Posted on 08/23/2008 9:47:06 AM PDT by Clint Williams
WHAT exactly is changing on October 1st? Doesn't the FBI now have permission in certain situations?
Messages from a Peshawer internet cafe keep being sent to mosques known for violent preaching. Can we now sweep those up and "listen"? Or not?
A suspected al-Qaeda "member" (I know al-Qaeda has no "members" in the western sense) contacts a suspected terrorist in London. He has a yahoo account domiciled in Virginia, can the FBI capture that? or not?
>The FBI is slowing morphing into the KGB.
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.”
Patrick Henry
35 posted on 08/23/2008 10:29:12 AM PDT by diverteach
The Gun is Civilization
by Marko Kloos of the
Munchkin Wrangler blog
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.
In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat—it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation...and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never forced.
>Gotta’ be something in the water in DC.<
Or the air or the toilet paper.
Thats ok, I know its hard to take when you lose an argument so spectacularly but you will recover.
>More of my education was at expensive private schools.<
Have you ever read your own profile and wondered why you appear to be unemployable? Use your expensive private school education to answer that and I’m certain that life will be easier.
Sure, right ~ definitely a problem with the toilet paper ~ toss it in the bowl, Nancy, don't just keep stuffing it!
You said “There are some explicitly clear individual rights that are being declared null and void because hey, they are the FBI and all good guys and we should trust them.”
When challenged to name one of those rights and the section of the constitution that protects it, you respond like a libtard, with nothing but personal abuse.
Fact is, you can’t name any of those rights or the section of the constitution that protects it. You’re just spouting off.
Good grief, you can’t even launch a valid insult.
Agreeing with Anton Scalia on the constitution never comes up in job interviews, nor is it on my resume.
But that’s okay. If you don’t have any arguments to make, just attack the other fellow.
Just because you may have breezed through Posner or someone of his ilk does not in any way require me to respond to your “challenge.” I don’t play other peoples games. In reading your previous posts you favor a rather juvenile playground inspired “you say - I say” form of ranting. No, thanks anyway.
My first post strongly inferred my opinion of a rather weather-beaten phrase you used which garners results typical of what you are receiving here; the posting equivalent of getting flipped the bird. There is no need for me to repeat myself because you did not “get it” on the first pass.
The phrase represents a Statist view that individual rights are subject to the whims of government and circumstance of the day. It is generally not well received among real Americans.
If you want to indulge in some form of “name this” I suggest you try a midday TV game show.
“getting flipped the bird.”
Yes, I have to admit, that’s about the intellectual level of your posts here.
Any idiot can behave badly; it takes a little more than that to argue one’s position rationally.
“Let me reiterate: warrantless searches and investigations are unconstitutional, illegal, and unAmerican.”
Reiterate as many times as you like; it’s still false.
Some searches require warrants; some do not. To that extent you are partially right, but where did you get the idea that “investigations” require warrants?
John Jay in Federalist Paper 64 said the President was able to manage the business of intelligence as prudence might suggest. The Constitution named the President as the Commander in Chief. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper 23 said powers for the common defense ought to exist without limit. No Constitutional shackles (much less no legislative or judicial) can be placed on the powers. Hamilton made the further point that when exercising their authority the judicial branch should be guided by the manifest tenor of the Constitution and not a popularly acclaimed “spirit”. Therefore, every President since that time has engaged in warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance with the objective of national security, and with the blessing of Congress and the Supreme Court. Gathering and exploiting intelligence has been understood integral to Warfighting capability ever since Sun Tzu discussed foreknowledge.
The fact councils such as yours still retains relevance demonstrates a delusion of invulnerability pervades our society. Continuous parades of comforting sound bites are reinforced by a judiciary layering personal homily upon foreign law upon lavishly dogmatic revelations. Events exponentially more deadly than 9/11 must occur for people to remember Hamilton said, “It is impossible to foresee or define the extent or variety of national exigencies, or the corresponding extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them”.
“I get extremely nervous when the government starts poking into anyone’s private life without due cause.”
We are at war with a deadly enemy. Either we butch up and start doing what is necessary, or we’re going down.
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