If you really get to the bottom of it, all your collectivist (and I mean that strictly descriptively here) assumptions of what might happen if society was shaped (by whom and with what legitimacy?) in a hypothetical way do not matter when the individual rights of people are at stake.
Of course noone would be killed by guns if no guns existed. The simple fact is that guns do exist, we are not going to be able to revert the invention of the firearm. So, I think it is sensible to include that fact into our considerations. Now if you start "banning" or restricting guns, you are, at least firstly, targeting those that obey laws, which means that they are not going to illegitimately use their guns against others anyway, leaving people who don't even violate laws (much less rights) defenseless. And no, the existence of police is no compensation for this, as any victim of a crime will vividly experience during the minutes before the police arrives at the scene to clean up the mess. Neither does the fact that not all people are competent with guns or willing to carry one mean that they are allowed to prohibit those who are competent and willing from using them for protection. Again, this is about an individual right, and the moment he is attacked, everyone will notice that his individual right to life cannot be weighed against utilitarian statistics saying that him being able to defend himself right now is "bad for society as a whole".
What you are trying to do is ending an ongoing war by putting down your own arms in the hope that the attacker will miraculously change his mind and agree to coexist peacefully ever after. Of course you are free to try how that works for you, but I would consider it offensive if you wanted to include me in that curious experiment of yours.
meh, we've moved on to philosophy. intriguing, i feel like i should be quoting my avatar (reversed spelling here). what you are doing is rejecting his basic idea of the social contract - the people agree to abdicate certain rights in order to enjoy the benefits of a centralized government, namely not living in an anarchy where life is inherently "nasty, brutish, and short" (words hobbes always gets credit for, but were actually quoted by him from thucydides). in any event, having a government requires that you give up certain rights, the question is how much and to what degree. it's a question that has been debated for millennia prior to the invention of guns and won't be resolved here.
p.20 #18 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
Thing is, that whenever dictators seize power, first thing they do is strip people from any kind of weapons. And as you can see in China, dictatorship doesnt mean only "one leader"..
Btw. in Switzerland, pretty much everyone is military backup, with gun at home and goverment supplied ammo. And you can check their crime rates. Yea and taking country by force, when everyone has weapons is sorta.. problematic.
p.20 #20 · Best Alt Images, EVER! (before we all die)
sebboh wroteintriguing, i feel like i should be quoting my avatar (reversed spelling here). what you are doing is rejecting his basic idea of the social contract - the people agree to abdicate certain rights in order to enjoy the benefits of a centralized government, ...
That is exactly what I'm rejecting, and Hobbes (wow, having learned what that peculiar user name of yours really means was worth the whole trouble all by itself! - Now does the reverse spelling mean that you reject his ideas, too? ) is the poster boy for how to not run things in my view. In fact, the blatant presumptuousness starts in the third word of your explanation of his theorey - people don't "agree". They are, quite simply, forced. If they all truly agreed, there would be no need for a state to force anyone, and we would have a voluntaristic society. That whole talk about a "social contract" is just a coverup story for violence against a minority (or even a majority, in the days of absolutism). It may work reasonably well in practice (meaning that a society that is run in this way competes favorably with other societies), but that by itself is no moral justification. Maybe China will soon out-compete the US economically, but does that somehow justify their system of government?
), one of my most unusual images of the year (NEX 5n with C/Y 35-70/3.4, 35mm/5.6, as if that mattered).
