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Previous comments... You are currently on page 3.
Ayn Rand’s general position, as best I can determine from the two quotes below (from The Virtue of Selfishness), is that individuals have the right of self-defense, that in a free society they delegate this right to the government, and that the method by which this right is implemented can properly be determined by a majority vote. I take this to mean that citizens in an Objectivist country can adopt laws setting limits on the types of weapons that citizens can own.
“There is only one basic principle to which an individual must consent if he wishes to live in a free, civilized society: the principle of renouncing the use of physical force and delegating to the government his right of physical self-defense, for the purpose of an orderly, objective, legally defined enforcement.”
“A free nation – a nation that recognizes, respects and protects the individual rights of its
Citizens – has a right to its territorial integrity, its social system and its form of government. The government of such a nation is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of its citizens and has no rights other than the rights delegated to it by the citizens for a specific, delimited task (the task of protecting them from physical force, derived from their right of self-defense). The citizens of a free nation may disagree about the specific legal procedures or methods of implementing their rights (which is a complex problem, the province of political science and of the philosophy of law), but they agree on the basic principle to be implemented: the principle of individual rights. When a country’s constitution places individual rights outside the reach of public authorities, the sphere of political power is severely delimited—and thus the citizens may, safely and properly, agree to abide by the decisions of a majority vote in this delimited sphere.”
One of the reasons the military despises the population is their despicable willingness to sacrifice anyone and and everyone except themselves. So you used them? that makes you how old? I'm not enough to make that claim. What we did was prevent their use not ensure it.
But then x+y=zero.
How strong is their faith if they find out after giving their wannabe martyrs a place and time in court we were to prepared to shoot first and bury them in pig carcasses. Sound rough? No worse than nuclear immolation. A certain amount not including the Islamic Atheists would become desaparecido. Rather lowers the odds.
It's not important for them to know we will or won't it's only important for us to know and for them to believe it. An occasional demonstration of 'will' helps. Does it work?
Remember 9/11?
Instead assume they remembered Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I assure you, hyperbole aside the Japanese do. Terrorist tactics? So? It's only called that if you lose.
But all the philosophy and all the rest of it won't stop zip when the missing ingredient is 'will' and a rather believable form of it. Not just the fear of an unstable clown nor a tradition of giving in every step of the way. Nor of a group of people that gave up everything to ensure peace in their short lifespan and in doing so lost.
I sure as hell would not believe this goverrnment of ours nor the people in the nation that put them there. They lack will, they lack honesty and the lack another key ingredient. Not just a philosophy but a moral philosophy.
.
That being the case I'm willing to bet Washington DC against Tehran. Instead of Washington DC betting our lives let them stand on Double Zero.
Convoluted but it works for me and it doesn't require the use of nukes in either direction.
By John W. Rickman, John Philip Wisser, Andrew Hero (Jr.)" which relates the private ownership of canons on plantations in Virginia.
Additionally, there are private owned cannons today and even tanks with operable guns. Paul Allen owns his own SU-29, a Russian Fighter Jet.
But I don't think it's practically possible for individuals to outspend the federal government while still having an army that can defend the country. So I'd propose that we reverse the post-Civil-War "federalization" of the state militias (or at least make any federal call-up voluntary) while encouraging the large states to break up into smaller ones, thus re-creating locally-controlled (or at least state controlled) militias all over the country which together have the feds outgunned.
That's the way the founders set it up, and that's the way it should have stayed. And if it results in some successful secessions, that's a feature, not a bug.
We live in a world where a suitably knowledgeable person can construct a virus that could kill virtually the entire human population if it got out of his lab.
Do we have no recourse until we are doomed.
As to it being the government, that's the appropriate agency for retaliatory use of force. Of course you have to make the argument that my R&D project forcibly damages your safety without your consent.
or biological or chemical attack plans being finalized. . finding
those people, who are assuredly among us, might be the question. -- j
p.s. I will pose this as an "ask the gulch" question.
..
Schwartz states: "People have the right of self-defense and, therefore, the right to own guns. And the less adequate is the state's police protection, the more crucial that right becomes. (This does not, of course, mean that anyone ought to be permitted to carry any weapons he wishes. The government should certainly intervene when there is evidence that there exists a threat to innocent people -- for example, when someone carries a howitzer down the street, or when a minor or a convicted violent felon tries to buy a gun. But a gun in the hands of a normal adult does not in itself constitute a threat, and the government has no right to step in.)”
Whether or not any particular weapon represents an objective threat would depend on the following: (1) how safe is the weapon in the hands of a normal adult; that is, how easily it is controlled by the individual, and/or (2) how destructive is the weapon when used.
Most small arms require a very deliberate procedure for loading, arming and firing the weapon. And, even if a round is accidentally discharged after going through this procedure, the danger, though potentially serious, is limited.
A grenade, on the other hand, has no built in safety mechanisms and can cause great harm to anyone nearby if it is detonated.
A howitzer requires a very definite procedure for loading, arming and firing, but it is very destructive.
So, I would argue that there should be no conditions set on the ownership and use of small arms, subject to the two conditions above, and, like Schwartz, I would argue that government should set conditions on their ownership and use of more destruction weapons like grenades, howitzers, etc..
I would like to add that the government cannot properly ban any weapon. They can only set proper objective conditions of their ownership and use, subject to the two general conditions I mentioned above.
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