Siro goes to to pre-military training

[Ecthy]

Have fun!

And watch out...

[Berzerker]

Eli -

This is your opinion. Not ours.

I may not know every iota of Palestinian/Israeli history, but I do know land was stolen from Palestinians by Israelis. I don't think Palestinians would be committing suicide to blow Israelis up if your opinion was valid.

Sirotnikov -

He was a genetics scientist who worked on the link between genetics and human behaviour.

And he found a gene that made Neandertals not defend themselves? Yeah right...

Look, if russian scientists aren't good enough for you, it's ok.

Only when they start substituting speculations for facts. Or was that you who did that?

No it's not. It's the exact rephrasal of his statement.

"Rephrasal"? Where did David say government should protect him without his support?

He does expect the government to protect him.

With his consent and support. Did he say otherwise?

He does not wish to take part in protecting other country men.

He didn't say that, he opposed the draft. The draft forces others to risk their lives for the security of others.

He thinks that when war comes, the government will have time to explain to him why he should do it, and plea he agrees to defend anyone but himself.

You don't need any explanation for why other people are asking or forcing you to kill others?

I say - if he doesn't want to protect others, let not others protect him.

And until you can prove he expects others to defend him without his support, your claims about him are meaningless.

1) That is irrelevant and to be dealt with later.

So if you steal someone's land and they fight back, your theft is irrelevant?

Take a look at WWII. German claims that they were opressed and stolen from as a result of the Versailles agreements were right.

Did the Germans start WW!? Did they agree to the Versailles Treaty? If the answer to both is "no", then they may have had a valid claim. Whats your point?

2) No lands were stolen. Some lands were bought. More were allocated in a UN decision, but not accepted by the arabs. And the rest was conquered in wars started by arab agression.

Land "allocated" by the UN is theft. Are you now suggesting a group of foreigners have the moral authority to give away your land? And those lands "conquered" by Israelis belonged to others, the fact the owners ran off when a war began doesn't justify the winner of that war keeping those lands. If two people walked onto your property, and you got your family out of the way, the winner of that fight would not have a legitimate claim to your land.

3) We attempted to give them back those lands, but they seem to want more - demands that will clearly bring the destruction of the state of Israel.

Is that why the Israelis won't accept the "right of return"? Isn't that the Palestinian condition for peace giving Arabs who fled their property during those wars the right to return to their land?

On the basis of international society agreements.

So the Nazis should not be condemned for murdering millions of people, but for violating some international agreement? Did the Nazis sign some treaty with the world in which they agreed not to murder millions of their own people?

There are socially accepted laws. That doesn't make them "natural" or "sacred".

Our laws are not valid in Germany or any other country.

200 years ago, the Nazis wouldn't have been punished. If the laws were natural, they should have been punished.

The violation of natural rights neither negate them nor guarantee punishment of the perpetrators. You guys don't know what a "right" is, rights are moral/just claims made by individuals on their own behalf. Being murdered doesn't mean you never had the right to live, only that somebody violated your right to live. Do you have a moral or just claim to exist? That is called a "natural right"...

That arguement is not destroyed as your claims are a fallacy that only pretain to the current society.

Lol, my argument doesn't pertain to any current society, you guys are the ones claiming rights are societal constructs which makes those rights dependent on the current society. Your only reason for condemning the Nazis was that they allegedly violated some international agreement. Do you know how intellectually vapid that sounds? I condemn them for murdering people and you condemn them for violating some agreement you claim they made with other nations. If they never made this agreement, would that mean your reason for condemning the Nazis becomes invalid?

On what basis do you assume that the founders were smarter than anyone here?

I didn't make this "assumption", I concluded they were smarter than "notyoueither". And I reached that conclusion after reading his arguments and the Founders' arguments...

Which is exactly what they did until some century ago.

You think modern politicians do only what the majority wants?

And still, in Saudi Arabia it is only natural to murder a wife that is suspected of adultry, or a girl suspected of pre-marital sex.

Claiming what the Saudis do is "natural" is illogical, prove these actions are natural.

Where is the international community there?
Where is "nature"?

You were the one who condemned the Nazis for allegedly violating some international agreement, not me. And as I have repeatedly said in this thread, the fact you might murder someone doesn't mean the victim never had a natural right - a moral claim - to exist.

Each right has the potencial to destroy society.

And I asked for examples of these rights, just repeating what notyoueither claimed doesn't prove his/your proposition.

But, in order to have a working society, some rights are limited.

For instance, you give the right to keep law and order to a group called "police" and you trust the right of court to the court system.

States and their bureacrats don't have rights, they have powers. And in a free society, those powers must be based on those rights we do have. So, how does authorising a policeman to protect you from murder negate or limit your right to live?

You also don't have absolute freedoms of speech and similar, as if you lie, people can sue you and make you stop.

Freedom doesn't include slander because slander is a fraudulent act. When the Founders spoke of freedom, they weren't telling us we were free to hurt others.

Similarly you are usually disallowed from discussing secrets of state.

Not if I never agreed to keep those secrets.

a) it can and did happen alot in history.

So what? The fact some people have forced others to die for their security doesn't make their actions moral.

b) things are judged now according to international standards.

I don't make my judgements about morality based on what some foreigner thinks. Do you?

i think it is acceptable that if a person carries a gun, shoots at civilians and then shoots at law enforcers, the law enforcers should use what ever means to stop him.

Even if the law enforcers and those they are defending stole land from those resisting the theft?

there's nothing natural about pacifism.

But forcing others to die for my security is natural?

And I said that no rights are natural since they only exist in society.

So you don't have a right to exist if your society decided to murder you? The Nazis thought so too...

[quote]For instance, 400 years ago, you did not have such rights. And today, [quote]

Then upon what basis would you condemn the various inquisitions?

if you are stranded in a desert, there is no society around you to protect your right of life.

I don't have a right to be protected from the desert.

They don't.

Tell notyoueither, he said they did.

But they are similar in the way they are presented to "god given rules".

The fact two people - one an atheist, the other a believer - agree that murder is immoral doesn't mean the atheist is religious.

[Ecthy]

every thread that is either opened by an Israeli or deals with the Middle East conflict turns into an ethics debate before 2 pages are gone. haven't you guys got any lives? and that's to everyone here not only the Israelis.

BTW, only a few days I was told that life in Israel starts later. Finally a halfway decent explanation why they hang on around here and on ICQ at such inane times

[loinburger]

Berserker:

Where were you when Urban Ranger started his Natural Rights thread? I'd have expected to see you post on it.

[Ecthy]

You'll have to get a decent (less scary!!) avatar icon before stating any claims

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
You'll have to get a decent (less scary!!) avatar icon before stating any claims

Who, me? Thus far I've stayed the hell out of this thread. As far as I'm concerned Siro et al have an implicit contractual obligation here, which doesn't nullify their natural rights (or whatever have you, I prefer not to use that term) but which does mean that unless they explicitely break their contractual obligation (by, for example, moving to Portugal), their obligation take precedence over their rights.

But, this is first and foremost an ME thread, and that's ground I'm not going to tread.

[Ramo]

The draft is indeed a form of slavery. Why the hell should the state be able to force one to kill or die without having one's moral consent? It's a dangerous institution, and has no place in a free society.

Regarding "natural rights," I hardly see any justification for such a thing existing (unless you use some kind of theological rationalization). Rights are provided by governments, not nature.

No lands were stolen. Some lands were bought.

Come now. Buying up feudal fiefs and kicking the peasants off of the land their families have lived on for centuries doesn't sound a wee bit like theft to you?

More were allocated in a UN decision,

When did the UN "allocate" Palestinian private property to Israelis? Bringing people under the control of a gov't doesn't imply taking their land.

And if this did happen, how could you possibly think it's justified?

And the rest was conquered in wars started by arab agression.

Yep, instead of getting the hell out of the battlezone, they should've sat tight so they could get caught up in the fire-fight between the two sides, if something like Deir Yassin didn't happen to their village first.

[David Floyd]

I think Berzerker has adequately addressed most stuff.

I DO want to say that I applaud Eli for doing the right thing in falsifying his medical exams, in order to effect jis right to self-preservation

[TCO]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I think Berzerker has adequately addressed most stuff.

I DO want to say that I applaud Eli for doing the right thing in falsifying his medical exams, in order to effect jis right to self-preservation

If he wanted to make a stand on priniciple, he should have done so directly. lying to make things easier is kind of a wormy, little kid thing to do...DAVID. (And please spare me your bluster in response...you little baby.)

[Ecthy]

GP, you're the one I need now.

How do I convince my pacifist friends that it's not uncool of me to go to the army?

[Asher]

Joining the German army is kinda pointless, isn't it?

All you get to do is babysit as peacekeepers.

[Lincoln]

The concept of natural rights is really quite simple and obvious. People have the natural right to "life". That is why all societies have laws against murder. People have the natural right to "liberty". That is why slavery was eventually outlawed in most of the world. People have the right to the "pursuit of hapiness". That means that individuals should not be relegated to an existence that only ensures the happiness of a dictator and not the individuals members of the community.

Why are there objections to this fundamental assurance of human dignity?

[Berzerker]

Ramo -

Regarding "natural rights," I hardly see any justification for such a thing existing (unless you use some kind of theological rationalization). Rights are provided by governments, not nature.

Not nature per se, but existence. A natural right - as opposed to a civil right (which is created thru government) - is a moral or just claim to act. The natural right to live derives from the fact we didn't create each other, but were created by someone or something else. Some would call this "creator" "God", others call it "nature", but it doesn't matter who or what created us, only that we didn't create each other. Those who claim these natural rights don't exist but that rights were created by government must explain why you would condemn the Nazis for murdering people.

Sirotnikov says he condemns the Nazis because they violated international agreements but can't produce the contracts. If you have a right to live only because your government says you have this right, then what if the government says you don't have the right to live and murders you? I'd condemn this government for violating your natural right to live. Why would you condemn the government for murdering people if the culprit claimed the victims had no right to live? Why would you condemn me and my friends for murdering others? If "government" says you have no right to live, why can't we? Is not "government" nothing more than a group of people? If a group of people can decide if you have a right to live, why not any group?

[Berzerker]

GP -

If he wanted to make a stand on priniciple, he should have done so directly. lying to make things easier is kind of a wormy, little kid thing to do...DAVID. (And please spare me your bluster in response...you little baby.)

If I pointed a gun at you and demanded you kill (or be killed) my enemies, would you be "wormy" for lying to avoid becoming my involuntary servant?

[Dr Strangelove]

Ignore these guys Siro, and know that we're thinking of you guys over there and hope that there's a light at the end of this tunnel. Hope you get through this in one peice.