Jamie I understand now what you were saying, and I agree.

In terms of Krellin's comments, I'd say this:

As a citizen of the UK, I have a right to a certain level of healthcare. This is a *legal* right - I have a right to it because the law says that I do. It is, if you like, part of my contract with the state.

I certainly don't have a "natural" right to be provided with healthcare by the state, and I remain sceptical that such "natural rights" exist.

@jamie - I agree with krellin. That "legal right" is not a right at all but a priviledge granted by the government. Your government may call it a "right" but they are changing the definition of a right.

The US Declaration of Independence lays it out pretty well as to what is a right and what isn't. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And these may be revoked if one violates another's basic rights.

A right is something you can do yourself (I like that definition) but may be curtailed by the law. A privilege (or a freedom if you will) maybe called a "legal right" but is, in fact a construct of society.

Jamie - if your government fell, if modern society ceased to exist, your "right" to health care would evaporate with it. Therefore, it is not a "right", but it is a benefit provided to you by the agreement of society, and by the *work* of others -- i.e. your "right" infringes on the abilities of others. A "right" can not infringe on others.

That, again, is the problem with modern society - we misuse words; we redefine words in to things they are not in order to cajole the more ignorant members of society that they *must* have something that can only be provided by the sacrifice of others.

What's this? Another argument about definitions crudely disguised as a worthwhile debate? How dull. Both sides are obviously right if you use their definition. Debating whose definition is best is entirely pointless.

Octavious is right.

Sorry, I mean, Octavious is privilege.

"obi, I disagree -- on a natural rights reading, the right to bear arms is indeed a natural one, since if there were no government and one was free in nature, nothing would stop one from owning a gun (and there is nothing morally reprehensible in doing so)."

I disagree--

As if there were no collective organizations there'd be no manufacturing and thus no guns.

The right to DEFENSE is certainly natural--but defense is a broad term, and even our own laws recognize that not all possible forms of defense qualify as natural, right, or good.

You have the right to defend yourself--the METHOD by which you defend yourself is not a naturally-granted right, unless you can prove to me that either guns grow on trees or out of hands Doctor Who-style.

A Hobbesian, State of Nature argument is of course one I myself commonly sympathize with...that being said, again, the issue here is that two related yet entirely separate matters are being conflated in our minds--

The Right to Defense and gun ownership...the two do NOT go hand in hand, at least not NATURALLY, which is my argument here.

What's more, even if we take the Hobbesian approach to its extreme and say any method of defense at all whatsoever is permissible in the State of Nature--

Well, I don't know about you, but I live in the State of California, not the Hobbes' State of Nature, and as appalled as Hobbes himself would be, I'm sure, at all we damn bleeding heart liberals running around, nevertheless, by his own admission he'd have to conclude that the second one leaves the State of Nature for California they forfeit those natural rights to "the Sovereign" of the State, here personified by the State legislature, Governor Brown, the California State law, as well as the United States Federal Law.

To sum up--

1. I dispute the very idea that guns ownership is a natural right via the idea of State of Nature-esque defense, as

2. Defense and gun ownership are potentially-related but NOT the same and are certainly not the complete synonyms organizations such as the NRA would have us believe,

3. One would be allowed to rape and murder in the State of Nature as well, which still doesn't make it permitted in civil society as

4. We hand over said rights to "the Sovereign," ie, the power of the State upon its formation, and so

5. While the Right to Defense (I'd say that's essentially expressed already in the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Protection of Property as enumerated by Locke above, but even if we wanted to give it a separate listing, very well) is a natural right, it does not logically follow that gun ownership, which is a form of defense that arises ONLY in civil societies where guns are created and thus create conditions which do NOT exist in the State of Nature as guns and the culture they create are not available in the State of Nature, is a perfect synonym for defense, ergo, it cannot be conflated with or justified by the Right to Defense alone.

"Marriage is not a right -- it is a social construct with socially constructed benefits."

Let's play with that a moment, shall we?
Because I agree.
BUT, surely, if something like marriage, which is an institution created by an institution, cannot count as a right, then surely guns, a weapon created by an institution, likewise cannot count as a natural right, keeping in mind the above statement on how the Right to Defense is NOT the same as the right to bear arms/gun ownership?

"Marriage (as we traditional think of it -- i.e. tax breaks and benefits) is a priveledge of society."

I agree--with half of that.
Yes, it's a social construct and a tradition...but who's tradition?
There's a long history of homosexuality stretching back to the Greeks and Romans, so you can't really claim (not that you are) that Western societies all derive from a tradition which has always celebrated heterosexual marriage as the only form of marriage...you might be able to claim that the Hebrews and early Christians took that as the only true form of marriage, but that's only taking HALF of the base for Western society, as the foundations of the West essentially (if not entirely) rest on the four cornerstones of Judaic, Christian, Greco and Roman art, history, literature, law, religion, philosophy, and overall ideology.

So decides to only acknowledge the Judeo-Christian half of that tradition over the Greco-Roman side?

No mention of God in our completely-secular Constitution...about the closest thing I can think of to a LEGAL (and I stress legal over population, as if you want to argue that America is a "Christian country" on population alone, fine, I freely give that to you, BUT I maintain that'd be akin to calling America a "White" country based on who's in the racial majority...we're clearly not a "White" country but an aggregate of MANY cultures, particularly in high-density population centers such as here in Los Angeles, and if you doubt that I suggest you take another look at who, for better or worse, agree with him or not, is President of these United States at the moment) basis for calling our nation a "Christian" one would be the reference to a "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence...however, that is NOT a binding set of by laws for this country, and I'd remind everyone that a noted deist and critic of religion--if not Jesus as a person--wrote that, namely, Jefferson...

So that's not exactly an ironclad statement making us a Christian country...

So why trump those moral and legal values over the Greco-Roman allowance of homosexuality in Western civilization, if we're going off of "tradition?"

"You have a right be be gay, you have no right to be "married" in a socially-benefited way...but neither do heteros have a right to be married either - it is a priviledge to them as well.""

You know what--I'll agree with that, surprisingly.
Neither side has the right to marry in a socially-benefited way...fine. Fair enough.
I can see the logic behind that.
By the same token, I hope you can see the hypocrisy and bigotry implicit in allowing one sect of Americans to marry and enjoy those benefits but not another (and if I have to raise the same analogue with protests against inter-racial marrying 50 years ago I will...it's--essentially--the same argument, in principle, someone's idea of tradition vs. another view of tradition which is more compatible with fair play as we understand it today, and I'd add that it's essentially the same sections of the country that made the Civil Rights struggle so hellish that's making the struggle for the LGBT community such a battle right now as well.

What they called an "abomination" 50 years ago is today a widely-accepted social convention, and one everyone with an ounce of common sense and decency agrees has been for the better.

50 years from now, it'll be the same with same sex marriage...

And as with certain governors who stood on state steps and cried "Segregation now, segregation forever!"...

My oh my oh MY are some politicians today going to look (even more) barbaric and backwards when history judges them as being on the atrociously-wrong side of the debate.

"You have the right to defend yourself--the METHOD by which you defend yourself is not a naturally-granted right, unless you can prove to me that either guns grow on trees or out of hands Doctor Who-style."

So people have a right to self-defense, but don't have a right to use any tools whatsoever (except apparently for branches, which do grow on trees)? What about spears carved out of trees? What about bows and arrows, which are largely derived from trees (but not entirely)?

If you've ever been in a real fight with real weapons and real stakes, you would take self defense for what it is, Obi. It's nature. You fight to survive and to come out with the lesser wounds. That's nature; that's life.

"50 years from now, it'll be the same with same sex marriage...
And as with certain governors who stood on state steps and cried "Segregation now, segregation forever!"...
My oh my oh MY are some politicians today going to look (even more) barbaric and backwards when history judges them as being on the atrociously-wrong side of the debate."

I dunno about this. The social forces (in my opinion *not* some sinister plot of the Left, just a convergeance of various interests) that are bringing us homosexual marriage are the same forces that brought us "free love", no-fault divorce, and abortion-on-demand - all of which are unmitigated social disasters the negative effects of which, interestingly, fallen most heavily on women and children. And while advances in technology such as ultrasound imaging have shown how very human fetuses are, there are many who refuse to see how barbaric it is to kill the unborn - in fact, being pro-abortion is practically a litmus test for successful candidacy in some political parties.

Of course the percentage of LGBT persons is much lower and gay marriage will have a much smaller impact on society, but I'm not impressed by the track record of the social movement that has pushed for sexual licensiousness over the last 50-ish years. I guess we'll just have to wait another 50 years and see how things play out, but I feel more pessimistic than you.

"So people have a right to self-defense, but don't have a right to use any tools whatsoever (except apparently for branches, which do grow on trees)?"

Yes.
Don't believe me?

Try defending yourself with a bazooka or a bomb and see how the FBI takes it.

"If you've ever been in a real fight with real weapons and real stakes, you would take self defense for what it is, Obi. It's nature. You fight to survive and to come out with the lesser wounds. That's nature; that's life."
Concur.

You have a right to self-defense...

But in a society we place limits and laws regulating what methods and what tools are allowed for that defense.

If you want to be a one-man army, the way you have to be in the State of Nature...

Maybe you'd best relocate there, as a civil society simply won't take it.

In nature the right to defend is unlimited; in a society it's mitigated by legislation and body counts.

"If you've ever been in a real fight with real weapons and real stakes, you would take self defense for what it is, Obi. It's nature. You fight to survive and to come out with the lesser wounds. That's nature; that's life."

That is nature--but nowhere in there does that give me the right to use that method in a setting which is NOT the State of Nature.

Further, I'll again point out the two great fallacies I see in the gun ownership = defense 100% argument:

1. To those who say they keep guns to defend themselves from the government--again, if said government can drop bombs on your head from stealth fighters and drones or roll a tank over your backyard if it REALLY wanted to become the fascistic nightmare you seem to dwell on and fear it becoming...a single cache of weapons is NOT going to help you, I'm sorry, you can argue "I'll have a better chance!" all day long...I don't buy it, not against the greatest military power in the history of the world (what's more, I'd have to think that if I WERE playing President Evilnamehere, in such a scenario, I'd be more likely to target civilians who had such a cache rather than those who did not...why would I bomb hundreds or thousands or millions who will surrender over the few backwoodsmen with a cache of weapons and enough of a survivalist streak to actually use the damn things.)

2. In terms of the "If we have gun control then criminals will have the upper-hand in terms of what guns they possess" argument...

I'm sorry--you're ALREADY in a Cold War with the criminals...you really think that if you buy a good gun they won't immediately upgrade to a better one, and then you buy an even better one, and then they buy one that is even better, and so on until the end of time...leave gun ownership unchecked and the "escalation" everyone seems to fear will ratchet up all the more.

What's more, you already have a pretty damn good line of defense against the criminals--

They're called the police, and they're not infallible and only human, and they can be subject to corruption and racial profiling and have all the other issues one can imagine, but for all of that, they're still some of the most effective police in the world, they can do the job of protecting you better than you can because they're TRAINED for it (sorry, but if it's my life on the line, I'll take a trained professional who spent years in an Academy and does this for a living rather than trust myself or a friend to handle a gun in a moment of crisis with only seconds to act and hope to be effective) and, lest we forget--

YOU FORFEIT your natural right to that method of defense, ie, Vigilante Defense/Justice, the second you enter and accept a society with laws expressly forbidding that sort of thing.

You're not Clint Eastwood, you're not Batman...you're Joe Whoever, and let the police handle it, as even if you had the natural right to defend yourself with any means available to you, you forfeited that the second you entered society, and I will go so far as to say that, in a society that prohibits murder, your right to utilize a weapon that is made for the purpose of defense (so no "cars kill more" argument here, they're NOT a weapon of defense, by design, by intent, at all) is dissolved and handed over to the State you have agreed to abide by and be protected by.

THAT DOES NOT mean you can't still defend yourself, but there's a reason why lethal force is generally only allowed for the police and federal agencies, and only then under certain circumstances.

Guns represent lethal force.
"So do knives."
Fair point, but you have to pick and choose your battles--

In the same way not all guns can or should be banned, not all lethal weapons can and should be banned.

That being said, there's a reason why only certain kinds of guns and knives are allowed to be owned or brandished in public...and I WOULD classify their ownership as a privilege in essence, even if they are protected as legal right by the 2nd Amendment.

"I dunno about this. The social forces (in my opinion *not* some sinister plot of the Left, just a convergeance of various interests) that are bringing us homosexual marriage are the same forces that brought us "free love", no-fault divorce, and abortion-on-demand - all of which are unmitigated social disasters the negative effects of which, interestingly, fallen most heavily on women and children."

I'll address that point after you name said "social forces"...

As 1. If my argument that gay partnerships/marriage in the West goes back to the Greeks and Romans, I don't think you can really blame or otherwise attach this movement's genesis to that of some failed 60's and 70's ones, and 2. I'm really curious what forces you mean...

I can't imagine you're seriously challenging Civil Rights or Feminism...

And the closest analogue of those is the "free-love" one...but as homosexual couples have been able to get along for decades where they've been allowed (and got along fine in previous epochs) and have even adopted and raised kids just fine...I fail to see how comparing this to a failed experiment works--but again, I'll suspend my argument there until I hear social forces in particular you mean.

"And while advances in technology such as ultrasound imaging have shown how very human fetuses are, there are many who refuse to see how barbaric it is to kill the unborn - in fact, being pro-abortion is practically a litmus test for successful candidacy in some political parties."

1. I obviously don't endorse those political parties... ;) And

2. I'd be one of the barbarians OK with abortion, then, (AT THE RIGHT TIME, that is, before the baby's development reaches a certain stage...I think most of us--maybe not all, as some will argue it's life at conception, but most--will agree that, if caught in the first few days and weeks and aborted when it's a few cells or barely and embryo...well, that's a bit more acceptable...now, if it's a baby 8 or 9 months along and it's essentially ready to be born, then yes, I'd agree it's barbaric to kill something that's already progressed that far...that's my own personal pass/fail in terms of abortion for me--if it would count AND survive as human outside the mother's womb, or is just about to get there, then yes, aborting it would seem morally wrong, whereas I simply don't think that's true if it's done fairly early...NOW, all this ignores the rather intrusive and morally-repugnant idea of forcing a mother to carry a child to term against her wishes, forcing her to keep a rape baby, or otherwise not allowing a woman to be in control of her own body...again, *I* consider that more barbaric and more of a violation of natural human rights--control of one's body, can't get much more "natural" than that in terms of rights--than aborting a cluster of cells that has no concept of even being or having a body yet, let alone a career and family and a life and a rent to meet...THAT being said, if an unborn child is so far along that, if taken out of the mother's womb, it would be able of understanding and comprehending that idea of having a body and an identity, then yes, destroying THAT life is barbaric and wrong as well...and a parenthetical is far too short for me to adequately defend all my positions on arguably the biggest moral dilemma of our times...but I WILL close by saying that 1. I generally think that this is a matter for a woman and her doctor to decide, not for flannel-wearing lawmakers or religious leaders who have no concept of what it's like to carry a child to term and 2. As a loose rule, I'll simply say that, if you asked me to make this difficult moral choice and picks the rights of one over the other, I'll take the rights of a born, living mother over an unborn child nearly every time...maybe that's wrong and maybe that's bigoted towards the unborn, I don't know, but that's simply my gut instinct, and this is now a terrible run-on.)

;)

You have an irrevocable right to have a tl;dr portion in every post more than 500 characters in length.

Obi, I can't possibly hope to sit through all of one of your posts, but I think while I was scrolling I saw the "it doesn't matter how well armed you are, the government can just drop a bomb on you from orbit" argument. To respond to that, I can but point to the people of Vietnam, Iraq and (particularly) Afghanistan, each of whom have foiled an attempt at domination by the American government while armed with nothing more than small arms and improvised explosive devices for over a decade, until the American government simply gave up. If they can do it, I think the people of America could do it even better. To say nothing of the funny fact that governments who order their armies to slaughter their citizens often find that said armies frequently respond by saying "Um... no, your Presidentialness, I'm not going to do that."

"but I think while I was scrolling I saw the "it doesn't matter how well armed you are, the government can just drop a bomb on you from orbit" argument. To respond to that, I can but point to the people of Vietnam, Iraq and (particularly) Afghanistan, each of whom have foiled an attempt at domination by the American government while armed with nothing more than small arms and improvised explosive devices for over a decade, until the American government simply gave up."

Well, to give one possible rebuttal to that--

We didn't go "all the way" in those scenarios.

That is, we threw quite a bit at them, but it's not as if we threw every last soldier, tank, plane and inter-continental missile at them.

For another, there's the matter of home-front war weariness...not as if you can have that when the home front IS the front, and it's a very literal "Join or Die" scenario...

Not as if Stalin cared all that much how war weary his people were, so if such a regime were to come to power in America with no "damn liberal press" to criticize the war and the full might of the American military really and truly, with no restraints, for PR reasons or humanitarian reasons or otherwise, came down on you....

I'm sorry--but rifle or no rifle, more than likely, kiss your ass goodbye, my friend. ;)

(I'll leave the Nuclear Bomb-shaped elephant in the room alone for the moment, as even I'll admit we'd have to have one special sort of psycho in office to nuke his own country...but I WILL just say...yeah...you have to admit, technically speaking, if they want you dead and the man in charge is Coo Coo for Coco Puffs and wants to nuke you...clutching to a gun works just as well as "Duck and Cover!" In fact, it fulfills the same role--the false, comforting hope that you can do anything to save yourself in such an event as that.)

"I'll address that point after you name said "social forces" ... I can't imagine you're seriously challenging Civil Rights or Feminism..."

No, I'm not challenging civil rights or feminism at all. I *will* argue that certain aspects of what is *considered* feminism have tragically turned out to be pretty disadvantageous to women. "Casual sex" and abortion are primary examples. Women bear the brunt of the emotional cost (if I may indulge in what is probably a negative *male* stereotype) of casual sex and the brunt of STD's, and if pregnancy occurs (surprise! actions have consequences!) women bear the physical, emotional, and financial brunt of either raising a child alone or going through an abortion. Does that sound like progress for women to you? Because it doesn't sound like progress to me. It sounds to me like the Penis God demands sacrifice, preferably sacrifice made by women and children.

As to the "social forces": I'm being deliberately vague, trying to avoid sounding like a nutcase who thinks there's some cabal of perverts trying to bring down America - I'm generally pretty conspiracy-averse, and certainly so in this case. But would you deny that our society has seen a strong trend in the last 50-ish years towards sexual permisiveness? I guess I'm just observing that the push for gay marriage seems to be part of an overall trend toward sexual permisiveness.

Marriage and sex are two very different things. They can coincide. But they don't necessarily.

It's like business and profits. You hope your business has profits. But often enough, it will not. And some people's business plan accounts for minimal or even no profits.

Obiwan, can you clarify something? Are you saying the only rights which are legitimate are those which the government cannot stop? That's what "Try defending yourself with a bazooka or a bomb and see how the FBI takes it." sounds like. I hope you see the obvious flaws with this problem (that people are being harassed and arrested for universally accepted rights like free speech).

"Um... no, your Presidentialness, I'm not going to do that." Cool.

@Obi

"1. To those who say they keep guns to defend themselves from the government--again, if said government can drop bombs on your head from stealth fighters and drones or roll a tank over your backyard if it REALLY wanted to become the fascistic nightmare you seem to dwell on and fear it becoming...a single cache of weapons is NOT going to help you, I'm sorry, you can argue "I'll have a better chance!" all day long...I don't buy it, not against the greatest military power in the history of the world (what's more, I'd have to think that if I WERE playing President Evilnamehere, in such a scenario, I'd be more likely to target civilians who had such a cache rather than those who did not...why would I bomb hundreds or thousands or millions who will surrender over the few backwoodsmen with a cache of weapons and enough of a survivalist streak to actually use the damn things.)"

I defy you to find one soldier who would follow that illegal order. Tanks won't roll through back yards and drones and stealth bombers won't be attacking the citizenry on American soil becuase there are soldiers behind those weapons. Hell, even the nuclear arsenal has a pair of humans pushing the last buttons on the bombs so those would never be fired at American coordinates either.

"2. In terms of the "If we have gun control then criminals will have the upper-hand in terms of what guns they possess" argument...

I'm sorry--you're ALREADY in a Cold War with the criminals...you really think that if you buy a good gun they won't immediately upgrade to a better one, and then you buy an even better one, and then they buy one that is even better, and so on until the end of time...leave gun ownership unchecked and the "escalation" everyone seems to fear will ratchet up all the more."

I agree with this whole line of thought on the gun control view, but not when carried to the extremes the left would like (ban all guns) as then I am foced to defend myself and my neighborhood with a baseball bat or a kitchen knife while the criminals still have their guns. That or become a criminal by still owning one.

"What's more, you already have a pretty damn good line of defense against the criminals--

They're called the police, and they're not infallible and only human, and they can be subject to corruption and racial profiling and have all the other issues one can imagine, but for all of that, they're still some of the most effective police in the world, they can do the job of protecting you better than you can because they're TRAINED for it (sorry, but if it's my life on the line, I'll take a trained professional who spent years in an Academy and does this for a living rather than trust myself or a friend to handle a gun in a moment of crisis with only seconds to act and hope to be effective) and, lest we forget--"

What a fucking joke! Police don't stop crimes. They investigate them after the fact. That isn't defense and it doesn't stop harm. The only time the police "stop crime" is if the criminal takes to long (like a bank robbery) or the crime is an ongoing one (like a kidnapping). Did you see the police stop the bombers at the Boston Marathon? How about at the movie theater sometime back when Batman Rises premiered? They stopped a series of crimes in that case, but many crimes (murders, each is a crime) were committed before they even got there. The police almost *never* stop anything in a home invasion unless one just happens to be in that neighborhood at that moment. Don't be fucking daft. Cops don't defend us. They just see to it the criminals pay the price after we have been robbed, our loved ones raped, and the whole family killed. You're an idiot to think otherwise, Pollyanna!

"YOU FORFEIT your natural right to that method of defense, ie, Vigilante Defense/Justice, the second you enter and accept a society with laws expressly forbidding that sort of thing."

No I dop not. Our laws actually grant me the right of self-defense. Our second amendment guarantees that right. If you want a society that doesn't grant you the right to defend yourself, go move to Russia or somewhere other than the United States cause we don't have a society where self defense is outlawed, thank God!

"You're not Clint Eastwood, you're not Batman...you're Joe Whoever, and let the police handle it, as even if you had the natural right to defend yourself with any means available to you, you forfeited that the second you entered society, and I will go so far as to say that, in a society that prohibits murder, your right to utilize a weapon that is made for the purpose of defense (so no "cars kill more" argument here, they're NOT a weapon of defense, by design, by intent, at all) is dissolved and handed over to the State you have agreed to abide by and be protected by."

No, I'm a US Marine trained by the best and still able to kill the must untrained criminals. I would warrant I could take down a cop if he were off his guard at that moment. There are very few criminals who can claim the training I or any other former ground combat soldier has.

"THAT DOES NOT mean you can't still defend yourself, but there's a reason why lethal force is generally only allowed for the police and federal agencies, and only then under certain circumstances."

When did you become a lawyer? You clearly don't know the law in my state where lethal force is authorized *any* time innocent life is threatened or in Texas where you can shoot someone in the back and kill them *legally* if they are breaking into your *neighbor's* house. Dude, you don't know what you are talkign about and are embarrassing the fuck out of yourself here.I suggest you brush up a little on the various state laws regarding lethal force befrore making blanket statements about who is "generally" allowed to use it. Whiel it varies from state to state, generally, everyone can use lethal force in defense of self or others.

For some reason every time I see this thread, I read the title as, "I can haz right to remain silent?"

tl;dr

Look, I'm generally for gun control (not banning, but control) and I almost completely agree with Draug. If you honestly think that if someone pulls a knife on you basically anywhere...best lit street in the world less than a block from a police station, even...and you have better odds of delaying the situation til the cops come versus being able to plug the guy right there, you're an idiot. Even if you're a complete incompetent, you probably have about a one in three, at minimum, chance of being somewhat effective with the gun. Versus about a one in a billion chance of a cop showing up at that exact moment and stopping it.

I've been held up at both gunpoint and knifepoint, and either way, the guy is gone within a minute, far less than the response time of the police.

I think we should make sure people having personal protection weapons have a modicum of training and are not mentally ill in a potentially hazardous way, and that there should be limits on what can be considered a personal protection weapon, but honestly, nothing is going to help you or others stop being stabbed, shot, carjacked, raped, robbed, etc better than producing a gun.