Clearly, there is a right to keep and bear arms. No debate there.
But conservatives (aka Ron Paul Libertarians) say there is no Right to Privacy because it is not explicitly spelled out. So there is no Right to Self Defense as well because such is not CLEARLY written! Well, Ron Paul is a religious authoritarian - not a Libertarian. He is opposed to private contraception but not to self-defense. That clearly makes him a doctrinaire conservative.
But why the double standard today?
Its because Libertarians have been taken over by the religious right. Simple and done.
Without even getting into what Paul may or may not have said, the more pressing question is
What is the substantial difference between the purpose of this thread and the purpose of your earlier thread How can a Libertarian be opposed to the Right to Privacy?
Unless I see a significant different point, I am simply going to merge the two threads together.
I think a lot of people are looking at this wrong. The Constitution wasn’t intended to be a document that set forth all of the rights a person has…but rather, limit and constrain government. So, because it’s not in the Constitution doesn’t limit your right to it.
Self Defense, depending on what you mean by that, has always been a ‘right’, and I’d guess that the FF would be shocked to think that people did NOT believe it was their ‘right’, constrained by the laws and rules of society of course.
Do you have a cite showing that ‘Ron Paul Libertarians’ are saying both of these things? I note that you later go on to say that Ron Paul is ‘a religious authoritarian’ and ‘not a libertarian’, which seems to be contradictory in a single paragraph.
On what basis is he ‘opposed to private contraception’? What does that even mean? That he’s opposed to private companies marketing and selling contraception, or that he’s opposed to private individuals using contraception…or something else?
Simple…politics. People pick and choose what they believe and follow depending on their political view point. It depends on which of your oxes is being gored as to whether or not you slavishly follow the Constitution on one point but are willing to bend it or even break it on another.
:dubious: I think that your definition of what does or doesn’t constitute ‘Libertarians’ is highly skewed and suspect, just based on what you said in your own OP. Double standards are not the sole province of ‘conservatives’ OR ‘Libertarians’, and they don’t all lead back to a supposed take over by ‘the religious right’.
Why would any American politician who is a religious conservative be hiding that fact? You’d expect him or her to be putting it out on t-shirts and bumper stickers.
Right. The problem is that you haven’t provided a cite of anyone else saying that there is one in the Constitution.
In order to make the point you make (which is that certain groups are hypocrites when it comes to declaring some rights Constitutional and others not), you need to find someone who claims
There is no right to privacy in the Constitution
There is a right to self-defense in the Constitution.
What you’ve done so far is show that there are people who claim (1), and to allege that they are in favor of a right to self defense, but you haven’t provided any cite that they’ve made a statement like (2), or that their belief in a right to self defense derives from their understanding of such a right in the Constitution.
Based on your demonstrated lack of ability to follow a basic logical argument in the other thread, I don’t have high hopes.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
But the same could be said of the right to privacy.
[/QUOTE]
Certainly. My 'a lot of people ’ does not include only those from one political view point. I meant it to mean people on the left, right and even a few (;)) from the center.
Firstly, the arguments for a right to self defence go back to the English common law, where self defence was a defence to criminal charges of assault, homicide, and similar crimes. You don’t need to look in the Constitution for it. A common law right of privacy is much harder to find.
Secondly, your right to self defence will generally be exercised against other people – not against corporations or the government. With the right to privacy, the government is much more likely to be infringing that right, and the Constitution is intended to cover governmental violations of human rights.
So conservative attitudes to the right to self defense don’t have a great deal of relevance to arguments about the right to privacy.
But how much “common law” is out there in the ether? Does it allow us peons to live our lives outside the domain of authoritarian conservative types? May I live free in this common law?
