Narauko

Narauko , 7 months ago

Ok, I’ll be the one to point it out.

“We didn’t evolve to be omnivorous (from Latin omnis ‘all’ and vora, from vorare ‘to eat or devour’), we evolved to be capable of thriving on a wide variety (omni) of diets (vore)”.

Just because portions of human populations do not behaviorally practice omnivorey, doesn’t mean their bodies are not omnivorous. You can feed a black or brown bear a balanced vegan diet, same with dogs, rodents, etc, and they can survive and thrive, but that doesn’t mean bears are no longer omnivores.

Narauko , 7 months ago

Yeah, and give it another 100 years or so, a veritable eye blink in the timeline discussed, and meat will be lab grown or replaced with something else. Essentially complaining that civilization is taking more than a generation or two to advance in specific places is mildly mind boggling, because civilization almost never moves that fast. Not everything moves at the speed of the development of powered flight, and meat has an unfathomable level of inertia being on the base of the hierarchy of needs.

Narauko , 7 months ago

I think some citation is necessary for the assertion that the Jewish people were not historically from the Levant region, and have no ancestoral “claims” in Jerusalem and the surrounding territory. I would love to see some anthropology studies or papers on the bronze age Israelites being proto-Asyrian or Persian and not one of the Canaanite tribes.

I’d also like to point out that basically every war ever has been and will probably be a land grab, wrapped up in some rationalized or causative skin. That stretch of land in particular has been conquered over and over again throughout human history, and the inhabitants forcibly immigrated and emigrated during many of these changes of power. Mesopotamia has been birthing empires since humans discovered it and it became a cradle of human civilization.

Narauko , 7 months ago

I sure would, and that is what I’d argue for. I’d love it if both sides would agree to revert to the '67 borders, or even draw up and negotiate new borders if that is required at this point. Both sides have equal “claim” to the area, and this is a needless pseudo-civil war. Without the US and Israel’s surrounding Arab neighbors pouring money and ideology into it, the original '48 plan may have settled into a workable 2 state solution, but who really knows.

I also know that I have no skin in the game on either side, and honestly my opinion doesn’t matter beyond the fact that the US is allies with Israel as a democracy in the middle east that they can leverage towards favorable geopolitical stability, and which I have little power to effect. I just wanted to ask about what appeared to be dishonest propaganda that tries to conflate Israel with foreign colonizers like England, Portugal, Spain, etc, and erase pretty solidly agreed upon paleo and anthropology. We shouldn’t whitewash in either direction.

Narauko , 7 months ago

Everyone should vote for whomever represents them best despite whatever letter follows their name, and everyone should know all of their local and state options to be able to do so. Please do the same for your primaries if you at least want a slim possibility of having a decent option. Ranked choice voting would help a lot, but engagement at least helps a little. Hell, third parties got elected this year even.

People blindly straight party ticket voting after skipping the primaries simply because they just hate the other team is how all the shitty entrenched old guard like Pelosi, Manchin, and McConnel (extra especially McConnel, who even republicans hate) stay in power on both sides. And forgetting about the primaries is how we end up with such weak ass candidates as Trump and Biden. It’s so good damn infuriating.

Narauko , 7 months ago

Why would anyone pay property tax if property rights stop being enforced? Unless you are actually just giving only the government property rights, allowing the writing and enforcement of evictions, which just makes the government the sole owner of all land the thus the new landlord. Even then, why pay tax when I can just go squat in anyone’s house or building while they aren’t home and it comes down to whoever is stronger getting to stay. Also no point paying tax if someone can just come take it from me. Unless you mean the police actually will enforce property rights for some people but just not others, which just means only those who can afford to employ the police have secure property while the poors just get to duke it out. Unless what you are actually saying is only don’t enforce property rights on secondary building ownership, and then only if that secondary building is not owned by a business that is not providing residential living space. Or are we also breaking up all multi-locatiln businesses the same way?

If everyone risks losing their home every time they leave for work or to get groceries, and only the strongest get to keep the best shelters, the social compact is broken and forming warring territorial clans and insular communities is the end result. Property rights are kind of a keystone for a functional society operating at a size larger than a rural village. It would cause less damage to just make owning more than a single family dwelling illegal, and force everyone to acquire a mortgage to wherever they currently live. This may partially lock your population to wherever they happen to live without finding someone to swap similarly valued dwelling units wherever you want to move to, but there are ways to lessen that impact. Alternatively, the government just seizes all property and doles it out according to whatever the government’s desires are for an area.

Narauko , 7 months ago

Not to be pedantic, but you did write just the broader enforcement of property rights and not private property rights, and I approached it from that broader perspective. Under your clarification, your house does not cease to be your personal property when you leave it for work, but only if the government uses their monopoly of violence to enforce it. And yes, it was a stretch of rhetoric, but not made dishonestly.

The concern is that under this ideal scenario, what happens if you leave you house for a longer term? How does this take temporary moving into account? Examples: I get temporarily transferred for a year to a new city by my job and I fully intend to return to my home after this assignment. Rental homes/apartments aren’t a thing, so I must either buy a dwelling there for a year, or stay in a hotel for a year. If I buy a dwelling, I now own two properties as long as I can afford to pay both mortgages. More likely, I am forced to sell my long term home because I cannot rent it out for that year I am gone. If I do keep it, can I own two separate pieces of personal property or does one become private property because it is not in habitation? I have deprived someone of buying one of them by owning both, and ownership of empty dwellings is usually complained about just as much as renting them. Will my personal property rights be enforced on my vacant home for that year? Should the government allow someone to move in and use my house for that year without my permission or compensation, and only resume enforcing my rights when I move back in? Am I forced to sell and hope that I can rebuy my home when I return? A similar dwelling in an adjacent area may not factor against the sentimental value of a family or generational home. Are any of these parts different if I become temporarily disabled and move in to another person’s home for care. What about a year in the hospital or rehabilitation facility? I don’t think any of these concerns are all that absurd, even if they would affect a small percentage of the population.

You were also seemingly arguing that allowing non-residential private property rights would/should still be enforced so that the capitalist class gets to keep commercial property, unless you are classifying personal, private, and capital property as three distinct categories. Since generally the argument is that private residential property is being used as a rung of capital, I was viewing these as similar enough to be lumped together. It does seem that maybe you were hinting at this being a first step, keep the capital class from revolting while we take out the rentier class, and then move on the remaining private property in swallowable chunks as power is consolidated, which is another reason to view it at a somewhat extreme angle.

Narauko , 7 months ago

First, your username finally clicked and I feel slow for missing it for so long. I actually love it.

Nextly, to also be fair, the existence of a difference between private and personal property isn’t widely known, and China’s implementations of these concepts are even less well known unless someone has been more than toes deep into communist/socialist discussion. Even a lot of “communist” posters don’t have a good grasp on it and can’t really articulate the original intent behind “abolish private property”.

I would like to point out that there are currently enough homes in the US for everyone, and far more vacant homes than our entire homeless population right now. We have major density problems and collusery artificial scarcity that has long crossed over into being illegal and immoral, so we need to be building homes on the scale we did in the post war period. Houses should be much further down the commodity end of the commodity/investment scale, but until we reach a true post scarcity environment (Star Trek levels of post scarcity), I don’t foresee full decommoditization of housing working sustainably.

Lastly, while the communist state really isn’t coming for your toothbrush, obstensively communist countries have overshot going after the landlords and replaced most residential personal property with government landlords. Soviet khrushchevka blocks are a trope for a reason, even if overused.

And thank you for the actual engagement and conversation on this, I appreciate your insights.

Narauko , 7 months ago

I want limited government focused only on common defense, common good, and keeping the markets free. I feel this is best accomplished through a simple and loophole free tax codes that ensures the wealthy pay their fair share and that all wealth levels are engaged with skin in the game. I believe that this should include a land tax, and that a consumption/sales tax works better than income or wealth tax. These taxes should fund a UBI for all and centralized healthcare, replacing the bureaucratic tangle of our various social safety nets and welfare programs. All monopolies, duopolies, and oligarchies need to be crushed to keep markets free, because the invisible hand needs a paired visible hand to prevent regulatory capture by capital. Drugs should be decriminalized, 2nd amendment rights should be respected, reproductive control should be respected, the government has no business in who married who, religion should be kept to one’s self, and environmental regulation should just ensure clean water, clean air, and long term watershed protection. The market should drive pretty much everything else, with the understanding that unlimited growth is as bullshit as assuming a frictionless sphere in physics. All of these “socialist” programs actually result in functional limited government and maximum individual freedom. It’s not a communist utopia, but I consider it functional Utilitarian Georgist Libertarianism.

Narauko , 7 months ago

Careful now, your about to say the quiet part (we think certain people are too deficient to think for themselves, so we enlightened should do their thinking for them) out loud. Humans don’t have a great track record of dragging the “unenlightened savages” out of their ignorance, kicking and screaming if needs be, and North Americans in particular.

Narauko , 8 months ago

So what you are saying is that everything apparently boils down to two sides wanting nothing more than genocide, as Hamas’ goal since their founding has been the elimination of Israel and the Jews from the middle east. Under that reduction, we just need to choose whether we support a flawed but still functional democracy or another conservative theocracy under Iran in the region. Third option being to pull all support for both sides and just let them destroy each other with a statistically significant possibility of nuclear exchange in the end.

I also would like to know of any other country on earth that would allow a neighboring country to continually launch rockets at it for decades and take no retaliatory action whatsoever, like Israel is somehow an outlier. Is there honestly a realistic expectation that this time would be different if Palestine was given the full Two State system under the original borders? 5th or 6th times the charm on that one? Maybe this time there wouldn’t be another full scale war from all surrounding neighbors, but does anyone actually expect Iran to stop funding or conducting terror attacks on Israel through Palestine, Syria, or Lebanon?

Narauko , 8 months ago

Those are all very complicated questions. The Israelis being closer to the afore mentioned American and Australian natives than their European settlers, having historical roots in the Levant since well into the BC’s being one of them. Further complicated by the fact that Palestine lost that land after going to war to reject the two state system, multiple times. The only acceptable option according to Palestinian governments (leaving intentions of the civilians out of it for the obvious reasons that their individual preferences can’t be known) up until recently was the complete destruction of Israel, and no country is going to just roll over and cease to exist because their neighbors want them to.

This is not to justify a might makes right viewpoint, or to give a pass for war crimes on either side. The years of heavy handed treatment definitely exacerbates this. I honestly don’t know of any country that would handle the situation better in the same circumstances, so it’s hard to find a good path forward. The closest situation I can think of is Britain and Ireland, and I don’t think there would be a Repulic of Ireland if their only stated objective had the complete annihilation of the British from the isles instead of just independence of the island.

Narauko , 8 months ago

Every square inch of land on earth has “changed hands” so to speak, multiple times by multiple peoples, mostly non-peacfully. How far back does a “land back movement” plan to go? The only fair option would be to DNA test bones from before the last glacial maximum and find descendents with the highest genome similarly and reshuffle all existing populations back based on their earliest ancestors. Or move all humans back to Africa and leave the rest of the world to the native wildlife. Or is it just the US and Canada because they were the most recent? Will we include Mexico and make them give the country back to the Aztec, or do they get a pass because Spain isn’t considered as bad as those pesky Brits? Do we try and find populations of tribes conquered and replaced by the Aztec?

Do we have the authority to freeze all national borders as they are right now in perpetuity to preserve national and racial identities? Are you in favor of the world going to war against Russia to prevent colonial genocide against Ukraine? What do we do with the current peoples existing on their lands now? Do we break every country on earth up into ethnic tribal lands, or City-States? European colonialism of Africa and the Americas was broadly terrible at the time with many lasting issues, but it’s not exactly unique in human history, so I am honestly curious what the end goals look like.

Narauko , 8 months ago

Not sure where you get genocide denial out of what amounts to “humans have been genociding each other since the Homo genus common ancestor split off”. I am asking if anyone actually expects any country on earth to decide that decades, or more likely centuries, in their past they conquered the land they now claim from another people group and now we feel bad about what our ancestors did so we are giving the country back to the most direct descendants of that group.

Are there actual expectations that the US is actually going to give everything or anything east of the Mississippi back to the native tribes, and/or Texas back to Mexico? Do we expect Canada to give BC back to their indigenous tribes? Obviously current relations with both groups need to be fixed because there are ongoing issues, nor should we celebrate the atrocities that happened during any of the colonial movements.

The Americas are also different from the colonialization of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East because the colonists moved there and stayed there instead of setting up exploitation of resources to send back, thus allowing “decolonizing” of those places to happen. And then decolonizing caused further problems by the colonizers drawing borders on their way out. This isn’t to advocate that they stayed colonies, nor do I think these places would have peacefully self-assembled into their own countries if Europe had just dropped everything and left. Human nature would have still had different land and resource wars happen as the native populations filled back in the power gaps.

Genocide is still as bad now as it was then, and even less acceptable because of our modern and “enlightened” morals. This applies to all ongoing genocides and ethnic cleansing attempts. I’m saying the cat is out of the bag on this though, and no government realistically fears any land back movement causing them to support any other country’s existence.

Narauko , 8 months ago

Ah, yes, I understand. I did sadly expect there to be nothing articulable backing up this nebulous land back idea beyond apparently a general “US (or maybe just people of European descent in general) bad, and so we must somehow undo centuries of colonization by just giving some undefined land back to undefined people, which is totally possible because sovereign countries voluntarily give up their territory all the time”. I thank you for the enlightening discourse on this topic.

Narauko , 9 months ago

To quote Benjamin Franklin here, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Anyone is free to relocate to those other developed countries you mentioned if they do not want the burden of their own personal liberties and rights, but stripping those rights from everyone else in the USA doesn’t fly well here.

Narauko , 9 months ago

Last I checked the USA wasn’t on any country’s immigration blacklist. You still need to have some kind of useful skill for a work visa, and there are unique costs to international moves, but it’s far from illegal to move away from the US. Additional costs if you want to renounce your US citizenship instead of holding dual citizenship wherever you move to, but that’s a personal decision there unless you move to a place that requires renouncing citizenship as part of gaining it like the US does. Unless you were conflating free as is freedom for free as in no cost, but that would be silly given the context where this entire discussion thread is about freedom.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Indeed, we should eliminate all landlords and then everyone who wants to not live with family or friends who already own a house should obviously just get a 15 or 30 year mortgage. I’m sure you qualified for one at 18, or maybe 26. And it is really easy and convenient to sell your house/condo/apartment every few years if you want or need to move regularly. There is never a viable condition for renting. But if somehow there were to be a magical condition where one would rent, then clearly the trading of goods and services for money only works if each transaction is specifically priced to only and exactly cover the input costs. Making profit is immoral after all. You know what they say, people and businesses only exist because of the joy derived from watching others consume the products of their labor. Has this comment gotten annoyingly snarky yet?

Now we as a society should start treating housing as a commodity and produce it in vast numbers so that supply continuously meets or exceeds demands. We should also implement a Georgist land use tax to prevent mass corporate ownership of housing so that housing prices fall comparably to what they were in the 50s and 60s. We probably want to slowly phase that change in though, because housing as an investment is the only thing propping up the middle class currently, and if every primary residence home owner was suddenly under water by double or tripple or more of their existing mortgages then bad things happen. Tenent owned cooperative housing complexes might even be cool too.

Narauko , 10 months ago

So then the apartments and condos become more expensive due to skyrocketing land values, not solving the problem of affordable housing? You can expand current low density zones with limited medium density without impacting values too much, but NIMBY concerns aren’t completely crazy. Either new zones are created for multifamily high density and medium density housing instead of opening single family low density zones for these projects, or we accept that as a society we are fine crushing a percentage of the middle class to solve housing for the lower classes. The top 10% may take a hit on real estate dips from rental properties, but not crippling. We can spread the damage slowly, but houses losing 10-30% value will cause a miniature 2008 wherever that happens.

This was caused by housing becoming a cornerstone step into and for remaining in the middle class instead of being a commodity like it was pre 1970/80. That probably wasn’t a good idea, but changing that removes the largest remaining leg of the middle class. All options moving forward will suck I think, and it will take a lot of work to resolve.

Narauko , 10 months ago

I am completely with you on the f-word being thrown around willy nilly these days, but there are a disturbing number of self proclaimed Christian nationalists in government and among the evangelical populace. Marjorie Taylor Greene is not the only politician to state this on a televised interview, but is the first one to jump out at me.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Pretty sure that the “shall not be infringed” part of bearing arms covers that. The 2nd amendment is an individual right, so there you go. If you are trying to say that the 2nd is somehow the only non-individual right in the Bill of Rights, I’d argue poor context interpretation. If you are trying to say that it requires militia affiliation, I’d argue that the Militia Act that required the people to supply their own guns and ammo pretty effectively proves the people were supposed to be armed before being called to the militia. If you are arguing that you just don’t like the 2nd, then get ~75% of the country and state governments to agree with you and update or repeal it with the required constitutional amendment.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Previous supreme courts have ruled that the constitution only applied to the federal government, allowing states to restrict the rights of their citizens to vote, speak, assemble, etc. Does that mean that it isn’t clear that our individual and constitutional rights were intended to apply at a state or local level? I am not saying that it is broadly agreed upon, but I do think that the founder’s documents and correspondence surrounding the Bill of Rights, along with contemporary laws like the Militia Act, provide enough context for it being an individual right.

In 1792 the government required that the individual would have their own rifle, bayonet, gunpowder, and ammunition to bring with them if they answered the called to join the militia, which is hard to do if they didn’t have the right to individually own said guns and ammo. Same with the fact that every other amendment in the BoR is an individual right.

If it was only the ability to own guns so that they could be brought in case the owner was called to join a militia, but not to use them in any other way why would it specify the right to bear those arms and not just to keep or own them? If the individual right is to own guns and use them as tools for hunting and sport, where does the limitation on using them for defense come from? Are knives or any other tools that can be used in a fight included in any of this? I’d consider knives under the right to bear arms, plus it is a frequent argument that they serve other purposes so get an exception.

Narauko , 10 months ago

I thought it was pretty clear my response on supreme court interpretation changing when rather wrong, either obviously or on new technicality, was directly addressing your statement that the individual right to both own and carry arms changed in 2008. I also think you may want to brush up on what a straw man is, as I am directly engaging with your statements to get a handle on your viewpoint and opinion. I apologize if you were saying that we have a right to own military hardware and NFA regulated weapons, as long as we never use them alone or for personal reasons (this would be taking your statement to a probably absurd degree).

My mention of ownership was because prior to 2008, states could prevent you from buying guns as well as preventing bearing them. I would also like to point out that it is certainly legally shakey to form a private militia or paramilitary organization, with multiple laws and even state constitutions outlawing it. I mention this because outlining an individual right to bear arms to prevent the government from arresting their own soldiers for carrying a gun under military orders just doesn’t make sense. I am also curious if you also believe that hunters for the past 200+ years have been breaking the law, using their guns for purposes other than military service. I’m also pretty sure walking down Main Street firing guns randomly is a crime, reckless endangerment at the least, even under the most lax interpretation of the 2nd, and completely different than acting against a credible threat to your life.

Also rebellion is especially illegal, even if/when benefitial or even necessary. It is definitely an opinion that having an armed populace has no prosocial benefits that can be debated. Minority and oppressed populations are harder to victimize when armed. Anyone who has saved their life thought defensive use of a weapon would also disagree with you. The police have no legal obligation to save or help you or anyone else, so making self defense illegal outside of pure hand to hand combat leaves people vulnerable. If melee arms are allowed under the 2nd and the inferred right to self defense, why wasn’t there a distinction made on what kind of arms. Or are they not covered under the 2nd? Genuinely curious on your view of using an available knife or bat or crowbar if someone tries to gravely injure or kill you.

I would also like to argue that no other right in the Bill of Rights requires you to be in or part of a group, either actively or passively, to have them apply or be exercised. Even though a free press is essential for a free society, we don’t have to get a degree in journalism or join a newspaper to have freedom of speech and association.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Now that is a very interesting idea, I’ve never heard anyone claim that militias are independent private armies not subject to government control. The militia exists purely for the government to mobilize in times of disaster or war, be it state or federal, as outlined in Title 10 Chapter 12 of the US Code. The National Guard and Naval militia are the standing, organized militia. All able bodied men age 17 to 45 are considered part of the unorganized militia, and subject to being called upon by the government through selective service. All or nearly all 50 states have explicit laws banning private citizen militias and/or paramilitary organizations, which as been affirmed at least twice by the supreme court and as recently as 2008. Any overthrow of the government that no longer is of and by the people would be carried out by the people in general, not a militia or any defined organization.

I think I see your point one constitutionality vs legality, though I would say that all law stems from the powers granted by the constitution and thus are intrinsically linked. If something is enumerated in the constitution, it does not fall to the states to manage in my opinion, as the states only get the “everything not outlined” to legislate in my opinion.

I appreciate your viewpoint on this, thank you for engaging with me on this topic. I may fundamentally disagree with your conclusions, but I can see where you’re coming from now I think and this has been very enlightening.

Narauko , 10 months ago

It was super shocking to find the Republicans actually knocking the third leg out of their wedge issues stool. All they really have is gun rights now, as the regular culture war stuff isn’t nearly as powerful as abortion was. It’s going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next 2 election cycles, but so help me if the Democrats manage to get back control of all 3 and STILL don’t codify abortion rights, gay marriage rights, interracial marriage, etc so they can capitalize on these suddenly stronger wedge issues. Again. So God damned pissed off at the Obama admin still because of that. Also the lack of federal legalization/decriminalization. And this is from a pro 2A former classical libertarian who wants the government shrunk by replacing all of the bloated agencies and welfare programs with a simple and solid universal healthcare system and true UBI, funded with a aimple tax code with no loopholes that incorporates something of a Georgist land tax.

Narauko , 10 months ago

It’s easier to dehumanize and homogenize the opposition than view them as people with real convictions. It happens on both sides, and it’s getting worse and worse as the polarization increases. Driven by the media and the 24 hour news cycle, capitalized on by the DNC and RNC, and keeping everyone fighting amongst ourselves instead of looking too closely at the accelerating wealth gap and banding together by class to restore healthy and competitive capitalism.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Law enforcement only gets to check that you comply with driving laws and regulations if you break them in front of them. They don’t just get to pull people over randomly and run checks on them because they feel like it because of the 4th amendment. There is also the difference between a privilege like driving, and a constitutional right. No other right requires that you allow law enforcement to keep tabs on you or your property. No one should live in a police state like that

As to your understanding of the 2nd, the “well regulated” part means operating smoothly and in good order. It’s fallen out of every day parlance, but a well regulated clock or well regulated engine used to be in more common parlance and still is used in the military I believe. So a plain English reading would be “A fully functional and well operating militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the rights of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This is backed up by the Militia Act passed 2 years following the ratification, that confirmed that to join a militia require the militia member to provide their own arms and minimum starting ammunition. Without an individual right to keep and bear arms, that would make it hard to form said militia.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Sure, I agree with that as well. We have a process to amend the constitution, it just requires 75% of Congress and the State legislators to agree instead of a simple majority to change it so it is a stable source of law. If it could be changed every 4-8 years as power changes, it would wreck havoc across all levels of society.

Narauko , 10 months ago

While non-Americans may not have the standing or skin in the game, I think taking an interest in how other governments and cultures work and evolve is a worthwhile endeavor. I think we can all learn something from each other regardless of nationality. We Americans like to criticize other countries and societies for things we think are backwards or harmful like humanitarian issues in certain countries and regions, but freak out when we get the same in return. I hope we are strong enough to rise above that as a country, but there are a lot of thin skinned individuals and ideologues out here.

There are also arguments to be made about interpretations of 200 year old amendments, such as the current courts originalist interpretation. Under originalism, the court tries to rule based on what the founders and signatories intended, rather than change interpretations as vocabulary drifts and evolves. There are some supporting documents like the Federalist Papers and other first and second hand documents, but it’s not exactly clear cut all the time and there is a lot of guesswork involved. I lean towards interpreting based on original intention for stability reasons and to avoid circumventing the legal processes by changing the meanings of words. Breaks the spirit of the law IMO. But that’s just like, my opinion man.

I personally tend to agree that the intent of the 2nd was for private ownership of all contemporary weapons of war to protect the Republic from both foreign invasion and internal tyranny if the government becomes co-opted and no longer is “of the people”. That probably needs to evolve and be updated as war has fundamentally changed, along with human society, and nukes are way to expensive for anyone to afford short of like the top 100 wealth list (who we shouldn’t trust anyway on oligarchal principles). The original militias were forged into the National Guard and Reserves (and to a degree the police forces), and there isn’t the same national drive for local/state militias for common protection and defense, but if we want to do away with the right of the people to do so then we need to come up with a modifying amendment that a super majority of the people and State governments can agree on and ratify.

Narauko , 10 months ago

I’m going to throw a curve ball here and say yes, obviously the purpose of a gun is to kill things. Americans have an inherent right to self defense through use of arms, which is the entire purpose of the 2nd amendment. Killing animals for food is of course another common task, along with livestock protection, but self defense against other humans using force was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The founders thought about the fact that these arms could be used in crime and violence, and decided that freedom comes with risk and it was worth that risk. The country was founded on principles that the government is not there to provide perfect safety to all individuals and to dictate their lives, but instead set ground rules and let people live their lives however they see fit. There are consequences for actions, not preventing all actions with negative consequences. There’s a reason that the phrase “those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither” is such a famous (or infamous) quote in America.

Many people may feel they do not need to protect themselves with force of arms in modern society and would prefer more safety over more freedom, but until such time as over 3/4s of the population agree to cede their right to self defense to the government and change the 2nd with an overriding amendment, these tools are doing the job they are designed for. This argument that cars and knives and what have you serve another purpose so it’s “different” just strikes me as odd. Hell, the amount of people killed by cars when killing people is in fact the opposite of it’s purpose, is more concerning if you think about it because cars kill so many more people than the guns that are actually designed specifically for killing. But to do that we need to limit cars to traveling at 35mph and have internal and external airbags and giant soft air tube tires that can safely run over people without causing harm, but no one is advocating to make laws mandating such and no one would buy a car like that if it was available.

Narauko , 10 months ago

So the issue there is that it directly conflicts with the right to privacy, presumption of innocence, and your right to practice your constitutional rights. The government and law enforcement, hell even your neighbors or your HOA, cannot just check you or your stuff out to make sure you’re not doing bad things. We can’t mandate that you can only practice your religion at designated churches. You aren’t required to go get your free speech pass from City Hall that then allows you to go to approved places to discuss politics. What you are describing is not really a new and interesting way to check and enforce laws, secret police and dictators have been doing that for centuries. “If you don’t have anything to hide” is one of the worst things you could hear from law enforcement.

Narauko , 10 months ago

I think gun safety training should be mandatory as part of the US education system starting from the beginning of school. There are more guns than people in the US, so odds are good that many children will come into contact with them at some point, and they should know what they are and how to be safe. Unfortunately, the left acts like this will indoctrinate children towards being pro guns like the right thinks sex education will make kids have sex. Leaving these basic life knowledge “up to the family” to teach is just such a shitty idea.

The issue of licensing is tricky because unlike driving a car, gun ownership is a constitutional right and we do not have a good track record of being fair and equitable when we make practicing rights require any “cost of entry”. Other than that and as has been mentioned already, many places require licenses and extra training to concealed carry, and if you are reckless with guns or just even with criminal behavior you can lose your gun rights.

Also, even if mass shootings just weren’t a thing I think having trauma kits along with AEDs in public areas is just good practice, and adding hostile attacker drills to existing fire, earthquake, tornado, etc drills is also probably good practice. The more emergency situations people are even somewhat trained to “handle”, the better they react to both known and unknown emergencies. When the brain is overwhelmed in an emergency, having any ingrained reflex your subconscious can fall back on prevents freezing or panicked random action.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Not personally a fan of general increases in gun control because I don’t think many of the ideas floated would help more than they would hurt law abiding citizens, but it really should be free and quick for anyone to request a background check for private party gun sales and thus should be mandatory. My own personal experience is background checks are done at my local gun shows, but yes there should be mandatory universal background checks and this 100% can be improved.

Federally mandated waiting periods would be hard and burdensome to enforce on private party sales, but I’d be open to discussions on how it could be done. Red flag laws are also tricky because we have a presumption of innocence and protection against searches and seizures, but if it requires that you get to face a judge before they take your guns away then once again, an argument worth having. I argue against security theater gun control, and because I believe any restrictions of constitutional rights should by default be argued against since we need damn solid reasons to restrict rights.

Narauko , 10 months ago

It’s become so bad that my local/state Libertarian candidates last election were further right than many of the Republicans with almost the same talking points. Who can we protest vote for now that supports gun rights, freedom of/from religion, abortion rights, gay marriage, and targeted/effective limited government that only provides for national defense, interstate commerce, and the common good through a UBI and national healthcare funded with a fair proportional tax? The party has left the actual libertarians behind.

Narauko , 10 months ago

Just wanted to point out that it’s never a good thing for any society for a statistically significant percentage of the population to lose faith in the systems underpinning said society and it’s social compacts. That’s what the CIA did/does to countries to destabilize them, and those never end well.

I’m not claiming there is necessarily a better option in this case, because all authority needs to be kept to a higher standard and punished when they fail, from the town treasurer up to the President. Trippley so for the police, but I won’t be holding my breath there either

Narauko , 10 months ago

Unfortunately the odds of self reflection and cooperative action to fix the system is probably lower than disenfranchised radicalization leading to further divides and violence. Really hope to be wrong about that, but if 20-30% of the country stop believing in the system altogether, we could be a repeat of Iran in the 70’s.