Ah yes, I agree wholeheartedly, I am not sure if this argument for H.C. has ever been used before.
Of course, you do know, that they may soon argue that the “War on Terror” did have a battle on U.S. soil. Please, for the love of Og, don’t let the AG hear of this
Write what down? I don’t view rights as permissions. Permissions are granted by rights bearers. You have the right to use your body and your mind to the extent that you do not suppress someone else’s same right. No one gave your mind and body to you, least of all any magistrate. If you say it is ethical that they dispense rights to us, then don’t complain when they cut them off. You’ve already conceded that they’re theirs to give.
C’mon, 'luci that’s one of Lib’s greatest hits. We’re born with rights. “Scribbles on paper” represents a statement specifying which of those rights are to be guaranteed by all of us in concert, acting through the government we have constituted for ourselves. The rest, each individual is responsible for securing for himself.
When people speak colloquially of this statement, and the mechanisms for enforcing the guarantees, it is not uncommon for them to lapse into a verbal shorthand that has folks speaking of rights “granted” by the Constitution. Evidently, this shorthand is offensive to friend Liberal. His vigilance in the matter of making sure the map is not mistaken for the territory (as it were), is, on balance, a good thing (IMHO), if a tad repetitive.
Even if we grant the truth of natural rights theory, it doesn’t mean a fig when it comes to legal rights. Just because you have a natural right to use your body to the extent etc., doesn’t do anything whatsoever to prevent someone from coming along and violating that right. In particular it doesn’t prevent the government from locking you up without judicial review. Natural rights are absolutely worthless in that regard. You might argue that the government should respect your natural rights. You may even be right. But the government should do a lot of things that it doesn’t, and should refrain from doing a lot of things that it does, natural rights be damned. What constrains the government, or at least some governments (usually including the US Government) are legal rights. Legal rights are derived from scribbles, and never exist independently from those scribbles. Those scribbles do prevent the government from locking you up without judicial review (usually), unlike your natural rights which do no such thing.
Yes, and Article I concerns the Legislative branch, not the Executive branch. That was the big controversy, and the reason why the the US Circuit Court in Maryland ruled against him in Ex Parte Merryman. Lincoln chose to ignore the ruling.
You’re right. It would be SO much better if all laws were unwritten.
Do you ever read what you post here, Lib? You give libertarians a bad name, by embodying all of the flimsiest, naivest qualities of the too-rarified-to-actually exist parody of a libertarian.
Are you seriously advocating actual, literal anarchy? Or ar you just drunk?
No argument from me there. Rights do not prevent tyranny. Only force does that. (And of course, you have the natural right to use force to secure your rights — though force against a government is usually futile.) But by the same token, squabbles over legal rights are moot for the same reason. It’s not the scribbles that guarantee you a judicial review (usually). It’s the people with guns who defend the scribbles. When they stop defending them, you’ll stop benefiting from them.
Sure. The men with guns are inevitable. There has never been a society where physical force did not enforce the social order, and barring dramatic changes to human nature, there will never be one. Contriving a society in which the men with guns have come to feel obliged to defend those scribbles has been the great genius of the founders of western democracy. Pooh-pooh it all you like, our existing political and social structure utilizes human nature to perpetuate a social order which allows greater freedom than any other system ever has. Your own preferred political structure blindly ignores the reality of human nature, much as its diametrically opposed cousin communism always did as well.
I’m not pooh-poohing anything. I’m shaking you by your shoulders and telling you that you are watching the legal rights you cherish die right before your eyes. You’re just hearing what you want to hear.
Democracy is a political structure. Republic, dictatorship, parliament —these are all political structures. Communism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, centrism — these are all political philosophies, adaptable to any arbitrary political structure.
I’m not going to suggest that you disband your Congress or rescind your Constitution (although that would be my personal preference) because you and I will never get past the practicality question. You will argue that my preference is impractical, and I will argue that what is practical depends on what you’re practicing.
Neither am I suggesting that you ignore human nature. I’m just telling you that your governors have that same nature, and they are in the process of reaming you out.
I know this comment sort of fell by the wayside, but I just wanted to say “Congratulations elucidator! First time I spewed Coke all over my laptop today!”
Dude, I don’t have a Congress and my legal rights are just fine. Just because your country is going all to shit doesn’t mean mine is. If your politicians are reaming you out, vote them the fuck out of office.
Nitpick on ‘structure’ vs ‘philosophy’ if you like, it doesn’t change the fact that libertarianism is hopelessly naive concerning human nature in much the same respect that communism is. Your preference isn’t impractical because most people disagree with you. Your preference is impractical because people are wicked and nasty to each other unless constrained to a greater degree than your philosophy allows. Sure, a libertarian state would be possible, and sure, it would result in fewer injustices perpetrated by the government. But it would do so at the cost of far more and greater injustices perpetrated by private citizens. Not a bargain I care to make.
The right of H.C. came back after those wars ended. The difference in this case is they are being stripped in the name of a fuzzily defined and open ended war on terror.
