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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:16am PT
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As more and more people are ignorant of the founding principles, and, worse, they are ignorant of WHY those principles are indeed the correct ones,
Apart from that one single word, I agree with almost everything you wrote above. I probably even agree with your definition of Tyranny, except that we (and nobody else) can agree on exactly what those negative rights are, or how exactly one negative right can be prioritized over another.
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:17am PT
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Thank you, Werner. I really appreciate you saying that.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:18am PT
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how exactly one negative right can be prioritized over another
The very nature of negative rights ensure that there can be no conflict or need to "prioritize" among them.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:27am PT
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If 4 men approach you on a street and threaten you with a knife, the "votes" on this case are 4 to 1, yet go against your one sole right to defend your life. That may be a whacky way of putting it yet it gets the point across.
No I get it fine. I don't believe in the death penalty for theft, or even violent assault if that's what you're asking. I've was once threatened by two drunk kids with beer bottles, while I was carrying a loaded FN-FAL. We all lived to tell the tale.
TE
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:28am PT
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The very nature of negative rights ensure that there can be no conflict or need to "prioritize" among them.
So you can shoot someone for stealing your ice cream?
TE
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:32am PT
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So you can shoot someone for stealing your ice cream?
You'll have to explain what you mean by "can" in your question.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:33am PT
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The right, not the ability.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:35am PT
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Accolades from a smoking duck. You should be very proud.
If you knew my history at all, you would know that "accolades" don't make me "proud," and "criticism" doesn't do much to ruin my calm.
I just happen to appreciate Werner as a person and as a climber. You might learn to treat people with more basic respect.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:42am PT
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Actually, I wasn't really referring to you, madbolter.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:45am PT
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"You might learn to treat people with more basic respect."
You get what you give. You give what you get. KnowwhutImeen?
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FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 10:57am PT
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I love sheep calling other people sheep.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 11:02am PT
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So you can shoot someone for stealing your ice cream?
So, here's the struggle with explaining something like this: you have certain intuitions about what a "commensurate response" should look like. Those intuitions are founded on you "knowing the outcome" in advance. So, you phrase the "question" as though the outcome is already known at the point that the victim is making a response-decision. Thus, that is not a fair way to ask the question.
The short answer is that, yes, you have the right to defend your life, your property, your family, etc. from ALL violations of those negative rights. There are multiple issues in play here:
1) There can be no conflict of negative rights, because ALL others need to "do" to satisfy your negative rights is NOTHING! Just leave you alone, and your negative rights remain uninfringed.
2) When somebody "crosses the line" into an attack on your negative rights, you must recognize that negative rights are a deeply integrate web. Locke recognized and very cogently argued that the right to property just is the right to life. I won't here provide the (lengthy) recasting of his arguments. But, yes, when somebody threatens your property, he/she IS threatening your life. This is no mere "abstraction" or "academic ideal." The practical implications are very real and very present. And recognition of this fact is why it is virtually universal in US law that lethal force is justified in the case of robbery or burglary.
3) WOULD I shoot somebody for stealing my ice cream? Of course not. If that outcome were known, I would not "spend a life" to get my ice cream back.
4) However, even given (3), when anybody does have the temerity to attempt theft from you, you have no idea in advance how far things will go. You have no idea how MUCH of a nut-job your assailant is. And according to Locke (and most jurisdictions in the US), somebody having the temerity to rob from you must be taken deadly seriously.
Finally, your example, while an interesting thought experiment, doesn't provide an example of a conflict of negative rights. Perhaps you are thinking that your negative right to property conflicts with the assailant's negative right to life. However, this is a confusion because the assailant is not asking you to respect his NEGATIVE right to life in that scenario. At that point, he is asking you to respect a POSITIVE right to life; he is expecting you to DO something that violates a negative right of yours (namely: "hand it over") IN ORDER to respect his right to life. HE has set up the scenario such that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to do nothing in that scenario. You must DO something, so we are already out of the realm of negative rights and duties.
ALL he had to do to get you to respect his NEGATIVE right to life was stay out of your sphere and not DEMAND that you DO something. The minute he demanded that you DO something, he has injected HIMSELF into a positive rights/duties realm.
Now, it is up to YOU whether or not you will respect his positive right to life. And, you, being a finite being, CANNOT positively respond to EVERYBODY'S demands that you honor their positive right to life. You cannot feed everybody. You cannot support everybody. Etc. Thus, you might refuse to respond positively to ANYBODY making such demands upon you. And somebody attempting to FORCE their particular demand upon you BY violating a negative right of yours, CAN rightfully be responded to in violent and even deadly fashion.
Another aspect of this, denoted by Locke, is that the assailant has actually taken himself COMPLETELY out of the realm of rights. He has become a "society of one" by intentionally violating one of your negative rights. Thus, he has NO presumption that his own presumed rights will be honored by anybody existing in the "incommensurable paradigm" that he himself has created. (This, by the way, is the fundamental basis for the notion of capital punishment.)
Many incorrectly think of this as a "forfeiture of rights" by the assailant, but the reality is more nuanced than that. It is not a "forfeiture" by the assailant. He is literally taking himself out of the realm of rights entirely. "Rights" are a relation between persons. By isolating himself from society via his decision to intentionally violate the negative right of another, he severs the "relations" that ground rights. Thus, he "has" no rights insofar as he is outside the realm of rights.
Again, there is no conflict of negative rights, as the assailant is outside the realm of rights and has at best a POSITIVE right to his own life at that juncture. HOWEVER you treat him at that juncture is a function of your own mercy and "read" of probable outcomes in the situation.
Let me hasten to say that I do not advocate treating others as "harshly" as you have a right to! For one thing, we often cannot tell when a rights violation is intentional, driven by confusion/desperation, and many other factors. As humans, we often err, and we should strive to err on the side of mercy! That is a strong case against capital punishment!
However, you asked about rights relations, and I have summarized the theory. Of course, the application is fraught with hazard! But I'm talking about the theoretical basis for much western thinking regarding rights and the laws that are grounded in them.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 11:05am PT
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I appreciate your response.
Thank YOU!
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 11:37am PT
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Anytime you acknowledge that the answers to any of this are nuanced, I'm not going to argue with you. That isn't to say I agree where any given line might be, but I'm neither certain about being right nor confident of making a good case on my own behalf.
When you say that your political philosophy is the one and only "correct" set of principles on which to base any legitimate Government, I will challenge, whether or not I'm up to the task.
TE
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crankster
Trad climber
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Sep 10, 2014 - 02:35pm PT
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The whole gun hysteria was created on purpose by the tools behind the Obama administration.
If you believe nonsense like this you'd also believe that 9/11 was an inside job.
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Norton
Social climber
quitcherbellyachin
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Sep 10, 2014 - 02:40pm PT
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The whole gun hysteria was created on purpose by the tools behind the Obama administration.
just sheer and overwhelming ignorance
bet you voted to put Caribou Barbie one heartbeat away from being Commander in Chief
didn't you, bunky?
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 10, 2014 - 03:04pm PT
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When you say that your political philosophy is the one and only "correct" set of principles on which to base any legitimate Government, I will challenge, whether or not I'm up to the task.
Understandable. However, in this context, it is impossible to convey all the reasons I am convinced. So, I'll speak with more confidence than you're comfortable with, you'll challenge, I'll often "punt," and that will be "such is life." LOL
I'm open to hearing alternative principles of legitimate government. So far, I've not read or heard of anything even in the ballpark of what Locke et al came up with. These principles explain the dignity of human beings, provide a basis for individual rights (and responsibilities), and, if really followed, would also greatly reduce the excesses of giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
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apogee
climber
Technically expert, safe belayer, can lead if easy
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Sep 10, 2014 - 03:20pm PT
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"These principles explain the dignity of human beings, provide a basis for individual rights (and responsibilities), and, if really followed, would also greatly reduce the excesses of giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy."
Boy, you sure put a lot of stock in Locke. (No pun intended.) Sure, his was an important historical perspective, but don't you think that narrows your own perspective, especially as it relates to modern America?
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dee ee
Mountain climber
citizen of planet Earth
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Sep 10, 2014 - 03:25pm PT
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People with or without guns kill people with or without guns.
It was probably already said upthread but I'm not going to wade through all the bs to check.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Sep 10, 2014 - 03:44pm PT
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I'm open to hearing alternative principles of legitimate government. So far, I've not read or heard of anything even in the ballpark of what Locke et al came up with. These principles explain the dignity of human beings, provide a basis for individual rights (and responsibilities), and, if really followed, would also greatly reduce the excesses of giant corporations and the ultra-wealthy.
Legitimacy is in the eye of the governed, and while I repeatedly support the principles you wish to see embodied in a government, I don't see them as an exclusive approach, nor their imperfect implementation a justification for violent rebellion.
Why didn't the Founding Fathers implement Libertarianism at the State level? They were after all, the political class and in a perfect position to do so. I believe it was because they realized that those principles alone wouldn't work when it came down to the messy business of governing the interactions between people, not merely interactions between states. They themselves couldn't live up to those principles, how could they expect the lesser classes to act any better?
TE
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