0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 15 Feb \ parent \ on: ABORTION and GUNS poll culture
And yet they do, in the UAE a women doesn't have a right to many things.
In Europe you don't have a right to guns, so yes geography clearly does dictate what a right is as it depends geographically which "rights" apply to you. That to me tells me it's not a basic human right at all, it's just an ability to have something legally.
And yet here I am. I live in a place where there's no right to weapons and yet I have training. So it's very possible. That training comes by necessity of the job. There is no necessity on a daily basis for a civilian to own a weapon. Hell even military personnel don't own the military grade weapons. They're not personal issue.
This might be the fundamental disagreement, I don't believe it's a right at all. Besides are you saying you don't need training to be able to have something? Yet you need to have trained in a discipline like medicine as an example to conduct surgery on someone you can't just automatically go and do something you don't know what you're doing and claim you have access to it because you believe you should.
I doubt it would have made a blind bit of difference in Russia's mindset. But I do understand your point. For example the UK is currently talking about the possibility of conscription should it need to defend itself from Russia. But that wouldn't arm the general populace that would train a larger army to a higher standard than someone without training.
I'm fairly certain former members of the Ukrainian military were asked to re-enlist and did. It is the job of the military to protect their nation under these circumstances. Not the general populace exercising a "right" that can decide to choose violence against an invading aggressor.
They had weapons to be trained with because we gave them to them. They didn't have the weapons until we armed them and then trained them.
What your scenario was/is is justification for a military not for armament of civilians. You've so far only used war time or warfare examples. Because fundamentally there is no reason that a civilian needs a weapon (whether their laws allow them to have one or not) of that grade in their day to day peace time activities.
I don't know if I'm mixing them up as they're extremely intertwined. One does not have a right to kill a person, if one also has a right to life. Those two things can't exist without infringing upon someone else's right. You're right one does not need to use recreational drugs, but do they not have a right to choose whatever they wish to inhale? It can't be freedom sometimes when it suits and not others. Either you're free to choose how to live your life and own what you want, say what you want, smoke what you want and do what you want with your body (including remove what you don't want in your body) or you don't have freedom. If you're probably gun you'd have to be pro choice, and pro recreational drugs and pro gay. If you believe in freedom claiming you have a right to guns whilst a women doesn't have autonomy over her body then I'd argue you're not pro freedom.
I'm very much aligned with this as I personally do not believe that a "right" actually exists, a set of rules enforced by fear of consequences is the closest thing to rights. But they're not truly a right. The idea that someone has a right to something is just plain false to me especially if that thing can be removed from that person by force. Sure you need food, water and shelter and that's it, but you don't have a right to them, you want them you need to take them... Nowadays the way we take them is transactional and of mutual benefit. But to claim that someone has something that cannot be removed by a more powerful entity tells me that the "right" is a false sense of security. You don't have a right to life if someone can take it. You don't have a right to education if no one will provide it. And you certainly don't have ant kind of freedom of speech when there are laws protecting religious groups and sexuality, gender, etc. if you can be punished lawfully for saying something against a protected group, then you don't have freedom of speech you have things you are allowed and things you are not allowed.
Slight tangent but to wrap it all up.
Thus far all of your points about the necessity for allowing civilians to have weapons of military grades have only really been justifications for military grade weaponry and a military. Not a reason why non military persons not currently engaged in military operations would need tools for that specific job.
You wouldn't use a chainsaw on a piece of paper just because they're both technically wood, you'd use scissors.
Your not in a warzone, you don't need warzone tools.
The problem with almost (as yes there are some restrictions on who can own, some eligibility criteria) almost everyone having access to that chainsaw to cut the paper is that had they only been allowed scissors, then they wouldn't have caused so much damage in schools...
Infact now I think about it by the definition of a right, does the fact that eligibility criteria for guns demonstrate that it isn't a right? If felons can't own, or those deemed cognitively disabled can't own... Then it isn't open to everyone and thus isn't a right. You need background checks to own right? Then you're being told by a different authority whether or not you can own one... So that's not a right, that's an allowance.
We are talking about different things.
E.g.,
And yet they do, in the UAE a women doesn't have a right to many things. In Europe you don't have a right to guns, so yes geography clearly does dictate what a right is as it depends geographically which "rights" apply to you.
I am not talking about actual laws, I am talking about what I view as universal human rights. In other words, I believe all women everywhere have the same human rights, including women in UAE. Obviously the UAE government does not allow them to exercise those rights. I believe the UAE government not allowing women to exercise their rights is a crime against humanity.
Nearly all your other points are also not addressing my arguments (and hence, my comments aren't addressing your arguments). Here is why I think that is the case:
It seems to me that your argument is stemming from the view that governments grant people rights. Of course I could be wrong and maybe you don't hold that view, but I don't see how one could make the comment about UAE without this view. Your last paragraph about something being an allowance further demonstrates this. I am of the view that human rights are universal, and the governments role is to protect them.
Here is a thought experiment:
There is an island populated with 100 people and no government. What rights do the people on the island have?
Now, suppose the people decide they want a government. If you believe people had rights prior to the government, do those rights exist upon creation of the government? If you are of the view that certain rights go away upon creation of the government, I would argue they weren't rights before the government was created.
My answer to the initial question is more or less whatever Nozick laid out as negative rights. That is, we have a right to the freedom of barriers/obstacles. We do not have positive rights. To give an explicit example of my view, I have the right to pursue medical care; I do not have a right to medical care.
Once the government is created, the people have the exact same rights.
How the people decide the government ought to protect those rights is a different discussion.
This is important because the underlying view that generates your comment about UAE implies that humans do not have rights beyond what the government grants them. As such, the 100 humans on the island do not have any rights until the government exists.
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I have to concede you've introduced a line of thought I hadn't gone down. But whilst I pull on that thread I come to a barrier at the point of an interpretation of what a right is.
My personal opinion is probably much colder and harsher than most, I don't believe that "rights" exist. I don't believe anyone truly has a right to anything, I only feel there is accepted rules/regulations and there is enforcement. Why do I not kill someone? It's not because I believe they have a right to life, it's due to fear of consequence, I don't want to live with those consequences so I don't perform those actions. To me rights are a false sense of security and or entitlement you hear it all the time "you can't do that it's against my rights" ok, sure, watch me, if that person doesn't have the capacity to prevent me from infringing on their rights then are they rights? Or are they certain expectations in behaviour that can at any moment change. Using the right to life as an example, if it's a basic human right, then how is it ok to shoot and kill someone? In warzones? Or even defending your own property. If your right infringes upon their right, then theyre not basic rights they're rules that get followed most of the time and the rule that gets followed there and then is the one that can be enforced by whoever has the most power over the other.
In the example of the UAE the govt has not removed someone's right, by the definition you're describing they're just preventing them by an abuse of power from being able to exercise this so called right.
In your island situation, which I found very interesting as a thought experiment, without the govt there is no requirement for enforcement of rules. There is just an expectation that a small collective of people will behave in a manner in which they wish to be treated. I'd suggest they weren't not killing each other because of any perceived rights but instead out of either a fear of consequence of getting killed or exiled by the rest of the community. In that situation the collective needs each other to survive. They're not agreeing rights they're agreeing behaviours that gives them all the best chance at survival.
Just to attempt to articulate my point on rights not being something I believe to be real, I'm going to use the term entitled instead of rights. let's roll back to guns again and even yes use healthcare like you mentioned, instead of claiming to have a right to healthcare, you are entitled to access, but there is a caveat... And that caveat is that you meet acceptance criteria. In the case of healthcare one of the criteria is that you can pay for the care. That's not a right if there's a barrier to entry.
So I guess what I'm getting at is no, you aren't entitled to own a gun or have a right to own one. There are barriers to access already in place, what I'm saying is those barriers should be tightened and bring in a level of necessity. Nobody that is not engaged directly in military conflict, needs military tools. It's a risk to reward weigh up, the risk of the wrong people using those weapons outweighs the reward of anyone having access to it.
Just to elaborate a touch, the risk to the lives of multitudes of children and adults because that weapon came into the wrong hands, far outweighs the reward of one person being able to take down one aggressor to defend themselves, their family and their property. It's a simple numbers game. Let's say average family is 4 people, the wrong person decides to start shooting at you and they get you and yours. 4 deaths. Or you get to them first 1 death. Your access to that weapon had a potential for up to 5 deaths (including yourself or the aggressor, situation dependant). Now looking at that same weapon in the hands of an unstable person in a school, 40+ easily. The maths doesn't check out. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and the many need to be alive over the fews want to own a gun.
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