| Puppyroach said: 1. Yes you do if you believe the that privileges exist as they are just as much of a "right" as any natural "right" anyone would claim. And I didn´t say you could choose whether or not to live in society, but rather which society you want to live in. 2. Because you don´t have a choice. Through the democratic process, the people have decided that you as part of that society is obligated to follow the laws that are a product of the constitution. If you wish to change that, becaome part of the democratic process. 3. Public preassure is rarely the same as the majority of people putting preassure on companies. And how is Trump a bad example just because he switches position every day? It just makes him like many other politicians, pro gun or not. 4. But social and economic power is almost always derived from political power. 5. Exactly, which in turn changed the political process. And in most of the cases you mentioned, the revolution was mostly non-violent and happened through elected officials, as it should be. 6. Yes, but it can still be amended. And you must believe that natural privileges exist if your view is that the government should only uphold them, never regulate them, otherwise your arguments makes no sense at all. You can argue that natural privileges does not exist but that the privleges we have decided upon in society should not be regulated; but that is just an opinion, not a static fact. If you believe privileges are a man-made entity, then those privileges in themselves are regulations on humans. And you forget that humanity is an animal that is egotistical, predatory and violent (like most mammals) and we will always find ways to oppress and manipulate people around us o protect our "flock". |
1. Privileges are granted by a state or society. People are born in societies. They don't choose them.
2. Okay then. So if the U.S Constitution is the social contract, and it has a process by which it can be changed, why not change it through said process? The Second Amendment is part of said constitution. If we can just ignore that (without going through the defined process) can't we just disregard the whole document? So you either accept the second amendment with the rest of said constitution, or you reject the authority of the constitution. I choose the latter, but still think it is important that the common person owns guns. But if I am working within the confines already defined by a couple dozen men whom died two centuries ago, why would I pick and choose from which things they signed?
3. When Trump was merely a billionaire his interests were to limit gun rights. When he became a politician his interests changed because he needed to take that position in order to get the right votes. It shows that the interests of Trump the politician are different from Trump the billionaire.
4. I agree. But this is a scenario where the corporations are directly using their social and economic power which was privileged to them by the state. Even if we eliminated the direct donations, the state is still working at the behest of the political elite, unless we radically reformed the democratic system to become much more direct than it is.
5. Sure, but if the general population is not a threat, what are the incentives to reform the system? I want the common man and woman to seize political nd socio-economic power, why would I deprive them of options to achieve that?
6. I never made the claim that I believed "government should uphold" "natural rights." Differences in ability and interests exist, but they are largely inconsequential compared to social privileges. It doesn't matter how intelligent you are, if you are poor and can't go to school then you aren't going to be able to use that intelligence. It doesn't matter how much physical potential you have, if you are starving to death. So on and so forth.
Human beings are social creatures as much as they are egoists. Individual men and women can form social bonds without being "oppress(ed) or manipulate(d) as flock animals." This was true for most of our history until social inequalities developed during the Agricultural Revolution. Since about Roman times, we've become more socially equal though as we disestablished the means by which social elites held their power: religion, inequality in access to weapons, feudal property, inequality in access to technology, inequality in access to land, etc. These "rights" are merely social conventions which we've been told to accept. Very much like the supposed "natural rights" enshrined in the DoI.
Sure there might always be some local degree of exploitation, but on large-scales there is no reason to believe it is a fixed state of human social relationships.
