Scalia is a piece of crap.

[snoopy369]

However we are social beings, so you could argue that we DO espouse socially determined morals.

[Sprayber]

Great thread despite the original post

I'm not a legal mind by any stretch and I'm probably treading in deep waters by even entering this thread but I watched Scalia on CSPAN about a month ago take questions from a private school in VA and he seemed to me quiet reasonable in the way he approaches the constitution and like the typical American Spiffor talks about, the Constitution is very important to me in how I view my government. I think the founders did a remarkable job in how they put it together and how they put in place procedures to change it and correct mistakes that they knew were made but not change at every whim in social activism.

As for guns. I own two but shoot them only occasionally and they are no where near my kids. To be honest, if they had not been passed down in the family I probably wouldn't have them. I accept the fact that they need to be regulated and I also accept that certain types should not be available to the general public.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by snoopy369
However we are social beings, so you could argue that we DO espouse socially determined morals.

What ends up being the rule is determined to some degree by the environment and by the social situation and maybe by dumb luck, but the fundamentals are likely the result of our peculiar evolution (like reciprocal altruism).

The idea that a bunch of people agreeing on something makes it a moral rule is a result of our culture's strange obsession with personal freedom and desire to avoid the obvious fact that moral rules are there and if you don't like them or agree with them or understand them, that's just tough ****.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Great thread despite the original post

I'm not a legal mind by any stretch and I'm probably treading in deep waters by even entering this thread but I watched Scalia on CSPAN about a month ago take questions from a private school in VA and he seemed to me quiet reasonable in the way he approaches the constitution and like the typical American Spiffor talks about, the Constitution is very important to me in how I view my government. I think the founders did a remarkable job in how they put it together and how they put in place procedures to change it and correct mistakes that they knew were made but not change at every whim in social activism.

Did you ever think that the people who wrote your constitution might think you're a bunch of lunatics for taking something they wrote for the foundation of an agrarian society without modern information technology or industry and continuing to use it as the blueprint for your society?

I mean, many of them were bright guys, committed to modernity. I reckon they'd be horrified at people like Scalia.

[DinoDoc]

They wrote a procss to change the document in just for that reason.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Berzerker
chegitz

You didn't answer my question. I dont know what effect it had, not much given the 2 decades of struggle that followed. That was the fight that won the end of Jim Crow...

BvBoE gave a powerful impetus to the civil rights movement. It's highly unlikely the Montgomery Bus Boycott would have succeeded without that ruling. That would have meant that MLK would not necessarily have risen to prominence. It's impossible to know what would have happened, but forty years after Stonewall, it's still illegal for gays to marry in 49 states. It's more the forty years after Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and women don't have an ERA or full equality. Without the SCOTUS rulings which prompted the backing of the Federal government, I think it's very likely we could still have de jure segregation in America.

[Ben Kenobi]

Now, if the guy had been a little bit less self-centered, maybe he'd have considered his victims as human deserving dignity, maybe he could have just as well bought the sandwich if he accepted the minor extra inconvenience of waiting in line and shelling out the money he did have.

That's not really applicable to my desert island scenario. There's just two people there! You can't just go down to the Mickey D's.

Honestly I think the response would be happiness in meeting another person!

[Ben Kenobi]

The use to free the slaves is an appeal to some conscience or moral beliefs of those people. Especially if it turns out that they are acting counter to their own professed moral beliefs. You change the dominent morality.

Spiffor understood my question. You were asking what 'use' were natural rights, and my point is that they don't need to have a purpose beyond the fact that they exist.

There really isn't a utilitarian motive to free the slaves, although you can argue that some people economically benefit from freeing slaves.

I would agree with you Spiffor, but it wasn't at all clear at the time whether that was the case. There were economic arguments in favour in that certain industries would become unprofitable without slaves.

And yes, If there are natural rights, then, they'd exist with one person. I just don't believe there to be.

[Dinner]

[Krill]

Originally posted by Wezil
But they aren't self-evident Berz.

If they were they would be common across all cultures and all times.

Find me a "right" that has been self-evident to all cultures at all times please.

Proponents of natural rights usually appeal to a higher power as justification but we know where that argument leads.

The right to kill in self defence if the other person is trying to kill you? (Not sure, but that would be my firsst guess. It probably falls apart in anceint times if it was the king attacking you though).

[Berzerker]

Aggie

Did you ever think that the people who wrote your constitution might think you're a bunch of lunatics for taking something they wrote for the foundation of an agrarian society without modern information technology or industry and continuing to use it as the blueprint for your society?

I dont even see agriculture mentioned in the Constitution. But ideology aint technology, and the 20th century shows ideology did not progress with technology.

Wezil

But they aren't self-evident Berz.

If they were they would be common across all cultures and all times.

But they are common, no one wants to be murdered. The fact hypocrites ignore the moral authority of others to live doesn't mean natural rights dont exist. It means murderers are hypocrites.

Find me a "right" that has been self-evident to all cultures at all times please.

Why? Most cultures have been authoritarian based on might, not whats right. But when the King and his soldiers rode around killing peasants, you can be damn sure those peasants had a moral claim to exist. Its self-evident, thats why damn near everyone is repulsed by murderers. Not because society told us to be repulsed, but because we know we have a moral claim to exist. Do you, Wezil? If I walk up and threaten to kill you, wouldn't you be "justified" in stopping me? Of course... Thats self evident, not a product of societal training.

Proponents of natural rights usually appeal to a higher power as justification but we know where that argument leads.

I didn't create myself...Whomever or whatever did left behind a design written in our consciousness...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Aggie

I dont even see agriculture mentioned in the Constitution. But ideology aint technology, and the 20th century shows ideology did not progress with technology.

So a militia was feasible back then when even the lowliest farmer could afford much the same military equipment as a solider (excluding artillery), and it still is when professional armies have attack helicopters and howitzers?

The US Constitution is profundly influenced by Locke, but Locke was writing about a society that most modern citizens would not want to live in.

[Berzerker]

Imran

Neither did our neighbors

Our WWII enemies did, and it didn't help them invade. They didn't even try aside from some Aleutian islands.

And that be the difference. If you don't believe in a Creator, well, then rights cannot be given by it. I don't necessarily think that rights have been given by evolution

Evolution didn't create life, and whether or not you believe in a creator is irrelevant to natural rights. You have a moral claim to exist, murdering you violates this moral claim. Why do you have this moral claim? Because existence, however it arrived, has made you an independent actor on this stage.

Kontiki

Remove all the private firearms but keep the military and who would invade?

Nations at war with our military...and winning. Remove the military and guns and nukes is all we need to deter invasion.

In fact, remove all the private firearms, all the nukes and cut the military down to 1/3 of what it is now and who is going to invade?

Somebody with nukes? They locate our 1/3 military with nukes and we're defenseless.

[Berzerker]

So a militia was feasible back then when even the lowliest farmer could afford much the same military equipment as a solider (excluding artillery), and it still is when professional armies have attack helicopters and howitzers?

Lets say our gov't went whacko and the military followed orders and we were at war with our gov't and military. Who would win? The people would win...if they have guns. Its just a matter of attrition and time... There is a reason why tyrants always try to disarm the peasants, aint always possible, but dictators dont like armed populations. If Hitler was faced with two options - invade a neighbor without guns and a neighbor with guns, guess who gets invaded?

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Kontiki

Nations at war with our military...and winning. Remove the military and guns and nukes is all we need to deter invasion.



Somebody with nukes? They locate our 1/3 military with nukes and we're defenseless.

Sorry, I'm not dwelling in an imaginary world. I assumed your point was that in the real world, your armed populace is what's deterring invasion. Granted part of this is fantasy land, but if you didn't have privately armed citizens, nukes or 2/3 of your current military (which by my reckoning still leaves a few aircraft carriers, dozens of other warships, a couple thousand aircraft including hundreds of front line fighters and hundreds of thousands of troops), which country specifically is going to attempt to invade? China? France? Iran?