Because thats a slightly less insulting comment like the ones I get from black people on facebook. Of course my own life does matter to me, but as Im American perhaps I dont count as a white person to you or something.

are you black too by any chance? because I cant think of another explanation for your comment.

AGAIN: the black gang murdered a guy around the corner, and they were shooting at me, and all the dozens of black people I asked just looked at me when I told them what I happened like I had just offered them an ice cream cone and changed the subject.

I agree with you. Have you noticed the USA is currently on worse footing with itself than HK is with China, and is having worse riots than any country in Africa, in fact anywhere in the world, since the Arab Spring?

There was no looting during the riots in HK.

hahaha)

Apparently quite a few people here do, because some of the girls asking money for it have been 18 for years.

right.

Facts are truth whether you like them or not. — Chester

the problem is, Chester, even if it were possible to be sure in absolute terms that a 'fact' is indeed a 'fact,' that the selection of particular 'facts' as being those which one evaluates as 'true' is itself an act of bias. I do understand alot of people have trouble understanding that, but generally not philosophers.

Well, I took utilitarianism for prelims at Oxford in 1979, which was way before the trolley problem, and the lecturer to the prelims class posed much the same question, instead of about whether we'd join a posse to shoot a criminal, as part of his debate on act versus rule utilitarianism. I dont know if the trolley problem really helps any better to understand the conflict, because it doesn't actually require understanding the difference between act and rule utilitarianism, and people are led to believe their intuition is more important than learning the far more extensive thinking in prior history than intuition could really achieve by itself for most people Ive met.

That's infringing on the main Constitution al rights themselves. Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness. I agree when someone violates the Constitutional rights of another they invalidate theirs. That's the point. — Outlander

Well they don't legally, because people are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and they cant be tried for what they did because they are dead, so they cant be provoked of rights, legally. I find this rather funny myself, because no lawyer has been able to refute it yet.

That makes sense, except... you already can't shoot someone, or threaten to shoot them, except in exceptional circumstances that you'd want to allow under these circumstances too (e.g. urgent self-defense). So I don't see what this adds to anything. — Pfhorrest

Well thats true, and thanks for writing. The problem has been that 2A folks say ALL gun control is bad because it infrinces on 2A rights. So my point needs to be made, for this proposal to be accepted, that the State also has a responsibility to protect citizens from themselves, by not letting them have gins when they could get in a situation where someone shoots them.

There was vegan my mother decided to have sex with for a couple of months, now he had some strange ideas, like cowfields should not have fences around them, and cars should not drive faster than 5mph in case they hit a free-roaming animal. I used to have ideals and things but after him it was just too weird.

However, within the Trump administration, anyone disloyal to the president is fired. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was thinking today, how similar this is to a teacher telling you something that's wrong, then asking you to answer a question about it in an exam.

thats very interesting, which particular islamic tradition states that?

Very similar to Egyptian ideas of ka, ba, and ptha

Michael Morrcock rode a very entertaining series of books about that. I think its called the 'End of Time' series.

I don’t know why anyone would bother saying it. — NOS4A2

Because I am fed up with the insane chants of 'shall not be infringed' and I want to see them all lie on the ground and grovel to philosophers.

I saw no restrictions listed on carrying or owning — tim wood

Oh. Those things happened later, lol, they didnt even think about ownership restrictions or carry laws in 1968. Most extensive, ancient history :D

One of the greater frauds in America is the current interpretation which understands the 2d amendment to say that any person who wants to can own and carry any gun whenever and wherever they want. — tim wood

agreed

And if there are any federal constraints i am unaware of them - please educate. — tim wood

Well there are quite a number. i could give you a few examples. Exuctive orders, like Trump banning bump stocks.

There is the NRA-sponsored, pseudo-congress electonic system to check gun buyers are safe. Its not complete in a large number of ways, and because the NRA paid for it, it refuses to do the things to make it complete that the government tries to make it do.

the most extensive is the 1968 act here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968

Oh I gotta run, Ill write more, tnanks for your comments )

Either way it just isn’t true that the second amendment infringes on another’s right to bear arms. — NOS4A2

Well, this is a new concept. I spoke with three State Supreme Court attorneys, and they all agreed it had never been said before, so Im not suprised youd find it novel. It is only one sentence.

Shooting Anyone to Death Infringes on their 2A Rights

cheers )

Allow me to be frank with you. You should pursue it earnestly... — Frank Apisa

ok lol, to be earnest with you, I would rather be Frank :D

Actually I would concur. People tend to conflate arguments abut gun ownership, and gun use in self defense, with a much older and longer debate about the extent ciilians can go in defense of self, others, property, and armed insurrection. And especially, when and where such defense can legitimately kill people.

The property ownership of guns has over time increasingly taken over consideration of the fact that guns are intentionally designed to be lethal. Killing people is the only purpose of most guns. Some 2A supporters get upset if you talk about their rights to kill, rather than rights to self defense, because they dont even fully realize that's what they are promoting.

From whatever the 2nd Amendment suffers, it's not that it's self-contradictory — Hanover

Some attorneys have expressed the view that the right to lethal self defense is not actually supported by the 2nd amendment, in which case, it says absolutely nothing, and could be entirely deleted.

It is not implausible that a solipsist might arise. — Shawn

What? Did I think something out loud again? :D

The unconscious was a typo on my part, I meant to refer to the subconscious. — Justin Peterson

Msybe your unconscious is working in your favor. You advocate a Jungian model, and Jung called it unconscious, not subconscious. The significant difference, scientifically, is that you don't need to prove unconscious thought is actually thought at all for his model to work.

There's nothing scarier than becoming a solipsist. — Shawn

Why is there continued fascination with this topic? it gets beaten to death on this forum at least once a month.

Natural rights are rights that we have regardless of any laws governments may or may not make. — bert1

You may see the typical attorney objections to that statement, as well as an introduction to my own thoughts on the topic at https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8273/the-total-inanity-of-public-opinion-on-what-laws-are-right-and-wrong

I dont expect more discussion there as you have hijacked my thread. My own thoughts would require reading 30,000 words to get to the point of evolution on them I am now, and if anyone is interested in reading them, I will transfer the text to my current home on LinkedIn, in about 6 posts averaging 5,000 words each.

segment 27:43 to 29:00. — ernestm

Regarding your other statements, it's true Austin was the first to coin the term, as far as I know. The Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy traces it back to Bentham, but really that is another topic.

Regarding Scalia, I remember reading that he follows Hart's 'Concept of Law' (1961) which is postcedent to Wittgenstein's metaphysical underpinning of legal positivism by logical positivism. I can't remember the source.

Legal positivism is the view that, as was said succintly and simply by John Austin in 1832, long before Wittgenstein was born: The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry. What the law is, therefore, is determined by studying the law itself. Whether a law is right or wrong, wise or unwise, popular or unpopular, has no bearing on whether it is a law according to legal positivism. — Ciceronianus the White

Well thank you for a much better definition than I could write! May I quote you? I do have a response you may actually like, but it is a little OT, given that you don't challenge my statement that Scalia follows legal positivism, which would logically be the first criticism of my statement.

So first I would be interested to learn your opinion on the post immediately above, which is actually as far as I got on answering the posts title question myself, and started to realize there's probably a better answer.

I guess you'd want to know, Obama quoted me from my 5,000 word essay, "people who are shot to death had rights too" in this video. It's quite famous, because he also decided to agree with me that, given the vast domination of 'self evident truth' over other kinds of truth in the mind of the general public, that appeal to emotion appears the only possible course of rhetorical persuasion. It's quite famous because Obama actually cried.

segment 27:43 to 29:00.



Of course the gun lobby boo'ed it as 'crocodile tears.' Well you can watch it and tell me your opinion, if you want, thats what a forum like this is for :)

Lawyers and students can read and believe what ever the hell the want though. ( — VagabondSpectre

lol doint they love to too, but they dont have time to. Have you ever seen the size of the United States Code? lol. Interestingly enough, sturucturalist linguists have analyzed it to find that close to 50% of it is related to taxation.

Who is the greatest constitutional scholar? Obama?
Do they believe that rightness of laws should or must stem from God? — VagabondSpectre

I dont think constitutional lawyers (Obama was a lawyer before he became President, although he was honorary professor a number of places, it was not his real source of income) even consider themselves capable of saying whom is the greatest. So I dont think I am in a position to answer that question!

To answer the second question, I would have to share 30,000 words and some 100 references. Currently I could only do that on LinkedIn, because it is too long to fit here, but I will make the effort of transcribing it to a series of 10 LinkedIn articles, if you actually want to read it.

That is because, being the result of rational empiricism, its answer relies on a large array of deductions and inferences from empirical observations, as well as, the arguments and prior conclusions both by Locke and his predecessors writing on the concept of Natural Law and the State of Nature.

If you understand Locke's argument for Jeffersonian natural rights, then Rousseau is the rational next subject, which if you are familiar with the subject, you would already know, sorry.

The Declaration of Independence, however, is not a legal prescription conferring powers upon the courts” (Scalia). — NOS4A2

Yes, Scalia is one of the dissenting members of the minority in the Supreme Court advocating a new concept philosophically called 'legal positivism' which in brief, if you forgive me uttering my opuinion on it, that the law is right because it says so, much like the bible saying it is right because it says so, in a legal deduction, metaphysically, from early Wittgeinianism.

Original intent is one method of Constitutional construction not adhered to by all Justices. — Hanover

Well, after telling me the doI is not a legal document, showing that you have no interest at all in understa
nding the facts I present before blurting out your opinion, lol, Id have to lump you with the attorneys except obama, who actually did read my 5,000 word essay on the topic.

Original intent is one method of Constitutional construction not adhered to by all Justices. — Hanover

Remains a minority, hence, does not refute the statements I wrote that you are too busy telling me Im wrong to try to understand.

it is very easy to show how even natural rights are not self evident. — ernestm That proves natural rights are NOT self evident. — ernestm Any chance at all of finding out what your understanding of "self-evident" is?
— tim wood

'Self evident' is a tag used by an author to indicate that they are unable to justify or rationalise their conclusion. — A Seagull

As I say, Thomas Paine was the originator of this view, and he wrote something on it called 'on common sense.' You can find the original text of it on the web. In summary I would say that he advocates all truth is known by intuition. My own view is that intuition is refined by acquiring knowledge and practising rational reason. Some disagree with my own view, but that is my opinion. Thank you for asking.

12.12pm, edited for grammar and spelling. I have to check spelling in Word so I save the post first, in case I stupidly press a wrong button and lose it. For some reason spell checking no longer works on Chrome in this forum. If someone knows how to fix that I would be glad to hear it.

Do attorneys who don't know very much also tell you they were/are not prohibited from reading the Declaration "in college"? — Ciceronianus the White

If they even got as far as considering philosophy, all of them but one, President Obama, told me that Jefferson's idea of natural rights was based on 'Two Treatises of Government,' and on further pressing would say they never read the Essay on Human Understanding and had no idea what it said. If you read both, you'd know the docoment they cite, 'Two Treatises on Government,' a much simpler work by Locke, focuses on how property could be a ,natural right' per se, but doesnt actually conclude that it is, and rather takes life and liberty for granted as already established natural rights, or rather, says they are without empricial derivation in appostition to Hobbes' view, and the empricial derivation is in Essay on Human Understanding.

Obama's response was rather different. I presented an argument that right to life is violated when someone shoot another to death, and moreover, ironically, deprives the shot person of the right to bear arms too, the latter point of which seems to be the only right alot of people care about. He went on TV saying 'people who are shot to death had rights too,' much to the scorn of 2nd amendment supporters.

The Declaration of Independence is not a legally binding document, — NOS4A2

Strange thing. Attorneys who dont know very much often say the DoI is not a legal document, and insist it is true, which just goes to show how awful the USA education system is. In preface, it should be stated, it was violation of rights that was the justification of declaring the USA independent, specifically, right to life by not supplying enough drinking water in Boston, leading to the Boston Tea Party (even the current 'Tea Party' is grossly unaware for this). Thus the DoI is a legal document, firstly, because it defines the authority the USA has to rule itself.

But to answer the question: many attorneys scoff at the idea of DoI being a legal document even with it being the derivation of authority for them to practice their profession at all. More importantly to their profession, the truth is that the Supreme Court prmarily considers the Intent of the Founding Fathers in decisions based on interpretation of Constitutional Law for new situations. That means the Declaration of Independence, being the primary intent of the Founding Fathers, which all the founding fathers signed, and was the first thing they all agreed upon, is the primary basis of all Constitutional law, both for current cases and for all other Constitutional decisions via precedence.

It should not take much thought to understand that, but I do have to say, I've heard alot of total crap on the subject for a decade now, even from attorneys, who refuse to believe I could say anything at all that might be more correct than their own intuitive prejudice on the subject.

Furthermore, from this perspective, some argue that John Adams, Thomas Paine, etc did want the natural rights to be stated as self evidently true. Therefore, in particular fans of Hamilton (a guy who quit college to be a general and then bribed his way into the bar after) think Hamiton's idea of law is so good that it doesnt matter what a guy as stupid as Jefferson thought. ive heard that several dozen times.

The problem with the 'self evident' intuition, as I said in my first post, is that different people have different intuitions, and there is no rational way to resolve them. By referring to Locke, specifically his chapter 'On Power' in the Essay on Human Understanding, issues on interpreting the meaning of Natural Rights are no longer a matter of intuitively-derived opinion.

One then has the subsequent debate as to whether the opinion of those founding fathers who believed in Paine's notion of naive realism, rather than read Locke, are superior to Jefferson's rational empiricism. Personally I feel that is rather a cut-and-dry case on the part of Jefferson, but people who have not studied epistemology or metaphysics, who don't really apprecate the qualitative difference between native realism and rational empiricism, do have different opinions on that.

Did you go to college in the US? This is just categorically incorrect. I took religion classes at a state school and some private colleges even specifically require prayer.. — Hanover

You are not allowed to be taught that belief in God is required in state shcools. You are allowed to be taught it from a narrative or cultural sense, but you are not allowed to learn anything that requires belief in one particular theology besides atheism.

his doesn't follow. The common law preceded Constitutional law and was inherited from England. If the common law is deriveable from natural law, then you're arguing the English followed natural law principles. If that's the case, then why did the colonies write the Declaration and rebel if the English system was already in compliance with it. — Hanover

There is no constitutional law in England. The law in England follows Aquinas that authority is promulgated to judges, who are required to consider precedence first.

It's obvious that universal agreement is lacking on what rights ought be fundamental, but that's just a general attack on natural rights theory, really not central to your OP. — Hanover

My point is that State schools teach children to believe that natural rights are self evident, and therefore, almost everybody, I'd estimate 99.9%, also think they understand what constitutional law should be from their own intuition, without thinking that intuition is refined by acquiring more knowledge and learning more principals of reason.

I talked with people about this before on this forum's predecssor about 8 years ago suggesting that maybe philsophy should be mandatory to solve the problem. That was met with outright horror. Professors say its difficult enough to teach philosophy as an option.

The very concept that people should actually be required to think, in order to get a degree, was just too big a nightmare for anyone who teaches, even at college, for it actually to happen at least in our lifetimes, and probably a dozen generations after that, as far as I can fathom.

Meanwhile, I dont know what can be done about it.

Well John Adams and Franklin kind of teamed up on Jefferson on this particular change. Adams fans say Adams did it.

Why wouldn't lawyers be permitted to read something about God? Is that a rule somewhere? — Hanover

The problem is, it is forbidden in the state school system to teach anything requiring religious belief, private schools follow the state curricula, and universities therefore avoid teaching anything to people who might end up being teachers, so it ends up being something reserved for advanced specialties, or in this case, one advanced specialty, constitutional law,and even then, only at the Masters level.

The final version continued to show a direct reference to God, claiming that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, — Hanover

That's true, which is why Jefferson agreed to the change. However, the ADDITION of the concept 'self evident' has proven disastrous. It was required politically to obtain support from several members of the first congress who followed Thomas Paine, and Paine himself, who believed a Scottish refutation to Hume, these days referred to as naïve realism, from which Paine wrote a seriously influential document justifying more taxes philosophically, called 'on common sense.'

Locke thought them self evident as well, derivable by reason. — Hanover

That’s not quite correct, Locke did feel it self evident that reason should dictate law, rather than divine inspiration. However what he did was present a series of logical deductions based on empirical observations of what was called at the time, the 'State of Nature.' although the phrase has evolved somewhat due to other philosophers writing different things about it.

There always must be some statutory or Constitutional basis or it must be of such ancient acceptance it's found in the common law. — Hanover

The Jeffersonian concept is promulgation of authority, from the divine, through natural rights, to constitutional law, and from that common law, with the last form in particular influenced by legal precedence. For constitutional law, there are a number of factors influencing its modification, but historically the most important is the Founding Fathers Intent, which is why Obama was particularly versed in Locke, and only lawyers specializing in Constitutional Law ever really learn about Locke's entire theory in this country, if at all.

The idea of promulgation of authority came from Thomas Aquinas.

This is an argument for cultural relativism. Is murder moral in those countries where it is legal? This is just to point out that you can hold to certain absolutes regardless of whether others disagree with your absolutes. Do you justify the prohibition against slavery on the basis men have declared it such or do you base it on a sacred principle related to freedom and autonomy? — Hanover

Those are very valid questions deserving their own thread. The reason I started this one was simply to examine issues with the general public thinking they know everything about law, so much in fact, they disregard legal opinion or even the ideas leading to legal opinion, due to the early assertion in this nation that natural rights, and therefore law, is entirely self evident from intuition.

What I would say is that intuition is refined by the practice of learning and reason to become more robust. It appears that is not generally agreed upon at all in the USA.

I think this is great, but does it imply a moral duty to oneself, or a duty of benevolence to others?
Would such a benevolence be prescribed by the universal law? Do we want e.g. a duty to charity prescribed as a law? And why would a law need to prescribe a moral duty to oneself that goes beyond the simple Golden Rule? — TheArchitectOfTheGods

Kant's answer to that would be that it had already just been answered by Locke, in Essay of Human Understanding, on Power, forrmulated as natural rights in the USA by Jefferson, as follows:
* All people are created equal in the eyes of God
* Emprically, pleasure is continually self renewing as appetites are sated and return, for which reason God has made us mortal, that we require food, drink, and other bodily needs, for which reason we are granted the natural right of life.
* Satiation of pleasure by itself is meaningless unless life has purpose, for which reason we are gratned the natural right of liberty to find that in the wolrd which gives us true happiness.
* Acting for the greater good creates a more permanent, perfect happiness than any other pursuit, for which reason we are granted the natural right to pursue happiness
* When people pursue happiness by acting for the greater good, society benefits and improves, for which reason the natural rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness should be granted to all under the concept of 'positive law,' extending Aquinas' idea of divine possible law into the realm of secular politics.

Of course, one may disagree with soceity at all, and advocate anarchy instead, but otherwise, Locke does may a fairly real argument that acting benelovently is in accordance with universal law.

They kinda just ribbit, and hide from eagles and hawks. Hehe. — Shawn

Maybe there's more divisions, yes, but it's the predator/prey relationship that dominates, as in nature. There's symbiotes too.

Anyway, I just wanted to share an idea why there is a rational reason to hope for social improvement, at least based on the Dawkins model. And Im glad to share it with you, espeically, for listening to my horror stories. Its more than most can do. Hope you have a nice day )