"Your right to self defense?! You right to keep and bear arms?! What about my right to feel safe?!"
You don't have a right to that feeling. It's a feeling. That's on you. It's not the goverment's job to make you feel feelings or protect your feelings or check to see what stimuli makes you feel certain feelings and then make policy to increase or decrease such stimuli.
The gov't is only supposed to not interfere with your pursuit of happiness. It's not some bureaucrat's job to stalk, run to ground, dispatch happiness, then field strip and quarter happiness and wrap it in butcher paper and deliver happiness to your chest freezer.
But lets say we are on the hook for each other's feelings, through the filter of government. Why do YOUR feeling to feel safe trump MY feelings to feel safe? A firearm in the home is what I use to keep the zombies, flash mobs, rogue SWAT teams, King George III, and home invaders away. It makes me feel safe. Oh you think my worries of undead monarchist ERT cops is silly? How DARE you question the validity of my feelings. That's a HATE crime. Two can play at that game. Well I think YOUR feelings are silly, too.
So we are at an impasse. No wait, we aren't. Because there is no such thing as a right to feel some way, but there is a natural right to defense yourself. Game, Set, Match. Checkmate. Stragego! Yahtzee! Pente. Boo yah. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!
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6 comments:
NJT,
I disagree that people do not have a 'right to feel safe'. They do in my opinion it just does not require action or restrictions on my part.
Physical safety; yep, your right not to be assaulted means I am limited to where I can swing my fist.
But to 'feel safe' only requires me to respect the actions that person takes.
Which is why we should co-op this saying "A Right to Feel Safe, Of Course. That is why I carry a firearm."
Fear is just a feeling. You feel hot. You feel hungry. You feel angry. You feel afraid. Fear can never kill you.
Nope, 3boxesofbs -- no "right" to "feel safe". Because it isn't an enforceable right -- there is no way to guarantee you "feel safe", no way anyone could know if they truly make you "feel unsafe".
"Enforceability" is to a rights what "falsibility" is to a scientific hypothesis.
I cannot make you feel any emotion (good or bad) -- all I can do is create conditions likely to have you trigger those emotions. Nor can I know with anything approaching certainity that you are reporting your feelings accurately, or if you are just acting. So I cannot prove whether or not your "right to feel X" has been violated or not -- I can prove that you right to, say, not have soldiers quartered in your home in peacetime, has been violated - and therefor enforce that right.
It's like the right to enjoy the pursuit of happiness from the DOI -- the right is to pursue happiness; there is no right be get happiness or be happy.
NJT,
Fear is just a feeling.
I agree. I'm not arguing that. I have a right to feel, don't it?
So, they have a right but as Geodkyt says it isn't an enforceable right. It mandates no action on my part that is the part they want to change. I disagree completely. You may feel that you look great in plaid pants and striped shirts but a.) I don't have to agree, b.) I don't have to stay silent to avoid saying otherwise, c.) I don't have to wear the same because of your feelings.
Geodkyt,
"Enforceability" is to a rights what "falsibility" is to a scientific hypothesis.
Then how is the 'right to pursue happiness" enforceable?
1. The "right to pursue happiness" isn't an enumerated right protected by the US Constitution. The DOI is not a governing document of our current republic - in fact it is "merely" the collective declaration of an organization TWO NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS BEFORE US (the pre-Articles of Confederation "Second* Continental Congress" provisional government that was the de facto first national government of the US from 1775 - 1781 and the Articles of Confederation "Congress of the Confederation" that was the first de jure "national" government of the US from 1781 - 1789) the current republic was established.
2. Again, the right in the DOI is to "pursue happiness", not "be happy". According to pretty much every qualified scholar who has looked at the language of teh DOI in context of how the English language was used by educated, literate people in 1776, this was understood by all conerned at the time to mean the right to pretty much do as you please without having to ask permission, so long as you did not infringe on other's rights.
* Note that the First Continental Congress in 1774 made no pretense of being a "national" government, or indeed, any kind of government -- it was formed while the feeling was the 13 Colonies would remain British; they just wanted various changes in the setup and certain laws. That's why they directly petitioned King George III for a redress of their grievances.
I hope you can see how, under the 18th Century useage, one can enforce a violation of the "right to pursue happiness". Any unjustified restraint on your personal freedom to peacefully do as you please would be an objective violation that could be punished.
Thank God that the DOI is not a "constitution", but rather a propaganda stunt. Ignore "happiness" -- if the right to life and liberty were, indeed inalienable, then under no circumstances could the government (or individual citizens) kill another person (even in defense of self, others, or wartime) nor limit their freedom in any fashion (like, keeping suspects and convicts in custody).
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