Leave George Zimmerman alone!

[Harrison Danneskjold]

"Essential" doesn't mean "only feature that a gun can be used for". I mean essential in an epistemological sense where a particular feature makes a concept distinguishable from others

Okay.

So, with ballpoint pens, is their essential purpose to write scientific dissertations or ramblings on the supernatural?

 

I agree that my original examples were flawed; using a gun as a paperweight is irrelevant to its actual usage.  But I also think that considering guns' essential purpose the killing of people would be flawed because it drops so many legitimate and relevant uses (such as shooting anything else, whatsoever).

I think that the essential purpose of a gun is to shoot bullets, just as the essential purpose of a ballpoint pen is to write; further specificity would consist of choosing exactly what content a ballpoint pen is meant to write about, where a car is meant to drive to or what a gun is meant to shoot at.

 

At which point we find ourselves considering guns to be dangerous, cars to be seasonally-migratory and pens to be irrational.

 

Using this as a justification for the right to have firearms is exactly like using the threat of Vulcans (who are a bunch of communists by all accounts) as a justification...

A dubious assertion, but alright; let's run with it.  Let's say that "defense against the government" is a completely irrational justification for gun ownership and automatically invalid.

 

Why must gun owners justify their actions to you or I?  At all?

 

Initiating force is wrong- but gun ownership is NOT an initiation of force, any more than car ownership equals drunk driving or pen ownership equals advocacy of anything at all.  And so long as gun owners aren't shooting random strangers, they don't have to justify their ownership to anyone else in the world.

 

So let's say, hypothetically, that a gun would be completely useless against a tyrannical government.  So what?

 

Interesting. I lost count: how many B-2 Stealth Bombers does the Syrian government possess? Also, drones with laser-guided missiles--how many of those? Are civilian modified AR-15s good against those? Wait, you can turn those into M-16s pretty easy... how about then? Will that make them effective against an M1 tank with computer-controlled target assistance from an AWACS?

 

And don't bring up the 1700s lest you want to risk making a mockery of the 2nd amendment altogether...

As for the effectiveness of a disorganized and underequipped militia against tanks and drones, I'd ask insurgent bomb-makers (not to mention the Iranians; I hear they know a lot about drones).  Guns against laser-guided missiles?

 

You shoot the guy with the laser tagger, take it and guide his missiles elsewhere. 

 

As for the notion that principles evolve with the expediency of the moment- or the century- it's rather fitting; it suits your username.

 

 

Nicky is a liar. This is a well known fact. Don't believe anything he says.

Nicky is prone to jump to conclusions too quickly, but I have yet to see him lie once.  Ever.  And as a matter of fact the conclusions he leaps to are usually the correct ones. 

So this isn't a well-known fact to me, at least.

 

 

Now, if you do have a a propensity to believe Nicky, you will note that he finds a scenario in which the military acts in opposition to liberty impossible. (This of course means that our current system is therefore perfect liberty, but no matter).

This means that America is THE freest country in the world, despite our mixed economy and current trend, which means that wherever and whenever our military engages another government WE are acting in the name of freedom.

 

The military always does fight for liberty because the military always fights foreign slave-drivers.  If you have an issue with our current laws (as I do) then take it up with the legislators who write them and the police who enforce them.

 

No matter who you believe, the argument that "personal firearms are necessary to defend ourselves against the US government" does not hold water.

Your argument boils down to this:

 

P:  No individual could ever hope to defeat the American military, regardless of their attempted method

p:  No tool, including guns, could ever be used by an individual to bring down the American military

C:  It's hopeless; just lay down and surrender; we are all doomed

 

It's an argument that I simply reject outright, on its face.

 

 

The gun culture includes:

• Thinking its cool to hunt animals with guns for sport and it being legal to do so.
• Having guns as fashion accessories - http://www.pinkgun.com/ and it being legal to sell these.
• It being proposed that school teachers be armed.
• Guns being for sale in Walmart.
• Being obsessed with the 2nd amendment which is out of date.
• Thinking its masculine to own a gun.
• Excessive guns in movies.
• Child guns being legal to sell - http://www.crickett.com

It was this gun culture which killed Martin. Without a gun, Zimmerman wouldn't have had the false confidence to follow Martin leaving it to the police to do their job.

 

I'm sure Wesley Mouch would agree emphatically.

[Nicky]

Nicky is prone to jump to conclusions too quickly, but I have yet to see him lie once.  Ever.  And as a matter of fact the conclusions he leaps to are usually the correct ones. 

So this isn't a well-known fact to me, at least.

Yay, me. 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Thinking its cool to hunt animals with guns for sport and it being legal to do so.

The value of hunting wild animals is debatable, although it's my impression that it bestows some sort of macho-adrenal thrill.

The legality of hunting wild animals is not debatable.  Animals HAVE NO RIGHTS.

 

By what infernal sort of reasoning should anyone be forbidden from killing mindless bundles of instinct?  Is it an initiation of force to swat a mosquito???

 

Having guns as fashion accessories - http://www.pinkgun.com/ and it being legal to sell these.

Should it be ILLEGAL?

 

So carrying an unloaded gun around, simply as a fashion statement, is a crime?  On what grounds?  The minds of children who see it???

 

I defy you to explain your underlying reasoning.

 

Guns being for sale in Walmart.

Should they not be?

 

I was not aware that you were a shareholder of the Walmart company, which you certainly are- RIGHT?  Or do you consider it your prerogative to dictate what voluntary transactions happen between other people who have nothing to do with you?

 

And if I were to go to Walmart tomorrow and buy a small arsenal, in what way would that violate YOUR RIGHTS? 

 

Being obsessed with the 2nd amendment which is out of date.

Do you even know why the second amendment was written?

Or, like oh so many of the Safety-Nazis who have undertaken to protect me from myself, have you simply chalked it up to technological differences?  'Guns in those days couldn't kill entire movie theatres at once; the second amendment is obsolete!'

 

Have you ever once, in your entire life, devoted some serious research to the American constitution?

 

It was this gun culture which killed Martin. Without a gun, Zimmerman wouldn't have had the false confidence to follow Martin leaving it to the police to do their job.

WOW.

 

Your post raises so, so many questions.  But by far the central one is:

How the Hell have you reconciled this nonsense with Objectivism?  Or have you, at all?  (DO you consider yourself to be an Objectivist???)

[FeatherFall]

I really don't see "gun culture" as the primary issue of this thread. Neither is the verdict. The primary issue seems to be the race-baiting, deceptions and outright lies used to sacrifice Zimmerman to the Democratic party's political platform so they can energize their voter base. The specifics of the court case are only relevant to the extent that they prove this was never about a murder, and always about a national political agenda.

Gun culture didn't kill Trayvon. His apparent decision to attack someone who followed him did.

Edited July 28, 2013 by FeatherFall

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Yay, me. 

Sorry.  I call it as I see it.

Like I said, though, you're almost always right.  It just seems like you don't pay as much attention to WHY you're right.

In my own opinion.

[Nicky]

 Sorry.  I call it as I see it.

Like I said, though, you're almost always right.  It just seems like you don't pay as much attention to WHY you're right.

Most often, I'm right because I get into fights with the likes of Crow and Kate. All I have to do is state the opposite of whatever nutty nonsense they come up with.

 

I'm gonna try and challenge myself a little more in the future. I already have Crow on ignore, so that's a step in the right direction.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Nicky

[Kate87]

You forgot to mention: Target shooting as a sport, your wife having a concealed hand gun license because she was followed by strangers in a van (firing a 45 once into the ground will deter most would-be rapists), hunting to fill your freezer with venison and goose meat, ....

 

Yes all those things you mention are also part of the gun culture.

 

This means that America is THE freest country in the world, despite our mixed economy and current trend, which means that wherever and whenever our military engages another government WE are acting in the name of freedom.

 

I am a Brit, and looking across the pond I don't see the freest country in the world. To me, Australia has more economic freedom than the US (http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) and more social freedoms (eg abortion, gay rights, less foreign policy adventures etc).

 

The value of hunting wild animals is debatable, although it's my impression that it bestows some sort of macho-adrenal thrill.

The legality of hunting wild animals is not debatable.  Animals HAVE NO RIGHTS.

 

By what infernal sort of reasoning should anyone be forbidden from killing mindless bundles of instinct?  Is it an initiation of force to swat a mosquito???

 

Should it be ILLEGAL?

 

So carrying an unloaded gun around, simply as a fashion statement, is a crime?  On what grounds?  The minds of children who see it???

 

I defy you to explain your underlying reasoning.

 

Should they not be?

 

I was not aware that you were a shareholder of the Walmart company, which you certainly are- RIGHT?  Or do you consider it your prerogative to dictate what voluntary transactions happen between other people who have nothing to do with you?

 

And if I were to go to Walmart tomorrow and buy a small arsenal, in what way would that violate YOUR RIGHTS? 

 

Do you even know why the second amendment was written?

Or, like oh so many of the Safety-Nazis who have undertaken to protect me from myself, have you simply chalked it up to technological differences?  'Guns in those days couldn't kill entire movie theatres at once; the second amendment is obsolete!'

 

Have you ever once, in your entire life, devoted some serious research to the American constitution?

 

WOW.

 

Your post raises so, so many questions.  But by far the central one is:

How the Hell have you reconciled this nonsense with Objectivism?  Or have you, at all?  (DO you consider yourself to be an Objectivist???)

 

Fashion guns trivialise point and click death machines. They make them look like toys too. In no circumstances would I want my children growing up in a culture which permits this.

 

As a customer of Walmart, I do not want my purchases to help fund death. A certain percentage of the guns sold in Walmart will cause deaths (which is what they are designed to do), and I want no part in that. I do not want to live in a culture which permits groceries and death machines to be sold in the same building.

 

PS. I am not an Objectivist, but even if I were, I would not support the right to bear arms. Instead I would support Ayn Rand's position:

 

 

It's a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people -- they are not carried for hunting animals -- and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim. 

 

Note Rand directly contradicts you Harrison when you said earlier:

 

Your misunderstanding lies in thinking of guns as some sort of unnatural object, foreign to this world and immune to its laws, which endows its users with some transcendental "power to end your life." This simply has no relation to reality.

 

 

When Rand speaks of "killing people at whim" this is the power I was referring to that guns give you. It is not transcendental, it is a result of a gun being an effective point and click death machine.

Edited July 28, 2013 by Kate87

[Harrison Danneskjold]

I am a Brit, and looking across the pond I don't see the freest country in the world. To me, Australia has more economic freedom than the US (http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking) and more social freedoms (eg abortion, gay rights, less foreign policy adventures etc).

Debatable but also irrelevant.  Let's count the number of wars America has waged against Australia.

Every single war America has ever engaged in has been against dictators and tyrants.  If we ever invade Australia or England, then it would be worth reexamining the issue; until then we're still the good guys.

 

Fashion guns trivialise point and click death machines. They make them look like toys too. In no circumstances would I want my children growing up in a culture which permits this.

So don't give them to your children.

 

If I dislike the color of your house, do I have the right to fix it for you?  No?

Then LEAVE OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF ALONE.

 

As a customer of Walmart, I do not want my purchases to help fund death. A certain percentage of the guns sold in Walmart will cause deaths (which is what they are designed to do), and I want no part in that. I do not want to live in a culture which permits groceries and death machines to be sold in the same building.

So let me get this straight.

The fact that you voluntarily trade goods and services with a certain company, gives you the right to dictate how that company functions- because they use your money to do so?  I.e.: 

"I would like to purchase this milk and sugar, but only so long as you do not use my money to buy ammo for your inventory."???

 

So then, if I buy the DVD set of BBC's Sherlock Holmes, I could require BBC to start broadcasting Ultimate Warrior.  Or Future Weapons!

Or does it only work that way if I'm a certain demographic?

 

It would give a whole new meaning to TANSTAAFL.

 

PS. I am not an Objectivist, but even if I were, I would not support the right to bear arms.

Thank you. 

 

 

"It's a complex, technical issue in the philosophy of law. Handguns are instruments for killing people -- they are not carried for hunting animals -- and you have no right to kill people. You do have the right to self-defense, however. I don't know how the issue is to be resolved to protect you without giving you the privilege to kill people at whim. "

 

Reference, please?  Where did Rand say this?

 

Unless the context of the rest of the essay somehow alters its meaning (a rather large caveat), I would consider Rand wrong on this one- by the same reasoning I explained several posts ago about the "essential purpose" of guns.

 

Incidentally, I would completely reject the abolition of guns in full, at its root, by this nifty little concept:

"The right to life is the source of all rights—and the right to property is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible."  -Ayn Rand

 

If YOU can decide what I can or cannot own, then my property rights are meaningless; all I have are property PERMISSIONS.

If I have no property rights then I have no right to my own decisions.  And note how this, while based directly on Rand's philosophy, contradicts the quote you gave- which is why additional context becomes necessary.

It's entirely possible that she contradicted herself, but I'd like to see some truly hard evidence of that before I accept it.

 

Politically, the principle that the government gets to pick and choose what you can or cannot own, is a long walk off of a short pier.

[Grames]

Interesting. I lost count: how many B-2 Stealth Bombers does the Syrian government possess? Also, drones with laser-guided missiles--how many of those? Are civilian modified AR-15s good against those? Wait, you can turn those into M-16s pretty easy... how about then? Will that make them effective against an M1 tank with computer-controlled target assistance from an AWACS?

 

And don't bring up the 1700s lest you want to risk making a mockery of the 2nd amendment altogether...

You are offering for serious consideration a scenario in which America (the country with B-2 Stealth bombers) were to proceed so far down the road to ruin that its government would contemplate the use of bombers against civilians simply to maintain order.  And you wish that no one could have the means to resist in that circumstance.   Interesting.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

What I own and what I do is my business, unless it directly harms you.  Period.

 

You have no right to dictate what I can or cannot buy for myself, voluntarily- and that's all there is to it.  If that contradicts something else Rand said then Rand be damned; I'll stand by that principle.

 

"I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese alright? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinatti in a non-smoking section. I wanna run around naked with green jell-o all over my body reading a Playboy magazine. Why? Because maybe I feel the need to okay pal?"

-Exerpt from Demolition Man

 

And that's all I have to say to the Safety-Nazis.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Harrison Danneskjold

[JASKN]

When Rand speaks of "killing people at whim" this is the power I was referring to that guns give you. It is not transcendental, it is a result of a gun being an effective point and click death machine.

This is getting off topic, but how do you plan to arm yourself against criminals who will most certainly gain access to guns without having the same access yourself? Guns are extremely effective in personal defense, and the fact is they don't cause any harm unless the person operating them intends to inflict harm. Nobody is literally controlled by a vague "culture" in which he is raised.

[Grames]

"Gun-culture" is a good candidate for categorizing as an anti-concept.  It blocks thought if taken seriously.  

[CrowEpistemologist]

Your argument boils down to this:

 

P:  No individual could ever hope to defeat the American military, regardless of their attempted method

p:  No tool, including guns, could ever be used by an individual to bring down the American military

C:  It's hopeless; just lay down and surrender; we are all doomed

 

It's an argument that I simply reject outright, on its face.

 

 

Then we agree to disagree, then...

 

And yes, I think that rebelling against the US government is futile, and if our democracy every crumbled I'd high-tail it and run if I could, not stockpile "weapons" which will be useless against an organized military...

[CrowEpistemologist]

Most often, I'm right because I get into fights with the likes of Crow and Kate. All I have to do is state the opposite of whatever nutty nonsense they come up with.

 

I'm gonna try and challenge myself a little more in the future. I already have Crow on ignore, so that's a step in the right direction.

 

This is most excellent news.

[CrowEpistemologist]

You are offering for serious consideration a scenario in which America (the country with B-2 Stealth bombers) were to proceed so far down the road to ruin that its government would contemplate the use of bombers against civilians simply to maintain order.  And you wish that no one could have the means to resist in that circumstance.   Interesting.

 

No, I don't think I offered that. I was speaking in brief. Perhaps a longer essay would have allowed me to count the endless ways our government could use its billions to develop sophisticated weapons to suppress civilians, starting with, for instance, spying on them in systemic ways (I hope they don't start doing that!). In using the stealth bomber as an example, I was attempting a reductio ad absurdum of the idea of using personal weapons to defeat the US government, or even to resist same. I don't put down civilian uprisings for a living so I don't specifically know how they'd do it, but if they can fly a smart bomb through the kitchen window of somebody they know (through electronic spying) is attempting to overthrow the government, they would, I'd reckon, be able to do all kinds of other more subtle things, and all of those things would be impervious to handheld weapons.

[FeatherFall]

Debatable but also irrelevant.  Let's count the number of wars America has waged against Australia.

Every single war America has ever engaged in has been against dictators and tyrants.  If we ever invade Australia or England, then it would be worth reexamining the issue; until then we're still the good guys.

 

I might be with Kate on this one. It may be irrelevant to the thread, but it isn't irrelevant to your previous point about America being the most free country in the world. Having never been anywhere else but Canada and Mexico (and various native tribal lands that don't really count) I'd have to say that I honestly don't know enough to judge which one is THE best. But I'm beginning to seriously doubt that the good ol' US of A is it. Besides, I'm not sure how bringing up who America picks fights with addresses her issue.

 

Unless the context of the rest of the essay somehow alters its meaning (a rather large caveat), I would consider Rand wrong on this one- by the same reasoning I explained several posts ago about the "essential purpose" of guns.

 

 

I'll let Kate source the quote for you, but if I recall correctly it was one of her Q&A responses. She had limited time to think the issue through. Her statement actually didn't express any position one way or the other on gun control. It's clearly not a part of the philosophy.

I'm not with Kate on this one for two reasons. Firstly, I don't think Kate understands Rand's statement. To me it looks pretty clear that Rand thought she saw a contradiction between self-defense and destructive capacity that she didn't know how to resolve. But this must not be very clear to others, because Kate has paraded this quote around before in support of a firm conclusion that there is no conflict, only a destructive capacity. The second reason I'm not with Kate is because I think we resolve this perceived conflict through some form of legal protection of the right to defend yourself. We take away the destructive capacity here just as we would anywhere else; when someone proves they can't handle it.

 

Edited July 29, 2013 by FeatherFall

[FeatherFall]

PS. I am not an Objectivist, but even if I were, I would not support the right to bear arms. Instead I would support Ayn Rand's position:

Kate, I may have made this point in another thread, but it is worth repeating since you presented this quote again. The quote doesn't express a position. If you support Rand's position on this matter then you have no position.

Edited July 29, 2013 by FeatherFall

[thenelli01]

...no, "shooting bullets" is vague. The essential point of shooting bullets is to kill people. Shooting a rope is no more essential than using a gun as a paperweight. "Essential" doesn't mean "only feature that a gun can be used for". I mean essential in an epistemological sense where a particular feature makes a concept distinguishable from others. That includes how to distinguish ballpoint pens from guns. Both can be held in one's hand, both are utiltarian tools, and so on. With both being tools, what they are used to accomplish matters. So, guns shoot bullets in a way intended to cause severe harm to people. You can kill animals for protection, but that's mostly incidental and a borderline case of the purpose of guns. If someone made a James Bond-style ballpoint pen that fires bullets, then I think it should be categorized as a gun.

 

I don't agree with this. Don't you think you should specify which gun you are talking about? (i.e. there are differences between a handgun, a hunting gun, a water gun, a BB gun, a gun made for trap shooting, etc. - each have their own purpose). To blanket every gun under the essential purpose of killing people is incorrect. It is like saying the essential purpose of a table is to put food on and eat dinner on when that is really the essential purpose of a dining table.

Edited July 29, 2013 by thenelli01

[Kate87]

Kate, I may have made this point in another thread, but it is worth repeating since you presented this quote again. The quote doesn't express a position. If you support Rand's position on this matter then you have no position.

 

Fair enough. I think it's a fair quote to repeat though because it shows how a rational person not raised in a gun culture might weigh up the issue. The source is here - http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/essays/guns.html

 

"Gun-culture" is a good candidate for categorizing as an anti-concept.  It blocks thought if taken seriously.  

 

I looked on the Ayn Rand Lexicon and found this - http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/anti-concepts.html It gives the example of "polarisation" as an anti-concept. I have also been Googling and found "isolationism" and "extremism" listed as anti-concepts. I still don't get it though, each of those 3 words have specific definitions designed to convey information, not to obscure it.

 

Polarisation - when a society divides into two political groups which are vehemently opposed to one another, with little in between.

Isolationism - the view that a country should tend to its own affairs and not become entangled in international relations and foreign policy adventures.

Extremism - the use of violence combined with a political viewpoint on the edges of a public debate. ie an extreme environmentalist would advocate violence against animal testing labs. Or an extremist Christian would advocate violence against abortion clinics.

 

I can see how there may be problems with the above definitions eg you may argue that extremism doesn't always involve violence in which case it simply becomes a pejorative to use against someone you disagree with who is in the minority. However, I do think my definitions are workable and accurate. So I would define gun culture as an irrational societal normalisation of portable death machines. 

 

PS - apparently the term is also used non-pejoratively in the US by people who are against gun control - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_culture

[Harrison Danneskjold]

I might be with Kate on this one. It may be irrelevant to the thread, but it isn't irrelevant to your previous point about America being the most free country in the world. Having never been anywhere else but Canada and Mexico (and various native tribal lands that don't really count) I'd have to say that I honestly don't know enough to judge which one is THE best. But I'm beginning to seriously doubt that the good ol' US of A is it. Besides, I'm not sure how bringing up who America picks fights with addresses her issue.

I was concentrating on the wars we have fought in because the relative freedom of America only became relevant with respect to our military (specifically Crow Epistemologist's insinuation that American soldiers might round up and shoot American citizens).  Not the most direct line of reasoning towards that, I suppose.

The primary thing is that the vast majority of our soldiers enlist out of a desire to defend their loved ones and their ideals, which is fundamentally incompatible with murder.

The American military is composed of men and women who, at one point, idolized superheroes and knights-in-shining-armor.  I do not think the majority of them are capable of real evil.

 

As to the relative freedom of America, as I said, it's debatable.  And it's an exceptionally complex proposition, involving an immense range of variables; I'm sure that even among consistently rational Objectivists there would be a wide range of opinions.

Personally, I would still consider this to be the freest country in the world. . .  By a rather narrow margin.

 

But as far as violently suppressing internal dissent?  Not in your lifetime or mine.

 

 

We take away the destructive capacity here just as we would anywhere else; when someone proves they can't handle it.

 

I agree with the rest of your post, but I would modify the reasoning behind this just slightly.  Here's why:

You have the right to do whatever you want to do, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else- right?  The non-initiation of force principle.

 

Applied to gun control, this would mean that you have the right to own whatever you want to own (other than people) and this would clearly include guns.  BUT you do not have the right to USE those guns against anyone else, except in self-defense.

But all defensive force is preemptive force, undertaken whenever a threat becomes clearly apparent.  This objectively apparent threat need not be immediate; if you discover a plot to murder you next week then defensive violence is justified.

Therefore, if and when an individual is objectively determined to be mentally unstable or aggressive, the government may take preemptive measures against them- such as confiscating potential weapons.

 

This differs from your resolution in only one concrete way: instead of being required to prove your own responsibility in order to own a gun, the government would have to prove your aggressive intent in order to PREVENT you from owning a gun.  But, after all, aren't you innocent until proven guilty- and peaceful until proven violent?

The abstract difference consists in recognizing that confiscation of someone's property, as well as prohibition against even acquiring said property, is a form of coercion.  As such it can only be used in defense or retaliation- either of which must be objectively defined and proven for any given case, according to the strictest standards.

 

So it isn't a big difference, but I think it's necessary for any principled restriction of weaponry.

We can't be handing out firearms to every Mexican Drug Cartel that asks for one, but neither can we accept the principle that you acquire and retain your property by the permission of society (which is where Kate is coming from).

Edited July 30, 2013 by Harrison Danneskjold

[CrowEpistemologist]

(specifically Crow Epistemologist's insinuation that American soldiers might round up and shoot American citizens).

 

This was not my insinuation, it was Nicky's. This is the scenario he and other gun nuts paint as a justification for the right to have personal weapons--that our government might one day go south, and turn against its citizens (the citizens who didn't vote for such a direction presumably) and only our personal weapons will stop them.

 

I of course find such a scenario so implausible as to be something I simply don't worry about in my life, but that's just me. My point is that if you indeed worry about such things, then personal weapons won't even help you then.

 

To put it another way, that fact that I'm forced to create ridiculous scenarios wherein we'd hypothetically need guns to protect ourselves from our own government actually makes a point all by itself. You should have the right to lawfully own garlic, yes, but not because all men need it in everyday life to ward off vampires. That justification doesn't make you look too bright.

Edited July 30, 2013 by CrowEpistemologist

[Harrison Danneskjold]

It gives the example of "polarisation" as an anti-concept. I have also been Googling and found "isolationism" and "extremism" listed as anti-concepts. I still don't get it though, each of those 3 words have specific definitions designed to convey information, not to obscure it.

They do not have specific definitions.

I applaud your attempt to give them such (and you succeeded about as well as I think is possible) but they cannot be given such precision without removing portions of their connotations.

 

An anticoncept is an idea which contains a self-contradiction.  They are notable in that they are essentially bundles of implications, which hint at a great many fuzzy possibilities, but do not clearly mean anything at all.

For instance: the concept "freedom" clearly refers to freedom FROM violence; the absence of physical force.  It is also full of implications and connotations (Braveheart comes to my mind) but that is its specific referent.  That is what a concept should be like.

 

Polarisation - when a society divides into two political groups which are vehemently opposed to one another, with little in between.

Doesn't this describe every group of human beings (including this forum) in all of history?

Yes; your definition would properly specify the concrete meaning of polarization.  But look at your definition; why would such a descriptor ever be necessary?  It's an obvious extension of 'disagreement' which is inevitable within any large enough group of people.

 

And yet, whenever you hear it being used (note "Partisanship" because it refers to the same thing) it's always used to convey pettiness, pointless squabbling and feuds; it comes prepackaged with images of bickering children and sibling rivalry.

Whenever and wherever it is used, the common denominator is the assumption that such disputes are unnecessary and detrimental- that it would just be best if everyone were to compromise.

 

It's an anticoncept because it lumps rationality and irrationality- logical convictions and arbitrary whims- into the same idea of "alone-ness" which is assumed to be bad, as opposed to the good which is "together-ness".

 

 

 

Isolationism - the view that a country should tend to its own affairs and not become entangled in international relations and foreign policy adventures.

 

"Foreign policy adventures" is a nice touch.  The word you're looking for is "war" (and then this definition would be as correct as it could be).

 

Isolationism is based on the implicit knowledge that peace is a SELFISH ideal- while war is not.  It is the accusation of heartless, callous, unfeeling selfishness, which is the trademark protestation of every rejected altruist on Earth. . . Applied to an entire country in a single idea.

 

 

Extremism - the use of violence combined with a political viewpoint on the edges of a public debate. ie an extreme environmentalist would advocate violence against animal testing labs. Or an extremist Christian would advocate violence against abortion clinics.

Extremism refers to consistency; acting in accordance with one's ideas.  It does not specify which ideas or what their consequences are; only that consistency is bad.

 

Like polarization, extremism is based on "together-ness" as the intrinsic value: those who refuse to sacrifice their ideas to the common good are considered extreme, whether their ideas are good or evil, logical or illogical.  Extremism connotes bad things but refuses to denote much of anything at all.

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So that's what an anticoncept is.  Now, as for "gun culture".

 

Would you consider a sportsman's fondness for his hunting rifle equivalent to a mass-murderer's fondness for his AK-47?  Or are those two different things?

Packaging those very different things together, into the same concept, is what makes such an idea fallacious.

 

So, if you feel this designation is unwarranted, the solution is simple: unpack those referents and the implicit reasoning.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Harrison Danneskjold]

Kate 87:

If you do consider a hunter's feelings about his gun to be the same as a murderer's then you must recognize, in your own thinking, that you consider hunters equivalent to murderers.

If so then you also consider animals to be equivalent to human beings, in which case that is the root of your confusion and that is what you must sort out before you may understand the root cause of my country's gun culture.

 

What is the difference between a person and an animal?

[Nicky]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I assume gun culture refers to Americans liking guns.

Obviously, if you vilify guns, then gun culture, by extension, is a bad thing. On the other hand, if you look at the role guns have played and continue to play in the history of the United States objectively, you realize that they were one of the main tools for creating and defending a free country. And they still are. I love guns because I love freedom. And that's why I'm gonna have my children play with toy guns, and train, hunt and defend themselves and their country with real ones when they grow up.

Gun culture has been, and still is, essential to having a free society. Guns are something to be loved, not reviled. A gun is a beautiful mechanism, with a noble purpose: the defense of life and freedom.

If you want to hate the causes of violent crime, hate gang culture, drug culture and the war on drugs, welfare and entitlement culture, racism and central planning. That causes violence. All Kate has done through her time on this forum is continually repeat her claim that gun ownership causes violence, without so much as attempting to offer proof (except maybe repeating one or two easily refuted liberal talking points, in the beginning), and ignoring proof that she's wrong. Just because instead of blaming guns directly she now decided to blame people who like guns, doesn't change that the bottom line claim she is making is that the mere ownership of guns is causing violence, and that she's already been proven wrong and failed to address it.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Nicky

[Kate87]

And that's why I'm gonna have my children play with toy guns, and train, hunt and defend themselves and their country with real ones when they grow up.

 

 

Nerf guns are one thing. But if you mean actual realistic looking toy guns then I think that fits my definition of gun culture: an irrational societal normalisation of portable death machines.