4 ms·

Throwing smart contracts into the mess doesn’t make gun control any less of a waste. Bluntly, as long as gun control ultimately relies on use of force to succe

• krapp 4y ago
  >Bluntly, as long as gun control ultimately relies on use of force to succeed And gun rights don't? I have yet to hear a gun control advocate threaten violence, even implicitly as you have with the Ceaușescu, in the face of opposition to their political views. Meanwhile the pro-gun side threatens to kill their political opponents en masse in some nebulous future unless they are acquiesced to on a regular basis. Between those two, which is really the one cloaked in authoritarianism?
  • no-s 4y ago
    > which is really the one cloaked in authoritarianism? Really? A false equivalence? I think it might boil down to who initiates the use of force to get their way. If someone says “no, I’m not giving it up,” how will you make them give it up and agree with you? By redefining not cooperating as an aggressive act? By making them an un-person? By pointing a gun at their head perhaps? Really, I’d like to see your explanation. Whereas if I say “self defense is a basic human right,” how are you directly threatened? I’m not a gun rights advocate, I’m a human rights advocate. “Ceaușescu-ed” is another way of saying “sic semper tyrannis”, in the karmic sense, not as a threat.
    • krapp 4y ago
      >Really? A false equivalence? I think it might boil down to who initiates the use of force to get their way. I guess it's not a false equivalence after all. >Really, I’d like to see your explanation. I don't need to explain anything because I'm not making any assertions beyond the one, that gun rights rely on a threat of force on the part of gun owners against the government and/or gun control advocates. An assertion you don't appear to disagree with. >Whereas if I say “self defense is a basic human right,” how are you directly threatened? I’m not a gun rights advocate, I’m a human rights advocate. What does "self defense" mean in the context of "gun control enthusiasts (ending) up Ceaușescu-ed if they are too successful?" Whom is defending themselves against what, and with what means? >“Ceaușescu-ed” is another way of saying “sic semper tyrannis”, in the karmic sense, not as a threat. "Karma" didn't shoot Ceausescu or Lincoln. Again, who or what is meant to be doing the “Ceaușescu-ing?” By whose hand is this karma dealt? When you say gun control advocates depend on the use of force, what I think you mean is force of law, as in the monopoly on violence (a monopoly that gun rights advocates claim rightly to be theirs by virtue of the Second Amendment.) So by that definition you might consider any sufficiently effective gun control laws to be an initiation of the use of force against what you consider your human right to keep and bear arms, and thus also consider retaliation to be justifiable self-defense. You may even consider that karma. But at the end of the day, "karma" won't be pulling the trigger. Rhetoric and semantics aside, it still is what it is.