THIS Is What A "No Compromise" Position Looks Like.
We "Compromised" and lost warships and artillery and gained nothing. Then we "Compromised" on auto and silencers and gained nothing. Then we "Compromised" on imports and gained nothing. Then we "Compromised" again on autos and gained nothing. We "Compromised" on certain cosmetic features that complicated the matter, and gained nothing. There ( Read more... )
There is no difference in position, only in scale.
Either I can own the means to hurt others, or I can not. If I can, then the onus is on me to use it responsibly, and I am liable for any harm that results.
If I can't own something because it MIGHT be used to harm others, then almost everything becomes bannable.
Mike, I have been thinking about this for a couple hours while putting the papers around in the back room:
1. First of all, regarding weapons getting stolen or used illicitly. If a theif steals your gun or your nuke, the theif then becomes responsible for his or her own actions with the gun or nuke, not you.
2. If you use your weapon immorally, then you are responsible. I prefer the term 'immorally' to 'illicitly', I don't agree with countries or other large enough groups proclaiming what would be mass murder if you or I did it, to be legal if certain 'leaders' do it. You may or may not be prosecuted for you immoral use of the weapon, but you are still responsible.
3. Part of the responsibilty of certain weapons, and the onus of responsibility on you, is that while you are not responsible for the actions of theives, you can't simply claim that 'nobody' is responsible if your weapon kills people. There are no 'accidents'. If you set your bomb off and there are innocent people in the blast zone, you are responsible. If you put your nuke in a lake, or even a leaky barn, and it rusts apart so that radioactive material gets into the ground water, you are responsible. If an earthquake, tornado, or volcano hit the land your nuke is on, and either cause it to explode, or release radioactive material into the air or water, you are responsible.
You are responsible for your nuke until such time as you either dismantle it, or it passes into the KNOWING possession of another person. If you sell or give your nuke to someone who wants it, they have knowing possession of it. If someone steals your nuke, that is knowing possession. Even if they are stupid theives and don't know what the fuck your nuke is, their act of theft puts the onus responsibility on them.
This means you cannot simply dump your nuke in the middle of the woods somewhere because you are bored with it. If it goes off or leaks while in the woods, you are responsible.
You cannot run away and abandon your nuke because there is an earthquake and having previously neglected to put it in an earthquake-proof shelter, you are afraid it might explode and kill you, and claim that now that you have run away, you no longer own and are no longer responsible for your nuke.
You cannot put your nuke in a dumpster, cover it up with garbage, and claim that the Veola garbage company now owns and is responsible for your nuke because they hauled it away with the dumpster-mobile when they didn't know what it was.
Technically speaking, you cannot morally abandon your nuke if an asteroid is going to hit the area, unless you take steps to prevent the asteroid impact from detonating your nuke. However, in a real-world sense, a large asteroid impact will be so devastating that people are going to have many far worse things to worry about than whether your nuke went off or not.
Like I said, if people actually have the proper level of responsibility for the ownership and use of a nuke, owning them would probably be remarkably unpopular. If you want to agree to this level of responsibility, then you can own your nuke. But the same level of responsibility probably applies to all weapons. I can't, for instance, simply throw my gun off a high building and claim I'm not responsible if the impact when it hits the ground causes it to go off and kill someone. But it's a lot easier and cheaper to maintain responsibility for a gun, than for a nuclear weapon.
Power is only 100% fun when you have an immoral system, where those who exercise power are not responsible for their actions. If you have a moral system, then the equation is at best, like that of Spiderman, where great power comes with great responsibility, or more often, like that of Morbius (the living vampire) where great power comes at horrific cost.
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"Of course no one would defend the right to own a nuke," but then the next statement, always implied and usually stated is, "So since the right is not absolute, let's see how far we can shove it up your ass and claim 'reasonable.'" Nukes are not "reasonable" and neither are tanks and planes and artillery and machine guns and "Deadly semiautomatic weapons of mass destruction killing machines that rapidly and accurately spray fire from the hip and can kill 30 kids in a matter of seconds from a high capacity clip."
No facts, just bullshit, dishonest soundbites and attempts to blame millions of honest people for the actions of a tiny handful.
Yes, and we also need to do something about the Jewish Bankers who own the media and finance and governments, yadda yadda. After all, they killed Jesus.
And don't forget that because of liberals, illegal aliens cross our southern border every night to unplug our comatose women.
Oh, and all liberals want to send everyone to gulags, and all free speech activists endorse child porn.
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I'd defend your right to own the nuke. But the moment you screwed up with it, in any of the ways I have previously listed, I'd prosecute you. Not before, though.
I don't think owning a nuke would be very popular, if people realistically accepted that level of moral responsibility. So far as I can tell, the governments and leaders that currently own nukes have not accepted that level of moral responsibility. About the only two ways I can think of using a nuke that would not involve killing innocent people in the blast zone, would be as some sort of mineral mining device in a very remote area that you had made very sure was evacuated first, or to aim it as something in outer space, such as an enemy satellite or an asteroid. Otherwise, you can own your nuke, but as soon as you either deliberately use it, or screw up with it, in such a way that you kill innocent people, I'd go after the death penalty in the case against you.
Basically, that's my POST facto way of being completely reasonable. You're right about the argument against owning nukes being a 'slippery slope'
" Nukes are not "reasonable" and neither are tanks and planes and artillery and machine guns and "Deadly semiautomatic weapons of mass destruction killing machines that rapidly and accurately spray fire from the hip and can kill 30 kids in a matter of seconds from a high capacity clip."
If you argue against nukes, as you point out, the same argument can apply to guns, it's just a matter of scale. But it works the other way, if Ed Gein or the Manson family are held morally responsible for mass murder, then you can't claim that leaders and governments that own nukes are NOT morally responsible for mass murder if they use those nukes in such a way that kill innocent people in other countries. After all, THAT is just a matter of scale, too. If the morality or murder changes due to scale, because of a 'large' enough number of people doing something (millions of people vs one or just a few), then it becomes logical to assume that morality of weapons ownership could also change, based on the scale of the weapon, if the weapon is 'large' enough.
Regarding child porn, it is illegal for the same reason a snuff film is illegal. You can't create it without committing a crime (murder and child molestation are both crimes). I also disagree with laws against 'virtual' child porn, an image created on the computer is not an actual child, no actual child molesting has been done, any more than actual people are murdered in hollywood movies where fake blood and intestines are made by special effects men.
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