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<blockquote data-quote="AE 87" data-source="post: 351010" data-attributes="member: 195"><p>OK, here's my opinion on not just why there are differences of opinion over gun-control laws but also on why we have trouble discussing it.</p><p></p><p>Take it for what it's worth (the easily bored can start with bullet 8):</p><p></p><p>1) The United States was founded on the basis of a fundamental principle of governance.</p><p>2) This governing principle was that human beings have natural rights, and it is the government's responsibility to protect those natural rights (see Declaration of Independence).</p><p>3) The principle of natural rights was a unifying principle, and a basic assumption of the founders.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">a) Theists believed these inalienable rights were endowed by the Creator.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">-- This truth united the non-religious theists, the Deists, with the religious theists, primarily the Christians plus eventually Jews, Unitarians, and Muslims.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">b) The (at least potential) Non-Theists could still believe that the natural rights were a given (see the Natural Law discussion below and the 20th Century Libertarians following Ayn Rand).</p><p>4) A corollary of this principle of natural rights is the existence of a natural law which protects natural rights, and that positive laws are necessary to reflect the natural laws when enforcement is required.</p><p>5) The Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, highlight this fact by articulating as positive law--as should not be necessary but was--those natural rights which their previous experience with government had not protected.</p><p></p><p><u>Excursus: Natural Law and Christianity.</u> While there is a strong affinity between Natural Law thinking and Christianity, they are, in fact, independent concepts to the extent that Natural Law philosophy does not require Christianity. It originated in the centuries before Christianity with Plato and later the Stoics.</p><p>a) Apparently following the philosophy of his teacher Socrates, Plato articulated the unitary concept of "the Good." He even speculated on an ideal governance in which "the Good" would be served.</p><p>b) In the decades and centuries following Plato, first the Greek empire of Alexander and his successors and then the Roman empire of Octavian and his successors ruled over a large spectrum of previous existing city-states and kingdoms. Lawyers and philosophers in the later Roman Republic and early Roman empire observed that some laws were common to almost everybody. They called these laws, the Law of the Nations.</p><p>c) Political philosophers, especially the Stoics, combined the Philosophical Theory of Socrates/Plato with the Sociological Observations of this Law of the Nations to conclude that there must exist a Natural Law for and over all humanity, including rulers.</p><p>d) So, when Christianity began to expand from its Monotheistic Jewish roots into the Greco-Roman world, the concept of a Natural Law (or God's Law for His Human Creatures) was already present in the non-monotheistic, non-Christian society.</p><p></p><p>6) The cultural revolution of the 1960's--without making it explicit--challenged the national ethic of Duty based on Natural Law with an ethic of Ends or Consequentialism.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px">- There are three basic ethical systems, systems for determining right from wrong: Duty, Ends, and Virtue.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">- A <u>Duty Ethic</u> says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to a set of rules (like a Natural Law)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">- An <u>Ends Ethic</u> says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to desired outcomes, promoting pleasure and diminishing pain</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">- A <u>Virtue Ethic</u> says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to a set of valued traits or characteristics.</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">- It should be noted that these three philosophical or perspectival approaches to ethics largely agree on the right and wrong of most actions; however, the differences can be significant.</p><p>7) In it's most crass form, the <u>Ends Ethic</u> is reflected in the Sheryl Crow song, "If it makes you happy, it can't be all wrong." However, the <u>Ends Ethic</u> finds its political application in a kind of social utilitarianism where right and wrong is determined by whether it furthers society toward a Utopian (typically tacitly from a Marxist, humanitarian perspective) ideal state.</p><p></p><p>8) As a result, the Political Left of today looks at the questions of gun control from the perspective of whether we would need guns in an ideal state. As a result, they view the very possession of guns as a part of the problem of gun violence which needs discussing.</p><p>9) The Political Right, on the other hand, still looks at the questions of gun control from the perspective of natural rights within a less than ideal state. As a result, they view the possession of guns as a natural right so that limitation of this right should be considered a last resort when discussing responses to gun violence.</p><p></p><p>10) Now, I think that the Political Left's commitment to an Ends Ethic, whether they know and admit it or not, is really a commitment to the Might Makes Right political philosophy against which our nation was founded as an alternative.</p><p></p><p>Excursus: <u>1st Amendment Freedom of Speech and Religion</u>: We find a corollary of this debate also with the first amendment. In recent years, we've seen a rise in protesters shouting down public speakers to prevent their speech from being heard. We've also seen violence outside of planned speaking events to keep those speeches from even occurring.</p><p> We've seen the courts come down on different sides of whether an reference to God (as a divine being, regardless if understood as a Deist, as a Christian, as a Jew, as a Muslim, as a Unitarian, or as a Mormon) is protected speech. Still, there are some who think that any reference to God by civil servants is somehow a violation of the "establishment clause" without acknowledging that a reference to God is not unique to any one religion, let alone that the non-religious can also believe in a God.</p><p> -- IN OTHER WORDS, those who pursue freedom FROM religion and freedom FROM certain speech, don't believe in freedom OF speech and OF religion. FWIW, I have had experience even within this forum of people reporting my posts because they wanted freedom FROM my speech.</p><p></p><p>I would be happy to civilly debate any of the bullets which I raised in this long post. I recognize that some readers may not be able to raise their reaction beyond saying that this post was too YUGE and that I responded too BIGLY for our discussion. Still, as I said from the start, take it for what it's worth.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AE 87, post: 351010, member: 195"] OK, here's my opinion on not just why there are differences of opinion over gun-control laws but also on why we have trouble discussing it. Take it for what it's worth (the easily bored can start with bullet 8): 1) The United States was founded on the basis of a fundamental principle of governance. 2) This governing principle was that human beings have natural rights, and it is the government's responsibility to protect those natural rights (see Declaration of Independence). 3) The principle of natural rights was a unifying principle, and a basic assumption of the founders. [INDENT]a) Theists believed these inalienable rights were endowed by the Creator. -- This truth united the non-religious theists, the Deists, with the religious theists, primarily the Christians plus eventually Jews, Unitarians, and Muslims. b) The (at least potential) Non-Theists could still believe that the natural rights were a given (see the Natural Law discussion below and the 20th Century Libertarians following Ayn Rand).[/INDENT] 4) A corollary of this principle of natural rights is the existence of a natural law which protects natural rights, and that positive laws are necessary to reflect the natural laws when enforcement is required. 5) The Bill of Rights, including the 2nd Amendment, highlight this fact by articulating as positive law--as should not be necessary but was--those natural rights which their previous experience with government had not protected. [U]Excursus: Natural Law and Christianity.[/U] While there is a strong affinity between Natural Law thinking and Christianity, they are, in fact, independent concepts to the extent that Natural Law philosophy does not require Christianity. It originated in the centuries before Christianity with Plato and later the Stoics. a) Apparently following the philosophy of his teacher Socrates, Plato articulated the unitary concept of "the Good." He even speculated on an ideal governance in which "the Good" would be served. b) In the decades and centuries following Plato, first the Greek empire of Alexander and his successors and then the Roman empire of Octavian and his successors ruled over a large spectrum of previous existing city-states and kingdoms. Lawyers and philosophers in the later Roman Republic and early Roman empire observed that some laws were common to almost everybody. They called these laws, the Law of the Nations. c) Political philosophers, especially the Stoics, combined the Philosophical Theory of Socrates/Plato with the Sociological Observations of this Law of the Nations to conclude that there must exist a Natural Law for and over all humanity, including rulers. d) So, when Christianity began to expand from its Monotheistic Jewish roots into the Greco-Roman world, the concept of a Natural Law (or God's Law for His Human Creatures) was already present in the non-monotheistic, non-Christian society. 6) The cultural revolution of the 1960's--without making it explicit--challenged the national ethic of Duty based on Natural Law with an ethic of Ends or Consequentialism. [INDENT]- There are three basic ethical systems, systems for determining right from wrong: Duty, Ends, and Virtue. - A [U]Duty Ethic[/U] says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to a set of rules (like a Natural Law) - An [U]Ends Ethic[/U] says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to desired outcomes, promoting pleasure and diminishing pain - A [U]Virtue Ethic[/U] says that right and wrong can largely be reduced to a set of valued traits or characteristics. - It should be noted that these three philosophical or perspectival approaches to ethics largely agree on the right and wrong of most actions; however, the differences can be significant.[/INDENT] 7) In it's most crass form, the [U]Ends Ethic[/U] is reflected in the Sheryl Crow song, "If it makes you happy, it can't be all wrong." However, the [U]Ends Ethic[/U] finds its political application in a kind of social utilitarianism where right and wrong is determined by whether it furthers society toward a Utopian (typically tacitly from a Marxist, humanitarian perspective) ideal state. 8) As a result, the Political Left of today looks at the questions of gun control from the perspective of whether we would need guns in an ideal state. As a result, they view the very possession of guns as a part of the problem of gun violence which needs discussing. 9) The Political Right, on the other hand, still looks at the questions of gun control from the perspective of natural rights within a less than ideal state. As a result, they view the possession of guns as a natural right so that limitation of this right should be considered a last resort when discussing responses to gun violence. 10) Now, I think that the Political Left's commitment to an Ends Ethic, whether they know and admit it or not, is really a commitment to the Might Makes Right political philosophy against which our nation was founded as an alternative. Excursus: [U]1st Amendment Freedom of Speech and Religion[/U]: We find a corollary of this debate also with the first amendment. In recent years, we've seen a rise in protesters shouting down public speakers to prevent their speech from being heard. We've also seen violence outside of planned speaking events to keep those speeches from even occurring. We've seen the courts come down on different sides of whether an reference to God (as a divine being, regardless if understood as a Deist, as a Christian, as a Jew, as a Muslim, as a Unitarian, or as a Mormon) is protected speech. Still, there are some who think that any reference to God by civil servants is somehow a violation of the "establishment clause" without acknowledging that a reference to God is not unique to any one religion, let alone that the non-religious can also believe in a God. -- IN OTHER WORDS, those who pursue freedom FROM religion and freedom FROM certain speech, don't believe in freedom OF speech and OF religion. FWIW, I have had experience even within this forum of people reporting my posts because they wanted freedom FROM my speech. I would be happy to civilly debate any of the bullets which I raised in this long post. I recognize that some readers may not be able to raise their reaction beyond saying that this post was too YUGE and that I responded too BIGLY for our discussion. Still, as I said from the start, take it for what it's worth. [/QUOTE]
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