4 ms·

Quite right in the main. However, there are several other chances for a citizen check between jury nullification and guns. Peaceful protest for instance. Non

Quite right in the main. However, there are several other chances for a citizen check between jury nullification and guns. Peaceful protest for instance. Nonviolent, civil disobedience for another.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
there are several other chances for a citizen check between jury nullification and guns. I don't think so. It's true in the sense of escalation of severity. But in the "between" sense of chronology, we're past peaceful protest and civil disobedience. You're effectively writing off those who are today being convicted of unjust laws, hoping that things will be better tomorrow, but not considering the plight of those who are wronged today. From the perspective of someone whose morals are based on natural rights (which, I think, includes the founding fathers), the status quo is such that morally-innocent people are being imprisoned and having their rights taken away in other ways, right now. Since the force the State is using to do this is founded on its citizens, I am in essence committing the crime of taking away the rights of these innocents. It is therefore morally incumbent upon me to write this wrong. Asking the government nicely to stop being evil hasn't worked, and these innocents are still suffering. It's therefore each citizen's responsibility (under this moral code) to free these innocents.
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Have you and like minded people continually staged sit-ins in public, in legislatures, in court houses, etc... designed to peacefully hold public attention, educate others on the cause, and protest for the redress of these grievances? A gun is a tool which can very easily remove completely and irrevocably another person's most fundamental rights. As someone who claims to care quite a bit about such rights, you present a clear hypocrisy when you choose rhetoric which encourages reaching for that tool as anything but a last resort for effecting change in the body politic. What exactly are the grievances to which you are referring? Please do answer, but as you do answer, know this. When we read your answer, we will each be able to determine the answer to the question at the start of this comment. And though I cannot speak for others here, in my opinion, until the time I hear on the news about your being arrested numerous times for being chained to the benches in legislatures across the country, you have no true justification for violence in its cause. No, you have harder, more mature work than pulling triggers to do. You have the work of convincing us to join you, chained to the gears of an unjust power. The floor is yours for that end, but please spare us any egotistical, violent hero fantasies which rely, in their essence, on the premise that you, and people who agree with you, deserve more than the rest of us the power to choose who lives and who dies.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    please spare us any egotistical, violent hero fantasies Whoa, there! None of this should be construed as my own inclination, nor of any endorsement that someone else should do it. Where I said "From the perspective of someone whose morals are based on natural rights", I was trying to provide a reply using the logic that such a hypothetical person might reach. That said, reaching a bit deeper into what I think that moral code would tell us... The government has many unjust laws, some of which are punishable by completely destroying the life of the accused. Amongst these are "victimless" crimes, obviously things like use of drugs, but possibly more controversial things like the creation of computer-generated kiddie pr0n (and let me re-emphasize: I think that's gross, but strictly speaking it's victimless). These so-called crimes would not be recognized as such in a natural-rights morality, because my body and soul are my own to do with as I choose, and I'm not hurting anyone else. Moreover, the prosecution of these crimes at a federal level is illegal, because the Constitution, the very thing that gives the government its legitimacy, does not permit it (contemporary jurisprudence would disagree, but again, I'm putting myself into the shoes of a hypothetical person; there are plenty who have the beliefs I'm describing). Thus, the prosecution of any such crimes, and any penalties assessed for them, are themselves illegal. In other words, the government is committing crimes in pursuing them as they are doing. Finally, here's the crux of the matter. The government is only able to do this because it maintains a monopoly on the use of force, and it is using this power in my name. That is, it is using my name to destroy people's lives. That makes me an (unwilling) criminal by proxy. As a moral, upstanding citizen, I have a moral imperative to prevent these crimes (that is, the government illegally prosecuting non-crimes, as I see it). I should certainly be voting against the bureaucrats and politicians who are driving these actions. And I should be protesting, and making other people aware. But the fact remains that lives are being destroyed right now, and it's being accomplished through the power that I have ceded to the government. My votes, my protests, and even the outrage of the other citizens that I've been able to convince, are not preventing these ongoing outrages. When every day, scores more of these abominations are committed, do you expect me to sit idly by, continuing to function as the very foundation for the power that is executing them? If I'm a person who sees the world in moral black-and-white, how can I shrug off the fact that I am, in small part, responsible for destroying hundreds of thousands of lives? I must do something to clear my conscience. OK, now let's look at things the other way around -- and let me apologize in advance for invoking Godwin, but it's not a stretched metaphor here, it's precisely the topic. What was the right course of action for the Germans under Hitler? Virtually all of them went right along with the program. But our typical American perspective today is that they should all have resisted. Is that sufficient, just letting the evil go rolling on as long as I say that it's evil, and refuse to actively participate? Or should they have taken more direct action to prevent what was happening?

Quite right in the main. However, there are several other chances for a citizen check between jury nullification and guns. Peaceful protest for instance. Nonviolent, civil disobedience for another.

CWuestefeld 16y ago

there are several other chances for a citizen check between jury nullification and guns. I don't think so. It's true in the sense of escalation of severity. But in the "between" sense of chronology, we're past peaceful protest and civil disobedience. You're effectively writing off those who are today being convicted of unjust laws, hoping that things will be better tomorrow, but not considering the plight of those who are wronged today. From the perspective of someone whose morals are based on natural rights (which, I think, includes the founding fathers), the status quo is such that morally-innocent people are being imprisoned and having their rights taken away in other ways, right now. Since the force the State is using to do this is founded on its citizens, I am in essence committing the crime of taking away the rights of these innocents. It is therefore morally incumbent upon me to write this wrong. Asking the government nicely to stop being evil hasn't worked, and these innocents are still suffering. It's therefore each citizen's responsibility (under this moral code) to free these innocents.

nooneelse 16y ago
Have you and like minded people continually staged sit-ins in public, in legislatures, in court houses, etc... designed to peacefully hold public attention, educate others on the cause, and protest for the redress of these grievances? A gun is a tool which can very easily remove completely and irrevocably another person's most fundamental rights. As someone who claims to care quite a bit about such rights, you present a clear hypocrisy when you choose rhetoric which encourages reaching for that tool as anything but a last resort for effecting change in the body politic. What exactly are the grievances to which you are referring? Please do answer, but as you do answer, know this. When we read your answer, we will each be able to determine the answer to the question at the start of this comment. And though I cannot speak for others here, in my opinion, until the time I hear on the news about your being arrested numerous times for being chained to the benches in legislatures across the country, you have no true justification for violence in its cause. No, you have harder, more mature work than pulling triggers to do. You have the work of convincing us to join you, chained to the gears of an unjust power. The floor is yours for that end, but please spare us any egotistical, violent hero fantasies which rely, in their essence, on the premise that you, and people who agree with you, deserve more than the rest of us the power to choose who lives and who dies.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  please spare us any egotistical, violent hero fantasies Whoa, there! None of this should be construed as my own inclination, nor of any endorsement that someone else should do it. Where I said "From the perspective of someone whose morals are based on natural rights", I was trying to provide a reply using the logic that such a hypothetical person might reach. That said, reaching a bit deeper into what I think that moral code would tell us... The government has many unjust laws, some of which are punishable by completely destroying the life of the accused. Amongst these are "victimless" crimes, obviously things like use of drugs, but possibly more controversial things like the creation of computer-generated kiddie pr0n (and let me re-emphasize: I think that's gross, but strictly speaking it's victimless). These so-called crimes would not be recognized as such in a natural-rights morality, because my body and soul are my own to do with as I choose, and I'm not hurting anyone else. Moreover, the prosecution of these crimes at a federal level is illegal, because the Constitution, the very thing that gives the government its legitimacy, does not permit it (contemporary jurisprudence would disagree, but again, I'm putting myself into the shoes of a hypothetical person; there are plenty who have the beliefs I'm describing). Thus, the prosecution of any such crimes, and any penalties assessed for them, are themselves illegal. In other words, the government is committing crimes in pursuing them as they are doing. Finally, here's the crux of the matter. The government is only able to do this because it maintains a monopoly on the use of force, and it is using this power in my name. That is, it is using my name to destroy people's lives. That makes me an (unwilling) criminal by proxy. As a moral, upstanding citizen, I have a moral imperative to prevent these crimes (that is, the government illegally prosecuting non-crimes, as I see it). I should certainly be voting against the bureaucrats and politicians who are driving these actions. And I should be protesting, and making other people aware. But the fact remains that lives are being destroyed right now, and it's being accomplished through the power that I have ceded to the government. My votes, my protests, and even the outrage of the other citizens that I've been able to convince, are not preventing these ongoing outrages. When every day, scores more of these abominations are committed, do you expect me to sit idly by, continuing to function as the very foundation for the power that is executing them? If I'm a person who sees the world in moral black-and-white, how can I shrug off the fact that I am, in small part, responsible for destroying hundreds of thousands of lives? I must do something to clear my conscience. OK, now let's look at things the other way around -- and let me apologize in advance for invoking Godwin, but it's not a stretched metaphor here, it's precisely the topic. What was the right course of action for the Germans under Hitler? Virtually all of them went right along with the program. But our typical American perspective today is that they should all have resisted. Is that sufficient, just letting the evil go rolling on as long as I say that it's evil, and refuse to actively participate? Or should they have taken more direct action to prevent what was happening?