Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)
All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
ONWARD
Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)
All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
ONWARD
That is a very interesting comment. I figured it was self evident that by "we" I was referring to us, the Americans. But you came up with something different. It is almost as of you believe something was conferred upon us by a discrete class of betters. Is that what you are trying to convey?
Your last 5 word phrase is interesting also. Somehow you came up with something along the lines of-since freedom is group thing, it is therefore right to extend it to more individuals. I think that interesting because I believe that all individuals deserve not to be deprived of their natural rights because their status as individuals, they are therefore they have so to speak. It has nothing at all to do with a group, it has everything to do with the individual. But somehow you came up with a group. Do you mean that no differentiation should be made amongst individuals because of superficialities that are subordinate to their status as individual humans and therefore restrictions upon natural rights based upon those superficialities should be done away with? I can go with that. But I note that that derives from the individual what he is due because he is.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
What I am trying to convey is that the kind of people largely responsible for extending liberties and rights to those previously oppressed or otherwise disadvantaged, are often those that receive labels like 'commie or 'benign master class who decided that freedom is a group thing'. I extracted these words from the post I quoted; I did not come up with them. Hence the sarcasm icon.
Freedom should apply to all individuals, and can only be measured against that of all other individuals in the community / group. So yes, pretty much as per your second to last line. So, even though I did not come up with the group thing, I think it has as much to do with the group as it has with the (all) individuals that make up the group. It has always been that way, except that the group has not always been all-inclusive (come to think of it, probably never will be). Seeing the rights purely as individual - and having nothing to do with any group - is not helpful to those people who are denied the rights by the group.
Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. (Christopher Columbus)
All great truth passes through three stages: first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
(Arthur Schopenhauer)
ONWARD
Protection of the rights of minorities, whether or not you describe those minorities in hyphenated terms, has to be a priority in any system based on majority rule. First thing a majority does when it gets power is to step on some convenient minority.
Living in a country with no political parties worthy of the name, I have to say that parties, scummy as they are, have a place. They aren't pretty, what what happens when you have none is even less pretty.
Going back to the original post, I'd only underscore that IMO the problem isn't the guns, or even for the most part the gun owners. The pronblem is the fear, and the extent to which that fear is growing to an irrational and paranoid level in a small subset of the populace. Scared people do crazy stupid stuff, especially when they are heavily armed. To the extent that the second amendment lobby encourages and supports exaggerated fear of government, it might be held to be a threat.
So another question... are their parties out there deliberately encouraging and supporting exaggerated fear of government? If so, is the second amendment lobby one of them?
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Here, I can only half agree with you. Fear is a key component, but WHAT you are afraid of matters. Fear of the basics, like your own death, will certainly yield a defensive reaction. But we are not talking about death in this case. We are not even talking about fear of torture. I am not even sure what we are afraid of specifically, except that it seems to be associated with a very expansive idea of liberty - one clearly more expansive than the Founders believed in.
Here, again, we get to the crux of the problem. Why will Americans, who have more than most people in other countries can dream of having, want to attack their own government? What is it they feel they are being deprived of? How does that relate to insurrection and insurgency in general? Unfortunately, I am asking rhetorical questions, because no one ever wants to address them.
"I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature."
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan
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This was created just after the 911 attacks and it explains very clearly why we need to get rid of the Democratic Communist Party Propaganda technique of Hyphenated Americans(divide and conquer)......it's gotta go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YRR_bwbqE8
I think you are confusing rights, natural rights, those given to the individual because of his existence as an individual by God with measuring the degree to which those rights are able to be exercised within a system created by men. Those are two different things.
The rights themselves have nothing at all to do with a group. Measuring them does, as measuring has to be done by relating one thing to another.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
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