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Originally posted by Quad
I think if you read my last few paragraphs, which I have edited, you will see that I addressed issues of personal responsibility.
The kind of personal responsibility that our laws encourage are self perpetuating cycles of violence.
The kind of personal responsibility that exists is "carry a gun cus anybody you encounter might be." The kind of choice that our social fabric limits people to is "the choice to not carry a gun and risk not being able to defend yourself." The problem with personal responsibility arguments when you apply them broadly in all areas without looking at the nature of problems is you ignore the ways in which peoples choices are limited, and the ways in which definitions of responsibility are formed. You operate on a utopian ideal of the natural human condition and ability to take responsibility without vocalizing it or taking action (by revising social institutions) to create that ideal.
Originally posted by Quad
I'm not engaging in your circular arguing that is oh-so-essential for people to keep their very limited "beliefs" and not engage in real discussion. I addressed the criminal in my original post. The very first post of this thread addressed the reality that gun control MEANS control of crime.
Gun control through regulation of the market and regulation of legal proliferation MEANS gun control for illegal proliferation. It doesn't mean that a blackmarket flourishes while citizens are limited - the logic that allows you to wage that argument is so convoluted that it would take way too long to try to dissect but I hope you can atleast see, possibly - and take into account the success of other countres - how MAYBE control of the market and legal sales would effect the blackmarket.
Originally posted by Quad
I think you need to re-read my post you rabid, ignorant fool if you think I am saying we need to give up our self protection to the state. I think I addressed my support for our ability to protect ourselves in more then one paragraph. Is it easier for you to think up ignorant counter-points when you pretend my position is something else? Are you just here to get your "beliefs" validated and attack what you see as opposition?
:
Originally posted by Quad
Now to respond to your counter-points...
you said The arms maket is fine. It's criminals and a government that hampers the ability of individuals to protect themselves that creates victims.
#1. Yes, people shoot people. Very good - that doesn't address "why" that happens or "how" to stop it.
Gun control, and there are many different forms, but trying to control guns seems like the right direction to move in to get people to stop using them.
No. It's the founding principle of our country. You know what doesn't square with reality, all liberal notions of governance, justice, fairness, history, economics.... on and on.Ideals of personal responsibility do not square up with reality and do not offer solutions about how to achieve a more responsible society, they are just ideals.
You don't want the economy to expand unless you can be assured the cash will go to your socialis agenda. You're killing humanity.you said The arms maket is fine. It's criminals and a government that hampers the ability of individuals to protect themselves that creates victims.
Oh and our experiment in free markets has made us the envy of the world.
#2. Nobody is debating capitalism has bettered the lives of even the poorest tiers in our society. Now, that our success has been due to moving in a direction of unregulated capitalism is debatable. Certainly market regulation has been necessary to not only protecting people in the middle and lower classes but to protecting the ability of businesses to compete. We do not have the right legal and social safety nets in place to survice as a country that operates in a completely unregulated market. By survive, I mean maintain protection of basic human rights and liberty that are necessary even in maintaining a competitive market.
Completely ridding society of guns would require near martial law. THat's just a truism. Don't blame me that it sounds bad for your case.you said No they're not. You want people to abdicate their self protection to the state. That's sick, cuz the stats IS NOT ABLE to protect us at all times and STILL ALLOW US TO BE FREE. GO live in prison if you want to. I don't
#3 Your comparison of gun control with socialism ignores the very nature of your right to own a gun to begin with, it ignores the reality of the system and is a broad and baseless attack on me, which you appearantly see as a filthy commie that needs attacking.
I'd like you to quit being a fool. But we don't always get what we want.you said Because liberals won't enforce the laws on the books. They want the situation to worsen to scare people into voting to illegalize guns. SO they have complete control over the society.
#4. I have yet to see any gun control legislation from "conservatives" that encourages personal responsibility of people who own guns both legally and illegally. Neither party has the market cornered on law enforcement, and certainly both "liberal" and "conservative" viewpoints have strong points and extreme weaknesses. I'd like you to define liberal and define conservative because I think you are confused about what those terms mean.
You just think people protecting themselves is an "escalation of aggression" or some such liberal shit. The criminals are the problem you twit. Not the guns. Oh yes but crimes is just a result of social inequality. ----BULLSHIT.you said Is there something wrong with protecting one's self. IS that selfish and greedy?
#5. I did not accuse anybody of selfish and greedy.
But before you said arguments about individual rights are not realistic or something. Why the flip flop john kerry?You took my comment out of context, amazing. Because I pointed out that I was not assigning value to anything - simply stating a cultural difference. If you want to deny a cultural difference you can try but a cultural difference DOES exist. I acknowledged the need to protect oneself, I was going beyond that though (hard for you to understand because it means not stereotyping me) and trying to talk about why.
you said But you do feel that is a superior value. Don't you.
#6. Western society values protection of human life and basic human rights. The concept of a basic human right and protection of the liberty/autnomy of the individial is central to our laws and the laws of all western nation.
That all sounds nice. Your claim that therefore a criminals right to his life, supercedes the property owners right to his property in the context of a burglary is a perversion.Autonomy and human rights are central to libertarian, republican, democratic, green party, liberal, moderate, and conservative platforms. Human rights ideals are the centralizing ideals in western politics - how to protect human rights is where the differences are. To value life over property is the essence of western ethics. Of course I believe it is a superior value, and our american society believes that to - the extent we believe that in comparrison to say britain is different - but we believe that. So, again, to answer your question. Yes, I do believe it is a superior value and if I didn't I would probably move. Certainly the goal everyone has in mind regardless of position is getting to a point where less people are murdered and human life is valued more, am I wrong?
You give criminals a free pass. And blame regular citizens for defending themselves. Well poverty doesn't justify crime.you said Yeah. Criminals bring guns onto other people's property to defend to the death their right to steal. Regular citizens try to stop them. You're criticizing the regular citizens defense of himself instead of the criminal for a being a pariah on society. You're sick in the head.
#7. I didn't criticize anyone. If you want to ignore the nature of the problem, the reasons why violent crimes continue and simplify it down into "criminals are bad' you can, but it offers no solution. You are wrong though because I didn't criticize anybody. And I didn't advocate taking the right of protection and the right to bare arms away, did I? I think I defended it against the initial poster in half of my argument. So you are wrong, you misread what I wrote. Here's a new simplification for you "murder is bad" now how do you stop it?
Once we get through the misconceptions of my post we can debate. But it's hard for me to do anything but either A) get on the defensive or B) attack back when your post was a blatant and baseless attack.
Originally posted by Quad
Hm, I don't think you've ever taken a debate class. You've certainly yet to start kicking my ass since:
A. almost all of your initial points were in response to some made up or assumed agenda on my part. That makes them fallacies (know what that means?), in a "debate" (which is governed by a scientific system of logical reasoning) a basic misunderstanding of the opposition makes what you say wrong.
B. It seems like your new posts are also based on you projecting things onto me which I have not said. Whatever good points you may have are obscured by your inability to wage a debate and make a clear and valid response.
You need to make real responses and real points before you can declare victory. A debate is not some emotional triumph that comes out of defending your own beliefs. A debate is a conversation of differing opinions where hopefully a mutual understanding is achieved at the end and whatever relevant points and concerns of all parties are addressed.
Now to respond to you.
you said
My concern is protecting victims. I think we should all carry arms. And in any case, poverty, your extenuating social factor, does not justify violence in any case. Anyone attempting some kind of violent crime against anyone should be shot on site, regardless of any extenuating circumstance.
There is certainly an argument to be made that total saturation of arms in a social enviroment does not prevent crime - base that on history. Now, if everyone carried a gun today would that result in people taking law into their own hands, you'd probably say no. You'd probably say it'd give people more reason to settle things reasonably - but that's a theory. All I am saying is there is an argument to be made that it wouldn't. The founding fathers did not create the second amendment because they felt people had the right to own whatever they wanted. The original analysis was very true - it was made in defense of militias. I have made my position on personal protection and militias clear. My points had to do with limiting who gets gun and creating accountability for crime. You dismissed that though and wrote me off as a communist, I don't know exactly WHAT you think I was trying to say but my points were about increasing ACCOUNTABILITY and therefor encouraging RESPONSIBILITY - very much "conservative" ideals. Your statement is also a fallacy, since, robbery is not a "violent" crime. I did not address defense from violence in my post, do not twist my argument into something it wasn't. Your point is a fallacy because property violations are not "violent." The point you made above was about "violent crime" - making your statement a fallacy.
you said It's the wrong direction. Law abiding members of society should be armed to enforce peace and tranquility and to shoot criminals dead in their tracks if they start "wilding".
Citizens of the united states should not take the law into their own hands. The code of law should be formal and official and should be governed by public institutions (this is democratic not socialist by the way) and not by individuals and their own subjective personal judgements. It's a lot easier for me to claim you are an anarchist based on this statement then you calling me a socialist based on anything I've said. I think you need to take a civics or government class? Maybe you don't understand the notion of a democracy and self governance.
you said No. It's the founding principle of our country. You know what doesn't square with reality, all liberal notions of governance, justice, fairness, history, economics.... on and on.
Self governance and achieving a true democracy where power (not wealth, not WEALTH, got it?) is distributed equally. Self governance both through social institutions and autonomous living are the founding ideas. Every system of government has ideas about how to hold people responsibile, personal responsibility ideals are not the guiding ideals - how we self govern detirmines how we view responsibility. Now, what liberal and conservative have to do with that I don't know. Your statements about history are both wrong and irrelevant to the discussion, a baseless attack which is a demonstration of your inability to operate even somewhat objectively - meaning you are not debating. Now, regardless of all that, my point was that ideals and solutions are two different things. What you said above was not a dismissal of my statement - merely a baseless attack that did not really respond. My point was that you did not offer a solution - that is just true, you merely offered ideals.
you said You don't want the economy to expand unless you can be assured the cash will go to your socialis agenda. You're killing humanity.
I don't know how you read a socialist agenda into anything I've said. I think you are paranoid, the motives of my statements are clearly those of personal responsibility and accountability. You just made a really stupid, broad statement that didn't respond to my point which was that we do not yet have a system to insure a free market is safe for us. If you want to get in a market discussion we have, I've kissed the ass of capitalism enough in the last few posts to show that I am a true blue american capitalist. Market regulation doesn't mean socialism, it is very stupid of you to think it does - very very very few people advocate zero market regulation. Your statement was baseless and you are again projecting your frustrations with the world at large unto my argument.
you said Completely ridding society of guns would require near martial law. THat's just a truism. Don't blame me that it sounds bad for your case.
I said that, I said that in my intial post. It was a main point of mine in respose to the first post of this thread. Another illustration that you didn't really read or understand my points. I didn't advocate completely ridding guns in our society either. I advocated keeping it. I insinuated a middle ground between the strict control in other western countries and our cultural norms surrounding firearms. But, in response to what I cited above - I very clearly stated the same point you think you just made to counter me, and I used it as an argument against the first person, idiot. Why don't you go back and read my post lil rabid one?
you said I'd like you to quit being a fool. But we don't always get what we want.
This is not a debatable point.
you said
You just think people protecting themselves is an "escalation of aggression" or some such liberal shit. The criminals are the problem you twit. Not the guns. Oh yes but crimes is just a result of social inequality. ----BULLSHIT.
I didn't address social inequalities. You are projecting again. Therefor this is a fallacy, again. Another point that is not a response to me and therefor not debatable. But I will respond to it. All I said was that the more people have guns the more people need guns. You haven't argued that - infact your points insinuate that fact. You said "or some such liberal shit." You know why you said that? Because you have no idea what my point really was and you were projecting your ignorant frustrations onto me. Is it easier for you to think about everything in such simple black and white terms? I think your emotional investment in this "debate" is preventing you from thinking. You will find very few conservatives that will say "crime isn't a result of social inequality." The reality is most crimes are economic in nature, the debate between liberals and conservatives are "how to solve all the crimes that are economic in nature, and shoult the nature of the crime enter into punishment?" My point was solutions would be more effective if they focused on the social fabric of our country and social institutions and not on the expectation that parents will wake up and teach kids better cus "the country was founded on personal responsibility." But you can pretend I said whatever you want.
you said But before you said arguments about individual rights are not realistic or something. Why the flip flop john kerry?
Originally posted by Big D
Guns don't kill people,
blacks and hispanics WITH guns kill people.
