U.S. vs. Heller: the Flawed Logic.

[Vibe]

It is not logically provable that a man has no right to initiate violence against another man?

Rights are those things that we can exercise, that do not explicitly affect others. We have a right to speak - that does not require anyone to listen. We have the right to keep and to bear (carry) arms - that does not imply that there is a right to discharge the arm whenever.
So no, there is no right to "initiate" violence - we do however have the right to chose whether or not we wish to tolerate the initiator of that violence. Without the means to END the initiated violence on our part, there is no motivation for the violator to do so on his own. WITH the means to END it decisively - there is often no reason to need to.

If you walked up to someone who was doing nothing but reading a book and punched him, and he objected, the most you could do would be to say, "Use logic to prove my action wasn't reasonable?"

And if he got up and he was armed, he could respond with "Use your own logic to prove why it would not be prudent of you to do that again."

 

[dm1333]

If my first statement were in the context of a Special Forces guerrilla warfare book, or if that had come from the mouth of some general in Afghanistan or Iraq, concerning denying support to the Taliban or "insurgents" respectively, you would have doubtless considered those words to be "practical advice for achieving a practical end." But because I said it about another cause, it suddenly becomes "grandiose and messianic."

Your first statement was NOT in the context of a hypothetical SF book or the hypothetical words of a hypothetical general. You can't possibly know if I would have considered those words practical or not since the book, the general and the whole situation does not exist. I simply pointed out why people would think that your statements are grandiose or messianic.

I would submit to you that what you said was not logical and it "does not follow".

 

[Sans Authoritas]

dm1333 wrote:

You can't possibly know if I would have considered those words practical or not since the book, the general and the whole situation does not exist. I simply pointed out why people would think that your statements are grandiose or messianic.

From the CIA's Psychological Operations Manual distributed in South America:

"The combatant-propagandist guerrilla is the result of a continuous program of indoctrination and motivation. They will have the mission of showing the people how great and fair our movement is in the eyes of all Nicaraguans and the world. Identifying themselves with our people, they will increase the sympathy towards our movement, which will result in greater support of the population for the freedom commandos, taking away support for the regime in power."

The same manual says that political change is influenced first "By the guerrilla recognizing himself as a vital tie between the democratic guerrillas and the people, whose support is essential for the subsistence of both.
By fostering the support of the population for the national insurgence through the support for the guerrillas of the locale, which provides a psychological basis in the population for politics after the victory has been achieved."

In other words, violence is nothing without ideals behind it. That is what the Soviets did not understand, and why Solidarity was able to destroy the foundation of the Soviet's control: they stopped believing in the Soviet system. Once people stop believing in something, their actions will show it, and no amount of political action within the institution can change that.

Another article written by a former Special Operations man:

They understand this battle is about winning the hearts and minds of the people. (Mao said this years ago and it is still valid today.) We cannot, regardless of the final outcome, appear victorious if the people are not supportive of the coalition and new Iraqi government at our departure.

CSM Steven J. Greer, U.S. Army Ret. CSM Steven Greer teaches courses on special operations strategy, low-intensity conflict, insurgency and revolution at American Military University. His Army background was in special operations. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200401/ai_n9369289/pg_2

"The government did more than put barbed wire and entrenchments between the insurgents and the squatters; it neutralized the desire to support the insurgents. Briggs conceived of the counterinsurgency campaign as a "competition in government,". . . These small but significant steps eliminated many of the grievances which had animated the squatters, thereby depriving the insurgents of considerable support." http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume4/june_2006/6_06_2.html

Another Army.mil article on counterterrorism states: "Eradicating poverty through profits" involves finding a way to alleviate poverty for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid through collaboration among the poor themselves, civil organizations, governments, and private firms.3 This approach is widely known as the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) concept." http://www.army.mil/professionalwriting/volumes/volume4/june_2006/6_06_4.html

Lawrence of Arabia said, "Rebellions can be made by two percent active in a striking force, and 98 percent passively sympathetic." The same goes for any type of system. Similarly, no system (based as it is on certain ideas) can survive without widespread support by the people.

An excerpt from an article in Special Warfare, written by a group of military officers.

One of the greatest challenges in COCOIN is to identify those pockets of the population that indirectly or secretly provide support to the insurgency. Winning over the population denies the insurgents their base of support.

http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/zeytoonian.pdf

Do you "win over the population" by violence? Impossible.

What situation did you say does not exist? Why is my analogy to military strategy "messianic," when I am merely speaking about how practically, words and ideas are used to remove support for other flawed ideas? The Soviet Union wasn't merely men with guns. They were men with guns and bad ideas. And once people stopped believing in those ideas, the institutions upon which they were built crumbled to the ground. People did not stop believing in those ideas because some politburo member was passing legislation internally, and imposing it on the people from the top down. They stopped believing in the Soviet system because they believed in other, truer ideas. That is why I say that it is ineffective to effect institutional change from within the institution.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[dm1333]

I only hope I can minimize the amount of damage done by men and women in positions of power by decreasing their support base, one heart and mind at a time

You said it buddy, not me! I appreciate the links, they'll probably provide some interesting reading but you still have no idea of what I think. Putting words into my mouth and then offering up these links as if they were some sort of proof of my beliefs is so illogical and off base I don't even know why you would do it.

 

[Frank Ettin]

i get it now -- it's the old Mall Ninja on steroids gambit.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Such unnecessary, ad-hominem disrespect. Why?

Again, do you believe men have a right to initiate violence against other men?

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Frank Ettin]

Sans, I'm not going to get into what I consider to be a sophomoric, pseudo intellectual fencing match with you, especially one that has nothing to do with real life. I gave that sort of thing up almost 40 years ago.

We got an excellent result in Heller, especially the threshold holding as stated in the first paragraph of the syllabus: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes,..." This threshold interpretation will need to be applied in future litigation involving the Second Amendment. But there will be a great deal of following, and very important, litigation. And with the explicit foundation now given us by Mr. Justice Scalia, there are some very important issues that still need to be addressed. These include:

[1] Will the Second Amendment be incorporated into the 14th Amendment and thus made applicable to the states. There is language in Heller, to support incorporation, but the question could not be directly addressed in Heller because it wasn't raised by the facts of the case. The District of Columbia is not a state.

[2] Exactly what standard of scrutiny applies to regulation of the RKBA. As I've noted, there is solid judicial authority for the proposition that, in certain ways and to a certain extent, a Constitutionally protected right can be subject to some regulation. In general any such regulation must serve a compelling state interest, must be no broader than necessary to serve that interest and must not completely obviate the right. But that leaves a lot of room for litigation.

There is also the question of who will replace those sitting Justices who are likely to retire soon. The Supreme Court can reverse itself (although no lower court can reverse the Supreme Court), and it has on rare occasions done so when there's been a change of personnel. So whether the next President is someone who is most likely going to appoint extremely liberal judges is a matter of concern.

These are important and significant issues. And they will be decided through existing, accepted processes. But your initial post and your subsequent discussion really does nothing to encourage understanding of what is actually going on, and will be going on in the following years. It is a discussion completely divorced from the real world. It has nothing to do with what will be happening and how the judicial application of this new controlling interpretation of the Second Amendment will actually be applied to actually affect our legal rights as cognizable in a court of law.

Instead of trying to deal with the reality of Heller, we are regaled with useless notions like, "....I personally believe that the very existence of the Supreme Court is an indication that society is acting according to very flawed principles....." (post #82), notwithstanding the fact that the Supreme Court, and the federal judiciary, was created by the Constitution. What relevance does that have to real life?

You also say, "I only hope I can minimize the amount of damage done by men and women in positions of power by decreasing their support base, one heart and mind at a time. I want to intercept people's thought patterns before they cling to a collectivist, might-makes-right, ... mindset. I want to convince people there should be no positive law against any acts except real acts of aggression or fraud on the real life, liberty and property of real people..." Swell. So how's that working out for you so far? How many hearts and minds have you changed? Where can we see the actual positive results of your grandiose scheme? Phui!

 

[lysander]

I'd love to see the Jeffersonian ideal in place. You know...that whole negative rights, rightful liberty, drawn around ourselves and acting within the limits of the equal rights of others thing?

...alas the closest we can come in today's day and age is positive law...largely because we (the collective we) aren't committed to the idea of negative rights.

Despite the numerous accusations of...let me see...mental wankery, psuedo-intellectualism, etc., etc., I am finding this thread an interesting give and take on the conflict between the pragmatic aspects of positive law and the idealism of negative rights.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

fiddletown,

What someone believes regarding the legitimacy of initiating violence, and the fact that such a belief directs one's actions has nothing to do with reality?

I summed up what I thought of Heller in the first paragraph of my post. Practically, yes, it may help restrain infringements on our rights. I didn't claim that the ideas I mentioned would have a place in the legal system. I said they should. Why? Because it would lead to the elimination of all malum prohibitum laws, and only allow malum in se laws that protect against infringements and violations against the life, liberty or property of real individuals. Custom and tradition have a real place in practical politics: but they have to have a solid foundation underneath all the layers of custom concerning issues such as reasonable remuneration for damages and the proper use of violence in self-defense.

These same kind of ad-hominem and "can't be done," insults were the ones slung at abolitionists in the 1840's and 1850's, and civil rights activists in the 1960's. The downfall of slavery, Communism and racism wasn't decided, ultimately, by violence or from people working from the inside, or positive law. The downfall came because people stopped adhering to the ideas that supported the institution. You can do all the "practical" things you want all day. Without a popular base of support for your ideas, it will accomplish nothing of lasting effect. Just the same: if a law against abortion were passed tomorrow, it would accomplish little. Why? Because people still support the practice either actively or passively, to one extent or another. Do you think the majority of people in the country support the war in Iraq at this point? They don't. But you can be sure the politicians and contractors do. And you can be sure that they're representing their own practical interests more than those of the people they claim to represent. Now, once people recognize that this is the case, they'll start abandoning the idea of participation in coercively-funded politics. It may take a few "practical" centuries, but people will realize that coercively-funded politics does not work, and that such tax-funded governments are the only institutions that could possibly have had the means and/or incentive to slaughter over 200,000,000 human beings in the span of a single century. (That was the 20th Century, by the way.) Religion? No. Tax-funded governments are the efficient cause of more wars and death than any religion has ever been.

I am only one, very powerless man. I'm not going to practically change the whole system, and not even much at all. That would be a grandiose claim. But I'm putting my ideas out there to do something small to build popular support and momentum for these ideas, which I have come to recognize as true. One of the founding fathers wrote something along the lines of, "If men are not governed by God, they will be enslaved by tyrants." Another man wrote, "Come to terms quickly with your opponent while you are on the way to court, or your opponent may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison." He was saying that we should keep government out of our lives the most we can: to accomplish everything we can on an interpersonal level, without dragging unnecessary violence, or mediators of violence into our everyday affairs. I do my best to be governed by God. I do not initiate violence against other men. I try to convince others to do the same thing, and you're more than welcome to mock me for it.

Practicality in politics relies more on force, cunning and out-word-twisting the other man than it relies on logic and reason. I am not, (as you can see,) running a political popularity contest, such as an election. I am not writing government officials to ask them to consider these ideas. I write, here and other places, and so try to spread ideas. Practicality is nothing without sound ideals behind it.

Is it "effective?" I do not know. I stated my simple goal. There is nothing grandiose about it. As my friend said, the fastest way to stop a war is not by means of diplomacy and conferences: it's to convince the guy at the front line not to pull the trigger. Nobody will know in what manner or how many people they have affected in this life until they die. I know, personally, that I was led to believe what I believe, in part, by the writings of hundreds of other men, and one of my closest friends, who asked me very blunt questions about what I believed when I was a neo-con, and then a strict constitutional textualist. I was not particularly happy with what I was hearing him say about my core beliefs, and I am ashamed to admit that I made some playfully disparaging remarks about what I thought he believed. Then I came to the same realization that he came to.

If I am able to convince some people that they have no right to initiate violence against other people, do you deny that the world will be a less violent place, and a better place?

And to PaladinX13: I don't know how any of my statements have disturbed you so much that you decided you had to unleash a hail of insults. If, as you allege, I was "snide" and "arrogant," how is being the same to me going to change my behavior? Or is changing my behavior really your goal in insulting me?

-Sans Authoritas

 

[WayneConrad]

The Second Amendment does not protect a right to carry firearms for offensive purposes. It claims to protect the free exercise of the right to defend oneself with the best means in existence.

I'm coming into this a little late, so please forgive me for going all the way back to page one, but this caught my attention. It has lately been my understanding that the second amendment is only superficially about arms, but is principally a right of revolution, the arms merely being the means of carrying that about. And I think you might agree that revolution is pretty offensive. The rights to self defense, and hunting, and so on, are really lucky side benefits that you get when you happen to be armed in preparation for revolution, should it become necessary. So, with that understanding, I think the second amendment explicitly protects the right to keep and bear arms for that offensive as well as the usual defensive purposes.

 

[Frank Ettin]

Well Sans, I'll stay in the real world and leave Fantasy Island to you. Have a nice day.

 

[USAFNoDAk]

I'm coming into this a little late, so please forgive me for going all the way back to page one, but this caught my attention. It has lately been my understanding that the second amendment is only superficially about arms, but is principally a right of revolution, the arms merely being the means of carrying that about. And I think you might agree that revolution is pretty offensive. The rights to self defense, and hunting, and so on, are really lucky side benefits that you get when you happen to be armed in preparation for revolution, should it become necessary. So, with that understanding, I think the second amendment explicitly protects the right to keep and bear arms for that offensive as well as the usual defensive purposes.

I agree with most of this post, with the exception of the emboldened portion. I don't totally disagree with the emboldened. Let me explain. While a revolution will require an offensive at some point in time, it typically starts out in a defensive posture. The offender is the government, and the defender is the group of people whom the government has decided to oppress.

Look at our own revolution. It started with the British oppressing the colonies. The colonies started to react (defense) to this oppression. The British then decided it would be best to disarm the colonists in order to better control them. The colonists reacted with the shot heard round the world. At this point, the British sent more troops and ships to increase the strength of their offense. The colonists eventually did go on the offensive, with the help of the French and defeated Cornwallis and other British units. The British could not stay on the defensive in a foreign land and went home defeated.

I believe the Second Amendment is about defense as a first protection. However, it would, hopefully, allow us the time while defending ourselves, to plan offensive manuevers designed to attack the oppressors, whomever they may be.

 

[WayneConrad]

USAFNoDAk, I agree with your explanation. Well put, and thanks.

 

[lysander]

Well Sans, I'll stay in the real world and leave Fantasy Island to you. Have a nice day.

I get to be Richardo Montalban!