No one's holding a gun to your head -- hahah, it's funny because it's on topic! -- and forcing you to read it, y'know.

He he ho ho, I guess a college course doesn't count as having read the basic history.

At least 85% of your argument technique seems to be "let me be sarcastic and dismissive, that means I win!" You act like the other guy is being ridiculous and you feel that's all you need to do to have a compelling philosophical or logical argument. I don't know if that's a symptom of ideological orthodoxy on your part or what, but it's not really a productive way of addressing a group of people who for the most part are articulating ther ideas and opinons on this issue in good faith to you. What are you trying to do, score snarkyness points with some kind of imaginary panel of judges?

All your rebuttals to the article consisted of disputing details, or coming up with asinine counter examples ("Russian soldiers were captured by German ones in World War II, therefore guns can't protect you from horrendous victimization."), but you didn't really address the main point of the article, which was that it's much harder for group A to carry out a genocide against group B if they both are armed, versus if only group A is armed. Whether a civil war is philosohpically more desirable than a genocide is a seperate issue, again one you didn't really address, choosing instead to imply the author meant that Russians with rifles couldn't possibly have been victimized by Germans with rifles, and that if any were, his whole premise was logically defeated.

Now, addressing one part of your post...



Does this statement on your part mean that you feel it is the responsibility of the UN to defend people, and not for people to defend themselves? Will you explicitly state what your belief on this matter is?

As far as the responsibility of the UN, and the signatories of the UN Charter, according to Chapter VII of the Charter it is the responsibility of the UN to come to the aid of those who are being attacked if peaceful means do not stop the aggression, and, particularly according to Article 51 of Chapter VII, nothing in the Charter "shall impair the right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security." Most nations today are signatories to this Charter. Many nations abrogate their obligations as signatories.

See: Charter of the UN, Chapter VII and Examples of Chapter VII interventions, with varying degrees of success.

I assumed good faith. If you insist that you know about the history of ethnical conflict in Rwanda (and the neighbouring countries), but chose to intentionally misrepresent that history for the sake of your argument...


Oh, that's just because he IS being ridiculous. Or if you prefer another term, call it pseudoscientific.


Like the minor point that all his factual statements are either blantantly wrong or a completely one-sided and biased representation of reality.


The question was "would civilians still be victimized if they were armed?". So I pointed out that even POWs are regularly victimized.


I did previously, you even quoted that post, and I repeated it several times, but I'll repeat it once more for you: Genocides are not spontaneous outbreaks of violence against seemingly weak targets. They have a long backstory and in the end group A is intent on exterminating group B come what may. So what good does it do group B in that situation if they have a bunch of Wall Street traders (since Daylen does not want me to ridicule armed farmers ) with Kalashnikovs? Sure, they can hide in the woods and play soldier, but the strategic result will be neglictible if an army is out to get them.

The answer to an organized genocide campaign is an organized military response, and yes, this should be the responsibility of the UN. The idea of a responsibility for self defense (as opposed to the right to do it) would mean that the guy who gets beaten to death while people are watching impassively is at fault himself...very much SR, though.

IMO:

• Real life is complicated, and any attempt to 'dumb down' the answers to one-sentence truisms by either side will lead to (IMO) stupid conclusions.
• Both "Life would be good if we just destroyed all guns." and "Life would be good if every man, woman, and child were packing heat." are simplistic, and people who swear by them are either attempting to mislead you, or are misleading themselves.

YMMV

You are assuming there are folks around to do this watching. Ronin clearly is not.

Who is the more responsible: The guy who makes sure he covers his own needs, or the guy who relies on other people take care of those needs?

It's nice if you can get help.

But ASSUMING you will get help and therefore not taking any steps to prepare for the possibility you aren't getting any is, in fact, a lack of personal responsibility.

It's far more basic than guns.

It's the idea that you should not purely rely on others. That you should, in whatever you do, be prepared.



-np

Yeah. I'll drink to that.

Uhm, we were talking about the UN's actions in conflict areas, so obviously there have to be folks around


That's besides the point, the question was if onlookers have a responsibility to act if they have the means to do so.

I have a responsibility to put my life at risk on the possibility that I might help another? You know not even the police have that responsibility.

(Complete tangent, I was involved in a discussion on the site where I do my online gaming (rpol.net) and came to this similar place. I asked, if it were legal and government condoned for people to kill people of another racial group, and you were walking down the street as some dude was getting hacked to bits by men with machetes, would you intervene. Amazingly, no one said 'yes'. The most common response was "I would stay out and petition an authority to change the law'.

I felt very, very out of place that I disagreed strongly, to the point that using violence to protect another person, even if illegal, would be morally justified. I was sort of wondering if I wasn't a sociopath or something, who was just looking for an excuse to pick a fight. It's good to know that, if I am a sociopath, I'm at least in good company.)

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. "
R Heinlein.

I gota agree with the libertarian writer. You seem to have been arguing with the worst kind of cowards or perhaps sociopaths.

You can rely on the police to draw a chalk line around your body and the UN to fund expensive trips to places with a nice climate to talk about how awful it was that you and your family got killed.

Hoping they will do anything to prevent these outcomes just requires optimism. Depending on them to do anything to prevent these outcomes is suggestive of someone living in a dream world.

Not unless you signed up for it...

Don't worry. You aren't the sociopath, in the situation you describe.

Luckily here in Kentucky, and in Texas where I'll be after about three months, the law allows you to not only use deadly force to protect yourself from a violent crime, but also others. I'll never have to worry about watching helplessly, or wishing a law was different, if I see a pack of thugs hacking someone apart with machetes. I know what I'd plan on doing in such a situation, even though I pray I'll never have to find out if I can pull the trigger or not.