steve74baywin wrote:Lanval wrote:[
Yeah, it's a perversion according to you, but what about the next guy? And the one after him? You're missing the point. Any assumption that you make that people are going to be more X (where X equals whatever value you want: ethics, tolerance, etc.), hinges entirely upon your explaining why people are suddenly going to change... If they aren't that way now, why will they become that way under a new system?
Mike
I will break down your post.
1)
"Yeah, it's a perversion according to you, but what about the next guy? And the one after him? You're missing the point"
We must agree to disagree here. Self Defensive isn't that hard to define. Thoughts and fantasy of what someone can do is just that, they either attacked or they did not. There will still be courts and juries to decide. Why do you keep forgetting this? The Bush example is Newspeak. Self Defense wouldn't be me going after you tonight because you might come after me tomorrow. That is paranoia, a perhaps an illness.
2)
"Any assumption that you make that people are going to be more X (where X equals whatever value you want: ethics, tolerance, etc.), hinges entirely upon your explaining why people are suddenly going to change... If they aren't that way now, why will they become that way under a new system?"
No assumption, it will be the same people. Certain things you keep wondering is what puzzles me. Who says they are going to more X? Are you confusing when I give examples to say people would still give like they do now? There is no assumption people jump to or ever get to better. The basic protection of life, rights to property. I have already said no promises of perfection. I even said in that in the other thread that the same people will be here.
I really don't know what else to say. It seems I keep answering the same thing over and over. Perhaps it is because you have this perceived idea of how things must be. Like wondering how the public would get roads like today. If the public wants road like today then they would do that. If the public doesn't build roads like today then who is this public you think needs to force the public to do it?
I love this: "self defense isn't that hard to define". Yeah,
according to your definition. NOT EVERYONE BELIEVES EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS YOU DO.
Why do you not understand this?
There is no absolute definition of "self-defense". And by the way, according to Texas, which tries to give the sorts of individual freedoms you're talking about, self-defense includes shooting unarmed people in the back. But let me guess; whenever someone magically doesn't think/know/act
exactly the same as you their flawed/wrong/criminal/diseased.
From the NYT; I've added my italics so you can see why I think your arguments are problematic:
"Homeowner Shoots Tourist by Mistake In Texas, Police Say
Published: January 08, 1994
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A businessman from Aberdeen, Scotland, wandering a wealthy neighborhood in search of a telephone after a night of drinking, was shot and killed early this morning by a homeowner who took him for a burglar, the police said.
Andrew De Vries, 28, who was in Houston on a business trip, was shot twice after he pounded "in a furious manner" on the back door of a home in an exclusive neighborhood on the city's west side about 4 A.M., said Alvin Wright, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department.
Mr. De Vries and a colleague, Sydney Graves, 42, had been befriended by a Houston couple during a night on the town and had gone to the couple's home, the police said. When the couple were driving the men back to their hotel, Mr. De Vries "began to think they were taking him in the wrong direction," said a police spokesman, Joe Gamino.
Mr. De Vries jumped out of the car and Mr. Graves followed. Mr. De Vries began to ring doorbells, searching for a phone the men could use to call a cab. After ringing the front doorbell twice at a home on Warrenton Drive, Mr. De Vries went into the backyard, the police said.
"The homeowner saw two men at his back fence," Mr. Gamino said. "He then saw one of the men climb over his fence and hit the back door." The homeowner, believing that his home was being invaded, fired a pistol three times through the door. Mr. De Vries died at the scene, but Mr. Graves was not harmed.
The police said they had no plans to charge the homeowner with a crime, although the case, like all shootings in Texas, will be referred to a grand jury.
Judy Jowers, who lives on Warrenton Drive, a neighborhood where home-alarm stickers are as numerous as basketball hoops, said, "It saddens me that things are the way they are -- that you have to resort to having a gun in your house." She described her neighbors as "real nice, ordinary people trying to make a go of things around here -- hard-working, middle-class, family people."
The case is reminiscent of an incident in October 1992 in which a Japanese student in Louisiana was killed by a homeowner who said he had thought the student was trying to invade his home. The student, who did not understand English well, failed to comply when the homeowner told him to freeze. The homeowner was acquitted on manslaughter charges.
In deciding not to press charges in the case today, the Houston police appeared to regard the shooting as misguided self-defense. In the past year, there have been several incidents in Houston in which burglars have knocked down doors in the middle of the night to rob or assault residents."
I'll bet the Scottish guy's family will be real happy to hear about how in your system "there'll still be courts". Since they won't be any better than the ones we have now, if the Libertarians ever get their hands on the gov't I guess you'd better be armed at all times. Or don't get drunk. Or don't be a foreigner. Or don't freeze every time someone says "^$*^&&%&^*" in a foreign language.
Steve, I'm not going to respectfully disagree with someone who believes that everything will magically be OK if we just get rid of the "gubment" or "gobblement" or any of the other names people use to pejoratively label or system. Either explain why people/courts/etc. are somehow are all going to know exactly what's right and which definitions are in play, or accept that the current system errs in favor of making those issues clearer for people who otherwise aren't competent to tell the difference between a killer and a drunk.
<--- this is what I want you to say to me; how will you fix this?
Mike
Mike